Wow, a month in already! that's pretty good going even if I do say so myself! I hope the few people visiting here are getting some enjoyment from the stuff I'm putting up here. I had an idea that I think could be a bit of fun. At the end of the year I'll make a little poll and ask visitors to vote for their favorite 10 or so sounds. Then I'll make a track out of them. I also think I'll try and compile them all into a nice sample pack for downloading too, in wonderful 24 bit WAV!
So today I thought it might be fun to try and confront a fear of mine! I hate water, or rather I hate being underneath it. I am not a strong swimmer and get incredibly disorientated when I'm underwater. I especially hate the effect it has on my hearing. That's not to say that I don't like the sound, just that I don't enjoy the experience. Anyway, I thought it might be fun to try and make a sound that had a similar tonal quality to what I hear when I submerge my ears.
SUB-AQUA by Noisy Neighbour Sound
This sound started off as an experiment using the wonderful Crusher X program. For anyone who hasnt tried this one out yet, I highly recomend it! Amazing sound design possibilities. I recorded the output and loaded it into Absynth to further mangle it about a bit, and finally a small amount of processing inside Sound Forge.
I think I did pretty well in achieving the disorientating effect I was after. The sound makes me thing of some weird underwater alien world.
Monday 31 January 2011
Friday 28 January 2011
Reaktor Patch: VidSeq
Hurray!!
Really excited to start sharing some of my Reaktor patches finally. I hope to upload all types of different things, some will be pretty full on synths and live patches, others smaller toys, designed only to be a bit of fun.
This one is probably a bit more in the second category. It's a granular sample based beat machine, but with a difference! More recently, I've become really interested with the idea of combining video and audio, and I'm really excited to explore the various ways the two things can be integrated.
Panel A
Panel B
This patch began as an experiment to see how well Reaktor can manage video playback, and ways that the 2 elements can work together. The idea is that sequencing and granular parameters have a direct influence on the video playback as well as audio. Reaktor is certainly not designed to do anything video related, so it took a bit of experimenting to get this working, but I'm really pleased with the result.
You can download the patch HERE, be warned though, due to all the image files it a pretty large file (+200mb!)
I've left the interface pretty simple, I thought it would be more fun to leave things unlabeled so that the user felt more inclined to just try things out and see what happens. There aren't so many parameters, so it should be fairly straight forward. I plan to upload some instructions on making your own video content for this patch, as well as audio, and would be interested to see what other people try out!
Hope you all enjoy it, and as I plan to develop this into something much more powerful, any suggestions and feedback are genuinely appreciated.
Really excited to start sharing some of my Reaktor patches finally. I hope to upload all types of different things, some will be pretty full on synths and live patches, others smaller toys, designed only to be a bit of fun.
This one is probably a bit more in the second category. It's a granular sample based beat machine, but with a difference! More recently, I've become really interested with the idea of combining video and audio, and I'm really excited to explore the various ways the two things can be integrated.
Panel A
Panel B
This patch began as an experiment to see how well Reaktor can manage video playback, and ways that the 2 elements can work together. The idea is that sequencing and granular parameters have a direct influence on the video playback as well as audio. Reaktor is certainly not designed to do anything video related, so it took a bit of experimenting to get this working, but I'm really pleased with the result.
You can download the patch HERE, be warned though, due to all the image files it a pretty large file (+200mb!)
I've left the interface pretty simple, I thought it would be more fun to leave things unlabeled so that the user felt more inclined to just try things out and see what happens. There aren't so many parameters, so it should be fairly straight forward. I plan to upload some instructions on making your own video content for this patch, as well as audio, and would be interested to see what other people try out!
Hope you all enjoy it, and as I plan to develop this into something much more powerful, any suggestions and feedback are genuinely appreciated.
Thursday 27 January 2011
Sound-A-Day 27.01.2011
Back to the synths again. Felt the need to modulate the crap out of something!
This sound, to be honest, I didn't have any goal in mind as to what I was trying to achieve. No sound in mind, just a desire to use every mod source in the synth I was using and see what happens. In all fairness though, I do really like the sound that came out. It's pretty dry, and could do with a bit more tarting up to make it really usable, but i thought I would share it anyway!
Gargle Laser by Noisy Neighbour Sound
(BTW, at the time of writing, soundcloud seems to be acting up a bit, not certain this has properly uploaded, will check back in the morning just in case)
So I guess the lesson here is, just dicking about with things can lead to some cool noises. I do like to work with a clear destination in mind, but from time to time, it's great to just play about with things for the fun of it!
This sound, to be honest, I didn't have any goal in mind as to what I was trying to achieve. No sound in mind, just a desire to use every mod source in the synth I was using and see what happens. In all fairness though, I do really like the sound that came out. It's pretty dry, and could do with a bit more tarting up to make it really usable, but i thought I would share it anyway!
Gargle Laser by Noisy Neighbour Sound
(BTW, at the time of writing, soundcloud seems to be acting up a bit, not certain this has properly uploaded, will check back in the morning just in case)
So I guess the lesson here is, just dicking about with things can lead to some cool noises. I do like to work with a clear destination in mind, but from time to time, it's great to just play about with things for the fun of it!
Sound-A-Day 26.01.2011
Robots.. Well, what can I say really? I love em and to be honest, my life would be significantly harder without my little league of mechanoids scurrying about, taking care of all the tasks I assign to them each day.
The only that that irritates me is that I cant understand a word they say, and yet they insist on trying to talk to me. I recorded one of the little guys earlier today, this one was especially vocal.
Mechanoid-Rambling by Noisy Neighbour Sound
I love these kinda sounds and I love making them. There's a whole lot of different things going on in this one, not really worth listing them all here. That's the one thing with making pretty complex sound effects like this, it can be extremely time consuming!
The only that that irritates me is that I cant understand a word they say, and yet they insist on trying to talk to me. I recorded one of the little guys earlier today, this one was especially vocal.
Mechanoid-Rambling by Noisy Neighbour Sound
I love these kinda sounds and I love making them. There's a whole lot of different things going on in this one, not really worth listing them all here. That's the one thing with making pretty complex sound effects like this, it can be extremely time consuming!
Sound-A-Day 25.01.2011
WOW!! Well, what can I say.. I'm terrible and I'm really sorry!
In my defense however, I've actually been really poorly the last few days. Dragging myself to work each evening taken it out of me, and I just needed to crash each night. Feeling much better now though, you'll be pleased to know.
So, it appears I have some catching up to do, no worries, I have some sounds ready for you're eager ears!
This one is another Monotron noise, again using the SH101 as an input into the filter. This time I recorded the sound into sound forge and added some further editing. Thanks to a Doppler plugin, the result came out as a kinda old school sci fi space ship whizzing by. I like it!!
Fly by by Noisy Neighbour Sound
Really made me think a lot about the really old approaches to sound design, before computers and digital processing. I'm in the mood for trying some tape loop experiments now, haven't done that for years! Just need to track down my old tape machine......
In my defense however, I've actually been really poorly the last few days. Dragging myself to work each evening taken it out of me, and I just needed to crash each night. Feeling much better now though, you'll be pleased to know.
So, it appears I have some catching up to do, no worries, I have some sounds ready for you're eager ears!
This one is another Monotron noise, again using the SH101 as an input into the filter. This time I recorded the sound into sound forge and added some further editing. Thanks to a Doppler plugin, the result came out as a kinda old school sci fi space ship whizzing by. I like it!!
Fly by by Noisy Neighbour Sound
Really made me think a lot about the really old approaches to sound design, before computers and digital processing. I'm in the mood for trying some tape loop experiments now, haven't done that for years! Just need to track down my old tape machine......
Monday 24 January 2011
Sound-A-Day 24.01.2011
Monday evening means back on with sound a day!
Super busy weekend, got loads to be getting on with! I had hoped to have my first Reaktor patch available for Download today, but alas, it wasn't to be. Still a few bugs to iron out before I feel happy exposing it to the world, and need to rope in a favour for hosting it too!
I also made the first small steps into a very big new project which should be unfolding as the year progresses. Don't want to reveal too much just yet. Enough to say that it's involving a few other people who I'm very excited to be working with. I'll be sure to document the whole thing on here.
Enough about that, here's a sound for today..
A friend John was kind enough to lend me his Korg Monotron for a few days. What an awesome little toy it is! The filter on it's own is an absolute blast, really great for just making a good old racket. I've got to get one of these things myself, especially to rip it open and mod it!
In spite of its very resonant filter circuit, I wanted to try and get something a touch more subdued and moody from it. I didn't get along with the tiny touch keyboard so well, but still wanting to keep it analogue, so I decided to use the AUX input for the filter and ran the SH101 through it. The 101 is playing a slightly filtered random note pattern, with just a touch of ENV mod on the cutoff. The monotron has a medium resonance setting and a very slowly sweeping LFO on the cutoff. This then goes into a nice metallic reverb patch from the Lexicon plugins.
Monotron Atmosphere by Noisy Neighbour Sound
Really nice full sound. I think its amazing just how great 2 very simply pieces of kit can sound. Without wanting to sound like a snob, but there's something about analogue.. just has that sound!
Super busy weekend, got loads to be getting on with! I had hoped to have my first Reaktor patch available for Download today, but alas, it wasn't to be. Still a few bugs to iron out before I feel happy exposing it to the world, and need to rope in a favour for hosting it too!
I also made the first small steps into a very big new project which should be unfolding as the year progresses. Don't want to reveal too much just yet. Enough to say that it's involving a few other people who I'm very excited to be working with. I'll be sure to document the whole thing on here.
Enough about that, here's a sound for today..
A friend John was kind enough to lend me his Korg Monotron for a few days. What an awesome little toy it is! The filter on it's own is an absolute blast, really great for just making a good old racket. I've got to get one of these things myself, especially to rip it open and mod it!
In spite of its very resonant filter circuit, I wanted to try and get something a touch more subdued and moody from it. I didn't get along with the tiny touch keyboard so well, but still wanting to keep it analogue, so I decided to use the AUX input for the filter and ran the SH101 through it. The 101 is playing a slightly filtered random note pattern, with just a touch of ENV mod on the cutoff. The monotron has a medium resonance setting and a very slowly sweeping LFO on the cutoff. This then goes into a nice metallic reverb patch from the Lexicon plugins.
Monotron Atmosphere by Noisy Neighbour Sound
Really nice full sound. I think its amazing just how great 2 very simply pieces of kit can sound. Without wanting to sound like a snob, but there's something about analogue.. just has that sound!
Weekend Photos
So as I mentioned before, weekends have now become photo days for me and Lucy.
This weekend we decided to visit Beeding Cement works in Shoreham. It's an old abandoned chalk mine and cement works, and since we both enjoy exploring old broken down buildings we thought we should check it out!
The light wasn't so great that day, but we still managed to get a fair few good shots. Unfortunately the site isn't completely abandoned, and we did see a few guards patrolling the site, so we couldn't get too far in. A shame really, since the biggest buildings were unreachable. Perhaps another visit is in order, a bit more covert next time!
Anyway, here are a few of the pics I got, really happy with them, especially considering the poor light that day.
This weekend we decided to visit Beeding Cement works in Shoreham. It's an old abandoned chalk mine and cement works, and since we both enjoy exploring old broken down buildings we thought we should check it out!
The light wasn't so great that day, but we still managed to get a fair few good shots. Unfortunately the site isn't completely abandoned, and we did see a few guards patrolling the site, so we couldn't get too far in. A shame really, since the biggest buildings were unreachable. Perhaps another visit is in order, a bit more covert next time!
Anyway, here are a few of the pics I got, really happy with them, especially considering the poor light that day.
Saturday 22 January 2011
Sound-A-Day 21.01.2011
Well, what a fail today. Having really bad troubles with my eye, got a nasty infection making it pretty painful to look at a monitor for any length of time.
Was really bad yesterday, but today is a bit better, I can see for long enough to upload a sound, blogging through the pain!!
Have managed to get a few hours in, working on this VidSeq Reaktor instrument I mentioned earlier in the week. Getting a few more functions working properly, and designing a bit of an interface. Its more or less there now, so hopefully I can get it finished tomorrow and uploaded on Monday, fingers crossed!
Here's a pic of how its looking so far:
Doesn't give away much Ill admit, so here is another sound from it too.
VIDSEQ-TEST-LOOP2 by Noisy Neighbour Sound
I think its sounding great, really the type of noise I'm into at the moment, but the audio is just half the fun. Cant wait to get this finished and shared!
Was really bad yesterday, but today is a bit better, I can see for long enough to upload a sound, blogging through the pain!!
Have managed to get a few hours in, working on this VidSeq Reaktor instrument I mentioned earlier in the week. Getting a few more functions working properly, and designing a bit of an interface. Its more or less there now, so hopefully I can get it finished tomorrow and uploaded on Monday, fingers crossed!
Here's a pic of how its looking so far:
Doesn't give away much Ill admit, so here is another sound from it too.
VIDSEQ-TEST-LOOP2 by Noisy Neighbour Sound
I think its sounding great, really the type of noise I'm into at the moment, but the audio is just half the fun. Cant wait to get this finished and shared!
Thursday 20 January 2011
Sound-A-Day 20.01.2011
Wow, pretty late/early uploading this one today, and I'm sure all the thousands of people checking this blog have been waiting on tender hooks, refreshing the page every few seconds. Well, sorry for the delay, here is a new sound!
So this one started out as something from a long time ago. I was working on my live patch in Reaktor, and trying to build a scratch control using a Kaoss Pad. The idea was that touching the XY would make the track slow down, like proper vinyl, and then scratching on the XY would scan through a buffer. It took a lot of work to get working well, a real headache. Finally got it all working, only to discover that I absolutely suck at scratching... ah well.
Still, I opened up the patch recently and turned it into a type of live vinyl effect patch, midi triggered slow downs, reverses etc, so all is not lost! This loop was made by first building a basic loop out of a bunch of glitchy drum sounds, and then automating a few parameters of the "scratch patch"
NICE-LIMP by Noisy Neighbour Sound
I think it has a cool kinda feeling to it. Really limps in a wonky but fun way. It's quite interesting the effect that messing with timing can create move of a groove or drag to something. This loop always feels like one half is dragging the other half a long. Quite a fun effect!
So this one started out as something from a long time ago. I was working on my live patch in Reaktor, and trying to build a scratch control using a Kaoss Pad. The idea was that touching the XY would make the track slow down, like proper vinyl, and then scratching on the XY would scan through a buffer. It took a lot of work to get working well, a real headache. Finally got it all working, only to discover that I absolutely suck at scratching... ah well.
Still, I opened up the patch recently and turned it into a type of live vinyl effect patch, midi triggered slow downs, reverses etc, so all is not lost! This loop was made by first building a basic loop out of a bunch of glitchy drum sounds, and then automating a few parameters of the "scratch patch"
NICE-LIMP by Noisy Neighbour Sound
I think it has a cool kinda feeling to it. Really limps in a wonky but fun way. It's quite interesting the effect that messing with timing can create move of a groove or drag to something. This loop always feels like one half is dragging the other half a long. Quite a fun effect!
Wednesday 19 January 2011
Sound-A-Day 19.01.2011
Woke up this morning to find an unexpected guest in my room. Thought I'd see if they was up for a bit of a collab, and got everything fired up. He zipped about the place, from one piece of gear to another. Eventually ended up on my K station where he stayed for a while, before pooping on it and disappearing out of the window. Lesson learned, Birds are analogue purists.
Here's a pic of the little guy.
Anyway, back on with the task at hand. A sound for today.
I've never had any formal production lessons, only music theory etc. So I'm pretty much self taught with all this stuff. I do from time to time read books and bits n pieces in magazines, and there are always a few "rules" that reappear time and time again, in particular, ordering of effect chains. Never put X before Y, always put A before B and so on.
I'm a massive Zappa fan, have been since I was about 14. One of the things I really like is his really distinct solo guitar tone. I remember finally figuring it out one day, putting the wah after the distortion. The wrong way round by convention, but ultimately interesting and characteristic. So today I decided to go against everything I read in books and put things in completely the wrong order, pay no attention to digital clipping etc, and just see how things come out. (WARNING!! ABRASIVE!!)
HARD-DIST by Noisy Neighbour Sound
I like it, a lot!! Nearly all of the drum sounds are running through one mixer channel, straight into a reverb. This is then running through a Guitar rig patch, then a VERY hard compression, then EQ, and finally a limiter. Most of the levels are hitting the red full on, and i had to bring the channel volume down quite considerably so as to avoid distorting the master bus as well.
The drum sounds are a mixture of Module Drum sounds, and noisy filter snaps from an SH101. The metallic tones are made by hitting two large metal crow bars together. The ambient drone is a little patch from the K station, which has been heavily processed inside Sound forge.
What I found most surprising is just how much effect the reverb has on the level of distortion. Without any this sounds relatively tame, but adding more and more reverb causes the real grittiness, and the tails going through the hard compression make a really satisfying breathing noise effect. I really recommend trying this out, very cool fun!
Here's a pic of the little guy.
Anyway, back on with the task at hand. A sound for today.
I've never had any formal production lessons, only music theory etc. So I'm pretty much self taught with all this stuff. I do from time to time read books and bits n pieces in magazines, and there are always a few "rules" that reappear time and time again, in particular, ordering of effect chains. Never put X before Y, always put A before B and so on.
I'm a massive Zappa fan, have been since I was about 14. One of the things I really like is his really distinct solo guitar tone. I remember finally figuring it out one day, putting the wah after the distortion. The wrong way round by convention, but ultimately interesting and characteristic. So today I decided to go against everything I read in books and put things in completely the wrong order, pay no attention to digital clipping etc, and just see how things come out. (WARNING!! ABRASIVE!!)
HARD-DIST by Noisy Neighbour Sound
I like it, a lot!! Nearly all of the drum sounds are running through one mixer channel, straight into a reverb. This is then running through a Guitar rig patch, then a VERY hard compression, then EQ, and finally a limiter. Most of the levels are hitting the red full on, and i had to bring the channel volume down quite considerably so as to avoid distorting the master bus as well.
The drum sounds are a mixture of Module Drum sounds, and noisy filter snaps from an SH101. The metallic tones are made by hitting two large metal crow bars together. The ambient drone is a little patch from the K station, which has been heavily processed inside Sound forge.
What I found most surprising is just how much effect the reverb has on the level of distortion. Without any this sounds relatively tame, but adding more and more reverb causes the real grittiness, and the tails going through the hard compression make a really satisfying breathing noise effect. I really recommend trying this out, very cool fun!
Tuesday 18 January 2011
Sound-A-Day 18.01.2011
YAWN!! Ugh, really sleepy today, warn out from a long days work, and starting to feel pretty under the weather, bit of flu I think..Ah well, mustn't grumble, time to upload a new sound!
Keeping with the theme of loops, here is another one. Going against all conventional methods and so on and so forth. This one was made in the unusual way of sequencing beats in something called a "sequencer" and then layering additional sounds from these things called "synths" cool eh?
Well, as much as I like to experiment with unusual methods, sometimes the best methods are the conventional ones. The drum sounds are from various different previous experiments, all loaded into Battery and sequenced in the normal manner. The bass sound is a patch made using the "Oki Computer 2" synth in NI Reaktor (one of my absolute favourites, give it a whirl) the side chained ambient noise is another of the sounds I made using the sheet of glass..
MINIMAL-GLITCH by Noisy Neighbour Sound
With this loop, I was mainly concerned with trying to portray a sense of hi tech sheen, glossy coolness and minimal elegance. I like the idea of a room of ultra modern cyborgs dancing very robotic with lasers reflecting off their super shiny frames.
Watched Tron 2 recently, so maybe that's a bit of influence. Disappointing film IMO, but great visuals. I must say as well, I was let down by the Daft Punk soundtrack too. But to be fair, they did have a lot to live up to, considering who did the music for the original!
Keeping with the theme of loops, here is another one. Going against all conventional methods and so on and so forth. This one was made in the unusual way of sequencing beats in something called a "sequencer" and then layering additional sounds from these things called "synths" cool eh?
Well, as much as I like to experiment with unusual methods, sometimes the best methods are the conventional ones. The drum sounds are from various different previous experiments, all loaded into Battery and sequenced in the normal manner. The bass sound is a patch made using the "Oki Computer 2" synth in NI Reaktor (one of my absolute favourites, give it a whirl) the side chained ambient noise is another of the sounds I made using the sheet of glass..
MINIMAL-GLITCH by Noisy Neighbour Sound
With this loop, I was mainly concerned with trying to portray a sense of hi tech sheen, glossy coolness and minimal elegance. I like the idea of a room of ultra modern cyborgs dancing very robotic with lasers reflecting off their super shiny frames.
Watched Tron 2 recently, so maybe that's a bit of influence. Disappointing film IMO, but great visuals. I must say as well, I was let down by the Daft Punk soundtrack too. But to be fair, they did have a lot to live up to, considering who did the music for the original!
Monday 17 January 2011
Sound-A-Day 17.01.2011
Right, back on with sound a day!
I figured it's easier for me to keep track of the sounds I'm uploading if I try to carry a theme through each week. Last week was mostly synth blurps from a Reaktor patch I'm busy with, this week I decided loops should be the theme.
I find the notion of loops really interesting, because while it's a good descriptive term for a type of sound, really it can cover a very wide spectrum of things. Midi loops, sampled breaks, whole sections of tracks even. Although the ones I'll be uploading this week will be mostly beats, just mulling over this has made me reconsider my approach to loops quite considerably.
Anyway, enough of that tangent, here's a sound!
VIDSEQ-TEST-LOOP by Noisy Neighbour Sound
This one was made in a Reaktor patch I've been building over the last couple days called VIDSEQ. It's effectively a granular sample based sequenced drum machine, but with a few added features. More about that another day! The hits themselves are from a folder I made of glitched out hits made in all types of ways, some of which I have shared on here previously.
I figured it's easier for me to keep track of the sounds I'm uploading if I try to carry a theme through each week. Last week was mostly synth blurps from a Reaktor patch I'm busy with, this week I decided loops should be the theme.
I find the notion of loops really interesting, because while it's a good descriptive term for a type of sound, really it can cover a very wide spectrum of things. Midi loops, sampled breaks, whole sections of tracks even. Although the ones I'll be uploading this week will be mostly beats, just mulling over this has made me reconsider my approach to loops quite considerably.
Anyway, enough of that tangent, here's a sound!
VIDSEQ-TEST-LOOP by Noisy Neighbour Sound
This one was made in a Reaktor patch I've been building over the last couple days called VIDSEQ. It's effectively a granular sample based sequenced drum machine, but with a few added features. More about that another day! The hits themselves are from a folder I made of glitched out hits made in all types of ways, some of which I have shared on here previously.
Weekend Photos
As I mentioned last at the start of last week. I decided not to do blog stuff over the weekend. It's nice to spend those 2 days doing other things, including getting outside, something I don't do enough!
So my girlfriend Lucy and I decided to make Sundays our photography days. Lucy is an excellent photographer, and over the years she has got me more and more interested in it too! I'm still not even close to her standard, but going out with our cameras is great fun, and a good chance for me to pick up some tips!
This weekend we went to Beachy Head. It's a really beautiful part of the south coast of the UK, and a notorious suicide spot.
Here are some of the pictures I took.
So my girlfriend Lucy and I decided to make Sundays our photography days. Lucy is an excellent photographer, and over the years she has got me more and more interested in it too! I'm still not even close to her standard, but going out with our cameras is great fun, and a good chance for me to pick up some tips!
This weekend we went to Beachy Head. It's a really beautiful part of the south coast of the UK, and a notorious suicide spot.
Here are some of the pictures I took.
Friday 14 January 2011
Sound-A-Day 14.01.2011
Phew, What a heavy week! Had some really tough days at work, and my brain has been close to melting point from fussing over the routing in this Reaktor Patch I'm busy with ATM.
Still, always nice to have a good constructive week. Will enjoy relaxing a bit over the weekend, hopefully get some photography done on Sunday, and maybe even work on some tracks!
Here's one last Module sound, going for a classic analogue-ish sounding modulation freak out. Wicked sounding, I really enjoy making sounds with this thing.
Module-Working by Noisy Neighbour Sound
Sounds like some sort of industrial bot doing its business. Pretty nice sound!
I'm going to take a bit of a breather from this synth for a while now. It's great fun, but for the time being I want to re asses the approach to getting the routing working better, it can get a touch confusing at times, and that's really something I like to avoid with interfaces.
No worries though, I have another thing underway which is going to get a bit more attention, more about that next week. Suffice as to say, I am WELL excited with this, it's gonna be mega!
Hopefully a new theme next week as well, I'm thinking loops.. more bang for ya buck
Still, always nice to have a good constructive week. Will enjoy relaxing a bit over the weekend, hopefully get some photography done on Sunday, and maybe even work on some tracks!
Here's one last Module sound, going for a classic analogue-ish sounding modulation freak out. Wicked sounding, I really enjoy making sounds with this thing.
Module-Working by Noisy Neighbour Sound
Sounds like some sort of industrial bot doing its business. Pretty nice sound!
I'm going to take a bit of a breather from this synth for a while now. It's great fun, but for the time being I want to re asses the approach to getting the routing working better, it can get a touch confusing at times, and that's really something I like to avoid with interfaces.
No worries though, I have another thing underway which is going to get a bit more attention, more about that next week. Suffice as to say, I am WELL excited with this, it's gonna be mega!
Hopefully a new theme next week as well, I'm thinking loops.. more bang for ya buck
Thursday 13 January 2011
Sound-A-Day 13.01.2011
Another day, another sound! Again, this one is something I made using this new synth I've been busy with.
Managed to get a new little feature working, and this was a little test sound. One of the thing that really attracts me to modular synths is the ability to route pretty much anything to anything. Makes creating weird modulation combos really possible. I've started trying to implement that kind of functionality into my patch. Its a bit fiddly at times, but getting there.
Module-Trigger Sweep by Noisy Neighbour Sound
This sound is made by using an LFO to act as the gate input for the envelope generator. The envelope generator is then controlling the amplitude of one of the oscillators. There is also another Envelope generator controlling the Frequency of the LFO. This second Envelope is triggered by Midi input...
Hmm, maybe a diagram would be better! (on a side note, I know I should make more "visual" input for this blog, am on it!)
Anyway, just another little noise from today. Most of these sounds will get saved as Presets for this patch, so when I finally get it all working properly, it'll be downloadable, and my terrible explanations will have something to be compared to!
Managed to get a new little feature working, and this was a little test sound. One of the thing that really attracts me to modular synths is the ability to route pretty much anything to anything. Makes creating weird modulation combos really possible. I've started trying to implement that kind of functionality into my patch. Its a bit fiddly at times, but getting there.
Module-Trigger Sweep by Noisy Neighbour Sound
This sound is made by using an LFO to act as the gate input for the envelope generator. The envelope generator is then controlling the amplitude of one of the oscillators. There is also another Envelope generator controlling the Frequency of the LFO. This second Envelope is triggered by Midi input...
Hmm, maybe a diagram would be better! (on a side note, I know I should make more "visual" input for this blog, am on it!)
Anyway, just another little noise from today. Most of these sounds will get saved as Presets for this patch, so when I finally get it all working properly, it'll be downloadable, and my terrible explanations will have something to be compared to!
Sound-A-Day 12.01.2011
A little last in posting yesterdays sound. My current job is really taking it out of me. Some evenings I'm ok when I finish, others I'm completely drained and just crash, yesterday was one of those days.
So here's a sound from last night. A short kick drum sound, nothing too fancy, function over form type deal. I like it though, pretty full sounding, nice bit of high end excitement, sounds really good when distorted... umm, well, It's a kick drum, but a nice one!
Module-Buzz Kick by Noisy Neighbour Sound
So here's a sound from last night. A short kick drum sound, nothing too fancy, function over form type deal. I like it though, pretty full sounding, nice bit of high end excitement, sounds really good when distorted... umm, well, It's a kick drum, but a nice one!
Module-Buzz Kick by Noisy Neighbour Sound
Tuesday 11 January 2011
Sound-A-Day 11.01.2011
So, although yesterday I said I'd upload some more sounds from my new synth I'm building, and I had every intention of doing so, I really did! But, just as I was closing Reaktor I saw the Absynth icon in the corner of my eye and got a bit carried away!
This started out as a kick and Snare sound made in my Module synth. I built a little sequencer in Reaktor to build a beat with. Then I loaded a wave table synth and set it up to switch waveform every 16th beat. With a sharp amp envelope and some pitch modulation, it made some nice percussion hits. I let this spit out some random beats for a while, recording the output. Trimmed a couple to size and loaded them into the granular players in Absynth. Lots of noodling with the envelopes, and recorded the output
Here's one of the resulting sounds.
Springy-Bend-Kick by Noisy Neighbour Sound
I quite like it, sounds like a plasma cannon or something. Perhaps a long way round to make one 2 second long sound, but I guess it's more about the journey than the destination!
This started out as a kick and Snare sound made in my Module synth. I built a little sequencer in Reaktor to build a beat with. Then I loaded a wave table synth and set it up to switch waveform every 16th beat. With a sharp amp envelope and some pitch modulation, it made some nice percussion hits. I let this spit out some random beats for a while, recording the output. Trimmed a couple to size and loaded them into the granular players in Absynth. Lots of noodling with the envelopes, and recorded the output
Here's one of the resulting sounds.
Springy-Bend-Kick by Noisy Neighbour Sound
I quite like it, sounds like a plasma cannon or something. Perhaps a long way round to make one 2 second long sound, but I guess it's more about the journey than the destination!
Monday 10 January 2011
Sound-A-Day 10.01.2011
So I decided I'm gonna take weekend breathers from the blog. Partly because, since I work full time, I like to take weekends to get really buried into the other projects I'm working on. Also, I should really get out occasionally too, else I suspect Ill start to go translucent!
I did spend some of the weekend getting very deep into a new Reaktor synth I've busy with called "Module". It's an attempt at building something semi modular in the ARP 2600/Cwejman S1 vein. I spent a long time working on the oscillators and filters especially, not to mention getting all the routing options all working properly. It'll be a long project to get it working perfect, but it's sounding pretty cool so far.
Thought this week I'd post up some sounds I got out of it so far. Here's the first.
Module-Droid Fail by Noisy Neighbour Sound
Really excited to get this all properly working, so many modulation options makes it possible to get all number of cool sounds. Have found it good for Drum sounds too, so expect more of those this week. Of course, once It's stable, I'll put it up on here for downloading.
Friday 7 January 2011
Sound-A-Day 07.01.2011
Something a little different today, something a little longer than usual. It's a short percussive track I began a little while back. It's more of an experiment with some percussive sounds than a serious composition, but never the less, I still like it a lot.
With the exception of the pad part, all the sounds in this track are samples taken from a home made percussion instrument, built by Henry Collins. The instrument consists of a small wooden resonant box, with contact microphones fitted inside. Mounted to the box are various items of scrap metal, nails, screws, guitar strings, springs and so forth. These can be plucked, struck, bowed etc to produce various different percussive effects. The pad sound is a fairly simple patch made on a Novation K Station polysynth. I'm particularly proud of how well the synth sound compliments the drones recorded from the percussion box when played with a bow. The reverb effect is from the Lexicon PCM Native bundle, amazing sounding reverbs, definitely my favourite for this type of music.
Perc-Jam by Noisy Neighbour Sound
Although written with the main intent of trying some new techniques, I do really like this track. I think the key to a good ambient track is to provide a subtle sense of atmosphere, while still retaining a certain level of ambiguity, as though giving the listener hints about the intended mood, but also leaving it open for interpretation.
Its certainly something I'm getting more and more interested in. I hope to try more things along this vein, and in working on this track I've got a load more ideas for things to try in the future.
Again, special thanks to Henry for letting me use his awesome instrument!
Sound-A-Day 06.01.2011
Whoops!
Fell asleep last night when I returned home from work, normally the time I upload something here. So this one is to make up for last night, and I'll put another one up this evening.
Today's sound is a very unusual one, there is a whole lot of different processing going on, more than is really worth listing! Suffice to say there is a bit of Absynth, a touch of Reaktor, a smidge of field recording, all mixed up in Soundforge with a spoon made from Waves plug ins.
Intergalatic-Transmit by Noisy Neighbour Sound
REALLY like this one, was trying to make some type of alien scrambled transmission. Something that sounded like a message beamed across the cosmos in some weird language, and distorted by traveling through space.
Fell asleep last night when I returned home from work, normally the time I upload something here. So this one is to make up for last night, and I'll put another one up this evening.
Today's sound is a very unusual one, there is a whole lot of different processing going on, more than is really worth listing! Suffice to say there is a bit of Absynth, a touch of Reaktor, a smidge of field recording, all mixed up in Soundforge with a spoon made from Waves plug ins.
Intergalatic-Transmit by Noisy Neighbour Sound
REALLY like this one, was trying to make some type of alien scrambled transmission. Something that sounded like a message beamed across the cosmos in some weird language, and distorted by traveling through space.
Wednesday 5 January 2011
Sound-A-Day 05.01.2011
I like my Dubstep/Bass music the same way I like my Sci-Fi, Dark, High Tech, and full of robots!
Today I spent the day working on some tracks due for a release later this year. I've made loads of robotic, industrial Sci-Fi noises. Here's a little bit of a bass patch I've been playing around with.
The initial sound comes from a Wave Shaping synth, with slight modulation on the waveform, and some LFO modulation on the filter frequency. There's also a bit of chorus in there to thicken the tone a bit. This sounded pretty cool, but still obviously a synth, and not a giant mecha like I want. Decided to try playing about with a couple weird plug-ins I stumbled across on the net a while back. Really cool, odd little spectral effects. Check them out here. There's a Pitch Shifter, Spectral Exaggerator, and Spectral accumulator. I played about with the pitch shifting and this is what came out.
Robot-Bass by Noisy Neighbour Sound
I think this sounds pretty awesome. The spectral effect definitely makes it sound less out-of-the-box and a little bit more "real"
Unfortunately, the plug ins are less than great for using online. For a start they only run in mono, and are also quite draining on system resource. This meant I had to process left and right channels separately offline. Using this type of patch in the context of a whole track will be pretty time consuming to say the least! None the less, still cool for a few one shots. Besides, that's what I love about these kind of plug ins. They're strange to use, somewhat unpredictable, but always come up with something bizarre. While there are several more polished effects out there, sometimes its the weird little ones that produce the most interesting and unique results.
Tuesday 4 January 2011
Sound-A-Day 04.01.2011
Something a bit different this time around. While yesterdays post was a bit of experimenting with some really new things, today's is more about appreciating the old. I personally don't buy into the Analogue Vs Digital argument. Both can sound great in my opinion, and both play an important part in modern electronic music.
One thing that old analogue synths are great for, is making very simple patches sound incredibly full and warm. I imagine it's because of the slight modulations in pitch and amplitude that such circuitry causes. Regardless, for pad sounds especially, it can sound awesome!
This is a short looping pad made using a very old Korg PE1000. Since it has no Midi connections, I created a multi sample patch inside Reaktor. I decided not to attempt to recreate the filter, since the filter on the PE1000 is pretty unique and would've been hard to emulate. The only thing I did add was a small Macro to allow for scaling note input. This means you can control the amount of "detune" from subtle fullness to atonality.
The multi sample instrument was then ran through 2 separate effect chains. One with a reverb setting, and the other with a very slight frequency shift and delay.
Drifting-Pad by Noisy Neighbour Sound
I really like this pad, It has a nice simplicity to it, but the slight variations in the tone make it involving too. One of my favourite albums is "Selected Ambient Works" by Aphex Twin. Its full of great warm pads, and I hoped to capture something similar. I'm pretty pleased with the result.
(Image credit: Veerle Pirson)
Monday 3 January 2011
Sound-A-Day 03.01.2011
Bought myself Reactable for IPad as my Christmas present this year. Spent the last few days playing about with it. Really mixed feelings with it to be honest. Its a really great interface, really fun to use, and sound results are surprisingly good.
Unfortunately it does feel very limited. There are only so many modules you can place in a table, which makes creating complex synth patches more or less impossible. My other gripe is that it feels far more tailored for playing about with loaded loops, rather than creating them. Everything is monophonic as well which is a real shame, and it's especially noticeable when building drum parts. You cant have a kick and hat on the same beat for example.
All in all though, it's great fun to use, and for only a fiver.
Here's a recording of a little patch I made earlier today. Pretty cool sounds for an App!
Reactable-Scramble by Noisy Neighbour Sound
It's certainly a fun way to come out with some nice sounds, despite being very limited. I'm back to work tomorrow, but Ill take the IPad with me and make some bleeps and whirs during my lunch break!
Sunday 2 January 2011
Sound-A-Day 02.01.2011
Well, truth be told its now the 3rd, but I haven't gone to bed yet so it still counts!
Have been really busy today working on a track for a release out later this year, making loads of glitched drum sounds and effects. One cool way to come up with some odd noises is by running the beats I've made through my live patch. I have loads of different effects mapped out across a Korg Nanopad, with the XY controller sending values to several different parameters. Its great to load up a few sounds, bash the buttons and record the results for sequencing. This is something it spat out earlier today (yesterday).
Live-DSP-Kick by Noisy Neighbour Sound
I think it sounds pretty cool! Another thing I want to do with this blog is to upload and share some Reaktor patches. The button effect thing I used here is something I'm in the middle of polishing up, so hopefully it'll be available to download soon.
Saturday 1 January 2011
Sound-A-Day 01.01.2011
One of the reasons for starting this blog was to build up some type of online portfolio for sound design work. Many people told me that an important rule for blogging was to keep regular updates. So I decided what better way than to upload a new sound each day!
I love playing around with sounds, and finding different ways of coming up with interesting noises. It plays a huge part in my music making as well as being something I get a lot of enjoyment out of.
I cant really predict what type of sounds will be going up each day, sometimes a short loop, sometimes a full track, and sometimes maybe even a single drum sound. One things for certain though, there will be a new one every day!
Today's sound is pretty heavily processed. It began as a recording of a sheet of glass being scraped with a nail. The glass sheet had contact mics attached, the signal from which was run through a self built Spectral Delay patch in NI Reaktor. The resulting sound was then edited using several effects in Soundforge.
Glass-Scrape-Spec by Noisy Neighbour Sound
I think this is a pretty cool ambient effect, very alien and ominous!
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