Just happened to find this treasure trove of free and cheap sound software:
“a project sponsored by the Sound Commission of the United States Institute for Theatre Technology”
Well done! and nice timing as I’m just starting a new sound design project.
2012 has been very active for me musically so far, though many of these projects were completed earlier, and have only been released this year. I’m happy to say there are more projects in the pipeline, but wanted to sum up some of what’s just come to light.
The Woodcut Collage EP
As I recently told Kovas, the 64 Bar Music maestro, for a blog post on this subject, “The Woodcut Collage EP is actually a re-issue of sorts. I decided to put it on Bandcamp as it’s sort of a time capsule… The music itself is very mixed, style-wise, but I think there’s a common thread that ties it together. I tend to make rules to follow, almost just to turn it all into a bit of a game…” He also calls my music “broken jazz”. I’ve been called much worse! You can find the full EP here: The Woodcut Collage EP
Shooby Shooby Do Yah!
I took a stab at a remix of a track from Mocean Worker’s 2011 album Candygram For Mowo! and was pleasantly surprised when Adam Dorn (a.k.a. Mocean Worker) decided to release an EP of four remixes digitally. Adam and I share a somewhat intertwined background in Jazz, and so I decided to give his track my best attempt at an old school walking bassline. Yes, I decided to cobble a new bassline on my version of a song by a professional BASS PLAYER! I liked the way it came out. Trumpet by Steven Bernstein (recorded for the original) gives the track such great character. It was a pleaseure to remix with all the great material the original provided… A link to the EP on iTunes EP: Shooby Shooby Do Yah! (Techdef Remix)
Clear Off!
I was flattered to be asked to remix Kelp’s track Clear Off, as one of seven people who ended up doing so. The original, and all the remixes were released in late march as an EP on Bandcamp by the 64 bar music label: Clear Off Remixes It’s fascinating to me to hear how many different directions producers take with the same material. There’s another remix project with a twist coming out soon with some of the same people involved. Stay tuned!
7MMX : Bisk Mix
I also contributed a seven minute dj mix to the tenth collection of 7 Minute Mixes, titled 7MMX. My set was devoted entirely to the Japanese electronic artist Bisk, who has recently re-emerged and has been threatening to release a new album! Bisk will be remembered for his sample mangling and electronic jazz experimental albums that came out on the Sub Rosa label over a decade ago. This little summary, and other great 7 minutes can be found here: 7 Minute Mix 10: 7MMX
Recent music by Bisk can be heard here: Bisk
I recognized a snippet of the first track from an old Stereolab track,
and Wilco used a piece most famously. Then I heard the same snippet from the Stereolab track on this Mocean Worker song: watch and listen to ‘Earth’ by MOWO I never knew what these were or that they had been compiled like this until asking Adam Dorn (aka Mocean Worker) yesterday — who said it was the sound collagist and hip-hop renegade Steinski who tipped him off to THE CONET PROJECT!
“Why is it that in over 30 years, the phenomenon of Numbers Stations
has gone almost totally unreported? What are the agencies behind the
Numbers Stations, and why are the eastern European stations still on
the air? Why does the Czech republic operate a Numbers Station 24
hours a day? How is it that Numbers Stations are allowed to interfere
with essential radio services like air traffic control and shipping
without having to answer to anybody? Why does the Swedish Rhapsody
Numbers Station use a small girls voice?
These are just some of the questions that remain unanswered.”
Odd, beautiful, puzzling, hypnotic, disturbing. Worth sharing.
Creative Commons licensed for non-commercial use. Wilco had to go to court for their use apparently.
Hear and download the full collection here
Just came across this article: How to create post production sfx using reason
I contributed the opening snippet of music to a collaborative sound experiment conducted over a five month period with a group of people I’ve only met on the internet. Each person created four bars, but the next person only heard the last bar of the previous piece of music, and then created their own, transitioning out of the previous part. In the end it was far less chaotic than some might have imagined. This is surely a testament to the individual contributor’s skill and ears. http://www.vimeo.com/27699574
The music (and text) I am writing about below can be streamed or downloaded at this link.
In 2006, four directors joined forces to present an evening of four short plays by Samuel Beckett, and I was asked to create the sound design, including original music. Performed in a small basement theatre on St. Mark’s Place, in New York’s East Village, the group of plays was presented as “Beckett Below”. In running order, Play was directed by Peter A. Campbell, Act Without Words II was directed by Ariane Anthony, That Time was directed by Tim Lee, and Footfalls was directed by Eve Hartmann. I had worked with Tim Lee previously—our first collaboration was when I designed sound for his production of Beckett’s Rough for Theatre II, and we had also worked together on a production of Waiting For Godot. Milt Angelopoulos had played Vladimir in that Godot production, and would now be the recorded voice, and voiceless stage presence of the lone character in That Time. (My photos taken during dress rehearsals accompany this posting.)
In addition to consultations with the directors, I went through my own process of imagining what inspiration I could draw from. I read the scripts, of course, but in trying to find the unifying thread for the overall sound design, I researched the playwright’s own preferences in music.
Beckett forbade the presence of music being added to his works in general, though he did strike a friendship with the modern composer Morton Feldman, who created scores for some works by Beckett. They met while Beckett was at the rehearsals for That Time and Footfalls in 1976. More of that story can be found here. But Feldman’s works with Beckett were and exception. In general Beckett (and his estate) forbid adaptation, alteration, or deviation from the staging directions as written. No music is present during any of the plays that I’ve read, and sound effects are few and simple.
There are, however, other pieces he wrote that call for the use, extensive and sometimes exclusively, of pre-recorded voices. That Time is one of these. (Also see Krapp’s Last Tape and Rockabye.) For That Time the actor and director rehearsed extensively, and then finally his vocal performance was recorded in a sound booth at a recording facility that records audio books. He did several takes, and I was provided with a DVD of Aiff files. The director selected his edits with me and then I sequenced the different parts as they needed to be sequenced, with each of the three voices being read each occupying a different sonic space, though use of different panning and reverb settings. When played the in the performance space it sounded different. And different again when the space was filled with an audience. You can listen to an excerpt of Milt’s performance here.
Beckett was known to be a lover of classical music, and played piano himself quite well. Much of his family was also musically inclined. I tried to imagine Beckett the piano player, who often played for friends and family, but also thinking of the more somber moods of plays themselves. I listened to piano music (both recordings and midi files) by Leos Janacek and also by Brahms, whose piano compositions for four hands I had owned since high school. In an early experiment I took a midi file of a Brahms composition and slowed it way down. I tried all sorts of manipulation of piano sounds in different experiments. In the end I just had to play the sounds on the keyboard until it felt right. I wanted the sound to be spare, open, allowing room for the sounds to drift and sink in. I added violin to the compositional palette as the work progressed, as well as percussion in some places and other drones and background textures in parts of the pre-show.
I had never thought I would write music for piano and violin, but that’s exactly what I did. Not coming from a classical music background, this was a stretch for me, but in the end very rewarding one. I’ll always think of it as a pivotal moment in my work–not so much because I worked in an unfamiliar style, but in that it showed me that style was not something I should be worrying about. Working to get the sound that feels right is the most important thing.
The whole sound design was composed and produced in Propellerhead’s Reason software. The violins were mostly from a sample set created by Kurt Kurasaki aka Peff.
