[NetBehaviour] anewtrack + snapsharp production

[james at jwm-art.net]

anewtrack()smopflorq

() = snapsharp

anewtrack_smopflorq = an audio track I had been working on, getting
nowhere with, and listened to too many times. snapsharp was made as
respite and antidote from what had become to sound repressive and gloomy.

http://www.jwm-art.net/art/audio/anewtrack_smopflorq.mp3

/*----------------------------------------------------------------------*/
It was suggested to me to make a post about the production of
snapsharp.mp3. So here it is:

I used the Jack Audio Connection Kit, for audio IO between various audio
software programs. I Started with ZynAddSubFX, a software synth, playing
with presets and gradually coming up with the main bleepy sound heard.
It uses some kind of randomized adaptive harmonics in ZynAddSubFX's
AddSynth section - making my keyboard playing skills sound better than
they really are.

The output from ZynAddSubFX was sent via JACK to two instances of the
JACK Rack, a software FX rack into which was added a variety of LADSPA
FX plugins. The first instance was used to distort containing a 'stereo
chorus with feedback', 'TAP TubeWarmth', and 'Fast Lookahead
limiter'. The second instance used 'Plate reverb' and 'TAP Stereo
Echo'.

A USB MIDI keyboard controller was connected to ZynAddSubFX via a MIDI
connection in JACK. Once the sound was set up I played the keyboard
while the MUSE sequencer recorded it's MIDI signal - without snapto or
quantizing the notes.

The next step was to record the audio from both JACK Racks into the
Ardour hard disk recorder (as MUSE played back my pattern). Seperate
stereo channels in ardour were used for each JACK Rack instance, the
'dry' output directly from ZynAddSubFX was not recorded.

I was quite pleased with how it sounded and was tempted to leave it
there. Instead I went back to ZynAddSubFX and found a reasonable PAD
preset from which to start, and edited the sound and envelopes to get a
nice soft and slow sound. The LADSPA plugins in the two JACK Racks were
edited slightly before using the same MIDI sequence recorded in MUSE to
play the sound with. Because the pad sound had a much slower attack
time, the shorter notes are inaudible as they end before reaching an
audible volume. And so it was unneccessary to edit the MIDI sequence in
any way. The audio from both JACK Racks was again recorded in Ardour as
two seperate stereo audio channels.

The final sound is the spacey kettle/vacuum cleaner noise, which was
generated in ZynAddSubFX using it's SubSynth section. The 'GSM
Simulator', 'Decimator', 'Glame Highpass Filter', and 'Valve
Saturation' LADSPA FX plugins were applied to the channel once it was
recorded in Ardour.

Still not satisfied with the entire sound, I used "Mag's Notch Filter"
on the first two ST channel's recordings to soften the mid range. I
wanted to do the same with the second two channels, but "Mag's Notch
Filter" was too excessive, so Steve Harris's 'Multiband EQ' was used
instead.

A few gaps were cut into the recorded audio along with fade ins and outs,
to break the constancy of the structure a little.

The final step used Steve Harris's SC4 (compressor) on the Master
channel (ie on everything) to push the volumes around a bit. I used a
-27 dB threshold level, a 1:6.9 compression ratio, and a 9dB makeup
gain. The attack and release times were shortened from their defaults
also. Besides the intended effect, it also adds a slight buzzing noise
which is momentarily audible on headphones at the start and end of the
piece, bonus. The settings used are probably too excessive for most
music but work nicely for this, making it sound a little more organic.

The session was then exported to a 16bit 44.1 Khz WAV and encoded into
MP3 using LAME (with LAME's default options).

/*----------------------------------------------------------------------*/

http://www.jwm-art.net/art/archive/snapsharp_etc.tar.gz

-rw-r--r--  1 james james   443 2006-12-15 18:21 snapsharp-distort2.rack
-rw-r--r--  1 james james   452 2006-12-15 18:21 snapsharp-distort.rack
-rw-r--r--  1 james james 55617 2006-12-15 18:21 snapsharp.med
-rw-r--r--  1 james james   392 2006-12-15 18:21 snapsharp-revech2.rack
-rw-r--r--  1 james james   392 2006-12-15 18:21 snapsharp-revech.rack
-rw-r--r--  1 james james  4591 2006-12-15 18:21 snapsharp.xmz

*.rack = JACK Rack file
*.med  = MUSE midi file
*.xmz  = ZynAddSubFX file