A 'Found Sounds Only' Experiment:

sleepybleepy

http://www.box.net/shared/3dkn10o4kg

This track is part of a collection of pieces called Bridgework. All sounds used in these pieces were recorded by striking various parts of a foot bridge over the canal in Mullingar with rubber mallets, claw hammers and pen hammers. Integrated into each individual recording was background noise picked up by the mic; Distant traffic, rain, wind, the voices and footsteps of passers-by, etc. These recordings were then used as the material from which i had to limit myself to, in creating textures, drones, percussion and rhythm.
I took on this project for a number of reasons. Here is six of them -

1. I noticed that alot of the people who i speak to about electronic music in this country are obsessed with the latest synthesizers, sequencers, plugins, moogerfoogers and didjeredoogers: to the point where they have a stockpile of sound generating gadgets and no time to learn the skills to master them due to their ongoing machine spiel.
2. Originality in sound and rhythm was a constant problem for me.
3. There was 2 many options.
4. "Not another shopping centre!!!!"
5. John Cage
6. "New version now available, would you like to upgrade?"

Comments are really welcome.

Thanks

Shane

cornbb

Hi Shane,

To start off with you have used a fantastic range of source material, I think found sounds (especially the metallic percussive sort of ones you've used) tend to be very sonically "rich" and always have some qualities that just can't be produced using synths. I like the glitches, did you use plugins/programming for these or was it a more hands-on method? I like the long, deep reverbs too.

As I said there's a strong glitch/rhythm element but if you wanted to get deeper into exploring textures/drones you could consider having the "droney" elements of the piece play for longer, I appreciate the samples you're using are probably short but you should consider looping them, combining them with themselves, or even drastically timestretching these. Just a couple of ideas.

sleepybleepy

Alright Cornbb,

The majority of sounds in this track were actually taken from just 2 samples - (i) the sample heard at the very end, a girl asking me for a lighter on the bridge and (ii) a percussive hit on the handrail of the bridge. The glitchy side of things was programmed manually. I didn’t use any plugin’s to generate rhythms or sequences. I just attacked various parts of the recordings on a granular level and took it from there. As you pointed out, these sounds are extremely sonically rich. Thus, when you get them down to a granular level, the harmonic content is amazing - and it is obviously enhanced by the background ambience captured alongside them.

On the drone side of things, your absolutely right, and I will post another track later on this evening which is more ambient/drone based (I cant access box.net from work to upload it)

Thanks for your good comments man.

sleepybleepy

http://www.box.net/shared/0byma2m2ow

booth

Nice sounds, i like it.