I have added a melodic undertone to provide the track with some direction and mood. In my last post I spoke about William Basinski and his use of a melodic loop slowly disintegrating over time, which is something I thought would benefit my own piece a lot. I decided to structure the track by starting with the field recording and no input mixer recording laid over one another, before gradually introducing the melodic layer. From there I wanted to start fusing the sounds together in a way that feels like they are all merging into a new singular sound, which resembles the convergence of two different worlds.
I managed to end up with a slowly evolving piece that feels like a big moment, which is exactly what I was aiming for.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yhaxU-1MZtFthZWdWHOl_rgrUORNZg_p/view?usp=sharing
With the process being quite quick and fluid, I was surprised as I thought this might have taken a lot of time to get right. However, I seemed to have a session where everything went how I had envisioned it and I was left with a track that sounds very complex but is actually really simple. I think one thing I’ve learned is that it is important to leave your work alone and stop adding things, just as it is important sometimes to continue to perfect it. In this scenario, I was striving for imperfection and wanted the sound to go along its own path as much as anything, with me as the mediator.
I created a pad from scratch on a software synth called Phase Plant. It is a very simple patch with a choir sample, saw wave, a filter and some detuning to add width and dimension. I didn’t need to do too much as I felt the track already had a lot of space filled up in terms of frequencies and if I had overcomplicated things I would have started to lose elements in the mix. All I wanted was something audible that could set the tone for the duration of the track, a singular chord that doesn’t take centre stage but is loud enough to drive the piece forward. I think I accomplished that quite well. I am not well versed in music theory so I often play chords that sound right to me and fit with the tone I am after, and in this case I wanted something uplifting with a hint of unease, displaying two different worlds intersecting and the wariness of the unknown that comes with that.
I added a layer of sub bass to occupy the lower frequencies, which brought in a satisfying foundation for all of the other sounds to bounce off. Finally, I used the effects plugin RC-20, which I chose because of its ability to add texture and glue sounds together. I mimicked ‘The Disintegration Loops’ by William Basinski by having some parameters such as noise, bit crushing and distortion slowly increase over the course of the tracks runtime. This creates a track that starts off having clearly identifiable sounds then evolves into the sounds getting lost within one another, once again a representation of one world interweaving into another.
I then lightly limited the master track and added some glue compression to make sure everything was stuck together nicely, along with some minor eq tweaks to remove frequency build up. Unless I have any other crazy ideas that strike me, I would like to leave this piece as it is as I feel it is a great culmination of everything I have learned during this unit, from the studio praxis sessions to spatialisation, microphones and recording samples. My approaches towards sound creation have changed over this term but I still situate these learning experiences within my own aesthetic framework, which is exciting for me as I feel I am progressing a lot.
(PHOTOS) – https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yW4yyZqgmOIWAxKOoFXBS2Trihyqaus4?usp=sharing