Old masters and remasters for sale

This weekend I had the strange impulse to start an online store with my own recordings. I have remastered some of the old stuff, there are still a few originals lying around and there is this compilation of material that I have contributed to other compilations, which might be interesting. It's all material that is no longer available through other sources, except as a second hand.

So, I have opened my little store and you can go there and order. Most of the stuff is printed on cd-r and comes with a special cover, handmade and signed and numbered by me. The cd-r's are printed at low speed and checked. They cost 10 euro's including handling and shipping.

The store will be more professional when sales have started. Now you have to order each item separately which might be a nuisance, especially when you want to order multiple items. Just start ordering one, and I will jump to the possibility of including a cart before you know it. And next time you order something you can do the whole catalogue in one go :).

EDIT: I have decided to stop this initiative. It takes too much of my time designing covers, and such. Sorry, people.

Read more...

REST

I decided to take a rest from the composition. It wil take at least until next weekend. I need to get more detached.
In the meantime I restructured my studio somewhat. I have bought myself cables to be able to place my computer in another room, away from the screen and mouse/keyboard. That way I can record inside the studioroom plus my mixing will not be impaired by the sound of the fans inside the computer box. I suddenly realize that this is the second time I mention this (see June 29). That's because originally I had problems with the extended cable to my monitor. Yesterday I got a tip that it might be due to monitor settings. After I changed those (I really have no clue what I did exactly) everything's great again.

Next month I will be able to move everything to a bigger space in my house. I will try to publish a few pictures of my setup.

Read more...

More dynamics

Listening to the total structure in Audition I saw/ heard that the piece is too flat. I like my compositions to be bumpy rides. And this is too much confusion. Different styles, different angles. But all at a rather quiet volume. Well, no harm done. This conclusion points me into a much needed direction. It really does mean, destroying what I have done so far and rebuilding it again.....

Read more...

Visit Odradek festival in Gent

I will be visiting the Odradek festival in Gent (Belgium) next Friday (25th July 2008). There will be presentations by Esther Venrooij, Helena Gough, Yoko Higashi and Lionel Marchetti. Plus I will finally meet Allon Kaye of Entr'acte! I'll write up a review of my experiences. If anyone wants to meet up: I'll be in Gent probably from 15.00 until late in the evening before I drive back home.

More info:
Entr'acte
Odradek

Read more...

Coop between Reaper and Audition ?

Yesterday's thoughts have turned everything upside down. I first thought I could work serially. Just start with the beginning of the text and then work my work down to the end, but it's gonna happen.

Today I started a new construction with small parts of the text, recited by every contributor and that inspired me to a completely new setup. The downside of that is that I have to dive deeper into REAPER and start with blocks, where each block is like a piece of Lego. Hmmm... we'll work that out.

EDIT one day later: worked it out. I will do renders of the several parts in the composition. Those renders I import into Audition so I can listen to the structure and shuffle with the various parts. If I then hear that a part needs some rework I return to REAPER and work that out. The final mix I will do in Reaper (of course). But for the time being, we're not there yet.

The change in workflow yielded immediate result, by the way. The part that I started with was something that itched. When listening to all of the parts I decided to cut the original intro away and insert another part that was originally a break from the vocoder piece. Much better.

Read more...

New addition to Chris's part

I have been working on the vocoder material. Problem I see is that this vocoder part is like a train on a track, or a stream. It can only go forward. That's not what i want. I want it to be like different 'rooms'. So I broke up the vocoder stream.

BANG! And silence.....

And tranquility, space for other things. What I placed inside that space are cut up parts of the opening sentence: "THIS - IS - HOW - IT - SHOULD - HAVE - BEEN". I grouped these words and the artists, with silence inbetween. Okay, so now things are back to spatiality. I can build up from that.

Next, I have rendered the three major parts that I now have built: Henning/Jos, Henning2, Chris. They need to become one construction, so it's good to step back and listen to the result so far.

Read more...

Christopher McFall in a hurry

Yesterday I received the recordings of Christopher. He provided a whispered version of the text. He doesn't articulate the words very precisely, so that it sounds as if he was in a hurry while recording. Actually that was okay with me. I just needed to put in some breaks. Today I finished a first sketch of what is to become the final part of the poem.

First stage
I placed the final 30 lines of the text in a track. I used reverb (Kjaerhus) to add some depth to the original track. I doubled it with a second track which I vocoded with a synth track (the origins of which I will not disclose here). I used reavocode to do this, a Reaper plugin. The combined tracks with the vocoder I then moved around in space using the Wavearts panorama plugin.

Second stage
Now was the time to cut up the original sequence in order to make way for a couple of 3rd party sounds. I recorded the final lines as well and used Henning's voice for a couple of words. Both mine and Henning's recordings were treated with GRM's frequencyshifter.

Third stage
Bringing everything to the right volume level. Pheew! That was a difficult one. The whole idea of the complete work is to present different voices within one unified acoustic space. The vocoder however, plus the hasty recital, presents a different 'image'. It becomes a 'stream'. It's more like a long hallway instead of a (large) room. So I had to break off the stream at certain points and intersect it with other voices.
Another issue was the volume and acoustical balance between the tracks, especially with the vocoder. And then get the 3rd party voices level with that. Well, I sort of figured it out. For now.

It's still a bit shaky. I think that I'm nearly there but it certainly needs some time to mature and then rearrange. So, we'll get back to this one. Fo sho!

Read more...

You will not I

This is a (part of a) composition that I am working on. It consists of some 100 words that are recited, first by Henning and then doubled by myself.

First stage
At first there was Henning's recording which I played through my monitor and re-recorded while moving the microphone in front of it. That way the original recording became sort randomly flawed. I did this in four goes and layered them.

Second stage
Then I recited the lines in as much as possible the same intonation and speed as Henning and layered two of those recordings over that. Because it's impossible to do this exactly another blend was mixed into the original.

Third stage
I rendered the mix and treated it with Smartelectronix Scrubber. This vst allows you to control the play of a file (needs to be 44khz/16bit/stereo, btw). It is the most versatile and controllable granulation plugin that I know. Certainly in the freeware world. The result that I wanted (and got) is that each word (or short sentence) sort of rolls in, has a more stable middle and then rolls out again. The anomalies that scrubber produces are a bonus in the mix, really. :)

Fourth stage
Back to Reaper and start a new mix. I blend the Scrubbermix with the original ones in order to emphasize the middle part of each word.

Fifth stage
I make a live recording in my studio, using binaural mics which I move through the room and the hallway leading to the studio. This live recording is layered into the mix to fill in the gaps between the words. Those gaps vary between 1 and 6 seconds. They are bassy and zoomy because of the Scrubber anomalies and the soft spatial recording is an interesting addition.

The piece is not yet finished because the development is too weak, so now I will start working on that. It is supposed to become part of a bigger whole where the whole poem is recited from start to beginning in a few phases. I'll keep you updated with further progression.

Read more...

Progress

Been working (evening hours) on a work that consists primarily of Henning Lundkvist's recitation of the poem that is central in my new work. I work as second voice. It's tough going, as I am researching how I can work with depth and stereo imaging. Those are the primary research objectives for this composition. I now have a basic setup and will move on to the next phase where I have to turn all of the little proofs into one composition.

Read more...