Segmentation Fault – Ray Toler

After getting home from coffee with Darin and Lizzi, I was both in a good mood and over-caffeinated (Mary and I had already had coffee with a friend earlier in the day, plus what I’d had before that…). I went to the studio and did a final listen-through to Mare Undarum and posted,¹ we ate dinner, watched a movie, and then I went back in for today’s attempt.

I think my crisis, such as it was, was really more of a symptom of being tired. I haven’t been sleeping really well or very much for the last few weeks, for a variety of reasons only exacerbated by Song-A-Day, and was cranky.

Segmentation Fault Ray Toler 5:12

Fresh Meat

I’ve been exploring new artists to listen to the last couple of months. With the decline of radio and the death of the record store, discovering new artists has become more difficult. That seems counterintuitive since we now have pretty much every recording known available via streaming services. The problem is that the streaming services already know what you like and just give you more of the same. I’ve got so much music that I bought on a whim in a store because I thought the artwork was interesting when I was browsing a section of the store I don’t normally head for. I’ve also picked up a lot of stuff from soundtracks and bargain / cut-out bins. I’ll take a risk for a dollar.

But we’re stuck with streaming for now.²I use Apple Music³ and something I’ve begun doing a lot is picking a band that I already know and like and using the “create station” function. This leads to a lot of music that is close, but not exactly what I know. Sometimes it’s a favorite artist’s track from an album I never listened to. Sometimes it’s from an artist that I’ve heard of but wasn’t into at the time because I didn’t know what they were. But sometimes, it’s something that the algorithm throws in because it doesn’t know any better. Because somebody on that track played in a different band. Because genres were misapplied. Because the artist had a mental breakdown and made some crazy shit. Whatever.⁴

But as soon as one of those left-field tracks shows up, I pounce!⁵ I have a shortcut on my phone’s home screen that listens and identifies the track, then adds it to a playlist I have called “Random Finds.” It is a lot of fun for me to shuffle that playlist because it’s like a rabid gerbil playing DJ. Disco. IDM, punk, pop, punk-pop, house, grime, rap, you name it.

This random finds playlist has been the source of some of my tracks this year as I go through, hear a track I like and then try to do something like it or that uses something from it that grabbed me. I have two other playlists, though: Random Electronic and Random Chill. This is stuff that would, amazingly, not fit on the Random Finds list. And in some ways, Random Electronic is pretty self-absorbed because one of the artists that I use to create the station is me!

So I’ve found some cool artists that the algorithm thinks sound like me. Except they don’t. Well, they kind of do. I can tell why they were picked most of the time, but quite often I find that they’ve taken one thing I did to an extreme. They’re very frenetic or very melodic or very sparse.

Sparse Noise

For Segmentation Fault, I was happy and energized, but feeling relaxed. I played an electric piano for awhile and ended up with the chord progression of the track, then started adding to it. I wanted it to build, and even to be full, but to never feel full. I wanted an emptiness or space to it. I’m not sure I hit that mark 100%, but I’m pleased with it. One production trick this time was using a single audio track three times, but with different effects and brought in at different times. Further, it’s a noise patch that’s solid, but I ran it through Filterverse, a really nice effect plugin, that made it animated and created interesting patterns, especially when they temporarily overlap. I do have all three of them audible at the same time, but never all three at full volume.

I’ve enjoyed listening to it so far today, and I know that in the future, if I don’t immediately skip it because I’m not in the mood, I will almost certainly listen all the way through.

As to the title, I wanted something vaguely techy, but not overly descriptive. This feels like film underscore or a middle track in a chill electronic album. Lizzi and I had talked about programming, and I’ve been having a lot of crashes with normally rock-solid Digital Performer this month. Every single one of them has been a segmentation fault error.⁶ So there we go!

Colophon

Instruments & Samples

Keyscape, Cycles, Myth, Choreographs

Effects, Mixing, & Mastering

FabFilter, Gullfoss, UAD ATR-102, PanMan, Filterverse

Notes

1
Or thought I did… I ended up posting it later in the evening
2
I’ve been saying for years now that CDs will make a comeback just like vinyl did. The difference is that vinyl came back because people wanted the experience around it and used whatever they needed to justify it. CDs will come back because people will wake up that streaming is valuable for wallpaper, but not for guaranteeing that you have access to your favorite music. There’s a ton of music I have on CD that isn’t available on any service.
3
Because fuck Spotify.
4
Another way I find stuff is when I’m in coffee shops or watching movies. Something cool is on, but I’ll never figure it out. Not until the next paragraph, anyway.
5
Well, I do if I like it.
6
The featured image of this post is a screenshot of one of my crash logs.