Would love to hear the vacuum bass thingy Martin.

I bet tuning it was fun huh?

--------------------
Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Now, now, no sniping please - I sttrreettcchheedd it


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Quote AuralSerenity:

---

Thanx Martinwalker. I think I'll love my presence among such knowers.

Anyhow, after starting this thread I did a little internet research and found this out -

http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?t=314644,

Its very interesting but some of them are sincerely mistaken there. For instance
'bananaboy' who said
"Jim Morrison of The Doors recorded the vocals on one of their songs (I forgot which) while a girl was, um, performing fellatio on him."

Now that is wrong. that incident occurred in elevator and Pamela (Jim's chick) happen to see all that. No recording of sound or visual was getting done.

What a preposterous myth!

Well, thanx everyone and please continue leaving some interesting dope.

---

I mixed my 1991 album 'Clarity', naked.

My compter drives generated so much heat that working in my non-air con studio was almost unbearable.

I'm not sure it generated any particularly innovative techniques though!

However, hanging a speaker over a three speed turntable with a cardboard tube on the platter with a few holes in it does create a nice doppler/leslie effect - with multiple speeds!

More hardware hacking http://www.digitalartistshandbook.org/hardware

Regards

Stephen

--------------------
New Henry Fool album (Featuring Phil Manzenera and Jarrod Gosling) out now. https://www.burningshed.com/store/henryfool/

Martin always works naked.

Infact, when he's at Expo the Sos stand has the longest queue (did that come across a bit porn?).

--------------------
Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Untrue

The reason that the SOS stand alwyas has a long queue is that we take our time chatting to people

Interesting link from Stephen though - thanks for that!


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

I stuck four contact mics close to the corners of a round metal table once and used it as a percussion instrument (EDIT: by close to the corners, I mean equidistant around - obviously circles have quite a few corners)... played back through a quad setup, it actually got pretty good spatial imaging, from hitting and scraping different parts of it. It also worked surprisingly well recording overdubs; each layer remained fairly coherent and defined.

Recently, I've discovered the joy of preparing strings with alligator clips: inspired by this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPIGkKxwgcQ and also quite effective for more percussive use (quite gamelan-esque sounds). Similar kinds of stuff to the album 'Stick Music' by the Clogs, which I adore.

Slinkys are good. Sliiiiiinky even better: http://www.firstpr.com.au/slinky/audio/

I made a synthesiser in Reaktor ages ago which used some quasi-physical modelling (lots of short delay lines with some filtering), fed by contact mics attached to the surface of my laptop (with the lid closed); so I could touch it gently with my fingertips or whack it with a pen and it would respond quite naturally with some of the dynamics of an acoustic instrument (but warping and morphing in impossible ways).

I might get hold of a couple of soundbugs one day, for routing signals through real acoustic objects. Does anyone have any experience with them? http://www.paramountzone.com/soundbug.htm

Cheers all!

Edited by xinaesthetic (17/03/10 05:41 PM)

Nice links xinaesthetic!

Having watched the YouTube video of the prepared guitar I'll certainly be buying some alligator clips tomorrow

Those soundbugs also look most interesting, especially at just £24.99

Keep those quirky sound design links coming!


martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

A hydrophone is another thing on my potential shopping list at the moment, to complement my underwater camera. Again, pretty cheap at £30. Since this is quite niché, I think if you want higher quality you end up looking at much much more expensive devices.

FWIW, as a graduate of 'Sonic Arts' at Middlesex, I have more experience of the unusual side of things than I do of actually recording normal music.
sadly, I hear that course is being shut down.

I wish everyone happy listening, playing, tweaking... mostly listening. Re the comment earlier about carrying a recorder around routinely: even if you don't gather useful sounds for music, this can completely transform your perception of the environment. Note to self: do more of this.

For anyone interested in field recording of nature; it may be worth setting up equipment and leaving it to record for a while, so that any person-shy creatures are not scared away and you don't have to stay unnaturally still for prolonged periods. I've not tried this myself, I read it at http://www.franciscolopez.net/amazon.html ... guess things are a bit different in the Amazon, though.

Another one of my own projects was to record the sound of a completely blank 7" single. The 'sound' I got was just a gentle hiss and crackle, but enough to manipulate in a sampler to produce this...

blank record

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I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over
Twitter

Quote xinaesthetic:

---

A hydrophone is another thing on my potential shopping list at the moment, to complement my underwater camera. Again, pretty cheap at £30.

---

Yeah - I was reading that page myself only a couple of days ago. Interesting stuff. You could make your own, but JrF prices are indeed very reasonable.


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Quote Martin Walker:

---

Yeah - I was reading that page myself only a couple of days ago. Interesting stuff. You could make your own, but JrF prices are indeed very reasonable.

---

Indeed, it had occurred to me that it would be quite feasible to knock something together... but given that JrF has clearly put time, thought and care into reaching the design he has, it seems quite prudent to go with his. I'd hate to discover a critical fault in my own DIY attempt while I was away at some remote location with a chance of getting some really interesting material... and it would make me happy to support his work too, albeit modestly.

I've recently started using different camera sounds in my tracks, such as different shutter speeds cut up and sequenced for rhythmic elements, the ejection of a polaroid photo from the camera, filtered and sliced up with some added delay to sound like seagulls and the sound of an 8mm video camera from the 50s whirring and rattling away. All recorded in my room with a steady hand and a SM58!

Now I own a portable recorder i plan to experiment with alot more recording random samples out and about on my travels. The ideas in this thread are brilliant though!

Glad you're enjoying them polyroy!

Camera sounds are great for rhythmic use, as are typewriters, washing machines, clocks...


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Yeah, i'm going to see if i can run some of the samples through the doepfer system at my university to create some even more interesting sounds, put some bleeps and bloops in there! Any ideas of easy ways to do this? I was thinking of just using the outputs of the computer's soundcard straight through the modules and back into the soundcard seeing as i don't have access to a sampler!

I was in my kitchen on Sunday listening to "Everybody loves the Sunshine" by Roy Ayers (not the R.A.M.P) version and my washing machine was on spin. For a large part of the song, my washing machine was in pitch with the sustained high pitch synth that runs through the track, even causing some chorusing in parts.

Must get the mics out and get recording!

--------------------
http://soundcloud.com/richie-royale
http://www.mixcrate.com/richieroyale

Quote Richie Royale:

---

I was in my kitchen on Sunday listening to "Everybody loves the Sunshine" by Roy Ayers (not the R.A.M.P) version and my washing machine was on spin. For a large part of the song, my washing machine was in pitch with the sustained high pitch synth that runs through the track, even causing some chorusing in parts.

Must get the mics out and get recording!

---

Thought I'd posted this before, but I used an H4 to record a full washing machine cycle. Some fantastic rhythymic sounds in there, and the spin at the end makes a great finale: 5 mins or so of crescendo!

I grabbed the spin cycle and put it through scuzzphut (a great free VST btw), AWESOME! you'd never know it was a washing machine, it brings a smile to my face everytime someone asks me what that trancey sound is.

--------------------
so, how does this make you feel?

PS washing machine + auto-tune = ???

--------------------
so, how does this make you feel?

Quote discomb:

---

PS washing machine + auto-tune = Most modern pop music vocals

---

--------------------
http://soundcloud.com/richie-royale
http://www.mixcrate.com/richieroyale

Quote discomb:

---

I grabbed the spin cycle and put it through scuzzphut (a great free VST btw), AWESOME! you'd never know it was a washing machine, it brings a smile to my face everytime someone asks me what that trancey sound is.

---

Hi discomb!

Fascinating stuff - sadly the scuzzphut site ( www.scuzzphut.com ) seems to be up for sale. Anybody got any idea where the freeware scuzzphut can be downloaded now?

Belay that request - just found it at www.fyxm.net/download-now-scuzzphut-Multimedia-Audio-Audio-Plugins-47740.h tml

(A few minutes later) NICE! It's like a very immediate, free and extremely cut-down version of CamelSpace. Instant trance as you say


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Hi discomb!

Fascinating stuff - sadly the scuzzphut site ( www.scuzzphut.com ) seems to be up for sale. Anybody got any idea where the freeware scuzzphut can be downloaded now?

Belay that request - just found it at www.fyxm.net/download-now-scuzzphut-Multimedia-Audio-Audio-Plugins-47740.h tml

(A few minutes later) NICE! It's like a very immediate, free and extremely cut-down version of CamelSpace. Instant trance as you say
Martin

---

That's the 'lite' version, the 'full' version now seems to be absent from the interweb

I still have a copy, not sure if I'm allowed to share it with others now? It was a free download a year or so ago. The KVR website shows a fancy looking screenshot of scuzzphut v2.0, I have the older version.

I'll have to check out camelspace!

--------------------
so, how does this make you feel?

Now THAT does look more interesting:



If it was free then I don't see any problem in it being shared.


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Here's the extremely creative CamelSpace:



More info here: www.camelaudio.com/camelspace.php

As used by Danny Elfman, Thomas Dolby...


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Here's the biggest screenshot I could find of scuzzphut6 v1:



As far as I can tell it has the same functionality as the slicker looking v2.0 above.

"Here is the link for your file, which will be available for 7 Days or 100 downloads."

--------------------
so, how does this make you feel?

Thanks - got it!


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Quote Martin Walker:

---

In my opinion the sign of a good sound designer is one who's ears are always open to new possibilities, however bizarre they initially seem.

---

Very true... But once you've been doing it for a while even the bizarre seems quite normal!

Quote geefunk:

---

I spent a bit of time in NY, and wandered around with a mic - got a lot of snatched conversations, traffic noise, etc. All sorts of things can be used to good effect with the right editing.

---

I did the same when I was in London a few weeks back with my H4. Grabbing sounds of the traffic, the ambience of the Natural history museum etc... I did get some funny looks on the tube though, it seems that Londoners get a little twitchy when they see a bearded man carrying a rucksack and holding a handheld device with a glowing red button!

I did get some cracking sounds though, a bloke sneezed on the tube and thanks to the resonance of the near empty carriage it makes a great snare, a looped short snippet of a girl having a conversation had made a nice pad sound, then there's the sound of the train itself... There's some quite nice rhythms/loops, mechanical noises, the sound of the motors themselves etc.

More recently I've recorded a mate laying a laminate floor, bumps and bangs make for some cool drums, I'm working on something where he's sawing and there's a few vocal snippets that seem promising too.

I've recently got one of those Rycote windjammers for my H4... It's brill! Not as effective as some of the big pro jobbies but it's far more portable and still very good... Much better than the included foam windshield that comes with the H4 (thought you slip the windjammer over the top of that) and as a bonus it fits fairly snugly onto my Rode NT3 too.



If you're into your field recording but get brassed off with wind noise I strongly recommend one for whichever recorder you have... Reasonably effective as a pop shield too.

...back to the culinary slant on things, I'm thinking of attempting recording a pot of something like rice being cooked in boiling water; a nice, soft bubbling-away type sound. Somebody elsehwere here has suggested recording something being deep-fried, which I guess is quite similar. I'm hoping for an effect along the lines of the background noise of a vintage crackly LP.
Any tips apart from the blindingly obvious ones such as not knackering up a decent mic by enveloping it steam... ??!!?

Quote The Bunk:

---

...back to the culinary slant on things, I'm thinking of attempting recording a pot of something like rice being cooked in boiling water; a nice, soft bubbling-away type sound. Somebody elsehwere here has suggested recording something being deep-fried, which I guess is quite similar. I'm hoping for an effect along the lines of the background noise of a vintage crackly LP.
Any tips apart from the blindingly obvious ones such as not knackering up a decent mic by enveloping it steam... ??!!?

---

Wash rice. Cover with about an inch of water, then bring to the boil as rapidly as possible. Once boiling, turn the heat down as low as possible, and cook for 20 minutes, WITHOUT taking the lid off ever - the steam helps to fluff up the rice. Perfect....

--------------------
I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over
Twitter

...actually, that's a lot more bloody useful than you may think...

Good advice there - separate fluffy grains can indeed sound more analogue

More seriously, I’d be inclined to use a shotgun mic placed slightly further away, or a large mesh screen between the mic and the pot, to avoid any expensive splashback


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Quote geefunk:

---

Wash rice. Cover with about an inch of water, then bring to the boil as rapidly as possible. Once boiling, turn the heat down as low as possible, and cook for 20 minutes, WITHOUT taking the lid off ever - the steam helps to fluff up the rice. Perfect....

---

Chop an onion, a whole head of garlic, fry till golden then add salt, one puree, one chopped tomatoes and one chili sliced sideways. Add cubed fillet of lamb and simmer for 1 hour.

Slice one potato into thin slices and lay at the bottom of a pot that has been glazed with butter and let it cook a little. Turn over potatoes and cook until golden.

Lay a single layer of stew on top of potatoes and one layer of rice. Repeat until stew and rice are finished.
Add saffron boiled and cooled overnight.

Simmer for one hour.

Serious ethnic meal from back home.

Oh, and sample every stage with one sdc and one overhead ldc (you see how cleverly I brought this back on topic, huh, huh?).

--------------------
Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Hmmm, interesting ideas. I was also considering the more conventional set-up of an AKGD112 on the oven, the good old SM57 on the small rear burner, maybe a 58 on the large gas ring at the front and a couple of NT5s for overheads...

Quote The Bunk:

---

Hmmm, interesting ideas. I was also considering the more conventional set-up of an AKGD112 on the oven, the good old SM57 on the small rear burner, maybe a 58 on the large gas ring at the front and a couple of NT5s for overheads...

---

...yeah, but they won't taste as good as Zukes stew

--------------------
I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over
Twitter

Hi, Its been a long time since I visited this haven. I was too busy trying to decipher 'how to run Metasynth-> Metasynth on Bill Gates' ass', and apparently, I failed to figure that out. Its sad that a state-of-the-art synth like that is strongly supporting racism even till its fifth reincarnation. I have no strong feelings against Steve Jobs' greed. I simply believe in the democratization of the whole idea of art of music and its technology. Well I would have spent some more bucks for a Mac Pro, but instead I ended up spending all of my stash in for buying yet another PC. Sometimes I do follow my heart. And this time I made sure not to.

In the meantime I fell in love with some other pieces of beauty like
NI Massive ,
Lexicon LXP pro reverb ,
Camel Audio Alchemy ,
ueberschall Ambient .

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SoundCloud

Guys check this video:- Alchemy

Note: Check the point where the description for time stretching pops in. I loved this almost analog like stretch. It immediately reminded me of 'Green and blue patterns are falling all over me like a deck of card' from -- 'Long long arms' by Simon Posford.

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SoundCloud

Granular Synthesis is what that has made that algorithm possible in Camel Audio - Alchemy. Granularization has been giving me an incessant itch since long. If any one has better info on this then please share.

--------------------
SoundCloud

Quote Zukan:

---

Chop an onion, a whole head of garlic, fry till golden then add salt, one puree, one chopped tomatoes and one chili sliced sideways. Add cubed fillet of lamb and simmer for 1 hour.

Slice one potato into thin slices and lay at the bottom of a pot that has been glazed with butter and let it cook a little. Turn over potatoes and cook until golden.

Lay a single layer of stew on top of potatoes and one layer of rice. Repeat until stew and rice are finished.
Add saffron boiled and cooled overnight.

Simmer for one hour.

Serious ethnic meal from back home.

Oh, and sample every stage with one sdc and one overhead ldc (you see how cleverly I brought this back on topic, huh, huh?).

---

I am doing somewhat similar to rice noodles in tomyum sauce with auricula mushroom and Roland R-09. This might not give me a sizzling sample of frying onion, but it still taste damn nice.

--------------------
SoundCloud

Quote AuralSerenity:

---

Guys check this video:- Alchemy

Note: Check the point where the description for time stretching pops in. I loved this almost analog like stretch. It immediately reminded me of 'Green and blue patterns are falling all over me like a deck of card' from -- 'Long long arms' by Simon Posford.

---

Camel Audio’s Alchemy is indeed a potent synth with vast possibilities

I’ve been working with it for over a year now, and am still discovering lots of new possibilities!


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Quote Martin Walker:

---

I’ve been working with it(Alchemy) for over a year now, and am still discovering lots of new possibilities!
Martin

---

Hi Martin, you are godsend. You can for sure assist me with few ideas on its workflow, maybe few tips or tricks. These days I am a compulsive ab-user of Massive, and would love to cook something out of Alchemy juxtaposed to Massive.

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SoundCloud

Quote ZoeB:

---

For a nice synthetic old analogue drum machine style open hi-hat, try spraying an aerosol can. (I spent far too many years tracking before using a proper sequencer, so spent a lot of my teenage years finding weird household sounds to mangle.)

---

Sad that I noticed this so late.
Anyways, thanx ZoeB, that was interesting (aerosol can).
Other such tricks from your far too many years of hard recording can be golden for this thread.
Please contribute more.

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SoundCloud

A gent on another forum used Berna http://www.gleetchplug.com/gleetchplug/berna.html for an album recreating a

"simulation of a late 1950s electroacoustic music studio. Oscillators, filters, modulators, tape recorders, mixers ...
Serial, concrete and tape music ... with instruments inspired by the greatest studios of the early days of electronic music."




Also
http://www.behance.net/DiegoStocco




I think anything that makes a sound is useable. I use the recorder built into my £26 Ricoh R3 camera though it does need a wind jammer !