Archive for the Ambient category
Grant
October 24, 2015
Day 59: Saturday 24 Oct 2015
Reprise: A Self Portrait In Three Parts:
Part One: Hermits Dilemma 0.00 – 5.31
Part Two: Procrastinate 5.31 – 9.29
Part Three: Nothing But The Bones 9.29 – 14.41
I got ambitious today, three tracks in one. I decided to present them in one track rather than as a playlist. Let me know which you think is better.
Two Soundscapes and a Beatscape with vocals.
It was a long and complicated journey, so today I’m just going to give you a list of the apps involved, because it’s late and I’m tired. I’m happy to answer any questions that you might have though 🙂
The apps in order of appearance were:
AudioShare, iKaossilator, Flux:FX, AUFX:Space, AUFX:Dub, Auria, Addictive Synth, Cyclops, Sector, TTS iSpeech, Figure, Dedalus, Fieldscape, Borderlands Granular, Turnado, AUFX:PeakQ, Caramel, and Grain Science.
The Video:
This music video is all about the music. So it’s very simple, mainly static on black; to let you concentrate on your ears, while at the same time keeping your eyes involved.
Pinnacle Studio and CinemaFXV were all that I used.
See you spoon and Peace Out.
Grant
October 22, 2015
Day 57: Supplementary Post
Perspective: A Drama In Three Parts:
Musing:
Each track I make is a journey; there are usually twists and turns (often wrong turns), there are decisions made, decisions rescinded, backflips, and surprises. I never know when I start where I’m going to end up.
Sometimes the result is close to the initial idea or intention. Sometimes the work takes on a life of it’s own and I have to hold on for dear life while it works itself out. Often I have nothing in mind, but just begin and try to keep myself alert for the possibilities and signs of life that unfold.
I am anthropomorphising I know. So be it.
The creative process does seem to be out of my control; but I’m too much an atheist to attribute it to spirits, or muses, or being receptive to some god or other. Perhaps it’s something to do with Freud’s Subconscious, or Jung’s Collective Subconscious, or perhaps I’m being all Zen, or attuning myself to the Tao. Whatever. Take your pick, or use your own metaphor. It’s great fun! It’s the stuff of life!
Anyway…takes a breath…
Todays track had three way stations on it’s journey, three moments of clarity, almost like shrines along a pilgrimage: one near the beginning, one in the middle, and one at the end. As it should be I suppose.
If you so choose, come journey with me.
The Tracks:
Part One is the original Beatscape that started it all.
Part Two is how I clothed the Beatscape but with the Beatscape removed.
Part Three is the resolution, the arrival, the conclusion.
Cube Synth, Patterning, iFretless Bass, Dedalus, Emo Chorus.
Grant
October 22, 2015
Day 57: Thursday 22 Oct 2015
Mountains Never Meet:
Ambient.
A sparse bassline from iFretless Bass, sitting on a bed of ambient synth drones from Cube Synth, garnished with a finely grated beatscape from Patterning.
Bon Apetit.
The Video:
A series of abstract pictures made with Procreate and iColorama, blended in Pinnacle Studio and drizzled in Generate.
Grant
October 17, 2015
Day 52: Saturday 17 Oct 2015
Nigel Unadorned:
A slow and minimal take on Nigel today.
Fugue Machine drives iFretless Bass and iFretless Guitar. The only effects are the ones in those apps. Recorded with Audiobus and AudioShare.
Grant
October 15, 2015
Day 50: Thursday 15 Oct 2015
Nigel Interruptus:
An Ambient Soundscape.
Back to the Fugue Machine Project.
Today I have my sequence controlling several Synths that I loaded into AudioBus.
Korgs iPolySix, FM4, TF7, Laplace, Addictive Synth, Thor, and iSem all loaded into Mimex and recorded with AudioShare.
With a setup like this I can really sculpt the sound of the performance by blending synths in and out, muting, changing the pan etc.
This was a sort of proof of concept today. I plan to spend more time selecting and writing patches to really make this a polished performance piece.
Grant
October 12, 2015
Day 47: Monday 12 Oct 2015
Nigel Trans Lucid:
Ambient.
Today I had two objectives: to continue my exploration of Fugue Machine, and to calm my lovely wife Lene who has had a hard day at work.
To accomplish the second goal (the most important), I have made a calming ambient piece, to help her breathe.
To accomplish the first goal I have used the same pattern as yesterday, but with different sounds.
In fact I think I will use this opportunity to explore not only this app, but also my relationship to texture, melody, and harmony. For the next few days I am going to use this same patch in Fugue Machine, this same sequence of notes; to generate my tracks.
Each day I will use different apps and different sounds, and possibly some differing techniques. Let’s see how it unfolds.
Today I slowed the sequence from 110 bpm to 80 bpm. I used Addictive Synth; one of the built in patches ‘Sidereal’, which I altered slightly. I also altered parameters as I recorded, beginning with only the noise section of the patch and slowly blending in and out the oscillators. Finally I loaded this into Auria and added a file I had already recorded from FM4.
Over the next few days I will repeat this experiment. Fingers crossed!
The Video:
I have also reused the original video from yesterday, processing it in Generate and CinemaFXV to try and match todays mood, and compiling with Pinnacle Studio.
Grant
October 11, 2015
Day 46: Sunday 11 Oct 2015
Nigel Waves Through The Ether:
Ambient.
More Ambient than I usually get. Today I played some more with Fugue Machine, I fed it to Addictive Synth and recorded it 3 times into AudioShare using different patches. I then repeated the process using Mitosynth.
Next I imported all 6 files into Auria and arranged them as you find here.
The Video:
A few weeks ago I filmed the wheat blowing in the wind near my house, it was just days before the harvest. I used Pinnacle Studio and Generate to put together this result.
Grant
October 10, 2015
Day 45: Saturday 10 Oct 2015
Sanitorium:
Ambient.
An almost abstract ambient piece; long, slow, and meditative.
This is entirely made with one patch in Addictive Synth. I love making, and listening to tracks like this; simple but hypnotic,slowly evolving, subtlety changing; a few elements interacting but still managing to convey a mood, and tell a story.
I love Addictive Synth for this, it seems very well suited; small changes on a variety of parameters give great results. I could’ve played all day.
Grant
October 6, 2015
Day 41: Tuesday 6 Oct 2015
A Penny For Your Thoughts:
An Ambient Soudscape.
Todays track is a child of Day 37’s Shamblin’, because I began with an earlier jam version of what eventually became the backbone of that track.
It used Arpeggist, Addictive Synth, Sunrizer, Mimix, and AudioShare.
I loaded that into Auria and added a little bit of Thor; using one of Jacob Haq’s Bell Presets which can be found here: giving away 64 Bell presets.
Then a dash of sound from Dedalus with the whole AUFX suite.
The Video:
Artwork done with PicFrame, loaded into Pinnacle Studio, processed three times in Generate, combined in PicFrame, processed in CinemaFXV 🙂
Grant
October 5, 2015
Day 40: Monday 5 Oct 2015
Dance Macabre:
A Soundscape.
Today I fired up Figure in AudioShare and loaded Caramel and Dedalus into the effect slots. My aim was to give the Figure sounds a little less of an electro dance, and more of an industrial sort of vibe. I did four jams with this setup, changing sounds etc slightly each time.
I was happy with these Beatscapes but realised that I was more in a Soundscape mood, so I imported one of these into Borderlands. Then I added one of the feedback recordings I had done in Dedalus a few days ago; and then a heavily processed Drone that I had made last week using Arpeggist, Addictive Synth, iMini, TwistedWave, Dedalus, Borderlands, and a breaking glass recording.
I made three recordings jamming with these files.
The last one hit the spot; all that was needed was a little AUFX:Dub applied occasionally.
The Video:
I could see what sort of video I wanted in my minds eye but it was a little tricky to achieve 🙂
I filmed myself dancing using VideoPro and trimmed off the walking in and out of shot in Pinnacle Studio. Then I processed these files multiple times in Generate and Glitch Wizard, and loaded these into a couple of layouts in Vidibox.
However I just used some of the Generate and Glitch Wizard files in the end; sequencing them with titles and a transition or two in Pinnacle. And then the all important CinemaFXV to tie it all together.