Archive for the Spoken Word category
Grant
March 3, 2016
Day 190: Thursday 3 March 2016
Sock Puppet For Jesus:
An Ambient Beatscape with Spoken Word.
This week has largely revolved around two new apps: Arturia’s iSpark and Yuri Turov’s Shoom (which is still in beta).
Today is no different.
I began today by playing with iSpark; exploring it’s sounds and playing a little more with it’s song structure capabilities. I came up with a two and a half minute drum beat that I liked and which I recorded using 4 different drum kits. Next I loaded all four into Auria and made a 6 minute Beatscape by arranging and combining the four different versions.
Yesterday I made a 10 minute Dronescape by combining two slightly different Shoom jams. I felt this would make a good ground for my Beatscape, and sure enough when I combined them they fit well.
I still felt it needed a little more but didn’t want to start including basslines or leady things, so I browsed my folders of abstract jams and found two that I thought would enhance the track. One was made with iDensity and the other with Sparkle.
Now it was nearly finished but I felt it needed a bit more focus. So I called on Trudi.
(If you’re new here you may not know that Trudi is a fictional character who has been developing over the course of this blog. She condescends to take time off from her day job at Station FCKU to provide vocals for some of my tracks. Usually I type her words into iSpeech TTS, slow it down slightly in TwistedWave, and move it into AudioShare for a little Reverb which today was provided by Reverb from Amazing Noises)
She brought her own lyrics today 🙂
Thank you Trudi.
Grant
March 2, 2016
Day 189: Weds 2 Mar 2016
Cold Fire:
A Soundscape/Beatscape with Spoken Word.
The ambient dronescape is courtesy of Shoom which is featuring heavily this week because I’m beta testing it. The beat is from iSpark with the help of Dedalus, apeDelay, Dubfilter, and Caramel. They were combined in Auria and the vocals were recorded straight into their own track.
Grant
February 23, 2016
Day 181: Tuesday 23 Feb 2016
So Low (Setting #3):
A Beatscape with Spoken Word.
What is a Beatscape I hear you ask? If you are new to this blog it is a fair question. A Beatscape is made entirely or mostly from drums or a drum machine, and comes from a Soundscape perspective.
Why Spoken Word Grant? Because I have a dodgy singing voice of course. And because there is a long history of spoken word and music joining together in many formats and over many centuries. I’m just trying to find a way to do it that makes sense for me.
Thanks for asking dear listener.
The beat is from iSpark with a little help from Cube Synth. They were assembled in Auria along with the spoken word piece that I had previously recorded using AudioShare and AltiSpace; but which I today reversed with TwistedWave, added delay with AUFX:Dub, and then reversed back.
Grant
February 17, 2016
Day 175: Weds 17 Feb 2016
Can’t Stop:
A Spoken Word Soundscape.
Today began with these words; a sort of stream of consciousness ramblings-of-a-madman sort of monologue. I recorded them into AudioShare with AltiSpace and then tried to prepare a soundscape for them. I began with a Grain Science recording that I made a month ago and kept in a folder for just such an occasion, I slowed it and lowered it in TwistedWave. Then combined the two files in Auria. Next I added a Sparkle recording that I made using TC-11 and Figure. The vocals required some cutting up and arranging but that was all 🙂
Grant
February 7, 2016
Day 165: Sunday 7 Feb 2016
Sooner Or Later (Pessimism Edit):
An Ambient Beatscape with Spoken Word.
This began with Arpeggist and Addictive Synth. Once I had something I liked, I loaded Addictive into Auria along with Poseidon and TF7, designed matching sounds in each synth, and recorded them all playing the slow sparse arpeggio. I also copied two of the synths to new tracks. applied some distortion with Muckraker, and panned them.
The beat is from Patterning, I knew I wanted something simple with only a few variations.
Next I loaded up MitoSynth for the ghostly slow lead sound (I don’t often use presets, preferring to make my own, but this suited the track so well).
I pasted the lyrics to iSpeech TTS, slowed them in Twistedwave and added some AltiSpace in AudioShare; but when I added them to the track I was unhappy with them so they got relegated to backing vocals.
The final touch was me reading the lyrics straight into Auria with reverb and delay from the inbuilt effects.
Grant
January 29, 2016
Day 156: Friday 29 Jan 2016
Shut Up And Ampersand:
A Beatscape with Spoken Word. That seems to be thing lately 🙂
I have a few Sector files sitting around that I have made using different drum apps; for the purpose of cutting them up into arrangeable chunks. I took one of these, made using a heavily distorted DM1, and cut out some promising sounds which I loaded into Patterning and made a beat. I jammed this beat into AudioShare and treated it with Dedalus, then loaded it into Auria and used it as the backbone for today’s track.
I had earlier sung some half prepared words into AudioShare with Altispace as effect. Not as a final recording but as a memory aid for the rhythm and phrasing, I decided to load this into Borderlands Granular to use as a carpet of sound for the beat. The resulting file was slowed by 50% in TwistedWave, and both versions put into Auria and mixed low with lots of reverb.
I had also earlier given some classic B grade movie cliches to Trudi (if you haven’t been following along Trudi is a fictional character I have been developing, voiced with iSpeech TTS, AltiSpace, and TwistedWave), I now loaded these and sprinkled them along the timeline.
The final two elements were a drone from Addictive Synth and some piano chords from Lyra.
Grant
January 27, 2016
Day 154: Weds 27 Jan 2016
Returned Mind:
Beatscape/Spoken Word.
TC-11; synth abstractions. iSem; bassline. Patterning; beat. TwistedWave, Auria, and AudioShare; utilities. AltiSpace; effect. Auria also supplied reverb, delay, and compression.
Grant
January 21, 2016
Day 148: Thursday 21 Jan 2016
Furtive:
Ambient Soundscape with Spoken Word.
I jammed with iM1 into Auria, using a patch of my own making, then jammed against it with one of my own patches in Poseidon. Then I added a drum part which I had constructed using iMPC Pro and TwistedWave which I cut up so it only appears occasionally. Next I jammed an electric piano using Lyra (the midi sampler in Auria), I doubled this part using a different electric piano sound and treated them with slightly different reverb and delay settings using Auria’s inbuilt effects. Finally I added the vocals which I had already recorded using AudioShare and AltiSpace.
Grant
January 18, 2016
Day 145: Monday 18 Jan 2016
Toad (Revisited):
Spoken Word Beatscape.
This is a resetting of a lyric that I used on Day 101’s ‘Mr Toad’. I took the same recording (of me reading into AudioShare with AltiSpace), loaded it into Auria and added two drones from Poseidon and a Borderlands Granular recording which I made using a file made with Patterning.
Grant
January 16, 2016
Day 143: Saturday 16 Jan
Skeletal:
Soundscape, Dronescape, Vocalscape, Spoken Word, Ambient. Take your pick.
This began with some lyrics recited into AudioShare with Altispace which I took into Sector and then into Borderlands Granular. I also took it into TwistedWave and slowed, lowered, and reversed it.
I now had four variations which I arranged in Auria, also adding two drones from Addictive Synth.