disquiet0029-countzero, disquiet Kaboodle Sound
Hits from the G-Web [disquiet0029-countzero]

Created for the Disquiet Junto.

Assignment:

"This week's project is inspired by an aside that occurs at the opening of chapter 17 of William Gibson's classic cyberpunk novel Count Zero, originally published in 1986. The chapter is titled "The Squirrel Wood." It opens as follows:

"The plane had gone to ground near the sound of running water. Turner could hear it, turning in the g-web in his fever or sleep, water down stone, one of the oldest songs."

"This idea of water running down stone, of a gentle but insistent natural stream, being one of the "oldest songs" is explored further in the chapter in various subtle ways. The Disquiet Junto project this week is to explore that idea: that there is music in the natural environment. We'll makes songs from running water.

"The instructions are as follows:

"Step 1: Locate and make a field recording of source material that involves running water. It can be a stream, as in the Gibson book, but it needn't be natural. The sink, a toilet, a hose in the backyard — any such source material would be fine.

"Step 2: Extract a segment of the recording. That segment will serve as the basis for your composition, as its foundation. It will provide both rhythmic and melodic material. You can either use one long piece of the recording, or you can create the foundation of the track by combining and looping one or more brief segments of your original field recording.

"Step 3: Add elements and treatments to the foundation recording of running water. Do so with the intention of highlighting the water's internal sense of rhythm and melody. Do not embellish so much that the foundation recording becomes unrecognizable."

Method:

Been away from the Junto for a few weeks due to moving house and all the associated problems and adventures that entails... only just beat the deadline this week (by 15 minutes!)

Due to lack of time, I used a field recording from 2009/2010 of a river in Culloden Forest, Scotland. There were two recordings of the same river - one with the onboard mic of a Zoom h4N, and one with a pair of hydrophones (bought from Jez Riley French [http://soundcloud.com/jezrileyfrench] - he makes excellent hydrophones and contact mics [see here: hydrophones.blogspot.co.uk ).

My idea was to make it futuristic (in a 'Gibsonish' way if at all possible), while retaining as much of the watery quality as possible.

I edited, looped and mixed the recordings in Audacity, using one small portion of the hydrophone recording as the looped rhythm. I played the resulting mix through a Sansa Clip, fed into an Artcessories 4 channel splitter/mixer. The four outputs of the splitter were sent to a KP3 Kaoss pad, a Roland SP555, and two mini KP Kaoss pads. The outputs from the three effects units and the sampler were fed into a Behringer 5 channel mixer, and recorded by the Zoom h4N.

I played the effects live ('tape' delay, talk filter, LFO and reverb), and played 3 'hits' on the sampler in and out of time with the rhythm of the recording (the 'hits' being fragments of sound - almost granular samples - from the hydrophone recording).

I mixed the resulting effects track with the original mix in Audacity, and that was it. It took longer to set up the equipment than to play, edit, record and upload...

Not sure I managed to keep enough of the water sound in there, but I enjoyed the process and the feel... will spend a bit more time on the next assignment, hopefully!

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Track image adapted from this image:

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil.../File:Rocks_andwater%28nude%29.jpg

[I couldn't resist this when I searched for "water and rocks" on Wikimedia Commons and this came up - I think it looks like she's listening to the water].

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More details on the Disquiet Junto at:
Disquiet Junto