Month: May 2023

I used a lot of automation in volume as I want to fade in and out or cross fade different tracks. For example, all the drones in the second half of the piece are gradually coming in because I want to slowly increase the tensity. I also use it to turn on some of the effect such as the distortion and echo effect in the deer’s barking track. Another use of that is panning. Some of the tracks I used spatial effects but sometime I just want simply panning and it is the panning automation come in places. I can control the panning patten easily but drawing in automation and I can fine tone it very easily. The new technique that I started to use is live record automation. As I mention in the spatialisation blog, I used DearVR plug-in, and by live record the automation of the panning, I can control it directly and create more organic panning, and also in that way, I can use the direct instant as I was improvising rather sit the the automation mode, and trying to figure out how much should I put in the parameters in the specific time. I also use the live recoding automation on the Grain delay in the XY pad alone with the automation of the wet dry signal. I feel I can be more content to the track by record the live automation.

I used four different tools for spatialise tracks both for the three-dimensional effects and help for mixing as well. Firstly, I used DearVR plug-in for the fire sound and deer’s barking. The best thing about DearVR is the elevation. It is not just left and right, front and back, but it can also simulate up and down sounds. Therefore, I put all the campfire down a little bit to simulate the campfire position which also below on the ground. For the deer’s barking, I used XY pad in Ableton’s effect rack and set one to Azimuth and Elevation. Then I can record the automation of the effect and change it with curser. As a result, every barks are in different places which simulate the deer were everywhere.

The second plugin is CircularDoppler. The benefit of using this plug-in is the effect of fading in and out with the physical simulation of the pitch shift and also moving in circular motion where I can choose the listener position. I used in the one of the drone track to create the spinning effects. I don’t want it in the same clockwise motion, so I put a LFO of modulate shift parameter and it would become back and forth rather spinning in the same direction. (But I found there is a bug in this version where it may lost all the setup and even not working sometime when I reopen Ableton)

The third one I used is Ableton Auto-Pan. The good thing about this is easy to control the amount of panning, the pattern and the speed. I also can choose different wave form. I used it in some of the drone and Grain delay birdsongs. And the final one is the most basic automation panning. It can do the precise panning as I can draw the panning.

For the first exercise, I used Ableton Operator and midi map to the fine tune on every oscillator and filter in the first attempt and I found that were very droney because I don’t want any silence moment. For the first exercise, I didn’t quite follow the instruction. Instead of try three separate attempts, I layer up three together. The second attempt I used Collision and midi map to Inharmony of both resonator separately. The second track were in higher pitch and shorter note which is contrasting the low drone in the first attempts. For the third attempt, I used Collision again but this time, It has more dissonance and the second resonator have even high pitch. Surprisingly, the original soundtrack are a bit similar to mine one and they both have similar feeling but mine one is more chaotic.

The second exercise, I followed the instruction and did three attempts. The first attempt, I used Operator only as I have prepared enough.

For the second attempt, I custom B to D oscillator waveform, and midi map the fine tuning and level of those three oscillator and also the frequency knob of the low pass filter. I found that quite useful to change the texture of the sound by twisting the level of every oscillator as I set the route of three oscillator go into oscillator A. Finally, I add the phaser afterward.

The final attempts were based on the second one, but I also midi map the phaser wet/dry. This time I am more familiar this setting, as different modified oscillator have different characteristic and a small twist of the volume knobs can have completely different texture. By having the ability to control the phaser, I can have more dreamy sounds and can cut out straight when changing sense. I also add the attack time of oscillator A.

The original sound design of the second exercise stocks me which have completely different feeling as I imagine. And I found the sound design can change audience’s emotion completely even virally are the same.

I went to Wendover as the beginning of my journey because I went to camping last year which I followed Ridgeway and walked from Beacon Hill to Wendover. This time I wanna start from the place I left off last time. The recording gear for this trip was H5 kit and Sennheiser K6 Shotgun Microphone which is come with one porch. So all I have to take is the small H5 kit and this K6 (and of course the fluffy windshield and pistol grip for the shotgun mic). The reason why I use the shotgun mic is because last time when I went to camping, I found the H5 capsule XY mic were not directional enough to record birdsongs or some tiny sound without all the other surrounding sounds. The best things about the K6 was the design of changeable capsule systems. Although I don’t have other capsule, I can still break it down to a half which for me, are very connivence. The second half were click into the pistol grip and another half can put into the mic porch with fluffy on it.

In the first night, I found the soundscape of nighttime forests is interesting, and I have to put all the things out at night, so in the second night, I put all the recording gear next to my sleeping bag and all the things are plugged in, including the Roland Binaural mic as well. Surprisingly, this set up were very handy in the second night when I was woken up by baking deers. My head light were inside my sleeping bag which made me feel a bit more save. When I heard the barking at 2 am, I turn on my H5 instantly and try to use the shotgun mic to point into the barking direction. But they are very loud, I can hear the echo of the barking, therefore, I can record them clearly even haven’t pointed to them directly. The darkness at night also increase my other senses, and also increase my listening as well. I can rely on my vision since I can’t see anything, so inside the tent. I found I was more sensitive to sound at night and very tiny little sound, for example, a moving leaves on the ground or some bugs that hitting my tent, can woke me up. People always said how peaceful and meditational the nature is, which I am agreed with it a lot, but at the same, I can be very intimidating and scary at the same time. This night time experience was scary but interesting at the same time.

I have tried the Sound Kit from Kit room because I was looking for compact field recording kit for camping. It has Zoom H4N and Rode NTG2 shotgun with accessories all in one bag. Therefore, I was thinking that would be a nice option for camping. So I borrowed the kit and did some field recording in South Bank. But I found few problem of this kit.

Firstly, the bag actually quite big compare to the H5 kit. The recorder itself is tiny but NTG2 is too long. To fit all the gear in, the sound bag is a bit too big for camping. Secondly, the headphone amp quality is not really good. Although South Bank is a noise environment, I can’t hear the shotgun sound clearly (it also because of the headphone in the kit). Thirdly, the mic preamp in the H4N is not good as well which have a lot of noise when I pull up the gain.

Finally, I choose some of the recording and tried to create a small pieces which I basically used the EQ to cut some of the noise and also tried DearReality and Circle Doppler plugins in some of the tracks. I found the recoding of approaching the church bell is quite interesting. That itself are like the organised composition. From hear it from distance with different chatting and footstep sound passing by, and finally can hear the bell clearly.

I recorded some moving chair, an elastic from my note book and taping the metal stair’s handles. Without any effects, by just stretching the sounds already made interesting sound effects. Some of sound would be different when I stretch it, but sound similar in normal speed. The pitch shift of the stretching sound also very interesting, it almost like can hear the sound wave going up and down.

The dragging chair are one consistent sounds in every pull, but when I slow it down, it was like a really low pitch horn. Then using the micro stretch to pull the specific waveform into the places I want that create the beat like sounds. Then I pitch up the pen hitting the plastic sound to create granular synth like effect. This technique are very useful for my interests since I like field recording and I can help me to manipulate all the material I recorded