Impossible Acoustic

I’ve written a new blog post for VIR2 and Big Fish Audio.  I talk about some of the thought processes and techniques that went into creating Violence as well as new demos and audio examples.  You can check it out here and here.

~ I am extremely proud to announce the release of my first commercial sample library.  Made for VIR2 and Big Fish Audio, this library features 82 unique and innovative instruments.   Just like this blog, this library is all about embracing the transformative power of sampling.  Rather than trying to create a digital version of an already perfect acoustic instrument, I have made digital instruments which could never be replicated acoustically yet straddle both the acoustic and digital realms.  I made recordings of the violin being played in all the wrong ways; striking it with chopsticks, plucking strings with guitar picks, beating it with mallets, drum stick and hands; I rubbed it, scraped it, bowed it, shook it and then took all of those recordings and individually processed them.  Sometimes the processing was minimal, sometimes extreme.  Many of the instrument feature detailed round robin sampling and many velocity layers.  Combined with individually programmed interfaces and controls for each instrument this library is an orchestra in an of itself.  Albeit a very bizarre orchestra.  Visit VIR2.com for more details and to listen to the audio demos.  Then buy it here.  If you are interested in learning more about the process and techniques that went into making this library, I’ll be writing production blogs for VIR2.com very soon.

What would the world sound like if we could climb inside the head of another animal?  I went to the Olympic National Park recently with my wife and got some great recordings of humming bird vocalizations.  We stayed at a B&B which had humming bird feeders and more humming birds then I’ve ever seen before in one place.  I had never realized what feisty little creatures they are.  I placed my handy Zoom H4n in the bushes just above the feeder and recorded while the little buggers fought and squabbled over the feeders and nearby flowers.

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To us, their chirps all sound more or less the same, but, when slowed down, you can hear that these short high pitched bursts contain a lot more information than we perceive.  Here’s a section of the same recording pithed down three octaves.

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There’s a lot of interesting information out there on bird song, including this great podcast from Living on Earth.

There was also a short but interesting discussion of animal point of view in movies on Social Sound Design a while back.  You can read it here.

And finally, if humming bird speak sounds like squeaks to us, haven’t you ever wondered what Bethovan’s 9th Symphony would sound like to a humming bird?  I know you have.  Now you can find out.  An artist by the name of Lief Inge has digitally stretched a recording of Bethovan’s 9th so that it lasts 24 hours.  Here’s an article about it along with links to the full recording.

Why has the piano become one of the most universal and widely used instruments?  It’s heavy, hard to move, and difficult to tune.  It’s impossible bend or slide between notes and it can’t play notes outside of a fixed tuning.  Yet, the piano can be found incorporated into musical traditions all over the world.  Perhaps it’s the “push a button get a sound” simplicity of it’s design or it’s large range and ability to play many notes and multiple parts simultaneously.  Regardless the reasons, as a piano player myself, I love the huge diversity of the piano repertoire.  From western “Classical” music, to salsa, merengue, tango, jazz, ragtime, pop, country,Turkish, Arabic and Middle Eastern, to Indian and on and on, the piano has made it’s way into hundreds of styles and cultures.  One of my favorite examples of cultural adoption, is the incorporation of piano music into the traditional music of Burma.  Because of the long standing political situation in Burma, music from there is very difficult to come by.  One of the few examples of this music online is on this site.  I would also highly recommend the wonderful album “White Elephants and Golden Ducks”.

The most exciting thing about the piano to me, is the instrument within the instrument.  After hundreds of years of playing the piano the “right way” composers and musicians have discovered a world of potential hiding under the lid.  There are strings to be strummed, struck or bowed, slabs of wood and metal that produce wonderful echoing thump sounds when struck.

The piano also makes a wonderful outboard reverb device.  Try holding down the sustain pedal and playing a sound into the strings, either directly or by re-amping a sound.   Through the magic of sympathetic vibration, the sound will cause strings with matching frequencies to resonate and, because of the large number of strings, it even retains the timbre of the original sound.  By holding down the Sostenuto pedal instead of the sustain pedal or simply holding down a chord, you can choose exactly which strings will resonate, thereby creating a tuned reverb!  On the download page is a re-posting of a pad instrument I made by playing saxophone tones into a piano in the fashion mentioned above.  Also, here is a song that features this instrument.

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Even the simplest techniques can produce complex and interesting results.  There are, for instance, many simple methods for turning mono signals into stereo signals.  Combining several of these techniques produces some very interesting results.  The basic idea behind most of these methods, is to take two copies of the same sound, pan one hard left and the other hard right, and then alter the sounds so that they are slightly different than one another.  Alter them too much and they sound like separate sounds, too little and there is no noticeable effect, but if you hit the right balance of same and different then you get a singular sound that seems to fill up the the stereo spectrum.  The simplest way to accomplish this is to detune the two channels.  This can be done in any wave editor or DAW but I’m going to do it in Kontakt so that I can make use of Kontakt’s envelopes and LFOs to create change slowly over time.  The following sound clip for example, was made by creating two groups within Kontakt each containing the same sound.  I panned the two groups opposite each other then assigned an envelope to the tuning of each group so that they will gradually detune from each other.  Listen to how the signal starts in the center of the stereo field then slowly widens as the two channels are detuned.  At some point however, they become so detuned that you start to perceive them as two separate sounds.  You may want to listen on headphones to best hear the change in stereo width.

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Another way of differentiating one sound from another is with equalization.  Here is the same instrument but with the envelope assigned to single band EQs, one for each channel, with different frequency settings.

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Another old sound design trick is to use different sections of the same sound in each channel.  The following clip is of a mono recording of farm sounds.  I have taken the first half of the recording put it in one group and the second half in the other group.  The great thing about this technique is that now you can control exactly how wide you want the stereo spectrum to be.  In this clip, both groups start in the center and then are slowly panned outwards.

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Any way that you can slightly alter one or both channels will serve to widen the stereo field.  How about adding an effect to one of the channels?  What about subtly mixing in another sample to one channel or changing the balance of various elements which might make up a sound.  How about some combination of all the above.

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The sky is the limit here.  If you use Kontakt or any other virtual instrument, try loading two instances of the same instrument, panning them opposite each other and altering them in some way.  In the following example I have done just this and then assigned LFO’s to a dozen or so different parameters of a kalimba instrument I made.  I’ve added two tracks of this instrument and a drum track just to spice things up a little.  Pay attention to how the sound travels around the stereo field.  All ‘panning’ is due to a combination of the techniques discussed above.

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The Warped Kalimba instrument is available on the download page.

Alright, I’m up I’m up.  Yaawn.  Strech.  Phew, that was a good long rest.  Still feeling a little groggy but Impossible Acoustic is back!

Things are going to change a little.  I started this blog when I wasn’t working much and had lots of time.  Since then, things have picked up considerably , which is good, but this also means I won’t have the time to consistently do the type of posts I was doing before.

I will still offer a few free instruments, although less frequently.  I have been focusing more on sound design recently and hope to explore the sound design potentials of working with Kontakt as well as further musical experiments.

Stay tuned, I have some exciting things in store; including a major commercial release coming out in a few weeks that fits in exactly with the Impossible Acoustic mission statement.  More on that soon.

Image: djcodrin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Impossible Acoustic has gone into hibernation for a little while.  While it sleeps, it will reflect on internet culture and the value and danger of giving away content for free.  Is free content a great way to increase readership?  Does free content contribute to a society of ideas and open communication, or does it devalue the very products it aims to promote?   Is it entirely hypocritical to be concerned with such matters while using open source publishing software and free images?   Fear not though, Impossible Acoustic shall slumber only momentarily and will awake again with new-found purpose and determination (and more regular postings).  In the meantime, here are a few of my favorite Impossible Acoustic posts thus far.

Instant Cake and Playable Loops

Ball Point Pen – Part I,Part II,Part III

Framing

Drinking Glasses and TidePools

   It is said, that if you were to go back in time and show early humans an airplane they would say, “big deal, birds can fly too.”   If you were to show them a horse drawn carriage on the other hand, they would marvel at it’s invention and ingenuity.  Many music circles, especially those in academic institutions, encourage what I call relentless innovation - the endless quest to reinvent the rules and create something radically new.  The end result is often something that only one’s peers have the knowledge and background to properly appreciate.  Playing this radically new music outside of your clique is like showing airplanes to cavemen.  No one gets it.  

    Another approach is to alter the familiar into something that is both relatable and fresh.  Rethink rather than reinvent.  Take a guitar for example.  A guitar is played with either fingers or a pick right?  Well,  why not drum sticks? Brushes?  Rubber mallets?  How about birds?

    About this time last year I bought a violin bow off e-bay.  I spent the next week running around the house bowing everything I could; pot lids, gongs, chimes, spatulas.  I processed the results and loaded them into Kontakt.  Here they are in a song along with some other instruments.  Wildly inventive?  Absolutely not.  Not even a horse drawn carriage really.   Just a cozy bed by the fire made from some new materials.  

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  There are some new free Kontakt instruments on the download page.  My apologies for not posting more frequently.  I have a very good reason which will be revealed shortly.

I’ve been reflecting on the topic of choice as it relates to interface design.  Whether you’re talking about a web page, your alarm clock, or computer software, there seems to be an inverse relationship between flexibility and usability.  A large number of input options means more control but is potentially confusing; while fewer input options means a loss of control but greater ease of use.  Of course the most brilliant designs are the ones that have a simple interface but allow for complex behaviors.  

  In the DAW world Ableton Live owes a great deal of it’s success to it’s simplistic yet versatile interface.  Kontakt on the other hand has a complex user interface and, in my opinion, a steep learning curve.  The reward for taking the time to learn all the little secrets is a great deal of control and many many options for manipulating sound.  

  Another feature of Kontakt is the ability to create your own user interfaces using the script editor.  While it’s possible to script completely new functionality, frequently, custom interfaces simply mirror controls that already exist within the Kontakt interface.  Even though numerous controls exist within Kontakt already, adding custom interfaces is a great way to guide the user towards specific options, thereby shaping the nature of the instrument.  It’s sort of like creating a big flashing neon signs that says “don’t worry about those knobs over there, try twisting these knobs”.  It’s a form of creation through subtraction and re-emphasis.   

  When it comes to user interfaces for audio applications, there is the question of how much visual feedback is appropriate.  I must admit, I like my interfaces to graphicaly reflect as much as possible, but there’s a serious risk involved with this kind of visual feedback.  The danger is that we will hear what we see and not what is really happening.  Our mind manipulates our senses and favors visual imput over auditory.   Watch this video on the McGurk effect and you’ll understand what I’m getting at. 

   Now you can see why, after hours of watching your music play inside the your DAW, it’s a very good idea to give it a listen with eyes closed or the monitor turned off.  

     For the instrument for this post, I incorporated both the idea of a simple interface with complex results and an interface that prioritizes careful listening over visual feedback.  And, just for the fun of it, it’s a puzzle too!  There are just three unlabeled knobs.  You’ll have to listen carefully to figure out what they do.  Here’s a hint – the functionality of the knobs changes depending on the status of the other knobs.  There is no sound when you first load it up, there are a few visual clues but you’ll have to figure out  the rest by yourself.   Or, once you’ve got it to make sound you can just randomly twist knobs and see what happy accidents you come across.  Here are some of the sounds that are possible to make with this instrument.  

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Have fun!

  Have you ever spent hours in a video store, completely unable to decide what movie you want to watch?  Have you ever felt overwhelmed just setting foot into a bookstore or a supermarket?  How about this, do you feel like you have a wealth of creative ideas inside your head, but when you sit down to work you feel blocked and unable to get it out?  It turns out, there are physiological reasons for all of this.  Our brains can only process a surprisingly small amount of information at one time.  Too many options, especially options of relatively equal value, and our brains literally become overloaded.  

  And talk about options.  In this day and age, we have historically unprecedented choice in almost every category of life.  There are millions of products to buy; millions of movies, tv shows, magazines, and other media to chose from .  We have greater freedom than ever before to pick our career, where we live, who we befriend, who we spend our lives with.  In an increasingly secular society, we must also choose our own belief systems, and moral principles.  It is even possible to choose our gender or to surgically alter our appearance.  Is it any wonder that along with this wealth of options comes unprecedented levels of depression and mental illness?

  In music as well, we are in the midst of a renaissance of opportunity and choice.  It is now possible to walk around town with days and days of music on one mp3 player.  It is more and more common for musicians draw inspiration from multiple genres and traditions.  As electronic musicians, our options have expanded exponentially due to the advent of new technologies.  With the hundreds of sample libraries on the market, we can choose from thousands of instruments or we can synthesize and re-synthesize completely new instruments.  The possibilities for new music are endless and potentially very overwhelming.  

         The show Radio Lab recently did an episode dedicated to the issue of choice.  One of the points of this show is that while the rational mind can whittle down our options,  in the end we rely on our emotions to make the final choice.  It is no wonder then, that those of us with highly analytical minds, are much more susceptible to succumbing to option overload – the endless consideration of choices of similar value.   

  Option overload is something I am intimately aquatinted with.  It used to prevent me from getting anything done at all, but over the years I have found a few helpful techniques.

1) Create deadlines – I don’t know how many times I’ve read interviews with composers who speak of the joy, yes joy, of working under a tight deadline.  It’s often astonishing the quality of work we can turn out when forced to make quick decisions.  Somehow it doesn’t work as well when the deadlines are self imposed, but it helps.  

2) Create limitations – This is largely what this blog is about.  Hopefully I have demonstrated the creative explosion that takes place under strict limitations.  

3) Have a vision – Try making decisions before you even start writing a song.  Pick instrumentation, form, length, as much as possible, and stick with it.  You’ll thank yourself later.  

2) Pick a genre – What is genre but a set of limitations on music?  The traits of a genre reduce many of the larger decisions (instrumentation, rhythm, feel, harmonic vocabulary, form etc) and allow the composer to focus on subtler matters.  

3) Take a break – Walk away and come back to the problem later.  It’s amazing the difference even five minutes can make.  

4) Use the “Save As” option – Often, when I come to a significant crossroads in a song, I’ll save an extra copy.  That way, I tell myself, I can always go back if I don’t like where the decision takes me.  I almost never go back, but sometimes establishing a safety net is the only way I can make big decisions.  Does the non-destructive nature of digital editing help with, or enable indecisiveness?  

5) Focus – I am reminded of the truism “You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.”  You might have dozens and dozens of plugins at your disposal but how well do you know how to use them all?  Sometimes it’s better to have a smaller toolset that you are well acquainted with then a large one you barely know how to use.  

5) Trust your gut – The emotional portions of our brains are actually much much more powerful than our analytical minds.  I tend to distrust my emotional mind for being too um…emotional; subject to making decisions based on habit or irrational association.  However, I am increasingly forced to conclude that the key to effective decision making has much more to do with intuition than analysis.  

6) Get over it – Some people just don’t have a problem with option overload and to them this probably all seems silly.   For others it’s just not that simple.    

  The instrument for this week attempts to find a balance between choice and randomization.  Instead of creating a drum kit with twenty five different sounds on twenty five different keys, I clumped the sounds into categories and mapped them to just five keys.  Playing a C for instance will play once of five bass heavy sounds, F# one of five clicky sounds.  So you can choose what type of sound you want to play, but you have little control over the exact file that will be triggered.  Here’s what this sounds like on it’s own -

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And here it is in the context of a song - 

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The drum kit, which was made from recordings of items found at the radio station where I work, is available on the downloads page along with the Koto sounding instrument.