Lofi Storm Ambiance

Tonight I shot a video in an alley in Northeast Minneapolis as a thunder storm rolled in. I shot it with my mobile phone and then converted it to a wav file for today’s sound. Rather than inlcude the video I have put the audio here after compressing it as an mp3. I also included a shot of the storm clouds as I saw them. In the beginning of the recording I hear some chimes then the wind overdrives the mic a bit. On the whole, the recording seems to be made of mostly wind noise.

Lofi Storm Ambiance

 

Large Clay Ocarina

This large clay ocarina was a gift from my friend Jerry who purchased it from his friend Barry who used to craft them and then sell them at Camden Market in London. This recording is from 2003 and was used on an experimental improvisational piece I worked on with Dr. David Means during my Music Technology studies at Metropolitan State University. I originally ran the sound through all sorts of processing including delay and reverb, but here I’ll include it in its original state. You can still hear some room ambiance, and a curious high frequency overtone created by the hardened clay resonating.

Large Clay Ocarina

ACB August 2008 Sample Pack

Today, freesound.org approved the ACB August 2008 sample pack. This sample pack is comprised of sounds found on AudioCookbook.org that were posted during the month of August, 2008 in the Share Remix Adapt category. My goal is to package these sample packs on freesound.org once a month so you have access to high quality versions of the sounds on ACB.

Each sound is uncompressed and available through freesound.org in it’s original .wav format for free download and use in non-commercial works (I will most often grant permission for commercial use if you contact me in advance). If you make use of these samples please consider donating to ACB using the paypal link in the sidebar.

Piano Mallet Bass

The sample I included in the Piano Mallet Loop has been used in three pieces that I know of so far and are all linked somewhere on AudioCookbook.org. So tonight I am presenting another example of using a mallet to produce sound with a piano instead of using the traditional keyboard that we are familiar with. The mallet I used to get this sound was the steel handle of a socket wrench with some thick rubber bands wrapped around one end. I bounced the rubber bands of a few of the strings in the lower register and got this simple bass melody.

Piano Mallet Bass

Here are the pieces that used Piano Mallet Loop. All of them are very nice. A big thanks to tacitdynamite, Fourstones, and small.cat for sharing their compositions.

Little Ditty #1 (tacitdynamite)

Mississippi (Founders Mix)

Red (small.cat)

Throat Singing

I have been wanting to post an example of my talented friend Chris Huff throat singing for some time, so here it is in all its unprocessed monophonic glory. Throat singing or overtone singing is a technique that vocalists use to sing multiple pitches at the same time with a single voice and is often used in various religious chants in central Asia.

I refrained from dousing it with a Taj Mahal style reverberation setting in case anyone wants to use it, since I am placing in it in the Share Remix Adapt sample pool. See if you can identify how many pitches he is producing simultaneously. It’s a little difficult to discern because of the dissonant intervals.

Chris Huff Throat Singing