Tag Archives: Composition

Feedback Saturated Radio Static

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I looped this section of radio static where I was quickly swapping between two channels of music with the analogue dial. Although cacophonous, it has a strangely attractive rhythmic and musical quality to it. So, of course that led me to experiment with some processing. I did not want to manipulate it too much so I could illustrate the drunken quality to the passage as it repeats, but I added a short, modulated, stereo delay to create some imaging on the mono recording. After that I decided to map a couple of controllers to the left and right feedback of the delay, allowing me to over saturate the output dynamically over the recording’s one minute and six seconds duration.

Feedback Saturated Radio Static

Piano Mallet Loop

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I extracted this loop from a recording of my piano that I made with the specific intention of not using the keyboard to make sound. I used a metal mallet to gently strike the strings and got lucky with this short ascending melody. It’s a one bar loop in 4:4 time at 67 beats per minute. I’ve looped it four times at full volume and then faded it out during the last two loops. I’m also including this sample in the “Share Remix Adapt” category, so if anyone wants to have a go at making a track out of this, please post the results in a comment so we can all have a listen. As stated in this post, all the examples in the “Share Remix Adapt” category have been licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Piano Mallet Loop

Ultraviolet Amphibian Live Segment

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This segment of Ultraviolet Amphibian was recorded during a live performance at the Nomad in Minneapolis on June 10, 2008. I’m including it as today’s sound to give you an idea how Keston and Westdal’s live performances sound compared to our studio recordings. There’s more improvisation during our live shows as well as the addition of live drums. This performance features Graham O’Brien.

Unfortunately board mixes like this one are rarely balanced because the sound is being mixed for the room. Anything loud or amplified on stage like bass guitar or drums don’t come through very well. Since the laptops, Rhodes and synth are going direct they are much louder in the board mix. I ran the recording through some pretty complex equalization and compression to try and bring out the bass guitar, but it still lacks the luster of the mastered studio version.

Tonight we are playing at the Kitty Cat Klub in Minneapolis. Tuesday, September 2nd we are performing at Peavey Plaza in downtown Minneapolis for a pro-art and political progress rally put on by TheUnConvention.com, and held during the Republican National Convention. For more information please visit our shows page on unearthedmusic.com.

Ultra Violet Amphibian Live Segment

Studio Version of Ultraviolet Amphibian

Illuminator Console

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To create this sound I started by programming a beat. In this case I pitched each slice of the beat individually to create a variety of pitches in the loop. Once I was satisfied with it I rendered it to a clip and applied a plugin by Paul Kellett (MDA) called Tracker, distributed by smartelectronix. Tracker tracks the frequency of a sample with a waveform, such as a sine wave, and then allows you to transpose, slide between pitches, adjust the mix and so on.

Running drums through Tracker can create some interesting and unpredictable melodies. At the start of this clip I left the mix at 100%, only hearing the melody created by the pitches tracked, then adjusted it down to zero by the end so you can hear what the beat sounds like without the pitch tracking. In front of Tracker I added Beat Repeat and turned it on a couple of times to generate some fills. I touched it up with some tempo delay mixed in here and there for some dub flavor.

Illuminator Console

Guitar Chord

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A rarely tapped resource for me are clips found in the sound file folders of Ableton Live sets I use for performances. My group Keston and Westdal use two laptops running Live synchronized using a MIDI network. We usually play instruments during our performances and use the laptops for live looping and triggering loops and “scenes” as we construct the arrangements during the show. Our drummer gets a click so we can we can leave out or bring in sound from the laptops as we like. This way we can have purely live instrumentation intermingled with sequenced and live looped audio. It’s a bit of a learning curve to perform this way, but very liberating once you get it down.

This short sample of a guitar chord was played by my good friend Jason Cameron based in Seattle. While jamming together last June, 2008 I captured a few of his phrases in one of my Live sets, and came across it today while browsing through the sound file folders, looking for something to post. I dumped it back in Live, resisted the urge to reverse it, and added distortion, delay and reverb for a little texture.

Guitar Chord