* Interview excerpt from German Keys Magazine.
Would you like to name a few sound sources you have used on Acoustic Refractions?eciding on what sound sources to use was sometimes a challenging part of the process in creating these instruments. My idea was to make acoustic-like instruments that could only be imagined. So I spent quite a bit of time doing just that. I also get ideas by taking sound walks or doing research online. In fact, the first sound I created for Acoustic Refractions called 'Propane Tank' was based on a website I stumbled upon. The person had a large list of instruments that they created from random household objects. One of them, called 'Hank Drum', was made from a 20 pound propane tank and was loosely based on the 'Hang Drum' made in Switzerland. I heard some samples of it and decided to build my own. It was quite a process cutting through the steel to shape and fine tune the drum tongues but the result of all that work was well worth the sound it eventually made.
Another example of a sound source I stumbled upon was one I turned into an instrument called ‘Bridge Nether’. I was walking around in San Francisco that day picking up various sounds in the city. I really liked the sound I heard walking under the Golden Gate bridge. I found that despite the noisy rattling and random metal clanging there was still a decipherable and dynamic musical element from the constant passage of vehicles with their different sizes, weight, and speed conducting all the various metal parts of the bridge in a sort of chaotic symphony of noise. The result of that sound was a subtly tonal texture that is both haunting and hypnotizing.
Other examples of sound sources I would come across were of objects I could actually think about manipulating in the same manner one would a traditional acoustic instrument. For example, I used a cello bow on long metal rods driven into various wooden resonator boxes for my sound called ‘Nail Violin’. Or I found these fat hollow flexi-tubes and saw them as magnified strings for a guitar or bass and essentially recorded various styles of picking and even strumming for my sound ‘Plucked Tubes’. There is really an entire world of sound sources. When my imagination becomes somewhat stagnant I always look for new ways of thinking about sound. When I’m walking around looking for a unique sound or object I realize that every object in nature has it’s own unique sound characteristics. But for me that’s just one part of the story, making them into playable musical instruments is the other part.
How did you record the sources?
It occurred to me early on in the process of making sounds that it would be somewhat of a challenge to take objects that have little or no tonal qualities to them and get them to play well across the 127 note range of a keyboard. Even with my Propane Tank that had 8 different notes, somehow I was going to have to expand its tonal range. I eventually realized that Kore already had the solution to my problem. I could use Kontakt along with Absynth to create the illusion, not of a layered sound, but, of a whole instrument. So I would record the object, for example, the Propane Tank, using various dynamics as I saw fit. However, it really ends up not being as simplistic as that - many times I would have to really coax the musical qualities out of an object - I have to respect their stubbornness since I know that I’m forcing them to do things they were never intended for. So, when recording objects that you normally would not think of as real instruments you have to use your imagination somewhat when thinking about how that object should be played and manipulate it in various ways to find the best sounds. The Propane Tank was a bit easier as I had already turned it into a melodic percussive instrument. I recorded various hits of the drum tongues with my thumb and knuckles. I would dampen the harmonics and play on the rim of the tank to try and make the sound as organic as possible while at the same time realizing I needed to keep the file size of the sound pack relatively small. This is where Absynth fits into the puzzle…
While Kontakt was used to represent the intrinsic qualities of the sounds as they were recorded, Absynth further dresses the instrument by filling it in with tones and synthetic flexibility while also giving me a bit of creative freedom to direct the nature of what I wanted the instrument to eventually sound like. And really you can take that creativity as far as you want with Absynth. The only challenge is in keeping with my previous statement about creating an illusion of a whole acoustic-like instrument and not an obviously layered one. I found it necessary to put my samples into Kontakt first, then, with careful programming of Absynth, I would design the synthetic aspect of the sound around those samples. I use the term "synthetic" loosely, realizing that with Absynth you can really get some nice organic tones that really complement the samples.
What tools did you use to process the recordings?
Using Absynth meant that I didn’t have to do as much processing of the samples. For the most part I kept the original samples fairly raw while only doing a little spectral processing in Soundtrack Pro to remove artifacts in the samples such as tonal parts I didn’t want, etc. And of course, cutting the recordings to fit the nature of the instrument. Most of the processing was done inside Kore so that I could maintain flexibility of the overall sound by programming the controllers and sound variations. I think having those features in Kore is what really makes the instruments special. Kore’s sound variations give that added dynamic to really allow these instruments to come one step closer to competing with real acoustic instruments. In the real world there are always huge tonal variations and vast playing dynamics in every acoustic instrument. Essentially every musician can make his or her instrument their own. With Kore’s sound variations it is also possible to achieve that level of playing and when designing these instruments I specifically had that idea mind. Tweaking and morphing the controls and sound variations while you play is reminiscent of all the organic nuances you can achieve when playing a real acoustic instrument. It is somewhat satisfying to give these otherwise dull objects a musical voice and to be able to exaggerate that voice in many unimaginable directions.
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