Category: Audio

I had to think fast because by the time I left work last night it was already 11pm.  I decided on my drive home to do a little backburner project.  I have two unfinished tracks from previous Monome Community Remix Projects.  So, I decided to finally finish my MCRP V5 track no matter how it turned out.

 

 

I haven’t posted about MCRP for awhile.  What it is is a remix project where a group of monome users each uploads a sample based on a theme then everyone makes their own track using only the samples that everyone threw into the pot.  This MCRP’s theme was vocal samples so what you hear in the track is all made from voices.

 

 

I have two previous posts chronicling the creation of this track.  They are Day 66 / Beginning Somewhere and Day 69 / Getting Somewhere, so I felt it was only fitting to call this one Ending Somewhere.

 

 

I don’t really know how I feel about the track.  My method was pretty haphazard.  I basically took the sound I made from Day 66 and duplicated it a bunch of times, transposed up and down, changed its decay, arpegiatted it.  Then, I probably laid in too many effects.  I think I put a Sugar Bytes WOW filter and every track.  I automated each track on the fly and played with some gating and ended up with the track below.

 

 

 

Hope you like it.

 

Yesterday I made the mistake of over-recording our jam with the monome.  We used as our sample a song I composed for my music box on Day 110.  I basically pressed record and my buddy Jeff and I went to town on the monome.  Two hours later I had a lot to sift through.  So for todays creative thing I went through and selected a few highlights from the jam.

 

 

I tried to make a song out of it but I realized that there was just too much to go through so all I really got accomplished was a basic cutdown.  I tried adding beats to it but nothing seemed to complement it for very long and I kind of liked just hearing the music box solo.
 
It’s pretty chopped sounding because it’s condensing an hour or so into a couple minutes.  We traveled far and stopped in some very different places.

 

 

My favorite part is the second half.  I was messing around with what’s called “inner loops”.  MLR has a function where if you press two buttons in the same row consecutively it will loop only that span of the audio file.  Also, if you press the last button in a row and then the first button you get a very short loop of just the first button’s sound repeating.  It may sound confusing but you’ll hear it right away as a very different sound. It reminds me of a Phillip Glass or Steve Reich song.

 

 

Anyways, I hope you enjoy!

 

 

 

Today I decided upon the song I will attempt to animate to for my dry-erase animation.  It’s a song that my buddy Brian Keegan wrote.  Keegan is a lyrical wizard in my opinion.  He does mostly hip hop but this song was part of a collection of songs he did with my buddy Tony under the band name Pizza Party.  Keegan’s got a knack for knowing all the little details you might have forgotten about growing up in the 80’s.  If most of your childhood took place in that decade then there is a good chance that Keegans music will bring back memories.  This song is no exception.  It’s called “Ugly Third Pick” (A reference to the game of M.A.S.H. where when listing three girls you might end up marrying you have to always pick someone ugly for your third pick.)

 

 

Now, my eyes may be larger than my stomach when it comes to this project because the more I think about it the more I have the premonition that it’ll probably be a lot more work than I expect.  The original idea was inspired by this great dry-erase animation.  That video is completely freeform which was kind of the easy out for me.  It wouldn’t matter what the heck I drew just that I went ahead and did it.  With this song there’s no freeform to it, just complete and utter planning.  I probably should just animate to some techno beat and go wherever it takes me but after re-listening to this song I can’t deny it.  It inspires me.

 

 

So for the next few days I will be prepping and planning for the day I start actual animation.  I will try to remember to let go as much as possible.  I don’t imagine this music video will be perfect but it will most definitely be fun.

 

 

Have a listen to the song!

 

Doing these interviews with people are interesting for me because it really becomes a confidence issue.  Jesse La Tour is a person that I’ve been interested in for awhile now but he’s also someone who I hardly know.  So approaching him was truly the challenge.  Luckily, he appreciates creativity and was wonderful to talk to.
 
Jesse has become a small icon in our little community.  Over the past two years he has made a concerted effort to give back to the community in the form of art, creativity and culture.  He co-owns one of the only art galleries in Fullerton, The Hibbleton.  Every month they present new artists and have a big late night art opening.  They have had some great artists come through there.  Check them out here.
 
He’s gone around town and convinced local businesses to stay open late one night a month and started what is now known as the Fullerton Art-Walk.  Tonight, I met up with him after a regular variety show that he organizes called “Nerdy Thursdays”.   It’s a night of random performances ranging from live music and poetry to overhead projector demonstrations regarding just about anything.  Tonight was an off-shoot theme “Zombie Thursdays”.  Zombie experts spoke on realistic survival tips, comedians told zombie jokes and there was a Pedro the Lion cover band!
 
I was born and raised here in Fullerton and I have a lot of pride for my humble town and over the past decade the main street that is old town Fullerton has transformed from a drag of pawn shops, antique, jewelry, music and book stores into a bevy of bars, bars and more bars.  I guess somebody realized that there was a few college kids here and perhaps some money could be made.  That’s all well and good but the street is end to end with them now.  It’s a real degradation in my opinion and any kind of culture being added to the area is a real boon.
 
A month or so ago I introduced myself to Jesse because I had heard about his involvement in a longtime local movement to save an area here called Coyote Hills.  Coyote Hills is a small strip of natural undeveloped land located in Fullerton that has been the subject of much debate between developers and community for a very long time.  Jesse got involved and gave, what I heard was, a very convincing argument at the hearing to save the land.  The decision was put to a vote that night and the court sided with the community and turned down the development proposal.  It was a major win for the Save Coyote Hills organization.
 
I respect that.  Jesse is a doer.  He gets involved.  Like the inspirational poster says “There are people that want things to happen but just sit there and then there’s those that actually make things happen.”  That’s another reason why I decided to persue Jesse for an interview.  I feel good to be able to say that I know Jesse La Tour now and I, as well as many other Fullerton-ites, appreciate his efforts and involvement in the spreading of good deeds and culture in our community.
 
Thanks a lot Jesse!
 
For more info on the many things Jesse’s involved in check out the links below, and have a listen to the short fifteen minute interview I do with him as well.
 
The Hibbleton Art Gallery
 
Jesse’s Blog
 

Jenny, June and I got breakfast this morning and decided rather than head into the city we’d stay in Berkeley all day instead.  It was a beautiful day.  We stopped at our favorite place in Berkeley, Urban Ore.

 

Urban Ore is a giant warehouse and outer yard filled to capacity with stuff.  All sorts of stuff.  Too much stuff to even describe.  It’s kind of like a large recycling center for everything from building materials down to electronics down to home furnishings down to your little 1970’s owl decoration.  Every time I go there I say the same thing to Jenny – “We brought the wrong car”  Because invariably I find something too large that I’d love to take home with me.

 

I approached them today about doing a short interview with me because this place ranks high on my list of favorite businesses and it seemed like a good companion to some of my other interview posts.  Luckily, I was introduced to James Croft.  He is an employee of Urban Ore as well as a kind of representative or docent to the place.  When schools come by to tour he’s the one who hosts them.  The owners of Urban Ore were out of town at the time advocating their zero waste philosophy somewhere else (which they do quite often I learned).  I really appreciated the fact that John was willing to sit down with me because I’m such a fan and it would make a great addition to my blog.  So, Thanks John!

 

If you ever find yourself in Berkeley and you have a little trunk-space left over look up Urban Ore.  Press play on the music player below to hear the 10 minute interview I did with John.

 
[xspf]_start(‘urbanore’)[/xspf]

So, I’m posting a couple of these late because our hotel in Morro Bay didn’t have internet.  The day pretty much consisted of Jenny and I running around the house either watching after June or making sure everything we needed was packed.  We didn’t actually head out onto the road until about Noon.  Once we got to Morro Bay all there was time left to do was get some dinner and get June to bed.

 

 

After the girls fell asleep I went out to the streets of misty Morro Bay for some long exposures.  I also did a little field recording which you can hear below.  I’ve been to Morro Bay before but this evening I got a real eerie vibe from the place.  I think it was the looming smokestacks from the powerplant.  They’re visible from almost any point in the city.  And It’s interesting that Morro Rock, which is the other great sight in Morro Bay, feels almost like its fighting for attention from the power plant.

 

 

The next morning June was up by 6am and because we needed milk I took June out with me to go pick some up.  The fog was so pretty that morning I decided to snap a few more pictures.

This evening I decided to continue work on my song for the latest MCRP (Monome Community Remix Project).  We had some friends over for drinks so I didn’t get started on this one until pretty late.   I was hoping to finish the track but unfortunately my session wasn’t as inspiring as two days ago (Day 102).   I primarily worked on drums.   Since the track from Day 102 had canned beats my first order of business was to make some drum beats out of the toy samples.   I’ve included just a tiny chunk of the main beat which you can play below.  I’m not completely in love with it.   I think it sounds kind of good by itself but when mixed I think the distressed nature of the beat clashes with the melody line.

 

Anyways, on another note:  I am writing this post in the middle of Day 105 actually and I still have to do my creative thing today but I thought I should inform you that Day 105 is also known as “Quitting Day”. I quit smoking again. Since I’m leaving on a weeks vacation I figured it might be the perfect time to give it my best shot again. So, I will keep you up to date with my progress. I haven’t had one yet but I’m feeling it right now. So, I’m chewing a lot of Stride today.

 

This evening I decided to finally put some effort into my song for the latest Monome Community Remix Project.  The deadline is fast approaching and I haven’t put enough focus towards it.  This one is the seventh of the remix projects and the theme of this one is toys.  Everyone uploaded a sample of a toy making noises and we all have to make music out of it.  Well, tonight I was reminded once again of why the monome and it’s applications combine to create some kind of super-force in music creation.  All I knew going into this one tonight was that I wanted to use a monome app that I hadn’t used in a long time called Tintinnabulome.  Not only is it the hardest monome app to pronounce it’s also a tough one to describe.  It’s, in its most basic form, an arpeggiator.  It’s described on the monome site as “a modal arpeggiator fitted to the decoupled grid of the monome”.  All I know is that it makes beautiful music.

 
Oh yes, and the monome you see in the pictures above is my first monome which I made from the kit. The all wood faceplate was a bitch to create.

 

Click here to see a video of the application in action.

 
 

This post should also be partly about praising a man named Mathew Davidson, known on the net as Stretta.  He is the guy that developed Tintinnabulome as well as a grip of other powerful monome applications.  He is like a wizard or something.  Everything he produces has a very high quality of design to it.  His music as well is inspired and some of the best analog synth stuff I’ve found on the net.  Check out his blog if you have the time, it’s extremely insightful in a variety of ways.

 
 

Finally, I thought I’d demonstrate why the monome = magic by taking you through my process with a group of sound files.

 

1.  To begin with click and play the first track in the music player below to hear the original sample that I used.  A funny sounding toy.

 

2.  Click and play the second track to hear the snippet that I ultimately edited out of the original sample to use.  Just a blip, basically.

 

3.  Then I took that little blip and placed it into an Ableton sampler so that it could be pitch shifted with a keyboard.  I duplicated that sampler and created four instances of it.  Then I turned on the monome and plugged Tintinnabulome into those samplers.  Within a matter of two hours I had the little tune you can hear on track three!  I found myself getting lost in all of the musical possibilities.  All of the sounds you hear in the song except for the drums come from that little blip in track 2.  Awesome.

 

Thank you, Stretta.  Thank you, monome.

 
[xspf]_start(‘magic’)[/xspf]

So, before leaving for work I grabbed my two contact mics.  It’s been awhile since I’ve done a contact mic post.
 
I knew before coming into the office that for my creative endeavor I wanted to record the sound of all of the decks that we have in the machine room.  The machine room is the hub of the entire office.  All of the editing systems are routed to a patch bay in the machine room which allows us to output to various stocks of tape.
 
I have been in the post-production business for a long time and nowadays I have less reason to be in the machine room because I’m usually editing and somebody else takes care of my outputs.  Although, back in the day I used to be well versed in the machine room and it’s many intricacies.  I have always loved these high-end decks.  Each one has it’s own quirks.  Each one also has it’s own sound.  So I took out my contact mics and recorded each deck one by one down the line.  Then, as an extra, I recorded the avid drives in various mic positions.
 
Now the fun part!  Below you’ll see three consecutive music players.  Each one has identical playlists.  Start by playing one then add another on top of it.  Try mixing different machines together.  Try it with some headphones because the recordings have a pretty hard-panned stereo quality.
 
I was surprised at how pretty the hard drive recordings sounded.  The mic position really changed the timbre of the sound a lot.  Finally, my favorite deck had to be the HD-1400 DVCPROHD deck.  I was shocked at how much hum it had and if you listen to it carefully you can hear the beating of two sine waves never quite tuning up.
 
Have fun experimenting! Oh, and don’t forget that each of the music players has their own volume control.
 
[xspf]_start(‘decks’)[/xspf]
[xspf]_start(‘decks’)[/xspf]
[xspf]_start(‘decks’)[/xspf]

I finally got a chance to test out the new module tonight.  It’s called the Rotating Clock Divider.  It’s such a simple concept it’s surprising it took so long for the design to come to light.  Basically it does exactly what it says. It takes a clock and divides it.  There are plenty of other clock dividers out there but for some reason the divisions have always gone in multiples of 2.  So no matter how you patch it everything always hits on the beat.  It can make most rhythms feel cold and lifeless.  What the Rotating clock divider does is simply provide an incremental division, so output 1 is /1, output 2 is /2, output 3 is /3 and so on.  So what this allows for is things can be triggered on the offbeat.

 

I found that I instantly was creating rhythms with eons more life in them then before.  Plus the added bonus is that if you send positive voltages into the rotate input then the outputs rotate down the line. Almost like replacing the drum kit on a drum machine but keeping the pattern. Everything shifts over giving you even more sonic possibilities. This module is a must have for any system.

 

So, I put together this patch which is too dense to describe.  All I can say is that I filled 7 of the 8 divided outputs of the rotating clock divider.  The pitch is randomly quantized by a sample and hold module.  And I perform some knob functions including pitch changes to the higher frequency sound, filter modulation and rotation of the outputs.  I replaced the clock signal with a clock from volta and recorded it into the computer.  Then I added beats and cut down the performance to a more listenable running time.  It came out pretty good.

 

 

I hope you like!

 

 

I’m posting this one late because last night I was up past 2 am playing with this guy.  This is my Soundlab.  Before I had the modular I built this.  It’s actually a kit that you can buy and build yourself from this website.

 

I love my soundlab.  I have a special place in my heart for this guy because I built it myself and it was my first real electronics project.  I built it into a stenographers case that I picked up from the flea market.  I purposely left all of the controls unlabeled.  This was the gateway drug to the modular.

 

I hadn’t played with it in a long time and I forgot how wonderful it sounds.  It’s uniquely gritty and buzzy.  The filter absolutely screams.  It makes sounds that I can’t replicate with the modular.  For example, on any modular system you can sync one oscillator to another.  Which basically means, every time oscillator 1 reaches a full cycle it re-triggers the cycle on oscillator 2 no matter where it happens to be.  What occurs when you mix the two oscillators together is interesting harmonics.  No matter the pitch of Osc 2 it always complements Osc 1.  But when you do it on the soundlab it’s like – I can’t really describe it.  You’ll have to play the song below to hear for yourself.

 

A short description of what you’re hearing:  I synced the oscillators as described above.  I pitched Osc 1 to a pretty high frequency and pitched Osc 2 to be below that.  Then, while recording, I performed the pitch knob of Osc 2.  What happens is, as you turn the pitch of osc 2 just slightly you can hear it transition from one complementary pitch to another, almost like it was quantized to a musical scale.  Anyways, After I recorded my performance I selected pieces of it and arranged them in ableton.  Then, I overdubbed it with the same patch.  Finally, I added some quick drums that I had made from a previous project and at 2:30am I output the track.

 

All the sounds that you hear are the soundlab with no effects.  The harmonies that came out were pretty cool, in my opinion.  It’s kind of reminiscient of a My Bloody Valentine track, except all synth.

 

Enjoy!

 

No work today!  I spent my saturday with the family.  Jenny had some relatives who were visiting from Wisconson so we spent most of the day with them at the beach.  That was nice.  It was something that Jenny and I have been needing for a while now.  Plus, June was loving it as well.  There’s something special about seeing your baby enjoying herself in the sand at the beach with the waves crashing in behind her.  It was just nice to spend most of the day outdoors.

 

 

This evening I got to play in the studio with my buddy Chris.  We had no plans as to what we would create so I proposed we mess around with some of the recordings I have collected on this blog.  So we rounded up the sounds and began editing away.  We were working in the clip mode of Ableton live doing random things with the recordings until about 1:30 am then at the end I quickly recorded it over to the Arrangement mode and arranged it into a short song.  Click play below to hear what we came up with.

 

 
 

A brief description of how we used the sounds:

 

-The main beat is the sound of my creaking wood floors from Day 011

 

-Zoom Lee adds the African Drum Day 018

 

-The oil derrick from yesterday adds an ambient undertone

 

-At one point the sound of a Slinky from Day 034 comes in and adds to the percussion

 

-Finally, I added the sound of my interview with The Tulip Man from Day 014

 
Chris added a few original sounds including the shaker beat which came from reason and a little from my modular which ended up as a melodic complement to the beat.
 

I can see a lot of potential in this idea and I think in the future I will do more of these.  I could have gone so many different directions with the audio and I think it might be a fun idea to do a song for each of the interviews I’ve done with people.

 

 

 

 

Enjoy.

So unfortunately pulling another all-nighter tonight at the office.  I think this should be the last one.  I’m getting there.  I’ve refrained from talking about what I’m working on here but it’s really not a big deal to mention.  For the past three weeks I have been involved in intensive late night editing for Toy Story 3’s release.  We didn’t get our interviews with the director and producer until pretty late in the schedule so hence the many late nights.  It has been 1 to 2 pieces delivering each week.

 
Anyways, tonight, as I prepare for sleep on my office sofa I’ve decided to take a cue from yesterdays post and continue to share things from the past.  This time I decided to share some of my favorite patches from the old modular.  Each recording is a single patch.  No overdubbing or effects have been added other than what I may have set on the kaoss pad at the time. These are just a small portion of the many recordings I have made with the modular. It’s a reminder to me that I need to do more with these recordings to fledge them out into more complex songs.
 
Enjoy!
[xspf]_start(‘oldpatches’)[/xspf]

The busy days continue.  This evening I worked the Prince of Persia premiere as an editor.  Working premiere’s is always a stressful experience because tapes come in minute by minute and you have to cut something together for a satellite feed later that night.  So, I ended the night pretty much sapped of all energy.   So for tonight’s post I decided to share something with you from my past.  A very special thing, actually.  It’s all about a recording I have that I consider myself very very lucky to have recorded and today I’m going to share it with you.

 

It dates back to April of 2007.  Jenny and I were working on the set of Prince Caspian.  We had just arrived in Prague a few days earlier.  Our friend, Jeff,  came out and visit us this week as well.  On this particular day we were doing the quintessential touristy things walking around and seeing the sights.  At the end of the day as we left Prague castle we saw a sign that said “Muzeum”.  It turned out to be a match made in heaven for me because it was a museum of mechanical instruments!  And I had recently bought this little field recorder so it was serendipitous to say the least.

 

 

The owner of the place was kind enough to tour us through almost the whole collection.  From tiny music boxes meant for birds to giant ones meant for dance hall sized noise it was an amazing thing to be there.  Each music box had it’s own unique charm and the trip through the museum as a whole was completely wonderful.

 

 

I hope you enjoy!

Well, I am finally getting somewhere with my song for the last Monome Community Remix Project.  I think the next time I sit down with this track I will be ready to start arranging.  I feel like I have enough material to play with now.
 
I would love to let you listen to it all but at this point it’s too close to the final product I don’t want to spoil the surprise.   So, as a consolation I have uploaded just a quickie drum solo.  In case you didn’t know this MCRP is made completely out of vocal samples.  And in regards to the drums they’re made completely out of the same sample, an excerpt from Peter and the wolf which you can hear here.

 

 

Enjoy the drum tease!

For most of the day I felt pretty aimless.  I kept getting caught up in little details in the piece I’m editing at work.  There’s this thing in editing called a Franken-bite.  It basically means, you have an interview with someone and they don’t quite say what you need them to say in order to smoothly transition from one section to another.  So you basically make them say it.  Find a word here or maybe even a “Kuh” sound or a “Thruh” sound and create new words from parts of other words.  It’s a special thing when you get it just right but that was what I found myself doing for most of the day and it can really wear you down.  I will demonstrate the creation of one of these franken-bites for a future creative thing but for now the stuff I’m working on is unreleased and I can’t show you.
 
In other news, today the tracks came out for the most recent Monome Community Remix Project and if you follow this blog you know that I didn’t make it by the deadline.  The tracks are pretty amazing and I have to say it has lit a fire under me to finish something up for myself.  So tonight I ended the night by working on a song.  I have the beginnings of something but it still needs a lot more.  All the samples that I used to create the tune were vocal samples.  It’s very peaceful, that’s all I can say.  Click play below in order to hear it. They’re all really great.
 
Be sure to give a listen to the tracks that the others created for this latest Monome Community Remix Project here.
 
If you’d like to download this and any of the other MCRP’s head over to our bandcamp site here.
 

This is why I love the monome.  I have been in crunch time for the past two weeks at work.  I spent the night last night at the office and then went home early today to get some rest before coming back this evening.  In other words, I’m busy.  I haven’t devoted hardly any time to my track for this version of the Monome Community Remix Project.

 

 

So this evening I set aside an hour to just create something real quick to post.  I reverted back to the method I used on my first MCRP which was to simply take a couple of the samples and slice them to midi tracks then use the monome app Boiing to trigger the slices.  So I did this tonight and like magic I instantly had something musically interesting.

 

 

The rules on this MCRP is that all of the samples must be vocal samples.  I took two of them.  You can listen to each of them separately on the music player below.  Then after that play the quickie track I made out of these samples tonight.  I included a canned beat that I grabbed from somewhere else.  All I did to create this track was record the clips as I triggered them in a row and then I deleted bits that obviously didn’t work.

 

 

Finally, I took the Pirxthepilot sample and opened it in Spear.  Spear is an amazing free application that takes an audio file and allows you to manipulate it’s speed, pitch and volume.  After that it resynthesizes the sound out of sine waves which basically means that you can slow it down 4 times as well as pitch 2 octaves and the resulting sample still sounds very smooth.  I took pirx’s sample and took it down 2 octaves and slowed it down as far as it could go.  I placed that track quietly within the mix to add some spooky ambience.

 

 

I hope you enjoy!

 

Today was a great day!  I left for work around 11:30am and halfway there I get a phone call from my buddy Justin.  It turned out that he was in town for the weekend and looking for something to do.  So I played a little hooky and made a detour into downtown LA to pick him up.  We decided to go pick up a little lunch at Galcos.

 

 

Galcos is a nice sized market in Highland Park where the owner, John Nese, stocks over 500 brands of soda.  Not only that, he can tell you anything you ever  wanted to know about each and every soda.  He has a passion for soda (and other sweet things) that becomes apparent almost immediately.
 
When you walk in you are greeted with a sign that says “Freedom of Choice” and that is very much John’s motto.  As much as he loves soda he is equally passionate about supporting small business and combatting the big corporations that steal shelve-space from the little guys.
 
He looks around his shop and points out that every bottle and candy wrapper represents a human being or a family.  And they all tell a different story.

 

 

I was introduced to this amazing place from a post left on the monome forums oddly enough.  It linked me to this wonderful short documentary on John and Galcos and it really blew me away.  I was floored by the amount of variety and I was delighted to learn that he wasn’t that far away from where I lived.

 

 

So, Justin and I were lucky enough to follow John around recording him as he told us the many stories behind the bottles in his shop.

 

 

Be sure to give yourself some time to listen to the interview below.  I have broken it up into three parts because it turned out to be so charming that I decided to just include all of it.

 

 

Part 1 is a trip down just one of the soda aisles:  Listen as John goes from bottle to bottle and describes the unique qualities and personal stories behind each drink.  (24mins)

 

Part 2 is the candy aisle:  Listen as John provides similar commentary about the amazing array of candies that he stocks and the people behind them.  (9mins)

 

Finally, Part 3 is some final thoughts as we diverge from sodas into broader topics of importnace.  (12mins)

 

Enjoy!

HaHa! I didn’t go to work today.  No, no I spent most of the day the way I like to take it.  Breakfast out with Jenny and the baby, Nap, Hang out in the backyard.   We bought a tree today.
 
At the end of the night I invited over to the studio the two guys who I normally get together with to make music, Jeff and Chris.  The “Holy Trinity” I just dubbed us.   We haven’t gotten together since I started this blog.  I figured this would be a regular, weekly-type post but it’s been at least 56 days since we last got together.

 

 

Jeff’s the best musician of the bunch.   Chris works with Reason creating beats and synth-lines usually.  I tend to the technical aspects of recording and arranging.  Nothing crazy tonight, we started with a sample from my previous post “A Little Tune”.  Jeff messed around with the microkorg, while Chris worked in reason. I arranged them into loops in Ableton as they were recorded.

 

 
When we get together it’s always fairly random. Sometimes we create something great and sometimes we just futz around with some synth or something the whole night. Either way it’s a good time!
 
Tonight was not too shabby. Click play to hear a clip of the culmination of messing around.
 

Back to work tomorrow.

 

Well, it was another late night at the office.  So, I was forced once again to do my creative thing there.  I decided to do another evil symmetry post.  I guess it’s becoming a series now.  Though I think my evil hotel photos were a bit more creepy I still think some of these images turned out pretty good.  The creepy atmospheric sound you here in the background is from  one of my previously released edits.  Enjoy!

 

I really wasn’t sure what I was going to do tonight.  An hour before work ended I walked around the place and gathered up random junk to perhaps try my hand at junkbot building but I had a feeling that I probably wasn’t quite ready for that yet.  Then suddenly I remembered a concept that my friend Jon Sonnenberg had told me about once.  By the way, Jon is probably one of the smartest and  most creative people that I know.  Ever since he was a kid he was building synthesizers, messing around with circuits and making his own instruments.

 

 

Anyways, he told me that you could use a garden hose to create a natural delay in an audio signal.  For example, get a friend to grab one end of a garden hose and have them flick it with their finger while you have your ear up to the other end.  What you’ll hear is the sound of the flicking only softer and a tiny bit later.  The longer the hose, the longer the delay.

 

 

For my experiment, I used one garden hose about 15 ft in length and another one at about 50 ft in length.  I found an old beaten up set of computer speakers and I cracked them open to get the speakers out.  Then I duct taped one end of each hose to the left and right speakers respectively.  Then I used two SM57 instrument mics (mainly because they are the perfect size for the end of a hose) and taped each one to the other end of each of the garden hoses.

 

 

Finally, once I had that set up, I opened Ableton Live and sent some audio signals out of the computer speakers.  The sound would then travel through the garden hose and then back into the computer via the SM57’s.  At first it didn’t seem to be working but I realized that I had too much sound bleeding into the mics and the delay wasn’t very  apparent.  I fixed that with a bunch of blankets in order to muffle the sound.  Finally I had it more or less working.

 

 

In the audio player below you can listen to some of the results.  There is an instrument track featuring a banjo and electric guitar.  Then there is a speaking voice sample from the MCRPV5 reading an excerpt from Peter and the Wolf.  Have a listen.  It’s kind of interesting the way the sound is degraded through the longer hose.  It kind of sounds like an old radio signal.  The left ear is the short hose and the right ear is the longer hose. I did add a little bandpass filtering to the longer hose to make it more resonant.  I also have some other recordings that I did with this set-up and I’ll be adding those throughout the day. Enjoy!

 
Just added a choir sample. Not percussive at all so the delay is not as apparent but still very pretty through the garden hoses.
 
Added a little recording of the same banjo samples in the instrument track except this one has been treated with a monome app called Boiing.
 

Hotels are creepy.  Especially the chain hotels because they are all made to look alike.  And I don’t get the idea behind the carpet design.  My hotel this evening reminded me a little of “The Shining” so for my creative thing today I decided to snap some pictures and take the symmetry of the place to a whole other level.  Too much symmetry can feel closed in, oppressive and cold.  Finally I capped it all off with some eerie atmospheric sounds.

 

On a side note, what a crazy day.  I’m still surprised it was only one day.  This morning I finished the first of three cuts that need to be done in the next week and a half and then I drove home and spent a couple hours with Jenny and June before leaving for the airport.  I flew to Oakland for a shoot happening tomorrow but when I arrived at the rental car kiosk they pointed out to me that my drivers license had expired.  So I had to take a cab all the way from Oakland to Marin.
 
It’s a bummer too because for my creative thing I wanted to drive through this one area of Marin that I used to always take friends to after midnight because it’s a haven for wildlife.  If you go there after midnight you are almost guaranteed to see a few deer.  Instead I arrived at my hotel and was stuck here.  Which, in turn, led to this creative thing of the day.
 

This is Gage.  He is a co-worker of mine.  I feel that I can safely say that he is not like you or me.  No, Gage is different.  He can’t really be typecast or labelled.  If there was any word to describe him then it would be “random” because he is always saying something completely out of left field.  I have learned to appreciate it.

 
We initially hired him as a tape runner but soon after we learned that he was an artist as well as a skilled graphics guy.   Eventually, I learned that he was incredibly well spoken and intellectual.  He’s interested in all sorts of things.  Every once in a while I’ll look at his computer screen and I’ll see him doing something random like drawing instructions for how to skin a deer for a survival book that he’s eternally working on.  He’s also been working on a screenplay trilogy for over ten years now.  Something that he would one day love to direct.  He’s fearless and he’s somebody I could picture doing just about anything in the future.
 

Click play below to hear a short 15 minute interview I did with him.   When you’re done listening to that skip to the next track called “McWheel” to hear him read a short excerpt from a script he wrote in high school that has a special place in his heart called “McWheel”.   It’s about a hard-boiled cop who also happens to be a bicycle wheel.  WARNING: Both audio files do contain swearing (the McWheel one especially).

 

Enjoy.

I was joined by a group of friends, Jeff and Wendy and Matty and Diane, for this evenings creative thing.  It was a fun night.  I decided I was going to do something similar to my first contact mic post except this time I’d take it outside to the streets.  Feel free to press play on all of the four music players below to hear them all mix together.  This one is a little more chaotic then the previous one.

 

We met up at Jeff’s house and Wendy suggested that we record the In’n Out fast food speaker podium and we all loved it.  Unfortunately, we had to bring my laptop and audio interface with us in order to record which was bulky and inconvenient.  In another sad twist of fate, just as we got everything prepared to record, they sent out the employee to collect orders so we didn’t end up capturing much of the speaker voice sounds.

 

After that we stopped by the local fire department and recorded this giant bell they have displayed out front.  Wendy played it by brushing a slinky across the surface and Jeff played it with his fists.  It was a beautiful sounding bell to say the least.

 

Then, we went back to Jeff and Wendy’s place and recorded the fizzy sound of the carbonated water inside a diet coke just after opening.  Believe it or not it sounded more like drizzling water or a guy urinating then what we expected.

 

Finally, the best of the best, we recorded the sound of a slinky.  I taped both the contact mics on either side of the slinky and Jeff and I stretched the slinky taut between us.  Then we slowly released rung by rung with our thumbs and recorded the waves as they made their way back and forth along the slinky.  It sounds really cool and interesting especially with headphones.

 

Jeff came over for a little impromptu jam session tonight.   In the past, it has been a regular friday night thing with a small group of friends but due to the many things going on in all of our lives it’s been awhile since the last one.
 
Tonight was surprisingly satisfying because it was my first chance to use my new contact mics in a jam situation.  Normally, I shy away from recording acoustic instruments in our jam sessions because of the hassle of hooking up headphones but with the contact mics I could pretty simply turn the tracks down a bit and get a pretty clean recording.  They sound all right considering.
 
We recorded acoustic guitar, a little melody I punched out for my music box and a concertina.  I added canned drum beats but personalized them as best I could.   I tend to record in loops so at the end of the night it’s pretty easy to quickly arrange them into something longer.
 
Press play below and enjoy!