August 2007
Thursday, Aug 23
At our home, we have enjoyed the company of Julia Moix, an exchange student from Barcelona, Spain.
Several days ago, we had three additional people from that program here for the day, when an administrative snafu prevented them from being at school with their host students.
Their Catalan dialog was lovely to hear (especially the girls), and they graciously indulged me by allowing me to record their conversing.
They spoke for several minutes about their activities, host families, and things back home. Julia told me this; I had not a clue what they were actually saying.
I performed general separations of interesting areas, then shaped those pieces by phonetic rhythm, trying to keep it essentially conversational.
The primary effect on the voices is an H8000 patch called "Fractal Vortex," with minimal adjustment. Other presets were applied for texture and movement.
"Fractal Vortex" is described in the patch display:
"Cascade looper with envelope control of the looper's input mix. Its content is fed into a panner which sprays the effect into a stereo glide, fed also directly by dry input. Envelope bias adjusts sensitivity of modulation for the input/feedback of the looper. Loud signals add new audio to loop, decreasing level of old layers. Soft signals keep both in the loop. Echo Balance: when set at min, the mix is all Echo 1, at max it's all Echo 2.In between settings produce echo rhythms that change over time."
I set the voice track's aux send to the H8000 to pre-fader, then used the "dry-effected" signal instead of the actual track.
Because I don't know these people's language, I naturally had a slight sense of disconnect. But I've wanted to work with unfamiliar language for some time...and here's the result.
Sunday, Aug 19
HOLY SHIT- I WANT ONE.
Wednesday, Aug 15
Okay, this is definitely the last piece in a minor key that I'll post for a while.
Minors and sevenths have been my primary instinct for the last few months - well, years - and I really am going to lighten up a bit, or at least do some things that aren't minors and sevenths.
I started this piece back in the winter, by playing the Handsonic through the H8000. I quickly got a couple of patterns that I really liked, then put it away. I had far too many other things on my mind at the time. Now I'm cleaning house a bit, and this needed to be finished. It was longer, and I cut it down some.
The mp3 compression does something weird to one of the high-piitched parts; it seems to strip out some harmonics that make the sound, leaving a nasty little something that almost sounds off-key.
Ghost Trolley dot em pee three.
Saturday, Aug 11
I hear a couple of sections in here that can go further.
Featuring the venerable Roland TR-808, the mighty H8000 providing lovely filtered flanging, some VA synth and some rompler synth.
Thursday, Aug 9
More music.
It started with a rhythm from a non-productive morning. I slowed it down, and attempted taking it in one direction. That particular direction will be best applied in a future piece, so I changed paths.
I again exceeded the recommended voice count for a single hard drive at 88.2k sampling rate. They (Digi) say about eighteen; my sales rep said around twenty-two. This thing came in around thirty-three. I either need to get a second drive, or not have so many active tracks.
"After Leaving" - yep, you guessed it - in that 128k Fraunhofer loveliness. (Well, it kicks serious bottom on my mains...)
- edit - rant deleted
Thursday, Aug 2
Another piece of music realized.
There are details I could divulge here, but none of it's very interesting. Lots of H8000; haven't played with that for a while, and it's lovely.
My work habits are up for review. I don't know if moving faster equates to recklessness, or some "capturing the moment" bullshit. As with another recent piece, there's a lot of MIDI, but without Logic. (There's a joke in there somewhere.) It's just easier to stay in one program, unless I need Logic for intensive event editing. I enter preset numbers in the comment field of every MIDI track before it gets recorded. I have to, so I can reference what sound I used.
With this piece, I think I've nailed a certain direction I've been looking for, and can see it more clearly.
Heath Dwellers
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