Electronic Music 411 - how do you Drone? long rich tones seamless

10/12/06 + Tripnik

granular synthesis has already been mentioned, but it's the heart of almost all really long time stretches. I do it in max by cutting a tiny 100ms or so chunk out of recorded material, then put an envelope on it so every time the sample is triggered, it fades both in and out. Then trigger a bunch of samples in super quick succession so that they overlap each other (I'm talking like 4-8 overlapping at a time). If the envelope was generated properly, the sound should sustain with no perceivable break.

I alternate grains between the left and right audio channels, and also randomize length of each grain so that the drone is fatter in some places, and thinner in others between the two ears. This creates a more interesting sustain imho...

Another way it could be done is with fft analysis. If you convert all the partials of the sound to sine waves, you could time stretch it to a ridiculous length with little to no artifacts. Trying to do that live, though, would probably kill your computer.

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10/28/06 + lunatinker

why do i still not do the max/msp? god.
its a bugger! i's mentally lazy there i think..

Recent blogs: how do you Drone? long rich tones seamless

10/30/06 + utofbu

I like recording air conditioners and water treatment facilities. I like recording tuners in the corner of the warehouse. The way that sky absorbs traffic noise. Mechanical noise. Fans, Washing Machines.

Take a spectral breakdown= 3 mono tracks bandpassed at equally crossed low mid and high.
do any number of things to them individually. It is 9 unique destinations if you are half of a dsp head and a bizillion if you are really tuned into whatever you are breaking apart.

::insert a bizillion things to do here::

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11/01/06 + flies

utofbu said: "Take a spectral breakdown= 3 mono tracks bandpassed at equally crossed low mid and high."

aka cross-over filter (sorry to quibble, but xover doesn't usually use bandpass (afaik), so i thought i'd butt in.) jdg mentioned to me that doing this and then sending the different bands to separate granulators creates interesting effects, and he's right!

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11/01/06 + utofbu

to be honest, I mean manually crossing the signals. Isolating them using bandpasses and then constituting them together.

A multiband(fill in the blank) Is nothing but a bunch of band passes. BTW a digital filter(the thing that converts imaginary numbers into sound) is a band pass. Everything is a band pass. Your ears are a band pass.

And a crossover is a series of filters which are low and high pass and reject. Those are the operational variables that define a band pass.

But whatever, I get good results with this and the possibilities are endless. I do not use a crossover because this does not yield the same result seeing that a crossover is a specialised bandpass filter.

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11/02/06 + flies

i think we're both right and wrong: link

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11/02/06 + utofbu

Hate to be a nuisance but I grabbed this out of the Wiki

---The BPF section is in turn a combination of HPF and LPF sections.---

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11/02/06 + flies

do we drone on?

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11/02/06 + utofbu

AHAHAHAH! yes!

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11/29/06 + lunatinker

flies said: "i think we're both right and wrong: link"

WIKI said: "Comparison of the magnitude response of 2 pole Butterworth and Linkwitz-Riley crossover filters. The summed output of the Butterworth filters has a +3dB peak at the crossover frequency."

lol butterzone...

Recent blogs: how do you Drone? long rich tones seamless

05/04/07 + dach

How do you get the slowed down stuff to sound 'in tune'? I've done the granular freezes, the slowed down shortwave radio, the convolution with my dishwashing machine and my squeaking guinneapig slowed down a hundred times, but all of these sound exactly like their description: slowed down stuff or granulated mush. Layering them just makes more mush.

Is there some technique I'm missing thats useful for creating harmonically related sounds? Do you guys add octaves and fifths of your drones together? Are there some neat filters that'll boost/cut related partials or something to make it sound more chordy and in tune?? tips welcome!!!

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05/04/07 + fakeBlooper

dach. thats the tricky part with drones. anybody can make a wash, but it still takes skill to make "good" drones. i've tried starting with individual elements from which i can hear a strong fundamental pitch... layering another a 5th up, along with a devilish triad, but i can never get my washing to sound like they resolve to anywhere. knowledge of jazz music theory could probably help. i'd be interested to hear what kind of changes others have used.

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05/28/07 + nightowl

i made some nice drones by running a cheap keyboard with key(s) taped down, thru special fx boxes for electric quitar to give it a slowly wavering tone, and to add more sustain. this way you have easy control over the harmonics by using different keys. use 1 key for each drone note, them overdub them to make chords. gives a robert fripp sort of feel.

07/01/08 + tunalicker

link nightowl just made another right? great sound. listens! now! people! what?

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