Beat the Clock
Beat the Clock by bassling
Here's my entry in Ableton Live's Beat the Clock remix competition. It took less than 10hours and you can VOTE here, cheers :)
Delightful Angel of Death
Earlier this month I posted Amon Tobin's Slayer remix, this is another awesome interpretation of an awe-inspiring metal band (whose Rick Rubin production created thrash metal in my opinion).
Circuit bent beats
Adrift Ocean Drift riff
This weekend I watched sea monkeys and re-worked a remix I did late last year. The video above captures both of these endeavours.
The remix is expected to be released in the next month or two and was the result of an interesting methodology, which you can read about at this blog post.
Into Kaoss
From out of the box and into my Kaoss Pad, here's a short remix of some sounds generated with my circuit bent toys.
Cosmic visitor
Starman - Buchla remix by ethanhein
Digging this re-working of David Bowie's Starman, a tune that made a lot more sense for me after seeing the film The Velvet Goldmine.
Ethan Hein's blog is a great read too, his discussion of Originality in Digital Music is a great overview of contemporary copyright issues and the like.
Digging this re-working of David Bowie's Starman, a tune that made a lot more sense for me after seeing the film The Velvet Goldmine.
Ethan Hein's blog is a great read too, his discussion of Originality in Digital Music is a great overview of contemporary copyright issues and the like.
Soma chillout dub mix
A deep dub mix must be about as relaxed as electronic music can get while keeping score on the foot-tap-ability index. This Soma Records collection blended by Nadja Lind features a fascinating lecture on the role of endorphins and dopamine in human development.
Out of the box
Another sample of my sonic mayhem using circuit bent La Dictee Magique and Pitchshifter. It's very loud and lo-fi, so turn down your speakers a bit before clicking on the triangle.
Amon Tobin's Slayer remix
Amon Tobin used this track to close his set last time he was in Australia. It's an OTT and somewhat comic drum and bass remix of Slayer, who are a fairly groovy sorta band anyway and played New York's Studio 54 back in the day.
Tomorrow Never Knows
Above is a great piece on how The Beatles took ideas from avantgarde composers into the pop charts. For further reading on this I recommend Craig Schuftan's The Culture Club because he charts the influences widely and comes to some really disturbing conclusions about pop music.
Various sources on the internet have mentioned the amount of money paid by producers of the show Mad Men to use the track in a recent episode and, it seems to me the producers had no choice. Sure, it'd be a bit weird to see Don Draper say something about The Beatles and not hear them but could anyone make a convincing reproduction of this tune, with all the tape loops and effects?
More to the point, what other song captures the zeitgeist of the time? Within a couple of years The Beatles were transformed by their use of drugs and thousands followed them on similar trips into their own self-consciouses.
One of my favourite tracks to reference The Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows is The Chemical Brothers' Setting Sun. I like how the clip represents the idea of finding yourself by taking psychedelic drugs but in the '90s it was MDMA rather than LSD, which had become difficult to source for a new generation of astronauts exploring inner spaces.
Miraculous Agitations
Over the last few days I've read and re-read this article on the
music found in mechanical sound and the processes that artists use to
generate their own, Miraculous Agitations by Dan Wilson.
Here's a quote to give you a flavour:
I wonder if these sounds aren't heard only in the listener's head -- a fleeting sound which connotes a melody? There's an interesting harmonic phenomena mentioned in this video.
The idea of acoustic synthesis that Dan Wilson mentions in the article is cool and something I've thought around but not at the depth that he's explored. In previous years I've been enamoured with 'the wires' for their synthesiser-like noises and was really excited when I found that by playing drums next to them I could make them respond to the tempo I was pounding.
The idea of creating machines which generate noises that have musical qualities is appealing to me. I've got this idea for one that I'm hoping to develop but I'm going to try out this thaumaturgy thing that Dan mentioned, for now.
Here's a quote to give you a flavour:
During an otherwise mundane train journey in 2004, I heard a fantastical mechanical sound. The train turned along a curved length of track, causing dense creaking of multiple loose panels, all modulated chaotically by carriage motion until an inter-carriage door slammed, obliterating the interactions that gave birth to the fleeting sonic marvel. Language doesn’t do this marvel justice. The experience compelled me to acoustically reproduce the sound—how difficult could it be? But after eight years it still eludes me. I call near-irreproducible acoustic flourishes like this miraculous agitations.
I wonder if these sounds aren't heard only in the listener's head -- a fleeting sound which connotes a melody? There's an interesting harmonic phenomena mentioned in this video.
The idea of acoustic synthesis that Dan Wilson mentions in the article is cool and something I've thought around but not at the depth that he's explored. In previous years I've been enamoured with 'the wires' for their synthesiser-like noises and was really excited when I found that by playing drums next to them I could make them respond to the tempo I was pounding.
The idea of creating machines which generate noises that have musical qualities is appealing to me. I've got this idea for one that I'm hoping to develop but I'm going to try out this thaumaturgy thing that Dan mentioned, for now.
Rotten notes
Another performance with my Utopia Synth, Giant Cooter, Wavedrum Mini, Rabbit Hole Delay and Kaoss Pad 3.
Gear lust
Good advice
Dictee through the rabbit hole delay
La Dictee Magique on the right and the new new toy is on the left.
Spunkytoofer have taken Boss' Pitchshifter pedal and created a sampler with incredibly musical filters.
They call it a rabbit hole delay and it's very trippy.
Conference of the birds mix
Four Tet is a phenomenal musician but his DJing is also sublime. This mix has the power to invoke flashbacks and I strongly encourage you to have a listen and see what imagery it inspires :)
Current set-up
This is me playing with myself. You'll hear I've added a couple of glitch effects.
The part is unrehearsed as I wanted to capture the beat-driven effects chain I've set up. The Korg Kaossilator beat triggers the guitar line through a Boss octave pedal and an Electro Harmonix HOG pedal on the kick and snare/high hat respectively.
It also triggers a Boss distortion pedal, which has that creamy Keely modification. And there's a Behringer reverb pedal too.
The trigger is done by running the Korg drum beat through a crossover, which then goes into the sidechain of a Behringer compressor. I've got the octave effects set after the trigger but I think it might've sounded better with them before it, so I'll rearranging things sometime soon. Pretty sure it'll mean less of that warbling sound in the bassline.
I've written about this beat-driven guitar effect chain earlier.
The tinnitus-inducing chord that's 'frozen' with the HOG early on eases up around the two-minute mark.
INXS mini-mix
This is a mix of INXS singles I prepared for an online collaboration.
While the video is over eight minutes long, the audio version is precisely seven minutes as the collaboration calls for people to mix this much music from an artist or band to give a representation of their material.
INXS are (were?) a phenomenal Australian pop/rock band. These singles show their chops, including my favourite 'New Sensation'.
Their songwriting is perfect for commercial radio in having a tempo you can tap your foot to, short stops and pauses in the verses, call and response choruses, a sexy singer who grunts and pants in between saucy lyrics along with the interplay of well-thought out arrangements which maximise the sonic structure of the song.
The sax and harmonica parts seem a bit dated but overall I think these songs are ageing well.
You can hear the full mix of seven-minute mixes that this INXS mix is part of below.
7MMX: 7 Minute Mix 10 (mixed by huskiii) by 7MM
Redferno (feat.SloJo)
This 2005 song is about the expression 'getting off at Redfern' (slang for coitus interruptus). A simple tune and based around a riff I first played in 1992. I thought the lyrics were lousy but I love Jo's singing so I dubbed it up a bit.
This appeared on the YOUR album of 2007 when I remixed the track with some Apple loops. It gets pretty heavy for a dance tune.
Do nothing
This was one of those happy musical serendipities. It involved taking the MIDI information from a remix I'd made and building a new track with new instruments.
Kaoss
For many years I've wanted a Kaoss Pad and a recent windfall led me to purchase one for less than $300. My patience has been rewarded :)
'1989' a bass solo
This week I recorded a song that's been flowing from my fingertips for a couple of decades. It's a bass solo I first composed onto an Amiga computer sometime around 1989 or 1990.
My inspiration for the tune came from a dream I had early on in my bass playing days when I was about 16 and Cliff Burton, the late and great bass player from Metallica, gave me a lesson.
A funny thing about the dream is I've met a number of other bass players who've dreamed about Cliff. The arpeggios are in his style and he recorded some wicked bass solos.
Below is a pic of me with my first bass guitar in 1989.
My inspiration for the tune came from a dream I had early on in my bass playing days when I was about 16 and Cliff Burton, the late and great bass player from Metallica, gave me a lesson.
A funny thing about the dream is I've met a number of other bass players who've dreamed about Cliff. The arpeggios are in his style and he recorded some wicked bass solos.
Below is a pic of me with my first bass guitar in 1989.
Director Alex Cox on copyright
This quote from Repo Man director Alex Cox echoes my earlier comments on copyright:
It's so corrupt. Now they want to have longer copyright periods because they say the young artists are relying on this money. The young artists never see any money because they sign away that money to big media corporations, like Universal and Viacom. We, the artists, lose all of our rights to these massive corporations, who then come down heavy on these kids for downloading films and music that we never see a penny from. It's complete bullshit. I want to encourage your audience to go and pirate a bunch of my stuff right away.
How Apple could change music
So the other night I was thinking how the loudness war is the result of increased audio fidelity in digital media. The introduction of the compact disc has changed music production and shaped contemporary music too, I'd guess.
Many have bemoaned that the shift toward high definition television has not been accompanied by a shift to high definition audio. Most recently Neil Young said he'd talked about this with Steve Jobs and Apple do seem best poised to introduce a new digital audio format.
Of course, there are services being proposed to add extra features to the delivery of music which don't focus on improving the quality of the digital file. There's one subscriber model outlined here which looks to make a new format with more fan-oriented features.
Anyway, it was interesting to see this quote on the difference between analogue and digital audio mastering in an article on Apple's new mastering feature:
To conclude this meandering collection of thoughts, IF Apple were to develop a new format for higher fidelity audio and consumers appreciated the extended quality and sought music which emphasised this detailed sonic spectrum then I guess iTunes would change music.
But it doesn't seem like the new Mastered for iTunes format shows Apple is taking higher fidelity seriously yet, with one engineer claiming it doesn't improve on CDs.
Many have bemoaned that the shift toward high definition television has not been accompanied by a shift to high definition audio. Most recently Neil Young said he'd talked about this with Steve Jobs and Apple do seem best poised to introduce a new digital audio format.
Of course, there are services being proposed to add extra features to the delivery of music which don't focus on improving the quality of the digital file. There's one subscriber model outlined here which looks to make a new format with more fan-oriented features.
Anyway, it was interesting to see this quote on the difference between analogue and digital audio mastering in an article on Apple's new mastering feature:
"Most listeners today swear they love the bottom end on vinyl, but I remember in the heyday of vinyl, it was all about top end," VanDette told Ars. "'If we could only have a clear top end without all those pops and clicks' we thought," he said, noting the tendency of low-end record players to introduce unwanted noise. "Back then, bottom was the enemy. It made the grooves [in the vinyl] too wide, and forced us to turn down the overall level of the disc."
To conclude this meandering collection of thoughts, IF Apple were to develop a new format for higher fidelity audio and consumers appreciated the extended quality and sought music which emphasised this detailed sonic spectrum then I guess iTunes would change music.
But it doesn't seem like the new Mastered for iTunes format shows Apple is taking higher fidelity seriously yet, with one engineer claiming it doesn't improve on CDs.
The Bird live
The Bird are my favourite Australian live electronic dance music act and I usually lose my shit when I see them play. I've managed to keep it together watching the above performance but it's great to see they're still blistering.
Leeton parks remix project
Here's a playlist of the Leeton park remix videos thus far.
I aim to add a Central Park video in the next week and will complete the remaining two parks in the next month or so.
The album will be released in the second half of 2012.
Remix, copyright and SOPA
Today many of my favourite internet sites have gone dark to protest the SOPA legislation being proposed in the US.
As a result there's been less of the usual opportunities to procrastinate and, when a Google Alert brought up hito's bass ling/ guitar riff concept video by curse1hunter1L, I decided to make my own statement about copyright and edit something other than my next park remix video.
Hopefully this bloke will be entertained because I mean no disrespect. Without wishing to appear patronising, he reminds me of when I first got a bass guitar while I was at high school. Which is how I came to choose the moniker Bassling.
All the work I've produced as Bassling has been released under creative commons rather than copyright because copyright is out of control.
To argue that copyright protects artists is bullshit if you look at how it stretches 70 years beyond their death. Copyright protects businesses which make money from the efforts of artists. There are other ways to support these artists without giving money to corporations, like next time you're at a gig buy a t-shirt because they'll get a much bigger percentage of your money. Send them a donation or help raise their profile so that other opportunities will come their way.
Today I also learned that works that were in the public domain have been put back under copyright. The film Metropolis is one example, an incredible work that I considered remixing but choose instead to mix a new soundtrack to accompany the screening I organised for the Leeton Art Deco Festival last year.
Arthur Lipsett's 21-87
This morning I was reading an article on George Lucas' new film and it reminded me of an earlier interview I'd read with him in which he talked about the influence of the film 21-87 by Arthur Lipsett, who worked for the National Film Board of Canada (who influenced one of my favourite bands, Boards of Canada).
While there's a fair bit of trivia in the article for Star Wars fans, Lucas' fascination with the film is something that's been in the back of my mind. At the time I was studying television production and thought my lecturers gave sound less attention in the curriculum than it deserves. This view was furthered by a visit to the SMPTE conference in 2006 where one speaker described audio as being "more than 50%" of television because it is a medium that uses a lot of close-up framing, so sound provides context for the narrative.
Today I got around to watching 21-87 and I think it demonstrates the importance of audio and the way it shapes the viewer's comprehension. There are moments when you're watching this short film and the way the sound and picture comes together creates a sense of meaning that is different from what is conveyed in either medium separately.
Can you imagine what 21-87 would be like if Lipsett had tried to match sounds to the onscreen actions? It'd be like Funniest Home Videos, where silly sound effects try to make very ordinary video hilarious.
The other thing it's got me thinking about is a line I read about how when you're in the process of creating an art work you need to disable your critical thinking. You've got to run with your inspiration before trying to analyse the direction. There was a nice analogy about how inspiration and analysis is akin to trying to use first and reverse in your car at the same time. See 8 Bad Habits that Crush Your Creativity
And Stifle Your Success.
While television production emphasised that viewers anticipate that any action seen on screen will have a corresponding sound -- and this is something I've been focusing on when editing my park remix videos -- if you don't do this you open up space for new forms of meaning to be created. If you believe some people this conjuring of meaning is magic.
There's a lot of theory that's been written about editing images (again a demonstration of the focus on the visual, something of a human trait), like how if you cut from a woman's face to a picture of money being left on a pillow you will convey a meaning that she's a prostitute.
21-87 leaves me considering the potential of a kind of 'infinite semiosis' (to use semiotics) or free association to create multiple meanings depending on the viewer if you don't sync the sounds and pictures.
The film that made the most profound impression on Lucas, however, was a short called 21-87 by a director named Arthur Lipsett, who made visual poetry out of film that others threw away. Working as an editor at the National Film Board, he scavenged scraps of other people's documentaries from trash bins, intercutting shots of trapeze artists and runway models with his own footage of careworn faces passing on the streets of New York and Montreal. What intrigued Lucas most was Lipsett's subversive manipulation of images and sound, as when a shot of teenagers dancing was scored with labored breathing that might be someone dying or having an orgasm. The sounds neither tracked the images nor ignored them - they rubbed up against them. Even with no plot or character development, 21-87 evoked richly nuanced emotions, from grief to a tenacious kind of hope - all in less than 10 minutes.
While there's a fair bit of trivia in the article for Star Wars fans, Lucas' fascination with the film is something that's been in the back of my mind. At the time I was studying television production and thought my lecturers gave sound less attention in the curriculum than it deserves. This view was furthered by a visit to the SMPTE conference in 2006 where one speaker described audio as being "more than 50%" of television because it is a medium that uses a lot of close-up framing, so sound provides context for the narrative.
Today I got around to watching 21-87 and I think it demonstrates the importance of audio and the way it shapes the viewer's comprehension. There are moments when you're watching this short film and the way the sound and picture comes together creates a sense of meaning that is different from what is conveyed in either medium separately.
Can you imagine what 21-87 would be like if Lipsett had tried to match sounds to the onscreen actions? It'd be like Funniest Home Videos, where silly sound effects try to make very ordinary video hilarious.
The other thing it's got me thinking about is a line I read about how when you're in the process of creating an art work you need to disable your critical thinking. You've got to run with your inspiration before trying to analyse the direction. There was a nice analogy about how inspiration and analysis is akin to trying to use first and reverse in your car at the same time. See 8 Bad Habits that Crush Your Creativity
And Stifle Your Success.
While television production emphasised that viewers anticipate that any action seen on screen will have a corresponding sound -- and this is something I've been focusing on when editing my park remix videos -- if you don't do this you open up space for new forms of meaning to be created. If you believe some people this conjuring of meaning is magic.
There's a lot of theory that's been written about editing images (again a demonstration of the focus on the visual, something of a human trait), like how if you cut from a woman's face to a picture of money being left on a pillow you will convey a meaning that she's a prostitute.
21-87 leaves me considering the potential of a kind of 'infinite semiosis' (to use semiotics) or free association to create multiple meanings depending on the viewer if you don't sync the sounds and pictures.
Bruce Odland's Song of Survival
Song of Survival from Bruce Odland on Vimeo.
Bruce Odland's visit to a nearby part of the Riverina was a highlight of 2011 for me.
Aside from demonstrating the many interesting instruments he built as part of his residency at The CAD Factory outside Narrandera, he also performed a few tunes he'd written like this one.
At the time I didn't really understand the Occupy theme in it and thought he was riffing on the harshness of the landscape and the fascination people have with the name Wagga Wagga, but now I can see the way it reflects his journey from occupying Wall Street to the residence he had in the old Birrego schoolhouse.
The blog he wrote of his visit is a good read too.
EDM explained
This video once offered a good introduction to the sub-genres of electronic dance music (EDM), which is an area I always struggle to understand.
(Sadly they are no longer allowed to use this choice quote but if you can hear it soon after the one-minute mark here
: )
On one hand I can see why these sub-genres exist because there's so much music out there and it helps people hone in on what they like, but on the other, I still remember going to EDM nights in the early '90s and loving the variety of rhythms.
Makes me wonder if the focus on these sub-genres by musicians, DJs and consumers means that a phenomenal and wide-ranging mix like Coldcut's 70 Minutes Of Madness isn't a product of its time.
Booty
There weren't many Christmas presents under my tree this year but these cans from my sister are excellent. I also received a tin of biscuits from an aunt the same as the one I recorded with my homemade contact microphones, which leads me to think I should try recording these cans.
I've been enjoying a break from remixing parks but there are only two parks left, so I'll wrap up this project soon and focus on the next album I'm planning.
Some merriment
Last Christmas by bassling
On the remote chance that you haven't heard my cover version of George Micheal's Last Christmas, here it is.
Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2012.
On the remote chance that you haven't heard my cover version of George Micheal's Last Christmas, here it is.
Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2012.
Ramponi Park
I've cheated a little in this park remix. The train line runs alongside Ramponi Park and I was fortunate to record a train when I visited to collect sounds for this track. The camera was recording from within the Park, of course.
Other than the train, the different sounds heard from the slippery slide are a highlight. It's great the way you can tap across the structure and getting the foundations for chord changes. And everything shares the key of the slide.
Playing a slippery slide
This video shows me tapping harmonics on the slide at Ramponi Park, the site of my next remix. I thought it was a good demonstration of what I wrote about earlier on the variety of sounds produced by a structure.
You can also see I've been trying a new variety of cheap piezo pick-up. It didn't sound too bad but seemed to be broken after visiting the park. Should've guessed it would be crap because it has the word 'professional' in the title on the packet.
Return to Waipukurau Park
It's kinda funny to return to the park down the end of my street where I first tried recording the play equipment and remixing it. The first Waipukurau Park track didn't really meet the process I've established since then though, as it used a couple of VST instruments to complete the sounds.
As you can see, this time I've overcome the limited sonic palette by incorporating bowing a line that resonates on the slippery slide. This was another technique I learned from Alan Lamb when we worked together as part of the Unsound Festival in 2006.
The reverberating fences of the preschool and childcare centres also appear. Last week I mentioned to the director of the Leeton Childcare Centre that I'd been recording the fence and she's invited me to demonstrate it to the kids next Tuesday.
New Abre Ojos
The Solar Angel from abre ojos on Vimeo.
It's worth clicking on the link above to visit the Vimeo page for this clip for an explanation of the imagery.
I've been a fan of Scott's work for about a decade now and he also first taught me to edit video. Then there's the small matter of his decision to invite Alan Lamb to Wagga Wagga in 2004 and build a large-scale aeolian harp at the property I was living at at the time.
Take offence
This Leeton Child Care Centre fence shares a border with Waipukurau Park, the site of my next remix. I've been enamored with its resonance since I first trialled recording the Park for a remix.
This video demonstrates the fence resonance but also the Daphon brand piezo pick-ups that are part of my recording kit.
You can hear the pick-ups seem to be sensitive to surrounding noise, like bird song and my footsteps. I don't mind getting some of that ambiance because it adds much more potential for the remix to stir a listener's subconscious, either conjuring the location or a connotation.
Playing a slippery slide
Here's a sample of what's in the next park remix.
I returned to Waipukurau Park to try stringing a line to bow, a technique first shown to me by Alan Lamb when we worked together as part of the 2006 Unsound Festival.
Actually, bowing the slide sounds very much like bowing 'the wires' -- except for the length of the decaying note. (That video reminds me Jo is much better at bowing than me.)
Aside from adapting Alan's technique for a slippery slide, I've been experimenting with changing the pitch while playing by adjusting the tension on the line. You'll be able to hear this in the new track for Waipukurau Park.
Waipukurau was the site of my first park remix but I wasn't entirely happy with the result since I ended up using additional instrumentation. This is now my third time recording that park because there's a fence there with lovely resonance that I'm looking to use too.
How to make contact microphones
Here's a short overview of how to make your own contact microphone using piezo crystals.
This technique was taught to me by Alan Lamb when we worked together as part of the 2006 Unsound Festival. He'd developed this approach for recording 'the wires,' a large-scale aeolian harp modeled on telegraph poles he recorded in Western Australia.
I'm using a couple of piezo sensors (RS part number 285-784), an RCA lead, a soldering iron, scissors or wire strippers, some tape and half a dozen cable ties.
Start by cutting the RCA lead in half and stripping the wires.
Then get ready to solder the two connections on either side of the piezo onto the wires of one of the RCA leads.
The tricky part is soldering and it's worth double-checking you've got the connection firmly soldered before proceeding.
Once the piezo are attached, you need to insulate the wires again.
I use electrical tape and carefully wrap it around one wire and then around both.
Once insulated, I attach the wires and piezos to matchsticks with cable ties.
You can use glue for this but I couldn't find anything suitable today. Alan used a sealant to weather-proof the piezo after gluing them to 'the wires' and this can extend their life considerably.
These piezo contact microphones are great for a wide variety of applications.
Today I tried using them to record a biscuit tin being used as a hand drum. I've used blu-tack to apply them but you can also sticky tape them onto a surface for temporary application, or longer depending on the tape used.
One common problem is a humming sound, which can be eased or removed by earthing the object being recorded. The biscuit tin was earthed when I held it but the Zoom H4 recorder also needed earthing by sitting it on my lap.
You can hear a short demonstration of the biscuit tin hand drum recorded in stereo with two piezo contact microphones below.
Biscuit tin drumming by bassling
Enticknap Park
This week I visited Enticknap Park for my remix project. It has a smallish playground with swings, see-saw and the same type of slide as Wandoo Playground, Waipukurau Park and also Ramponi Park.
It was a bit of a challenge to make this track. I think I'm beginning to get a bit bored with the similarity in the sounds I've collected and it'd be nice to find something inspiring to manipulate but I've held off on visiting some of the bigger parks until I get a new microphone that's on order.
Finding the sweet spot
While working with Alan Lamb in 2006 as part of the Unsound Festival, I mentioned that I'd been thinking about recording the water distribution tank that shared the hilltop with 'the wires' he and Scott Baker had built outside Wagga Wagga in 2004.
Alan encouraged me to put a bead on the end of a wooden skewer to tap around the structure and locate harmonics. It was the first time I'd considered that physical objects other than guitar strings and 'the wires' had harmonics.
This thought returned to me while recording Wandoo Playground and I've been spending more time finding the harmonic sweet spots to place the piezo pick-ups and to tap for creating sounds.
These harmonics form and integral part of creating tracks from the playground equipment and contribute to the melody and chordal progression.
Alan encouraged me to put a bead on the end of a wooden skewer to tap around the structure and locate harmonics. It was the first time I'd considered that physical objects other than guitar strings and 'the wires' had harmonics.
This thought returned to me while recording Wandoo Playground and I've been spending more time finding the harmonic sweet spots to place the piezo pick-ups and to tap for creating sounds.
These harmonics form and integral part of creating tracks from the playground equipment and contribute to the melody and chordal progression.
Playground recording kit
This is the gear I've been using to record sounds at playgrounds recently.
These are Daphon brand piezo pick-ups. I bought them from Swamp Audio.
A first generation Zoom H4 and a Fishman transducer, which works like a microphone pre-amplifier and equaliser to increase gain and shape the sound.
Usually I beef up the bass since I'm recording with another pick-up also but I've long thought that piezo sound a bit weak -- which is what led me to experiment with guitar pick-ups on the large-scale aeolian harp built by Alan Lamb and Scott Baker.
A pair of closed headphones are essential, of course.
The small pouch from my friend Janine Middlemost holds spare batteries and SD cards, while the bag holds everything together while I'm riding around town.
Just noticed that both the pouch and the bag feature mushrooms, which is an interesting coincidence and makes me wish I had a magic mushroom story to give it relevance.
For the videos I'm using a Nikon D5100, usually with an old Nikkor 35-70mm f2.8 lens and a tripod.
P.S. Just read this interesting post on contact mic recording and it's worth having a look if, like me, you wonder why piezo sometimes sound a bit weird.
Mountford Park
Here's the result of my visit to the park that's at the heart of Leeton and the setting for many town events, like the upcoming Light Up Leeton concert for Christmas. I've stuck to the playground here though.
Wandoo Playground
On Saturday I braved the hot sun to visit Wandoo Playground to record another park to remix. I think this spot also goes by the name Griffin Park because it was created by Walter Burley Griffin when he was consulted on the design of Leeton.
You can see from the video that I only used sounds from the slide and a wooden bench. The sign for the Playground has a good pitch but my pick-ups wouldn't fit onto the frame.
The day was hot so I left with only a few recordings but I must be getting better at hearing what's likely to be used because I'm pretty happy with the result.
You can see from the video that I only used sounds from the slide and a wooden bench. The sign for the Playground has a good pitch but my pick-ups wouldn't fit onto the frame.
The day was hot so I left with only a few recordings but I must be getting better at hearing what's likely to be used because I'm pretty happy with the result.
Wiradjuri Park
After Waipukurau Park I opted for a playground with more equipment to find new sounds and inspiration for this, the second track I've created as part of my Leeton park remix project.
While the sounds were all recorded on location, they have been re-pitched, looped and stretched to create the track. Sadly my camera battery ran out before I could show how thumping the plastic slippery slide provided the sound used for a kick drum.
While the sounds were all recorded on location, they have been re-pitched, looped and stretched to create the track. Sadly my camera battery ran out before I could show how thumping the plastic slippery slide provided the sound used for a kick drum.
Waipukurau Park
With Leeton planning celebrations for it's centenary in 2012, I've been developing an idea to record a series of songs based on sounds recorded at parks in the town.
On Sunday I tried the playground at the end of my street in Waipukurau Park. Armed with my Zoom H4 recorder, a Fishman pre-amplifier and a peizo pick-up, I sought recordings to be manipulated into percussive or musical tones.
One of the fittings holding up the swings is loose enough to squeak.
The seat gives a nice thunk.
The stairs really tinkle.
And this fence resonates wonderfully. You can hear my first draft of the song by clicking below.
Waipukurau Park by bassling
Playing a part
This week I worked on another interesting project that originated on the Ninja Tune Forum.
It's a remix of a remix and the idea is that each participant remixes the previous participants work and passes it along. At the end, the original track and the successive remixes are collected together for release.
It picks up on some of the methodologies of other Ninja Tune Forum projects.
When I first started visiting the site about a decade ago there were regular remix competitions, where the winner would provide the track and parts for the next round.
Another inspiration would be the relay mixes, where each participant is given the previous section of a mix to follow on from and only hears the complete mix once it is stitched together at the end by the person overseeing the project.
These Forum projects are organised by people on the Forum and not the Ninja Tune label but some of the label's artists have taken an interest in the results and there have also been opportunities to work Ninja Tune tracks.
There's a large output of mixes and original music on the Forum and I think it's testament to the creativity and collegiality of the people on there. It's a great community.
My recent remix was an interesting challenge because the parts lacked a melodic component to link it back to the original tune.
Another challenge was my position as third. It's not usually the point in the sequence of an album where you find a big track, more likely something that lets the pace ease up a bit so you can ramp it up again before the end of the first side or slow it down further for a ballad.
I know it doesn't have to be a dud spot but I can see a lot of logic in that sort of progression and it's a view shared in the film High Fidelity:
This reminds me of an interview I did with Canberra DJ Ben Henderson a while ago. He was organising music nights at Montezuma's Restaurant at the time and explained his philosophy in picking tunes by saying that one needs to be conscious of their part in the line-up.
So I set about remixing the track to be a build-up while giving a treatment that fits with my ideas of a bassling sound, particularly in emphasising the lower register.
I'm looking forward to hearing the final release to see if I've managed to play my part.
It's a remix of a remix and the idea is that each participant remixes the previous participants work and passes it along. At the end, the original track and the successive remixes are collected together for release.
It picks up on some of the methodologies of other Ninja Tune Forum projects.
When I first started visiting the site about a decade ago there were regular remix competitions, where the winner would provide the track and parts for the next round.
Another inspiration would be the relay mixes, where each participant is given the previous section of a mix to follow on from and only hears the complete mix once it is stitched together at the end by the person overseeing the project.
These Forum projects are organised by people on the Forum and not the Ninja Tune label but some of the label's artists have taken an interest in the results and there have also been opportunities to work Ninja Tune tracks.
There's a large output of mixes and original music on the Forum and I think it's testament to the creativity and collegiality of the people on there. It's a great community.
My recent remix was an interesting challenge because the parts lacked a melodic component to link it back to the original tune.
Another challenge was my position as third. It's not usually the point in the sequence of an album where you find a big track, more likely something that lets the pace ease up a bit so you can ramp it up again before the end of the first side or slow it down further for a ballad.
I know it doesn't have to be a dud spot but I can see a lot of logic in that sort of progression and it's a view shared in the film High Fidelity:
You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don't wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules.
This reminds me of an interview I did with Canberra DJ Ben Henderson a while ago. He was organising music nights at Montezuma's Restaurant at the time and explained his philosophy in picking tunes by saying that one needs to be conscious of their part in the line-up.
"To me the ideal night involves getting a group of people together who share common tastes and building them up for a climax," says Ben. "You point every track you play towards that pinnacle. There's no logic in getting five DJs together and having each of them trying to get to the finish line. It used to be that DJs would spend six hours gradually building up to that one moment when everyone would go off. It's like a competition these days in which everybody gets up and does a 100-metre sprint as each DJ pulls out their five best tracks to impress the crowd."
So I set about remixing the track to be a build-up while giving a treatment that fits with my ideas of a bassling sound, particularly in emphasising the lower register.
I'm looking forward to hearing the final release to see if I've managed to play my part.
BAD DAD on the six-string electric bass
This six-string bass guitar has intimidated me every since I bought it on Ebay. The neck is so wide that I find I get lost while playing on it.
It's been good for creating a drone though and the other day I thought it would be interesting to tune it to BADDAD but mostly just because I think it's funny to say 'bad dad'.
As it turns out it's better tuned to BEADAD, which also sounds funny. 'Be a dad' -- it's like an encouragement to fertility, a variation on 'go forth and multiply'.
In practice the six-string bass guitar tuned BEADAD is a lot of fun. It reminds me of noodling on a mandolin, the right notes seem to appear under your fingers although it runs the risk of all sounding a bit same-ish.
Disco bassling
Here's a funky house bassling tune with a disco bassline that I recorded earlier in the year while on holiday at the beach.
Humankind is noodle kind. by bassling
Cut, now PLAY!
This is the result of the innovative Cut & Run project I wrote about earlier. Fascinating to hear how different producers have mutated the previous bars.
Cut & Run
I've been visiting the Ninja Tune Forum for about a decade now. Aside from being populated with some great people, it's populated with greatly talented people who share a love of music.
There have been many excellent outcomes from hanging out there, from remixing other people's tunes to being introduced to new artists through to these increasingly creative collaborative projects. I've been part of relay mixes and different types of challenges but I think the Cut & Run project I did this week is one of the most innovative.
Update: hear the result here!
There have been many excellent outcomes from hanging out there, from remixing other people's tunes to being introduced to new artists through to these increasingly creative collaborative projects. I've been part of relay mixes and different types of challenges but I think the Cut & Run project I did this week is one of the most innovative.
Update: hear the result here!
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