Embrace, Extend, Exsanguinate!
If you’ve read any of my past-year accounts, you may remember that the 22nd is Cover Day. I’ve done a few, with mixed results, at least for my own satisfaction. I’m of a mixed mind when it comes to this tradition – on the one hand, I think it’s a huge compliment to have someone cover something you’ve written just days earlier; I’ve certainly taken it that way. On the other hand, I’m always nervous … Continue reading
Well, here we are at the end of week three. It’s been a somewhat frustrating month so far, with me wishing that I had a few more songs in the can, but I’m not unhappy with my overall output. I am, however, feeling like I may have reached the end of the ambient arc, or at least want to try doing things that may be a little less listenable, but which give me an opportunity … Continue reading
An area of sound that I’ve been really enjoying for several years now are “broken” things. Normally, I do this with distortion or granular synthesis, or sometimes by adding randomness to some element of a sound. A few years ago, I bought an expansion pack called “Beautifully Broken” and many of those sounds capture exactly the character I’m talking about, even if I haven’t used the patches in many tracks that have gone beyond the … Continue reading
Ugh. Middle of week three and I’m simultaneously feeling like I’m struggling to find ideas and not having enough time to do the ideas that pop into my head. Neither of those things is true, and I know that, which makes it worse. So am I just being lazy? What’s the hang-up? I don’t know. The last several pieces I’ve done are ambient, dark ambient, melodic electronic, what have you. Part of my own mental … Continue reading
As is often the case, this piece started off with that very first bell sound and I started building to it. Similarly to the Output plugins mentioned yesterday, the Cycles library from Slate + Ash has become a dark-horse favorite for me – a pleasant surprise because my initial reaction to it was more in the disappointed realm. In part, it’s because the library is computationally intense. There’s a lot of granular manipulation going on, … Continue reading