I regard exploring new possibilities, as an artist.. stretching into new things.. as being one of the most important things you can do.. and it’s probably true in most other walks of life. Generally it’s a kind of oscillation.. between that area where you are really strong.. and the new areas you’re just starting to explore… It’s about integrating these two things.

In some of my newer directions.. I have some fear that what I’m doing might be nieve… The reason being because I am venturing into areas that are more conventional then my work normally is.. so that if you’re taking you’re first few steps on a very well trotted road, how excited can you be about what you find? I mean.. sure, you’re excited.. but maybe for everyone else its “Ho hum, I’ve seen that before.”

Still.. it is still me making the music.. still a product of my aesthetic thinking.. my aesthetic sensibilities.. still something that largely comes from within..  still my process.. etc. So whatever it is I’m doing.. it’s still inescapably me.. still has a certain.. I’m not sure what.

Ultimately.. where I see the future in the new stuff is finding ways for it to be more and more imprinted with.. whatever it is that’s unique in me.. and integrating it with the older stuff. 

Into the New Music 

If  you’ve been listening to my stuff for any length of time.. you’ll note that this new track is basically an evolution of some of what we heard on ZarMattAThustra’s Deep Space Adventures:

Glitchy Goodness mix (As of yet untitled early mix) by Matt Searles

What we hear here is what we were hearing in Deep Space.. but now arranged, mixed, and sorta composed around.. in a kind of new way. It’s been said that the Deep Space stuff was like exploring out into space.. and now we are listening in on Alien conversations..

It’s a crazy kind of dark and harsh ambient.. or that track is, isn’t it? Makes me feel like a journey into the shadow side of the soul.

About this direction

The direction opens up a whole lot in the way of possible possibilities… err, so let me describe the process of the above track.

Inside Reaktor 

I started out in Reaktor.. with a sound source by which you can make music / sound / whatever.. via twiddling some knobs with your mouse.. by twiddling the parameters of sequences, synthesizers, sound generators, effects processors, and mixers.. you can only adjust one parameter at a time.. and you tend to not do it too abruptly most of the time.. you spend a lot of time navigating the interface just to get so you can get the thing you want to tweak’s parameter…

Controlling one parameter at a time.. sorta slowly.. with gaps between where you can tweak.. has the effect of making for a somewhat slowly organically evolving sound.. and because we are talking about parameter tweaking.. its as if the resultant sound is.. well it sounds like its coming from the same device who’s pattern and behavior is shifting over time.. and expressive in that way.

Parallel Compression  

So you do this over and over again.. generating a few sound files.. and you take these sound files and submit them to an automated process of what is called “parallel compression.” Parallel compression means.. you have a sound source.. that gets thrown through many compressors working in parallel.. and you mix the outs of the various compressors.. indeed I mix the sends into the compressors as well as the sounds out.. The idea is that the various compressors you’re dealing with all color the sound in different ways.. in relationship to things like.. the dynamics of the audio.. and they also effect the dynamics of the audio differently..  

So we are both colorizing the sounds and shaping there dynamics.. the latter of which will allow us more control once we get to the mixing and arrangement process.

The Mixing and Arranging Process

Next I take the audio files and load them into my DAW.. Digital Performer. 

There’s certain interesting aesthetic issues that pop up about this point. Because each sound file was generated independently of one another.. there’s no “design” to there interrelationships accept that they were all created at the same tempo… There relationships of timber and pitch (counterpoint, harmony, orchestration).. are.. in essence indeterminate.. which kinda brings us into John Cage Country…

What is similar is that.. in many cases the effects treated to the instrument are the same.. or at least some of the effects are the same.. and they are all created via the same process.. so the way they evolve over time is very similar: Process dictates a probability distribution of attributes.. so that its as if there’s a systems level interrelationship of stuff.

The process of mixing and arranging is then our chance to insert a little design into the production.. For now I’m not doing anything much more sophisticated then deciding when an audio recording should be inserted into the arrangement, choosing additional effects for that instrument.. effects of the general mix.. and mixing the instruments.. –Although I have been creating custom stuff with say.. Native Instruments Machine.

The Mixing

In my conventionally unconventional music.. harmony is at least in part conceived of as 3 dimensional..  What I mean is.. the issue of overlapping frequency ranges is a central issue to the mix engineers stock and trade.. and some of how this is dealt with is panoramic positioning.. and just where a sound should be located in a virtual sound stage. Because in my music the mixing and the composition are integrated.. harmony is conceptualized in a context of spacial relationships.

So if you think about it.. the process of mixing.. can be like a process of contextualizing material.. which means embedding meaning into it..  and um.. that kinda thing.

What you end up doing is listening to the material of the audio.. the various audio files you have.. and asking questions.. What you do is making decisions about.. what to highlight at one moment or another.. what should be dominant in the mix.. how the sounds should interrelate.. how to make things interesting in terms of how the track evolves over time..

So in essence the mixing is the composing.. moving things around in space.. automating effects.. and all this kind of thing.

Where Maschine fits into all of this?

Maschine is in essence a pattern based percussive sequencer.. and a little bit more. You compose in it various patterns.. and then in your DAW you tell it when to play what patterns..

So, at the very least Maschine represents the possibilities of pattern based sequencing.. to my music.. something that’s very good for real time music production.. and based sequencing is a big part of what’s going on inside of Reaktor in much of this production.

Machine gets mixed in like any other element.. though its the one element where we have conscious control of.. so that it works to somehow.. fit things together.. I guess.. another layer of it..

Where to go from here

It seems to me that there’s an incredible number of possibilities moving forward from here.. I have an obvious interest in working out how to create a kind of music that is similar to this.. in a live scenario.. and then there’s all the kind of possible mutations of this…

With Kore [ and hands on controllers more genearally ] 

Kore, shown here:

represents one obvious set of possibilities. You can load up various software instruments, effects, and what not.. into Kore.. and control them via its buttons and knobs.. which you map to various parameters of the instruments / effects in question.. You have various pages of mappings that you can then move between.. allowing you real time control.. without a mouse.. and in a way were you can control multiple parameters at once.

Real time control of software, in this fashion.. radically changes the way you think, and how you work with.. the software.. it’s really awesome.

 A day or so latter:

Implications 

The full implications of real time hands on control of software in this fashion, and relative to this sorta production style are really.. well more then I can really lay out in full for you here today… but I can throw a bit at yea

Manipulating multiple parameters at once

As mentioned earlier… mousing around single parameters at a time produces a certain kind of organic evolution of the sounds.. hands on control is a very different beast.. we are not talking about… well there’s a certain artistry of performance.. kind of more power.. and with that power comes the need to know how to temper it.. and anyway.. there’s a good deal to explore here.

Beyond this.. things can get a little complex.. especially is we are using multiple controllers.. and the idea that we can now play with interrelationships on the performance level.

Recording Automation rather then Audio

A significant difference between the way I was tweaking away in Reaktor.. and tweaking away with controllers in a DAW is that we are now recording automation data of a performance.. and not simply the resultant audio.

This means we can go back in and edit the performance.. we can perform on one set of parameters on one take, and another on another take.. so that the results can become a good deal deal more complex in how they evolve over time..

There is a kind of negative.. which is.. well has to do with most modern music.. that you don’t really have to make choices.. when you can alway edit / adjust things latter… this is a kind of long conversation.. but basically it has to do with.. the creative process.. and being pushed into situations where you have to work your way out of the hard way.. and in so doing.. often that’s how brilliant things happen.. But without going to far into this topic.. I will say that ultimately its up to the artist, in how to relate to the technology on this level. 

Taking it to Ableton Live, and the joys of patterns.

I imagine the next phase of things is to take the whole production, and bring it into Ableton Live.. creating patterns.. using MIDI effects to tweak the patterns.. and make it so the whole production is produced this way…

Here we really get to thinking deeply about how to take this into the live arena.. also… we are getting out of Reaktor.. and using the rest of my instrument library.

This is sorta like.. “lets go do stuff in the usual studio” stuff. It’s hard to say too much about a path you’ve yet to walk but.. An Ableton Live based… pattern based.. compositional process.. can actually lead you into a world of more control.. more.. lets say design developed.. stuff.. then traditional linear sequencing… 

Basically.. you have a bunch of patterns.. and you play with how the different patterns play together.. this can be how you think of production and composition in the real design sense.. or it can be like the design of a framework for improvisation.

There’s perhaps more to say here.. but I’m tired..

Integration

The final subject is really integration.. to integrate this stuff with the stuff that I’m actually good at… or maybe the better way of putting it is where I’m already strong..

I see this kinds of hands on.. tweak it.. kind of organic evolution of sound.. as having certain elements that my more programmed.. crazy attention to detail music lacks.. In case you haven’t heard this stuff.. a reasonable example might be this remix of the Cobert Report Interview with Lawrence Lessig.. I did recently

BSO Steven Cobert Lawrence Lessig ReMix by Matt Searles

This track took me about a month to do.. there’s a hell of a lot more attention to detail then you might notice at first..  ( including a fair amount that doesn’t really come out when listened to streamed).. the problem with this track is perhaps mostly how short it is.. as so much of this sorta thing for me tends to be about taking a little trip.. and its hard to go that far in a couple of minutes.. In some ways you can listen to it as a prototype for the new direction of what we are calling my conventional work..  Even with whatever it’s flaws might be.. it does represent a step forward on that trajectory… 

I love the idea of taking a whole month to do a single track.. I mean just the level of detail you can achieve that way… that much love and attention to every moment.. of course it’s a little on the unrealistic side.. but still!

The integration can probably happen along multiple axises

1. If you create a music form where it literally takes a month to finish a couple minutes of music.. to have this along side music where in a day’s work can give you twenty plus minutes worth of music.. well.. now the month for a couple minutes is realistic.. 
2. I have this notion of a whole album that is of the tweak kind.. where via creative mixing.. the super programmed detail stuff.. sorta comes out of that world.. where in you’re really considering the album as a whole. ( which may not make a lot of sense for custom play lists )
3. The Tweak-age stuff could be an element inside of the super detailed programed sequence stuff.
4. There’s a lot of stuff I’m thinking about where.. you have.. say.. a kind of tweakage space reverb and delay inside of a deeply programmed mix..  

A Concluding Statement

Stretching is important.. and that’s really what this is about.. What’s slightly strange about this post is that it seems to almost emphasize the.. let call it objective facts.. over the sorta internal organizing principles that would be.. what is actually known.. the facts.. we must.. as Hunter Thompson would say.. buy the ticket, take the ride.. to really get at.. so it is a strange synthesis.. and we’ll have to see what happens.

In any event.. in the end.. this is just like a confession of one tiny piece in a much larger puzzle

So you’ll know doubt recall, if you’ve been following me for any length of time.. and closely enough to notice this sorta thing or remember it.. lol.. that I’ve been kind of excited about the possibilities of vocal synthesis. Vocal synthesis is a technology via which we use special kinds of synthesizers to… well sing. This is,  I think, an interesting subject.. if only from an academic perspective.. but for me it takes on special importance because.. I can’t really sing.. and it, at least potentially, could be the best way to bring lyrics to my music… or at least one key to it.

Generally.. for music to be popular, it needs vocals..  I’m not really aiming to be a pop sound artist.. but.. as kind of avant guard and experimental as many of my musical inclinations might be.. the music I make is not like.. an unapproachable high brow thing… it is a product of a certain type of aesthetic thinking.. it is a kind of searching, a kind of adventure.. and exploration. I love the feeling like.. I’m doing something original.. developing a unique voice… I’m.. even if it’s only on a compositional kind of level.. or on a kind of.. purely aesthetic level.. talking about certain things.. its a kind of sonic philosophical discourse.. it’s often described as “conceptual music.” All of this doesn’t make it unapproachable unless the soul metric of approachability is that it sounds like everything  you’ve already heard in your life..

On the subject of lyrics 

The possibilities of lyrics is.. both exciting and  terrifying for me. Without lyrics the music seems like it’s open to infinite interpretation.. and lyrics seem to.. suggest “and this is what this piece of music is about,” the implication being that it potentially limits interpretations..  Further.. can I even be a great lyricist? I mean.. as I strike out trying to do this, will it somehow work against what is good in my work?

I have, as it turns out, been writing lyrics since I was at least in the 8th grade… They have never really been anything I’ve been overly proud of.. never sure if they suck.. but occasionally I show them to people.. and some people really like them.. so what the hell, right?

My lyrics start out in a spirit that is very much coming from the same place as my music.. a kind of anarchical relationship to structure.. which is where the searching starts.. lets throw out notions of right and wrong, and build a new world with new values.. new ideas of right and wrong.. on the aesthetic level here of course.

My lyrics tend to be about a kind of cosmic searching.. a search for enlightenment.. It’s as if the writer has a certain persona.. and that persona can be both super smart, and super monstrous.. at best there can be a kind of mind bending quality to it that challenges, at least for the moment, you’re perception of the.. well just how you think about things… and it does this in a way that feels dangerous.

sometime the next day:

I’ve been writing all this crap and not posting it, so hopefully I can just get through this one fast.. already I’m not quite sure of the flow.. but what the hell, lets finish this puppy…

Cantor first impressions

I downloaded the Cantor demo sometime ago.. and wasn’t supper happy with it.. but it is pretty close to the only game in town.. at least on the Mac.. But the demo, as it turns out, is a version behind the real version.. so it was time to check out the current version.

The first challenge is learning how to use it. VirSyn’s ideas about interface design are a little.. well both dated and idiosyncratic..  and it doesn’t help that vocal synthesis is kind of a big jump away from how traditional synthesizers work…

You have this interface, and you draw in notes.. and on the notes you tell it what word you want that note to be… from here we can adjust various parameters of the note to create a vocal performance…

The first thing you start dealing with are phenomes.. which are component sounds of our language.. you type the word, it has a big old dictionary from which it finds the word.. and the component phenomes.. and you can adjust the phenome spacing in the note. There’s more to it then this, but this is the basics of it.

The first mega huge problem you run into is the interface.. which proves to be a little bit of a pain in your butt… as far as how to get working.. and even once you have it worked out.. it’s rather clumsy.. as a for instance.. hitting command Z for undo.. very frequently doesn’t undo what you just did in Cantor, but undoes the “why yes, I’d like to add Cantor to my project in my DAW” command.. resulting in the loss of hours of work.. and then some of the features don’t even seem to quite work.. but then.. I’m just a learner, so who knows.

After some time mucking around with it I did find a workflow that made sense.. It’s one of these programs where you have to learn to work around it’s limitations.. which.. sucks.. but.. the results were exciting.

How Cantor differs from it’s competition.

On the PC side of things there’s.. I wanna say its made by Yamaha… a similar instrument.. but the difference there is that the phenomes are not synthesized, they’re sampled… The result is that you can actually get fairly realistic realizations of singers.. where as with Cantor.. there’s no hiding the fact that its synthesized.

The choice, at least if you’re on a PC, between going with a sample based or synthesis based.. singing instrument.. is probably an aesthetic / what sort of applications do you want to explore with it sorta thing: There are lots of places where robot type voices sound pretty cool, after all… which might be particularly true for someone like myself.. who does mostly electronic music anyway. 

Some other options I’ve considered:

One option is to attempt to sing… and use a program like melodyne to fix my wrong notes. Here the problems are a couple fold:

1. It “may be” that hitting the wrong notes is not all that’s wrong with my singing. There’s software out there, of a not unsubstantial cost, that one can use to fix these problems as well… but of course thats more money and more work.
2. The kind of gear needed to record really good vocals isn’t cheap, and I haven’t really invested in it.
3. The work flow would involve.. write the song, practice the song, record the song, edit the badness.. which ends up taking quite a lot of time and energy.. so that… even given the problems we find with Cantor.. it actually has a much better workflow for.. kinda how I’m doing things now.

Another option is Vocoding 

I don’t think I’ve really played with Vocoding too much.. the VirSyn effects bundle I recently invested in includes a Vocoder.. One that got a really good review in a recent issues of Sound on Sound just recently.. so I’m ready to try it out… 

Basically.. you have two signals.. signal one we look at and analyze… what is the amplitude of what frequency? You have a kind of grid of so many frequencies.. on the second signal.. we apply EQ… that imprints on the second signal.. what happened on the first.. if this frequency is this loud on the first, turn the EQ that far up on the second.. for that part in our grid. 

So this is how vocoding works… and the results tend to be.. “and now we have a funky talking robot.” There’s more applications for vocoding then this.. but this would seem to be the main one. 

latter: 

There’s probably more to say, but I must post… 

If you’re into digital instruments, you’ve probably heard of Omnisphere… It’s a new software synthesizer put out by Spectralsonics… It came out this past September.. and it’s something a lot of people have been very excited about.. Because the music I make often has a very ambient quality to it.. and because Omnisphere is sorta like.. there older Atmosphere.. all be it on steroids.. and this being a truly wonderful instrument.. if you’re into making ambient music.. well, you can see why I’d be interested..

 Here’s a video to give you a better idea of what it’s like.

So far I’ve really only played with it for a couple of hours.. and I’ve watched all there instructional videos.. So.. I figure I have a pretty good overview of it.. enough to write a post on..  One that really won’t go beyond first impressions.

My current digital instrument library consists chiefly of Native Instruments Komplete… with Kore.. and then there’s Reason.. I say this because I think this is somehow coloring my perception. So far I’m sorta wandering around the application wondering what all the hype is about…. 

Basically.. out side of say Reaktor, I’d say this is probably the most powerful synth in my library now.. The modulation routing reminds me a bit of Massive, or even Reason’s Thor.. The envelopes are basically a take on Absynth.. taken some place else.. The patch browsing is like quite a bit like Kore.. I think I like Kore’s browsing better, but then I haven’t really adapted to Omniphere too much yet.. so maybe my feelings on that will change.

Programing sounds is a very modular sort of affair..  It sorta reminds you Kore in the sense that it’s as if you’re building a synth sound where in you could have multiple component synth sounds.. which is to say it’s sort of “super instrument esk”

 Omnisphere features a number of different synthesis types.. or should we say oscillator types..  which.. well they go deeper then an instrument like Thor.. there are places where I could see them going deeper.. 

I would say my over all feeling is that there’s a hell of a lot of marketing hype around Omnisphere.. and it’s not totally clear to me how it relates to it’s hype.. I think I’m going to have to take some time to really program sounds before I really get a feel for it… but… as critical as I sorta am of it, at this point, I could very easily see this becoming my favorite synth.. so..  We’ll just have to see… 

What I do really appreciate about it is some of the wild experimental approaches they’ve taken to develop of some there “psycho acoustic samples.”

Ok, well check out this video, right.. it’s like.. super “infomercial style” accept.. it’s like the coolest informercial I’ve ever seen.. I mean.. I mean it’s as if John Cage were a part of the informercial..

So.. I guess its sorta almost like.. on a philosophical level, that Omnisphere is so cool.. like a philosophy of sound design.. 

In the last entry I posted, at least as of me sitting here writing this, I started to talk about this kind of Jazz esk production of mine.. As it stands I think this might be the weakest of the tracks I’m doing for this years NaSoAlMo challenge.. but still, seeing as I’m in the middle of working on it, it seems worth talking about some. 

As stated earlier.. It features an old B4 type organ, an up right bass, violin, trumpet, and drums.. so just from the perspective of sounds.. timbers.. it’s very jazz-e sounding. The real trouble for me.. is that I’m not much used to this kind of production.. the kind of production where you do a lot of MIDI programing in order to create what might sound like an authentic jazz band.

The trouble is not so much in the struggle for making something sound authentic.. and that’s not to say it sounds all that authentic.. the struggle is in finding a way to do something great with these sounds, working in this manner.. I would describe most of the music for this track as a kind of searching… a searching for something that might sound great..

[editor’s note: Matt would like to apologize for his piss pour writing of this post.. he’s been very sick.. crazy sleep patterns, often out of it.. and I’m sure if he worked harder at it, he could come up with a hell of a lot of other excuses] 

How electronically creating “authentic jazz” differs from electronic music more generally (or at least my electronic music more generally) 

When you work with electronic music the way I do, you’re working with something that’s.. very concrete, right there in front of you… a set of sounds. You can do certain things with those sounds.. to combine them in certain ways.. but much of that vocabulary is not at my disposal here.. as that would not result in an authentic sorta Jazz thing…

So it’s a little liking tying one hand behind your back.. and you think “well, time to learn to use these other muscles more, so….”

Relationships to Musical Compositional Theory 

This track’s harmony and melody are more or less par for the course for me.. at least for starters. My normal dealings with harmony and melody are…. abstract.. in someway disembodied from traditional approaches… we are off in the land of the conceptual… and though I suppose what I’m creating is a kind of far out Jazz.. there is still need to kind of sit down and bring this stuff back to earth.. which means.. thinking about these things in more conventional ways.

I can right traditional melody… I can even right traditional melody that is “kinda” good… the basic ideas of music theory exist in me.. not as something I actually think about but just something I know.. as you might know about gravity as you endeavor to go for a walk… I mean you don’t actually have to think about this stuff..  but because so much of my music is… somehow about trying to transcend anything like a conventional thinking… So I don’t normally have to deal with this stuff.

An attitude I sometimes take is “well hell, lets just throw some notes around without bothering to think to much about there implications.” There’s a lot circle of 5th stuff going on.. there’s a lot of.. areas where we are moving through a… framework that isn’t really that out there..  but it’s as if that framework is really just to facilitate utter madness… until such time as the madness overtakes the structure.. and we totally leave the world of the known…

It’s as if the structure was a preconception.. and when reality was confronted it was abandoned for the voice of the muse…  there we go.

So.. I can surely apply, and indeed  am.. those ideas about structure…  but.. without my usual vocabulary… many things become naked.. and don’t work so well.

Orchestration

Orchestration is probably a good example.. Conventionally people learn music buy understanding it in terms of harmony, melody, and orchestration… as these 3 differentiated categories.  The practice of music making is a little bit different.. because they’re not truly so differentiated.. this differentiation is, after all, a projection of the mind..

None the less.. in a traditional compositional process, orchestration is often the final element.. which basically comes down to what instruments should play what.

Now the way I work is usually to use electronic instruments.. and in this context.. we can synthesize the very timbers..  In a certain way.. it’s as if we are approaching issues of orchestration on a kind of pscyho-acoustic kind of level. And indeed.. the process of creating a mix, at least for the sort of work I generally do.. is really about orchestration.

To fully appreciate what I’m trying to talk about might require a history lesson of sorts.. or about the relationship of the concert hall to the orchestra.. how this shapes the sound… and maybe a history of recording..

Well whatever, we won’t get to that here cause I don’t really know it well enough to tell it..

How I normally approach orchestration 

Instrument organizations 

Well let me give an example of how mixing is normally a part of orchestration in my work.. and kinda explain how this works.

I have in my mind certain categories of sounds..

• What is generally referred to as pads.  The term Pad actually comes from mixing.. it’s something you put in your mix to “glue” elements together.. Which is typically something that’s important to stereo mixing.. as a pose to mono.. however, in my work these tend to be more like “ambient pads.” Here we will have long sustained notes.. that possibly evolve over time.. that kind of hang in the air.. 
• Leads: You’d use a lead instrument as a kind of solo instrument.. in my way of thinking these are sounds with short attack times.. that generally play rather quickly.. fast moving passages.
• Pitched percussion: For me, pitched percussion fall into two categories.. the first is one that has both a short attack, and a short release… These are good when you’re music is getting rather aggressive. The second category is pitched percussion that has a longer release.. or perhaps it’s being fed into a delay.. so that it continues to linger in the air.. these basically get treated in a similar way as ambient pads.. accept that they’ll provide more of an accent.. as they have the short attack time
• None pitched percussion: This really functions in a similar way as the pitched percussion, accept that we aren’t really thinking about melody or harmony.. its more like, low, mid, and high… and with some thought to the attack and release times.. and how that will effect the over all mix.

I suppose, that’s more less the story… Or that’s the main categories I’m thinking in.. though in practice these broad ideas become relative to what’s going on.. in terms of what is defined by what.. another words.. something that might normally fit in one category.. now goes into another category as the ecology of the context shifts, if that quite makes sense.

Next comes the issue of mix stuff. 

Thinking about mix basically has just few things to worry about.. which is frequency space and our virtual sound stage.

Frequency Space

All sound is made of fluctuations of amplitude… that sorta follows a pattern.. relative to frequency space.. which is to say “what frequencies are fluctuating.” When you have two instruments where there frequencies overlap.. whichever instrument is the louder.. or whichever frequency is the louder.. is what will be heard. Thus we have the issue of “frequency masking” where by the less loud stuff.. isn’t heard, or is “masked.”

Stuff is always over lapping..  which isn’t necessarily a problem… but sometimes is. When it is a problem.. there are generally 2 solutions.

1. Is to place them at opposite sides of your stereo field.. so if one is coming mainly from the left speaker, and the other from the right.. you ought to be able to hear the details of both.
2. We have EQ… we can isolate different instruments into there own frequency space by.. basically turning up the part of that instrument’s frequency we want to come through.. and turning down those frequencies of the competing sounds.. we don’t want to conflict with… In practice we do this with all our instruments till they all work….

I should say a few other words about EQ…

1. It is almost always better to turn down a frequency then turn up a frequency 
2. There are certain guidelines for how to EQ different instruments.. or how modifying certain frequencies of them.. well effect there sound.. which is one of the things you think about while trying to isolate them into there own frequency space.

Ok.. so that’s the basics.. a conversation on compression would normally fit in right about here.. but we’ll skip on over to the subject of our virtual sound stage.

Virtual Sound Stage 

Basically we are talking about how how close or far a sound seems to be from us, and where it is in relationship… well left to right..

A sense of distance can be achieved via volume level, as well as what proportion of that sound is going into a reverb. Further.. “darker reverbs,” which is to say reverbs with less prominent high frequencies.. will help make the sounds seem further away… as well as reverbs with a longer “pre delay” which is the length of time between the sound hitting the reverb, and us hearing the reverb sound back.

Generally, with reverbs also comes the topic of delay… which can have a similar effect… In any event.. mixing you’re instruments into multiple reverbs, and indeed delays.. perhaps with some other effects like.. well lets say EQ and Compression… is how how we create a sense of depth in our mixes.

How the mix relates to orchestration. 

Reverbs and delays have the power to effect.. to blur.. both frequency space and our attack, decay, and release times… of any of our instruments.. thus.. if you put a lot of reverb and delay on a snare.. it sorta becomes “ambient pad esk.” To the extent to which our categories are “ecologically contextually dependent,” how sounds are mixed can change what sorta category they fit into.

The result is.. my production style, with its “kinetic mixing” aka.. heavy levels of automation of these mix elements.. gives me a lot of flexibility in how I combine my sounds… 

A sorta central idea in my work is the idea of “holistic thinking” or that.. the categories we use to divide up reality, ought to be driven by the questions / challenges we are dealing with at any particular point in time. Also.. we don’t have to deal with them in any particular linear order.. So everything from melody, to harmony, to orchestration, to performance, to recording, to mixing.. 

I’m to tired, as of this writing, to fully go into the virtues of this sort of conceptual frame work.. what I think is sorta amazing about it.. why I work in this manner.. So I’ll just leave it at that.

Back On Earth; how this relates to our Jazz esk production.

Well.. this whole idea of working holistically.. is sorta ripped apart for us. The mix is the first thing that’s done.. the first thing is “and this is where these instruments are in space.” As we compose the music.. we deal with the implications..

Latter:

Ok, this is long and not terribly well written.. I apologize for the latter.. I’m sick and slightly out of it.. but thought I should post something anyway.   

I figure.. even if I’m totally consumed by other things.. I ought to try and at least get up a post a week or so.. so here goes

These posts might be getting repetitive on this point.. but allow me to describe for you the first track.. as it stands

Lyrics

It’s based on some lyrics I tweeted.. I don’t have them handy.. but I’ll probably post them in good time.. kind of surreal / dada-distic, so to speak.. a strange style of writing.. pretty out there.. extraordinarally deep.. though there depth lys in a place that makes them difficult to understand.. seems almost like gibberish in places.. 

If I were to try and put it in a sound bit.. its as if it’s blaming our current economic problem as an effect of extroversion in the modern situation..  but I’m not sure if that’s what it’s really doing.

Vocal Performance

The performance is to be realized via VirSyn’s Cantor.. which is a vocal synthesizer.  I’ve really only fiddled with Cantor thus far.. so I’m not entirely sure about.. well if I’m going to be able to get an acceptable performance out of it.. not sure how it’ll end up working.. not sure if the work flow I’m attempting is realistic.. so this remains the big question mark.

The way I’m working it is to write out a synth line.. that’s the vocal line.. a kind of stand in.. and to take that performance data.. and put it into Cantor.. and basically fine tune it from there.

The frequency space of Cantor, versus the synth that’s doing the mock up.. will be different.. so.. a part of the process will be trying to make Cantor intelligible with all the other stuff going on in the mix..  well its actually slightly more complex then even this.. Basically.. we have a tun of instruments.. that I’ve brought down into a few groups.. the plan is the put EQ and Compression on the different groups individually.. via Liquid Mix 16.. also put something on the master buss.. and kinda automate the EQs as needed.. 

I also expect that.. once the performance data gets brought into Cantor.. I might start messing around with it.. and possibly there’ll be stuff like backing vocals.. and who knows what.

The Music

The music is pretty insane actually.. I’d say it’s sorta Indra’s Net-esk.. only more so.. taken to a whole new level. 

What goes into it

So far the production features about 30 instruments.. and about 8 auxiliary effects.. We’re talking 2 instances of Digital Performer’s convolution reverb.. 2 delay orientated Guitar Rig Patches, one EVerb from Digital Performer.. 2 reverbs from Kore 2… and I’m not sure what else.. 

To appreciate the insanity of this.. For each instrument.. besides simply telling it what notes to play when, and how hard to play those notes.. you have the automation of Pan position, volume, 8 auxiliary sends.. very often pitch bend and modulation.. and some of the instruments have other performance parameters that I might play with over the course of a track. So.. that’s what..  12 times 30? So that’s 360 parameters you’re programing.. never mind the notes.. So the production is very time consuming.. And though I’ve put in a lot of labor.. it’s currently only about two thirds of the way through… and only a little more then 3 minutes long.

Results thus far

As I was saying before.. It reminds me quite a bit of my Indra’s Net stuff.. only more so. The things I felt critical of in Indra’s Net.. well.. it overcomes those problems and limitations.. There’s more instruments, more effects.. more advanced software, way more powerful computer.. What all this means to the music is… well I’m not really sure.. but I think it’s something kind of big.

While we’re at it, I might as well share with you one of the question marks it presents me with…  Because the amount of instruments, and what not, are so much higher.. things are way more complex. Structurally, my music is not big on repetition…  at least not in a conventional sense..  One of the reasons repetition is important to.. say pop music, is it assists the digestion of the music… it is, after all, “the hook.” When my music was a few order of magnitude less complex then the current project.. I think the simplicity made it easier to digest.. So one of the things I worry about is.. well.. how difficult it might be to appreciate / digest / whatever… So… that’s like a design consideration question.

If we just listen to the music and try and appreciate what it is..  

Well its like a first step into a new world. I think it might be some of the best stuff I’ve ever done. It is full of amazing moments.. flying between a kind of symphonic like aggression kind of LSD trip.. to adventures in ambient space.. where we feel the contraction of space its self.. beneath our feet.. Along the way we travel through so many different sonic spaces and environments.. experience so many different sonic phenomenon.. From classical to all out electronica..  I just think its amazing.

On Lyrics and Music

Now.. beyond all that.. the music is actually a kind of score to the lyrics.. so the music moves through space in such a way that.. it in some way comments on the lyrics.. There’s a line “to creep the reaper out” and we feel the darkening of the space around us…. 

It seems, in a certain way, that both my lyrics and my music are like “adventures in run on sentences.”  It’s all stream of consciousness stuff..  we can go anywhere at anytime.. for any reason.. but..

The spirit of the lyrics is playfully subversive.. seeking to express truths that.. are somehow how in our collective shadow.. My lyrics are very often dark.. living in the abyss.. some of there darkness has to do with there.. transcendence of conventional.. limitations.. which is it’s self an expression of freedom.. all be it free to give satan a bare hug, or something.. freedom  to be monstrous… 

The music is another matter.. A music that is programmed.. note by note… where we’re probably programing something like.. well how many parameters per note? A lot…  That’s a slow a methodical process… It’s not really free as the breeze in quite the same way the lyrics are.. It’s more “free to exert influence over the momentum of the flux in question.” 

So the free as a bird lyrics becomes the central axis point of the whole production.. It’s like a stream of consciousness construction that’s.. somehow taken to this very extreme point of being realized.. via a slow and methodical process? The slow and methodical process is stream of consciousness to.. just that it’s a stream that takes place for days.. as a pose to a couple of tweets on twitter.. 

Going Deeper Into It.

It may sound like I’m just throwing a lot of random inane facts at you… that’s because I’m fumbling in the dark to try and express something I’ve yet to articulate… ok.. read onward for the break through.. or stop here.

We have streams of consciousness that happen at different time scales, what does that mean? Look at your self..  at some point.. and try to become mindful of all the thoughts as they stream past your consciousness.. We could be talking about.. “lets smell this flower” to “I think I shall now turn my head to find out what that dog is barking about.” 

You can look at it in such a way so as to see many thoughts as being made up of smaller thoughts.. and.. if you could imagine your thoughts as grains.. that made this kind of gass.. that filled a space.. you could say “show me all the grains that correspond to this theme” and you would start to see patterns in how various smaller thoughts where components of multiple larger thoughts.. 

I have a kind of pscyho-philosophy that has explored the dynamics underlying how all this works.. Why we think of what when.. what drives our attention.. and how this related to our concepts of reality and life, and what not.. And as it turns out.. this psycho-philosophical blah blah blah.. underlies my thoughts on aesthetics.. and is a major part of my the conceptual framework I use in making my art and music.. 

The idea that we’d be, essentially.. scoring streams of consciousness.. with streams of consciousness.. in a rather operatic way.. The idea that its sorta all on a lark.. that we then become committed to.. if for no other reason then to.. see what might happen.. that in a sense the whole production is nothing but a little experiment to see where all these thoughts lead…

Well that’s my problem with trying to articulate something.. how do you articulate an intuition? 

Well I guess that’s all I’ll write about on that track for now…  lol, but wait.. there’s more.. there’s also a Reason project in the works

The Reason Project

I was starting to feel a little burned out on the huge sound project.. so I thought I’d go take a stroll through Reason..  This project had me starting out via programming a couple Thor patches.. 

I don’t think of myself as terribly talented in the field of sound synthesis.. but.. sound synthesis is.. well I’ll end up with something.. and that something will probably give me something unique to try and go explore as a part of the larger production.

This project also had me loading up REX files..  Ages ago I blogged about how I had invested in ReCycle.. and used cheese open source voice synths to realize some lyrics.. and how I’d processed the hell out of those lyrics.. and then chopped them up into REX files.  Well.. I decided to take one line from that project.

This gets into another whole set of ideas I was playing with.. at the current stage… The idea is that we could eventually put together a track that would be.. that whole song.. with all the lyrics to it.. but for now we have one sentence.. going into this new project.. or one sentence.. cut up.. distorted.. processed.. rendered FUBAR.. played for it’s textures.. not even meant to be recognized as the sentence it is..

Here the vocals become.. a strange texture explored.. we emphasize a few words.. out of context.. as it turns out.. the word we are emphasizing in this project is the word “context.”

In any event.. there will be more to be talked about latter.. I’m over tired here.. what I will say is there’s some very interesting things coming into play with how I’m starting to play with lyrics and how they relate to the structure of the music I’m making….  leave it at that…

NaSoAlMo: What it is and why we like it

This month, or November actually, I plan on participating in NaSoAlMo, other wise known as National Solo Album Month.. This is a thing where various musician / sound artistic types.. decided to participate in a challenge to create a solo album in a months time..  Basically.. it’s an excuse to get serious.. for a month.

Last year, as long times followers would know, I created ZarMattAThustra’s Deep Space Adventures.. for NaSoAlMo….  This, I must tell you, was one hell of an adventure. There’s nothing like working your ass off on something, if you want to grow by leaps and bounds… and at the end of last years National Solo Album Month’s thing..  I felt like I had made a giant jump in my music production / etc skills..  And so now, we embark on the next adventure…

On the Stategery and tactics of taking on such a challenge

Generally speaking.. if I’m working in my conventional ways.. and didn’t have a lot of other stuff to contend myself with.. was very focused.. I could maybe spit out about a track a week.. which might be around.. oh lets say an average of about 6 minutes a pop…. which comes out to what, like 24 minutes of music? Well.. the challenge is to make an album of at least 29:09 minutes.. so that’s not quite going to cut it.. and seeing as I have other things to deal with in life.. and seeing as last year I only found out about this about half way through the month… one must develop alternative strategies and tactics.. which is perhaps another interesting thing to deal with… 

So, lets take a look at last years strategies.. and this years strategies.

ZarMattAThustra’s Deep Space Adventures Production Strategy 

I found out, as I said before, about this challenge, about half way through the month.. but had already begun work on a few tracks.. so figured I could still make a go of it.. If I tried something radicle.

My radical process started with.. working with different types of sound generating type programs.. where you improvise via tweaking various parameters and record the results. This instantly creates a whole lot of music.. but then you have the question of “is this interesting music?” So the next challenge is “how do we make this interesting music?” This became the jumping off point for an experimental sonic adventure. For the most part, this involved the following approaches:

1. Lets Process the crap out of these audio files.
2. Lets mix stuff together different versions of processed audio into a kind of composite audio file.
3. Lets slice up the audio file into discreet loops n stuff
4. Lets sequence the loops
5. Lets integrate this with our usual way of working 

 Well, that’s the broad outline anyway.. 

Tools Used

1. Ableton Live
2. Arturia Storm
3. Native Instruments Komplete (mostly Reaktor)
4. A Wimpy G4 Mac
5. Reason
6. A guitar
7. A Zoom H4 field recorder 

Ok, so that’s the basic broad brush stroke outline of it.. You can read more of my writings related to this project here…  That would be the full list.. The writings where I wrote during the production are as follows: Off In Reaktor Land, Red Rum Re Drumed, and finally Gonzo adventures in music production.

Should you like to hear the album in it’s entirety, you can find it on over here at mattsearles.com/music. 

At the time I created it.. I wasn’t real sure of it.. but since then I’ve gotten a lot of good reviews from people.. and now figure.. well, it’s probably a pretty good album.

The New Production Adventure

Tools likely to be used:

1. The Bad Ass 8 Core Mac Pro
2. This here new MacBook (2GHz Due)
3. Komplete 5
4. Kore
5. Ableton Live
6. Reason
7. ReCycle
8. A Tascam 16 channel Mixer as a MIDI controller
9. An M-Audio DJ like MIDI controller
10. A Guitar
11. A Slide Bass
12. Digital Performer
13. Liquid Mix 16
14. Couple of budget Condenser Microphones
15. Zoom H4

In addition to all that madness..  I’m looking to add VirSyns Cantor Vocal Synth and… VirSyns “Take Five FX bundle” which includes Bark, Matrix, Reflect, TDesign, and VTape. Indulge me as I talk about these a little, won’t you?

1. Bark is a pretty interesting looking  27 band filter / EQ and compressor
2. VTape is a set of analog tape emulation plugs that emulate tape based saturation, delay, and flange. I’m very much in need of a tape delay type effect.. and very much wanting some sort of analog tape emulation warmth.. 
3. Reflect is an Algorithmic Convolution Reverb. Even in the current version of Digital Performer, I’m not feeling like my reverb bases are covered quite enough.. and I expect Reflect to really help out along these lines.. and the integration of Algorithmic and Convolution technologies into a single reverb unit is a quite attractive thing.
4. TDesign is a Transient former.. I don’t know too much about this sorta effect.. but it does give you control over your dynamics / transience.. and there are quite a few production folks out there whom are very into such things
5. Matrix is a Vocoder, and according to a recent issue of Sound On Sound, a very impressive Vocoder.

 So… as you can no doubt see.. We’re talking about a massive upgrade from last year’s project.. studio wise anyway, so, what of the plan off attack?

Plan of Attack

I have lots of music ideas, and I’m pretty sure this project isn’t going to be able to explore them all.. but, we’ll certainly see how far we can make it.

• The first thing I want to do is.. See if I can’t jam out some stuff using Kore to control various Reaktor beatboxes, sequenced instruments, and sound generators..  This will effectively create one box full of building blocks.
• Next I want to experiment with a somewhat traditional-ish approach to sequencing.. where you play around on a keyboard, quantize stuff, and put together stuff that way..
• I want to use ReCycle to create REX files out of some of the results.. to use as building blocks that way.
• A rather central thing I want to explore is.. vocals. These vocals will probably be ether.. me speaking into microphones and vocoding the hell out of it.. / Melodying the hell of it.. or Cantor stuff.. somehow creatively mixed into the music.
• I’m actually thinking of the possibility that this album project could feature some sort of a narrative / lyrical whatever.. that might sit at the center of the album.. which would be a really huge jump for me to take.
• I see a part in the process where I jam away on guitar and bass to construct.. well… something or other.
• I imagine a part of the process where I have all kinds of content loaded up into Ableton Live.. and use the MIDI controllers / Mixers to kinda improvise out something…

 Of course, in the end, all this stuff must me integrated into one giant process… so, wish me luck…

I seem to be inside of strange place where instead of actually producing music I’m… kinda like designing the building blocks of music production projects…. Or I’m programing synthesizers anyway.

I’m in Absynth 4.. Seems like the last time I sat around programing Absynth.. it must have been a couple versions back.. In any event, I find myself digging down deeper.

Because all my programing is now “Synthesizer X + Kore” there’s a kind of.. strangely different way of thinking about synthesizers. I’m a software synth guy, you must understand.. so I’m not used to having a lot of hardware controls via which I can get expressive with a synthesizer.. So I’ve never programmed a synth with the notion of “if you move these 8 knobs, and 8 buttons you’ll find this groovy expressive potential in this sound.”

Absynth.. Is interesting in that.. It’s one of the first synthesizers I ever kind of fell in love with programming. Absynth’s expressive potential for ambient music.. for evolving sound scapes.. is just awesome. And there’s something about programming it that gets my imagination going like no other..  It’s all a bit more like creating a sonic puppet then a conventional synth patch.. In the sense that you’re going in and finding different ways it could be expressive.. as a part of how you program it.

Latter that night

The patch I’m currently working on, as I write this post, is one that I’m not real sure if it’s usefulness as an instrument.. I mean I have no idea how it could fit into my work.. but I will say.. its fun as hell playing with… perhaps I can take a swing at trying to express what I mean by this….

Conventionally.. I don’t really use compressors or EQs.. or I didn’t until recently.. and I’m still at an early stage of learning how to integrate them into my work. Now conventionally EQs and Compressors are… well like the most important tools of mix engineers. EQs and compressors help you to shape various aspects of your mix.. But how I usually do it is.. in the choice of what instruments I use.. Another words.. how I shape the things EQ and Compressors shape.. I shape by things like what instruments I use.. which is.. in a lot of ways.. kinda better.   

A day or so latter:

You used to be able to just embed these.. but I can’t work out how to do that since they changed last.fm a little bit.. in any event.. here’s a direct link to a track called A Short Trip To Another Day. (clicking on it will open it in a new window.) The reason I link to this track is.. is it’s an example of something created based off.. well the same sorta spirit I’m working in now..  

I’m jumping around in this post a little.. so try and bare with me..

A Short Trip To Another Day was one of my first attempts at programming Absynth.. The program I created was.. one that I didn’t really know how I would be expressive with it.. or how it would work in my music.. So the process of creating A Short Trip to Another Day was one of exploring how it might fit into my work..

Working in this sorta way.. I think it pushes you in different directions then you might other wise work in.. which can result in more interesting work.. and I have to say that this might be one of my favorite tracks.. and so it illustrates what I’m talking about in this entry. 

Ok.. so…  

As I was saying before.. I never used to use EQs or Compressors in my productions.. and um.. EQs and Compressors are tools via which to craft a mix.. and they indeed are tools that I could use in order to exert some control over the sounds created by my synth programs..

So.. looking forward from where I’m at at this moment.. I see growth potential in my music, along a few different lines..  

1. There’s the process of learning to program various synthesizers and the power of custom sound libraries.. and all there implications… This isn’t a totally new concept.. but we are learning to program new synths / new versions of synths.. ad exploring new possibilities along these lines.
2. There is the issue of the hardware / software control.. thinking about sounds as puppets.. with various ways of getting expressive with our sounds.. that are much more complex in how they might be expressive.. then normally found in my work.
3. There is the subject of how to use EQs and Compressors in my work.. where they might make my work better, or perhaps make my work not soo much better.. but it is about the exploration of what there roll can be.. which is in large measure a more artistic thing then a conventional technical thing of.. the way things are conventionally done by people.
4. There is the possibility of using Kore 2 for “Super Instruments,” which is to say.. You create a patch.. that combines any number or synthesizers and effects into one giant “super instrument” and what that could bring to the table.

In talking about these possible directions..  for growth.. We are talking about how this work could become enriched. 

Latter that night, over tired (after a synth programing catastrophe)  

I started in on a new Absynth program today. What happened is.. I figured out how to have the.. well performance sliders, lets call them.. things I’d probably control via the Kore 2 controller.. modify envelopes. This would be a fairly simple thing.. but it’s enough to get me excited… With envelopes you can create rhythms… and you know.. these rhythms could evolve over time.. but also you could have different parts of your synth program playing different rhythms of different lengths.. that loop.. So its like.. well lets just say that’s pretty cool for the way I like to work..  (though I don’t normally use synth patches that include rhythms)… but the polymeric possibilities are very exciting to me..   

Anyway…..  So you can take one of these rhythms.. and you can make it so that one or another performance control alters the tempo of the rhythms… and in one patch.. you could have a lot of rhythms… So what I wanted to do is build in some way of controlling the relative amplitude of different rhythms, as well as there tempos… and also just kind of throw some fun stuff on the fire. Now.. .

Ok, groovy enough.. But allow me to attempt to explain what’s exciting to me about this..  out side of just the usual “and these are the reasons polymeric stuff is good for ambient music styles.” We’re actually not just talking poly-metric… where talking poly-tempi…  Another words.. we’re have multiple tempos going on inside of a single synth patch… I guess it’s like you have the main tempo.. that’s the tempo of the project  your working on.. and everything is synched to that tempo.. and you can shift that tempo around if you like.. but that’s like “the conductor tempo.” But.. you could have.. various instruments that… while being able to start out with an obvious relationship to that tempo.. can go off the rails in one way or another.

The difference between music and noise is probably your ability to recognize a pattern… And for patterns to be interesting.. they probably need to reach an optimal state between simple and complex, with respect to ones ability to recognize them… 

A few days latter 

Ok, I’m going to leave it off right here.. without finishing this, cause other wise it probably wont get posted.. but at least its an interesting look at what I’m up to. 

So, Cantor has a.. I’m a little confused about this.. but it seems to be a 30 day or 20 hour trial.. seems I’ve been stuck with the 20 hour one! In any event.. I’ve downloaded and installed said software.. and started playing around with it.  So allow me to talk about it….

In the instructions it explains that Cantor is not meant to be a ‘vocalist replacement,’ but a means for the exploration of vocal synthesis.. which is interesting..

Err, I should slow down to explain the back story.. or at least kinda what I’m talking about here…  Cantor is a vocal synthesizer. You can find a video demonstration of an older version of Cantor here.. to see for your self. What a vocal synthesizer is is… well.. it creates vocals for you.. the old “singing computer” trick. I’m interested in it.. because I can’t sing.. and the notion of putting vocals in my music is kind of exciting.

How the first steps feel

When you first jump into this here Cantor and its new fangalled vocal synthesis..  once you kinda figure you’re way around the program a little bit (I’m still in the middle of that process) you realize that its time to learn something totally new.. which is to say vocal synthesis. Well.. maybe that’s over stating it a little bit.. but you are jumping into the world of “how do I program a vocal performance.”

The work flow goes something like this:

1. Program you’re melody line
2. Type in the words you want it to sing
3. Arrange “Phonemes” for desired result
4. Screw around with volume levels over time.. for each note
5. Screw around with “tension levels” for each note over time
6. Screw around with pitch bend and vibrato of each note over time
7. Screw around with a few other parameters over time  
8. Concern you self with other elements of the production

That’s more or less how it works.. . I mean if you were to actually achieve a realistic vocal.. it would be via how you program these performance parameters. This basically means you need to start paying attention to the human voice a whole lot more.. and sorta develop your ears.. and go from there. So long story short.. my work features some robotic type singing.

Ok, so what else is there to know about this subject? 

Some of you might be wondering what “Phenomes” are. Well.. if you take a look at all languages.. the component sounds are “Phenomes.” When animators go about animating mouths.. they’ll often look at the Phenomes.. So, when you “arrange the phenomes” you’re basically saying.. over a long sustained word sung.. when the vocal should move from one word sound to the next.. got it?

There’s other features in here to.. like the ability to create you’re own voices.. and other stuff I haven’t quite gotten to figuring out.

Ok, what’s it like in practice? 

For starters I’m feeling a little like it might be time for them to release a new version.. cause this version has not only been around for a while.. it appears a little clumsy to use. Now I say this without yet fully understanding it.. which isn’t fare.. but so far it’s a bit of a pain in the ass..

You spent a lot of time crafting your vocal.. a phrase or two.. then you want to move on to the next phrase or two.. and it’s just.. kinda clumsy in how you move around..

Still.. it’s way better then what I’ve been messing with thus far..  (all of which has been free tools)… It’s relatively clear that it should integrate with my usual productions pretty well..  much better then the other process I’ve been trying out.. which are all horribly time consuming…  And there is something terribly cool about programing a vocal performance.. My verdict on it comes down to.. “I think I’m going to have to play with this a bit more.. and see how it goes.” At the end of this time period.. I should have a better sense of how well it fits into my work.. my process.. and if what I’m now perceiving as flaws.. really are flaws. 

After that its just a matter of looking at other similar programs. 

[Editors Note: This would seem to be the first part in a two part series on sound synthesis with Massive and Kore… here we go over some of the 101s of sound synthesis, and what’s up with Massive and Kore 2. ] 

I think I talked about this just recently, didn’t I?: The subject of the feeling like I want to make electronic music that’s expressive in new ways…. or in different ways then my music is often expressive…  and to start the process of exploring the possibilities.. and sorta like.. creating the stuff..  I’ve started programming with Native Instruments Massive and Kore 2. Kore 2 gives you a hardware interface into your software…  You get 4 rotary controls you can use to control whatever parameters of the sound / patch program you’re creating you like…

To give you an overview.. wish it was a bit quicker.. here’s a Native Instruments infomercial for Kore 2.. I don’t want to get too bogged down with this stuff.. and if you’re not familiar with this kind of technology.. this maybe way over your head.. don’t worry.. This isn’t what this entry is to be about…

[editor’s note: oh no?] 

 So.. the point is.. you can control all kinds of aspects of your sound via the controller.. all of which is automobile… which is the strategy for getting to that expressivity I was talking about..

I thought I might as well… well through another infomercial at you that might go into massive a bit.. but then I found this infomercial with the keyboard player from Korn talking about it.. and figured that would be pretty groovy…  

Ok.. so that’s a good little overview of something or other, right? Ok, enough of this foolishness.. onto the adventures.

Sound Synthesis in Massive

I’m no sound synthesis master.. I’m more of a.. fumble around.. finding things I like.. and hopefully something interesting happens. My knowledge of how to program synths / there architecture.. what the elements of any given sound synthesis engine are.. these kinds of core concepts..  I’m not totally ignorant in these areas.. I mean I have been working on learning this stuff for years.. but… I do tend to feel fairly clueless..

Given my clue impoverishment, one of the things that’s been impressing me about Massive is how approachable and user friendly the experience of learning it has proven to be..  which is particularly nice given how piss poor Native Instruments manuals tend to be..  

A Massive Basic Overview  

With Massive you basically have 3 main oscillators, a noise generator, a modulation oscillator.. we have 4 LFOs, 4 envelops, a couple of filters, 2 insert effects slots.. with a number of effects choices.. 2 sorta global effects.. plus EQ, the ability to control routing.. and a few other odds and ends.

It’s hard to talk about this process without explaining what all that means.. and I’m not sure how far I’ll go into this but…

Oscillators and Sound Sources 

You’re 3 main oscillators… well.. an oscillator is a sound source.. it creates the sound.. and other stuff modifies the sound.. anyway.. In massive.. these 3 main oscillators are “wavetable oscillators.” 

Wavetables are.. well it’s like you have an audio file.. and you have a parameter by which you can sweep through different locations in that audio file.. or perhaps table..  So when programming a wave table synthesizer, modulating the oscillator’s wavetable position.. is pretty standard stuff.

Now the next sound source we have is a noise generator.. Noise generators are.. I want to say something you tend to use creatively… Or I do anyway. These are often used for programming percussive sound.. your average synthesized snare sound.. starts with a noise generator.

The only parameter our noise generator has, outside of amp or volume, is color..  which, as you might imagine “colors the noise” it generates.. basically.

Filters In Massive

In Massive we have 2 filter slots.. for each we have a choice of 12 filter types. Basically a filter… well it filters the sound.. it modifies it.. taking out various frequencies.. perhaps amplifies some frequencies.. 

Modulation Fun

Modulation is really the heart of our programming adventures. We basically have 2 ways of modulating stuff..  via LFOs and envelops.. beyond this.. we can use key velocity.. or how hard we hit the keyboard.. and.. we have “macro control” which.. is sorta an obvious thing to control via your Kore controller.. via turning the knobs on your Kore controller.. and that’s really the heart of what I’m doing…

LFO

An LFO is a low frequency oscillator.. not really a sound source so much as a modulation source.. think of it as the second hand on a clock.. it oscillates around the clock face slowly.. . We can control our LFO’s rate of oscillation.. The LFO modulates / controls other parameters..  like say how much of a filter is going..  making them change slowly over time.. or at whatever rate you set the LFO rate to.

To make things more interesting.. you have different wave form options.. which is like turning your circular clock into a triangle.. or any other shape you would like..

Envelops

I haven’t bothered to dig into the Massive manual.. which isn’t terribly massive.. but my understanding is that you have.. what do you call them, multi state envelopes? Native instruments pioneered this idea with Absynth..  which is one of my favorite synths ever to program.. 

Ok, we’re getting ahead of our selves here. You want to know what an envelope is, don’t cha? Imagine, if you will, a grid. On our grid, our horizontal line represents time and hour vertical line represents….  lets say amplitude. Basically.. you could say an envelop is like.. a little drawing you make that represents the volume of your sound over time… kinda sorta.

Vanilla, in the world of envelopes and sound synthesis, is the ADSR envelope. ADSR = Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release. Attack is the time.. between when you pluck a string on your guitar, and reaches its maximum amplitude / volume.. Attack is also “well just how how loud are we talking anyway? Or.. what’s the path of the.. lets call it “amplitude acceleration” (don’t you love how I invent new terminology just to complexify a subject we are barley following in the first place? Well I suppose, if you know what I’m talking about, you’re entertained by my fumbling attempts at articulation but..) that the amplitude of your sound follows from being no sound at all.. to its maximum level. You follow?

Ok.. groovy..  So decay is both our volume path.. and the time.. between that maximum level and.. a sustain level..  

Ok.. so Sustain..  you hit a key on your keyboard..  a sound goes through the attack and decay envelope stages.. and then reaches the sustain level..  this is the level… or perhaps the place.. that the volume will stay at for as long as you’re holding down that key… 

Release is.. the path the sound takes from letting go that key, and the volume finally reaching zero.

So that should give you a basic understanding of the adsr envelope.. it’s one of the most important synth program building blocks going.. Now in a modular synthesizer architecture… an envelope, be it of an adsr, or a less vanilla variety, can be used to modulate other parameters then just volume.

Is your brain bleeding yet? That’s the problem.. I’m not really looking to teach you this stuff here.. just to give you a basic framework for understanding this stuff… enough so that I can explain what I’m doing.. such are the challenges of my life… I probably need to build a wiki for my site.. or something, so that I can just link to the terms.. but oh well.. 

So.. for our next entry…   the fun with modulation madness… coming soon to this here RSS feed.

And so, here’s an note to leave you on: