So, latest artschool shenanigans has been an audio project. Having never used ProTools before I threw myself at it and mostly got my head around the nuts and bolts, yeah it’s a bit funky sometimes with the way it deals with things but all in all, not a terrible bit of software. I picked up an Mbox 2 Mini which is a surprisingly solid little bit of kit considering its pricetag. It’s nice just to have a very portable, bus powered interface that can phantom power my AKG C1000s and handle a few ins and outs.
I decided that I should strive to try something well outside my usual methods of working so decided to go or pure audio collage give or take. Here’s a brief write up for it. I should point out that it’s entirely non-commercial and for educational purposes so if I stole a little bit of audio from you, please don’t sue me (Conet Project).
“The Horsemen Crept in at Midnight
an audio project by d.fyans (tbadf lvl2)
This is an audio piece produced in Pro-Tools using a variety of different sound sources to convey a narrative. A combination of offline processes and insert effects were used along with traditional editing techniques.
The piece is inspired by the Foley Art, ‘Threads’, ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ and Orson Welles ‘War of the Worlds’.
The concept is a short, imaginary documentary piece based around the idea of a nuclear bomb being dropped in the UK and after a period of time, nature enduring in the absence of human intervention.
Sources/Equipment
Equipment
Macbook Pro
Pro-Tools 8le
Mbox Mini 2
Piezo contact microphone
AKG C1000s Condenser microphone
Zoom H4 Portable Stereo Recorder
Nord Modular G2
Sources
Bottle top
Coins
Lighter
Hundreds + Thousands
A4 Paper
Computer Keyboard
Field recording taken at Dunino Den
Field recording of city ambience
Number Station recordings (found sound)
GMT ‘Pips’ from GMT Website (found sound)
Chimes of Big Ben (found sound)”
I can’t really say how I feel about this project. In terms of ‘sound art’ it’s less creative than my usual sound works. It was interesting to try and paint in a very literal narrative using a variety of sound, it seems to be something that I can handle quite comfortably but, in honesty I prefer to keep it more smoke and mirrors and abstract. We’ll see where this one goes I guess.
D
ps
If you made it this far down, well done, I decided to add in a little cutup rastery kinda vibe based on bits chopped in ProTools out of my daily commute, only cut, nothing else apart from the big mongy timestretch at the end, gotta love those mongy timestretches. It’s really just a wee sketchy thing.