The task at hand, from Lindsay Vickery:
Overview
Composition Assignment 1 To create a work consisting entirely of “sound objects”. (L’Objet Trouvé) The Found Object: "manufactured objects raised to the dignity of works of art through the choice of the artist.” Andre Breton 1936 what is a sound object? The sound object may be defined as the smallest self-contained element of a Soundscape. L’Objet Sonore: Pierre Schaeffer, 1966 Qualities: short, distinctive, self-contained. Examples: a “sample” (ie creaking door, hand clap, animal call etc) a distinctive musical gesture, or chord, or motive Think of this assignment as arranging sound objects in time like samples in a DAW timeline
Method
Use no more than 10 sound objects. You can notate the sound objects or record them from acoustic or existing digital sound sources (examples: a chord, a cat purr, a washing machine, a short sample from a movie or song etc). The Sound Objects should be independent of one another - ie they should not form a groove or obvious melody . They may be related in some way to one another (ie use some of the same intervals, or timbres etc) but they must NOT demonstrate any DEVELOPMENT from one to the other or any sense of a continuous pulse.
As you work through the activities and information this week, consider the relevance to your context. //
So I thought 'right, that sounds easy enough'. I loaded up a new project in Logic and set out on a sound design session. I was really excited, as there were no real restrictions and to me, it sounded like we could be as weird as we wanted, and naturally, I wanted to create a tense and abstract atmosphere to get the listener thinking.
The idea for this piece is some what of a nightmare. You are floating in space, have become disconnected from your lifeline, and are having an out of body experience of disorientation and fear, encountering these sound objects (aliens, space trash, asteroids) along the way while heading towards the 'Edge of Infinity'.
My first sound object is a Spitfire Audio instrument loaded in to the Kontakt 5 sampler. It is a low woodwind instrument from their 'Albion Tundra' library, with the 'Super Air' effect applied. This gives the sound of a lot of air traveling through the instrument while being played, so I thought it would be a perfect starting point for the piece. It starts softly and light as I layer up some very dissonant notes, but doesn't take long before the tension increases and the automated distortion creeps in, making the sound and timbre of the instrument more and more intense. Until almost un-listenable, it abruptly stops right before your speakers are going to explode. I carefully make sure nothing is running in the red so there is no nasty digital distortion to harm your ears or gear. It's ok, it's over. Oh no that's right, it's only just begun!
The abrupt ending of sound object 1 carries straight in to sound object 2. It's like S.O1 is the sound of imminent danger, and S.O2 is the moment it strikes. Sound object 2 is simply a percussion hit sample with delay, reverb, tremolo and distortion added - in that order, all with some kind of automation applied. Most notably the tremolo automating the reverb tail, which gives the effect of you spinning off out in to the abyss after an initial impact of some kind.
With the life line severed from an unknown impact and the violent spinning has subsided, we encounter the 3rd sound object. 'The Washing Machine of Death' - I panned this from left to right to give the impression it was moving by you as you were floating in space. Unfortunately I don't have the original sound file as I bounced it down to save processing power because of the stupid amount of plugins I had on it, but from memory it is actually a reiteration of the low woodwind instrument with a ton of processing - most notably the (free) 'Fracture' plugin from Glitchmachines (thanks Dan!) with the wet/dry knob turned fully wet and a nice bit of reverb for that atmosphere. I particularly like the very end of this sound object, which I use again as sound object 5. It becomes an integral (but possibly slightly rule bending) part of the piece.
Sound object 4: The big nasty bass sound with tasty tube distortion and lots of automated reverb. Pretty self explanatory. A couple of long, descending notes while I recorded in a big descending pitch bend to give you that feeling of existential dread. I used Logic's 'RetroSynth' for this, which I think is awesome! Below you can see the automation applied to the drive section of the distortion (UAD Thermionic Culture Vulture), cutoff envelope of the synth and the Mid EQ decay section of the reverb (UAD Lexicon 224). Beautiful.
As mentioned above, sound object 5 is the ending of sound object 3, where it sounds like the washing machine of death just kicks the bucket and decides to cut out on us. I applied one of my favourite free delay plugins (Valhalla Supermassive) with almost 100% feedback to add to the never-ending feeling of the piece. I liked its' unsettling and machine-like timbres it provided (more dread, baby!). I automated the volume to give the other objects a bit of space (see below), but from there it lasts the entirety of the tune until it ultimately fades out (rule bending?). I like it. I love tape delay feedback loops as you may be aware of by now.
Sound object 6 is a sound bite taken from a Joe Rogan interview of Alex Jones. He says "fly out to the edge of infinity". Boom! Track name sorted. Perfect sound bite that holds down and underlines the intention/concept of the piece. Simple! Plugin wise, he has EQ, an autofilter, reverb and I'm sending him to a touch of rotor cabinet. Yum. He also has a Vinyl replication plugin on him which adds crackle to the whole piece for a bit of mysterious atmosphere.
Next up is another vocal sample. It is a Rasta man saying "I am a wa da dem do". I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I interpreted it as "Well, we are half way through the tune here, ie we're way out in the middle of no where, there is no turning back, let's embrace this nightmare and see what the edge of infinity looks like!!!". To me, this sound object backs up the one before it, saying 'let's go!'. I have doubled the sample, transposing down the pitch of his voice to add a bit of that lovely dread and I've put a never-ending tape delay on him (another possible rule bender), which the feedback loop lasts until the tune fades out. Have automated the volume to give space for the remaining objects (where as to save time I should have bounced this down to another audio file, so I didn't have to go back to the start of the sample every time I wanted to hear the delay tail!).
Sound object 8 is a D minor 7 chord played on Logic's Alchemy synth with effects and automation applied. It is another sound object that pitches down as it travels through space, keeping the listener in that strange atmosphere. Its leads on nicely to our 2nd sound bite of Mr Alex Jones with its' filtery bubble 'popping' upon its release stage of the envelope.
Sound object 9 is the 2nd sound bite taken from the Alex Jones interview. He says "God knows everything except where God came from". I thought it was a little profound, albeit trivial, and deserved a spot in the piece. Because if you were floating through infinity, surely you'd be thinking about some kind of God and if you might see something that represented the big man out there? I like sound bites of people talking in music, I think it adds another element and gets the listener thinking. I have EQ'd, panned him (so it sounds like you are passing him by), added an autofilter and reverb. He also has a Vinyl replication plugin on him which adds crackle to the whole piece.
S.O 9.5 (ha!) is just a really pitched down delay repeat of S.O 9, hence the 9.5 name tag. He's just reiterating the fact that you are so far gone by this stage, and there's nothing you can do about it. Are you hearing things in your head, or are these real creatures of sound actually out to get you? The scary, reverb soaked, deep voice is confronting, yet you can't quite make out where it's coming from. Is it God himself?
For the final sound object, we have a bone crushing, 168bpm, jungle like drum break that fades in, filter sweeps, pans, chews you up and spits you out. Ending with Logic's EnVerb reverb tail swiftly filtering you back in to the abyss leaving you with nothing but a few over saturated tape delay feedback loops from some ungodly creatures you passed by - either just moments, or moons ago.
I had a lot of fun with this project and look forward to more sound design sessions in the abyss and beyond. JD//
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