Image inspired challenge No 7

[Tuonela]

Here is your image for challenge #7

Aurora_Australis_south_of_Australia.jpg

It's the Aurora Australis, photographed from the International Space Station.

Rules:

1. There are no restrictions as to how the track is created. All sound sources and processing methods are allowed as long as you have the rights to use them (ie. no sampling of copyrighted tracks, use only samples and recordings you've created or have the rights to etc).

2. The image is only an inspiration, you do not have to use it to generate any sounds (in an application such as Metasynth)

3. Time for submissions is 16 days, counted to midnight, UTC, of 16th day.

4. Submissions should be uploaded to place available for all AO members. Links should be posted in thread dedicated to given round. Please, do not use hosting with countdown, CAPTCHA and other obstacles.

5. Winner of contest is chosen by votes cast by AO members.

6. Winner of contest chooses the image for next contest. Photos, digital artwork, pencil sketches... All acceptable. The image can be hosted at Ambient Online or on a site such as Imgur if you feel a high quality copy is preferable.

7. Participants are encouraged to discuss their methods for the benefit of the community.

Closing date is, er... 26th of November.

Happy composing!
"When I started working on ambient music, my idea was to make music that was more like painting." ~ Brian Eno

[Codehead]

Your Defenses Are Useless

https://soundcloud.com/codehead/your...es-are-useless

Sorry for the length of this post, but I wanted to document what I did for future use. This was my first time sending a long sample to my modular for processing. I spent over 2 hours in a panic state of feedback because I had the outputs of my audio interface plugged in wrong. I threw my headphones more than once. Ultimately, I am pleased with the result.

The sample used was from One Sample Dare #34. I truncated silence in Audacity to increase the sample activity.

99% Hardware beyond this point. Most of the work was with a Eurorack Modular synthesizer. No audible oscillators or resonance was used.

Left / Right channels from computer each sent to an attenuator. This lets me balance the input channels and helps reduce overdriving the VCAs.
Left / Right channels go into Clouds (Granular/Delay/Reverb).

From Clouds into a Korgasmatron II (Filter) in Band Pass mode. Each channel (L/R) are filtered separately. From the Korgasmatron II each channel is output to a Linix (VCA). The Korgasmatron II mix output is sent to uFold for wavefolding and then to the Linix (VCA).

The three outputs are then sent to a Mixer for panning and output.

Pamela's Workout takes the MIDI Clock from Ableton Live and converts it to Triggers. Each trigger is based on a Euclidean distribution pattern.Three of PW triggers are sent to a Quadra for A/D duties and passed on to the Linix (VCA).

2 x Dixies in LFO mode control start/size of Cloud's granular engine. The rate of the LFOs are independent of any other module.Maths used as a dual LFO, triggered by Pamela's Workout, controls each of the Korgasmatron II's frequancy cutoffs.

Another Pamela's Workout trigger goes to the clock input of 2 x Pressure Points + Brains (Sequencer).The three outputs from 2xPP+B are sent to a Tri-Att (triple attenuator) and then to a Planar joystick mixer, where I moved the joystic to pan between sequencer rows.

From the Planar, the mixed sequencer output goes to a Quantimator for quantizing to a diatonic scale.The quantized output is travels back to Clouds into the 1v/oct pitch input.

Output from the modular goes to an Outboard mixer (Soundcraft EPM8) and AUX send to Eventide Time Factor, Eventide Space and finally back to Ableton.

2 hours trying to get some sound out (User Idiot Mode set to full).
2 hours of hardware setup.
1 hour of recording.

It took longer to write this than it did to set up the modular.

The only work done in Ableton was to send out the sample and EQ the bottom and top off on return. Sound Forge provided normalization.

Hopefully it will be enough to protect your ears/equipment, but I doubt it.

[Tuonela]

I went with the idea of it being a hostile environment - a freezing vacuum full of hard radiation...



3 or 4 small segments of other works in progress, stretched and processed with delay and reverb in Audacity, and one small cut cloned and likewise mistreated made into the noise bit in the middle.

[windspace]

OK, here we go...

An excerpt from a longer work that has been on slow-cook for a while. I added some melodic sort of stuff with Zebra HZ & Reaktor 6. I'll fill in the details later.

Ok, it's later...

Track 1: Processed an older sample with Usine Hollyhock 2 - lots of delays. Added Uhbik-A.
Track 2: Audio from Track 1 through REFLEXplus.
Track 3: Same audio as track 1, but reversed. + Uhbik-A.
Track 4: Zebra HZ via MFM2. (This lower pitched melodic track seems to have really been dropped out on Soundcloud playback...).
Track 5: JS Sequencer Baby serving MIDI to Reaktor 6-Duality (Blocks) ensemble. Then thru Uhbik-G and finally Replika delay to create the little higher pitched sequence.

Oops...missed one!
Track 6: NASA recording processed through Michael Norris Spectral Shimmer and REFLEXplus. (This is actually the conversation between Mission Control and Apollo 13 spacecraft at the time of the accident. I already had this in the piece. I looked for ISS transmission recordings but didn't find one right away so I left this in as it's so garbled as to make it unintelligible anyway.) I was trying to make the voices just another part of the sound, rather than a conversation that captures too much of the listener's attention.

Used ReaEQ on most of the tracks ot try to avoid too many collisions, and a touch of Satin tape saturation on the master track.

[Ahornberg]

Dance Of The Goddess Of The Dawn

... She comes at night
in pulsing light
a temptress from the north on forest spires,
with incandescent fires
she dances, to find her Earth’n Lord. ...

(excerpt from "The Goddess Aurora", a poem by James Parker Haley)



This is an improvisation using two sounds for U-he Zebra taken from the Botanica-Nightfall-Collection.
The sounds are tuned microtonal in my so-called "Equivocal Tuning" http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/33ed4

So I ended up with 2 tracks, one with a more rhythmic structure and one with a more melodic structure.
The tempo was set to 77 BPM and I used two feedback-delays of 5 sec. and 2.25 sec. length on both tracks
before I started playing and improvising on the piano-keyboard to give my play a Frippertronics-feel.

After recording (I recorded the audio-output only to make it impossible to edit some midi-notes afterwards)
I added smaller delays in sync with the tempo, a tape saturation and a large reverb.

... These sounds that mock,
harken not her footfalls to my ear
and crackling fires,
spark desire
for the Goddess to appear. ...

(another excerpt from "The Goddess Aurora")

[Maharg]

https://soundcloud.com/graham-mcarthur/pale-apparition


7 tracks in total with two being made up of multiple tracks of field recordings, synths, pads and a variety of mutilations. The other 5 tracks were made from various synths and pads which were also subjected to unnatural acts including stretching, pitch changes, speed changes, bass and treble boost, echo, delays of all sorts and of course reverb upon reverb. Great fun.

[Tuonela]

Hmm, I guess this is closed. I'll put up a voting page asap. Thanks for playing! :thumbsup:

[GaryG]

Sorry, been a bit preoccupied with real life stuff lately and missed the closing date.

I can lock the thread now and create the poll tomorrow (unless you really want to Tuonela, got no problem with that).

Cheers.