Archive for April, 2016
Grant
April 10, 2016
Day 226: Sunday 10 April 2016
Auxiliary Trilogy:
You may have noticed that I like series; images and sounds and tracks that fit together to make a larger whole. Sometimes I present them in the form of a playlist and sometimes, as here, I fit them together in one track.
I’m not sure which is the best strategy. Perhaps it depends.
Anyway this is a Beatscape/Soundscape in three parts.
I began with Auxy, an app that I got some time ago but never tried. I’m sure my initial play only scratched the surface but I quickly got something that I liked, and you can’t ask more from an app than that 🙂
I jammed into AudioShare by muting and triggering the parts, then did my fav trick of slowing it down in TwistedWave and effecting it with Dedalus. So I ended up with a track at 72 bpm which sounds like me. Cool.
But I was looking for something a little darker, a little harder. So I effected it with Muckraker and with Caramel to see which would give me the distorted edge that I was looking for. I liked both results so I loaded all three into Auria, panning each distorted version one left and one right and mixing them quite low so they provided a textural flavour without overwhelming the sound.
So far I was loving it but felt that the initial arrangement could be improved, so I did a little cutting and pasting. Once that was achieved I still felt it needed more darkness. Or perhaps abrasiveness is the word I’m looking for.
Earlier in the week I had used a flute sample by DJ Puzzle to make a drumbeat in Patterning which I feed into Grain Science and got some wonderful feedback like metallic-sheetmetal-on-the-chalkboard-of-your-soul kind of sounds, and I thought they would compliment this track. So I added them and cut/arranged them to suit.
Thus was finished Part One: Auxiliary.
I loved the combination of the feedback sounds so much that I felt they deserved a track of their own. I combined them and timestretched them to the same length. I felt they needed something else but wasn’t sure what, so I trawled my folders of sounds looking for a match and found a File that I had recorded last year using Thor.
Thus was finished Part Two: Ancillary.
Now, these two tracks obviously belonged together but they didn’t seem to be a complete thing so I went back to Part One and made a more compact, succinct version that I felt rounded out the story and the journey.
So if you are interested:
Part One: Auxiliary is 0.00-4.03
Part Two: Ancillary is 4.03-7.00
Part Three: Auxillary Reprise is 7.00-9.06
Thanks for your attention. Peace Out.
Grant
April 9, 2016
Day 225: Saturday 9 April 2016
The Bitter Watches Of The Night:
A Soundscape.
I was attempting to capture the feeling of those sleepless nights where you lie there sweating and hopeless while your thoughts swirl and chase one another and won’t let you go.
I used Shoom, iSpark, Dedalus, Emo Chorus, and Poseidon for most of the track; layered and arranged in Auria. The vocals where recorded with AudioShare and AltiSpace.
Grant
April 8, 2016
Day 224: Friday 8 April 2016
When It Rains:
I think it’s time for a Soundscape again.
I’m sorry for the literal title today; after all it does sound like rain. Surely I could’ve come up with a title that added something…no, not today folks. It’s literal friday I guess 🙂
A piano jam using Module, feed into iDensity, then into Borderlands Granular…well you never know quite where you might end up.
Grant
April 7, 2016
Day 223: Thursday 7 April 2016
Leviathan Letting Go:
Today I have done something that I don’t often do; I have used some loops from a loop pack. Specifically from a LaunchPad pack. I personally feel that my music is more authentically mine if I make my own sounds so i’m uncomfortable using other peoples loops, however I do have a few packs and I do enjoy playing with them in apps like LaunchPad, particularly if I can do something unusual with them.
Anyway I was messing around yesterday and recorded a jam/mix that I enjoyed, so today I loaded it into Auria and added some of my own sounds and beats and came up with this track which I quite enjoy. I hope you do too.
First the initial Launchpad jam was treated with Dedalus, then I added some iSpark and two tracks from Patterning.
Grant
April 6, 2016
Day 222: Weds 6 April 2016
Jason’s Magic Flute (The Cast Assembles):
The story of Jason’s flute sample continues. DJ Puzzle supplied a sample of himself playing the Bansuri flute and I’m seeing what I can make of it.
In this track I’ve loaded the sample into Patterning for some manipulation and beat making, I’ve also revisited yesterday’s iSpark beat but added some more to it. I recorded both into Auria at the same time while muting/unmuting parts of iSpark and playing some sounds manually.
I had previously recorded the Patterning beat into AudioShare with Dedalus while doing the muting/unmuting thing, and I loaded this file into Grain Science and got an almost metallic feedback sound that I adore. I ran it through TwistedWave to slow it and add a little more texture, then added it to the Auria project. A little cutting and arranging completed the composition.
Grant
April 5, 2016
Day 221: Tuesday 5 April 2016
Jason’s Magic Flute (Who’s Who):
Ambient.
As with yesterday’s track this is made entirely from DJ Puzzle’s Bansuri Flute sample, It also uses the exact same apps as yesterday. Borderlands Granular, Dedalus, iSpark, and Auria.
I think I’ll do some more with this, just to see where it might lead.
Grant
April 4, 2016
Day 220: Monday 4 April 2016
Jason’s Magic Flute (The Story Begins):
Ambient.
This track uses one sample of an Indian Bansuri Flute kindly provided by Jason Donnelly, the one and only DJ Puzzle.
First I jammed with it in Borderlands Granular, then I loaded that jam into Dedalus. Both files were arranged in Auria. Finally I loaded the sample into iSpark and used it to make a bass drum, snare drum, and two high hats which I used to make a little beat that I then I recorded into a track in Auria as well.
Grant
April 3, 2016
Day 219: Sunday 3 April 2016
You Remind Me:
A Pianoscape today 🙂
An Ambient all piano track. A slow bass ostinato made with Korg’s Module, imported to Auria where I added two tracks of improvised electric piano using the inbuilt Lyra sample player.
Simple. But I like it.
Grant
April 2, 2016
Day 219: Saturday 2 April 2016
Waiting:
A Beatscape.
I made this on my iPhone while sitting in the car waiting to pick my son up from school.
There are two apps that spring to mind as sure fire track makers; one is Alchemy which I used two days ago, the other is iMaschine which I have used here. I find both apps so inspiring to use and almost always come up with something that I like whenever I use them. Here I have used the older first version of iMaschine because that was on my phone, the newer iMaschine 2 is more versatile still.
I made this beat and simple bassline at 100 bpm recording it into AudioShare while muting/unmuting parts and FX. I really liked it, but decided to try it slower as that often seems to really open things up. Instead of just recording it again at a slower speed I decided to visit another fav app of mine TwistedWave, you have probably noticed how often it gets used on this blog. The reason is that while I really really like things slow, I also like the artifacts that this apps algorithms add to the sound. It adds a texture that really suits my music.
Finally I ran it through Dedalus which is a another great app for textural goodness.
Grant
April 2, 2016
Day 218: Friday 1 April 2016
Skeletal Revisit:
Soundscape/Vocalscape.
This cpmbines two Borderlands Granular files that I made earlier, one using a Patterning file as a source, the other using a lyric Recite processed with AudioShare, AltiSpace, and Sector. The latter has already been used as a part of Day 143’s Skeletal, so this track directly refers to/is related to that one.
I combined both files in Auria and added some Shoom.