I now have a very strong concept for what I want to communicate with my sound piece. However, upon thinking about it more, I feel like the piece will have more of an impact if it is kept simple and to the point. I think in past projects I have tried to transfer my concepts into dense and articulate pieces of practical work which ultimately either leads me on tangents or clouds my brain. Since I have pretty much all of the source sounds to build the piece from, I have been experimenting with manipulating the field recordings I took to start with. I feel a concise track that explores the intersection of a field recording I have taken of a place that I have had my own experiences in and a reconstructing of that sonic environment would be more than enough to display my idea of the convergence of two worlds.
EXPERIMENT 1 –
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uWmuv0Hly3-3uTO-VJLV_AI29njmGqbD/view?usp=sharing
(PHOTOS) – https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1uKubs-bkl5eQ-WfAM8rSB9JKsQw_Rqh-?usp=sharing
In the first experiment I grouped the four tracks of the wav file (as it was an ambisonic recording) and gently compressed them so the quieter sections had a bit more clarity. The beauty of working with spatial audio is that I don’t have to do much to add depth and width as the recordings themselves have an already immersive effect. I allowed myself to let my mind wander and use the software accordingly, so I added a delay to the group, adjusting the speed of the delay, the feedback, the dry/wet and the spread of the delay. I recorded the automations in live, which allowed me to use the delay as a tool to make timbral and textural shifts over time, which created an evolving motion within the field recording. I also added a spectral delay on one of the tracks for a more subtle increase in randomness and movement.
EXPERIMENT 2 –
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uzPP3K_8da7xP58v6MJ5PfH0YuLna0lC/view?usp=sharing
(PHOTOS) – https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ukwwDAqTK5DR5ypYxdyOf6pfzNBqb-uK?usp=sharing
I was a lot more reserved with my approach on the second experiment, only processing one of the four stereo tracks. I used the Max for Live spectral delay effect to create some artificial sounding glitches and alien-like delays that flowed smoothly through the rest of the tracks, interweaving between them in an organic way once I added the magical touch of compression. Once again I altered parameters live, the photos in the link above showcase this. I think out of the two I prefer this one because it sounds more purposeful and combines a unequivocally digital sound transformation with the raw and unfiltered ambience of the original field recording. This to me feels more like the intersection of two different worlds; it sounds almost like a rip in the fabric of reality that is very small but beginning to grow, which is really cool!
EXPERIMENT 3 –
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vFLJiH3buzAjL4ZxE4LEYDY78FkEKNfB/view?usp=sharing
(PHOTOS) – https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1v85Mz2MtiZivGqnvwsYkt4jXULS7nVtU?usp=sharing
My thought process here was very different. I wanted to enhance certain qualities that each track had, identifying whether a certain track would fit better sitting in the lower end of the frequency range or the higher end as well as the level of overall detail. Of course this was difficult as the tracks are the same recording but slightly different. However, I found that this experiment ended up as the most clear in terms of the detail and clarity that the distortion plugin I used brought out. I used the same plugin (Izotope Trash) on all of the individual tracks but I affected the tracks differently based on how I felt they sat in the overall mix. For instance, in one track I noticed it had a lot more detail in the higher end most of the time so I added a fair amount of saturation to really brighten up the sound, as well as having a high pass filter with some of the eq bells being modulated by LFO’s inside the plugin. On another track I more carefully added light distortion and carved it to sit in the lower mid region of the mix, which enhanced the other tracks by establishing a solid foundation for the movement and detail to move around/through. I like this attempt about the same amount as experiment 2, but I do feel this one holds a more intimate quality, with the distortion really giving the overall recording a lot of weight.
My aim now is to refine these experiments a bit more and figure out what I like the most out of all of them and what I may need to add/remove to make sure this piece is as impactful as it can be.