Postcards from slow places - a lines compilation of long-form ambient music

Olivier · 2019-02-11T03:01:47.785Z

Another major thank you to @_mark and @anon45924993 for initiating this compilation and bringing it to the finish line. A huge achievement.

My piece, “I Don’t Need Anything from Here” is made up of recordings created over the last year, many of which I had left stranded in forgotten corners of my hard drive until 6 weeks ago…a combination of old sketches, nearly finished compositions and field recordings. About 20-25 of these were culled in a sprint lasting about a week, after which I used them as building blocks to create the two halves of the finished track. The main tool I used in the final recording stretch was my ER-301, though I can’t recall too many patch specifics; just a lot of feedback loopers, noise and sine waves for the first half especially. Final assembly was done in Ableton over a couple of weeks, and - to my complete and utter shock - the process didn’t have me running for the hills.

I’m really happy with how the piece turned out – feels like I’ve crafted a sense of narrative that sustains itself reasonably well. Here’s a little teaser, combined with ancient images of mine from a previous life as a filmmaker…they seemed to fit well.

instagram.com

Olivier Creurer

14 Likes, 1 Comments - Olivier Creurer (@oliviernewtonjohn) on Instagram: “Excerpt of a new long-form piece, “I Don’t Need Anything from Here”, available today on the massive…”

howthenightcame · 2019-02-11T10:39:05.349Z

I have made an audio “index” for our postcard compilation. I split every track into two minute sections, took the two minute passage that contained the very centre point of its original track, applied a thirty second fade in and fade out, then stitched all 55 passages together in album order (so that as one song begins to fade out, then next song begins to fade in). The result is an 83 minute overview of the postcard compilation. It flows nicely, and shows that we really covered some diverse terrain.

On the off-chance that anyone would like a copy, I’ve put the FLAC file in Dropbox:

Dropbox

LCRP POSTCARD INDEX

Shared with Dropbox

If anyone downloads it, please send me a note so that I know.

At the same time, I realise that we’ve all got a big playlist already waiting for us … so I understand if there are no takers!!

Best wishes,

Martin

dnealelo · 2019-02-11T16:06:54.087Z

Such a monumental undertaking! Thanks @_mark and @anon45924993 for what must have been a herculean effort!

Here are my notes on my piece. The tldr is my inspiration came out of the discussion on ambient music theory started last fall.

I am deeply grateful for the rich and seemingly endlessly surprising resource that is this community!

_mark · 2019-02-11T19:12:50.770Z

Notes on my track: Self Organising Forms - It started with a generative Max patch, recording some note data over to Ableton. I then did a bit of tinkering there - adjusting tempo, scaling etc. Lots of LFOs. Several takes with different instruments - Collision and Operator. An Ablteon device I built with chucker~ (the backwardsy stuff). A lot of shifting audio against each other. Really trying to make computer stuff not too perfect these days. Then a bunch of processing through the modular. This takes so long with a 90min track ie: recording an effects pass. I probably did ten or so full passes on separate instruments for this.

I like how it turned out, though I still find trying to do anything minimal very hard. I think I failed here in that respect! but happy with it nonetheless.

Anatol · 2019-02-11T19:35:03.038Z

Notes on my track: Imported an Ambient modular performance from Lucid Grain (my collaboration with Martha Bahr) into the Ambient V0.3 software and let it run for 3 hours. Edited the most interesting parts.

damon · 2019-02-12T15:41:07.978Z

A thousand thank-yous to @_mark and @anon45924993! So much listening to do!

tallhouserecordingco · 2019-02-12T18:48:25.107Z

Thanks @_mark and @anon45924993 for making this happen!

Some notes on my track ‘For N.M.’
I took the patch apart shortly after recording, so these are rough notes. The only sound source was the 4ms SMR through Erbeverb, then straight into my interface. The SMR was getting pings on both inputs from Bastl Little Nerd in Euclidean mode, clocked by a really slow LFO (either Batumi or uLFO, don’t quite remember). Levels of each channel were being cv’d by other channels of Batumi and envelops that were being triggered by other channels of Little Nerd, also in Euclidean mode. There was lots of cross modulation between Batumi, uLFO, envelops and probably had some wogglebug in there too.
A relatively simple patch. At times it sounds like a loop, but there’s very subtle, slow moving variation thanks to the very subtle cross modulation. This quality of repetition and super slow moving change is a quality I really like in drone/ambient music.
One main section with 5 or 6 of the SMR channels sounding, then embellished with two additional runs through the same patch, but with slightly different settings in rate on the LFO controlling the whole thing and just one or two deliberately selected notes sounding on the SMR.
After reading the discussion way back in the thread about stereo spread and keeping bass centered, I decided to try out some of the suggestions and use a M/S eq plugin on the various tracks; reinforcing the bass on the M channel and higher register tones on the S channels. This really changed the track for me and brought some clarity and space to it, so thanks for the suggestions in that discussion! I found it really helpful when working on this.

Best,
mm

Trigga · 2019-02-12T23:02:00.670Z

Great track and write up!

dailybells · 2019-02-13T00:18:54.155Z

_mark:

Really trying to make computer stuff not too perfect these days.

Yes!

Computer music is best kept folk music…

lumena · 2019-02-13T02:21:56.142Z

Starting my trek through rhe pieces…
Played yours twice. Nice description of the process and place deepers my appreciation.
Thanks.

davidmoorman · 2019-02-13T04:30:02.358Z

Directions Track Notes:

Echoes of echoes, memories of memories… thinking over and over about the thing you did or didn’t do, said or didn’t say, as if you could do, or not do, or say, or not say it this time around.

Directions stays in this space, stretching and exploring loops of loops of loops of a few seconds of sample material.

The sound source is three short guitar samples played using norns mlr. The output was then looped again (and again), using w/// and magneto, with additional processing from fumana and rings. Finally, everything was stretched (plus delay and reverb) in live.

Thanks again to @anon45924993 and @_mark for putting this together! Lots of listening ahead…

_mark · 2019-02-13T05:31:55.214Z

dailybells:

Computer music is best kept folk music…

Nice - is it your work?

Looking it up I also found: tsukimono – Yokai.com (The online database of Japanese ghosts and monsters).

22%20AM3140×1366 915 KB

Such a pleasing resource…

dailybells · 2019-02-13T10:10:31.818Z

Not me - just a favorite from back a bit. My comment was kinda tongue in cheek, but I also count among my favorite computer musicians the “independent researchers” as Trevor Wishart would say… tinkerers, fussabouts… where the computer is just a means & all paths are valid as they are in service of some musical goal…

Edit, so three cheers for imperfect computing

toomanatees · 2019-02-13T18:52:44.533Z

This is close to how I recorded my track, Timothy G Taylor ‘Dreams of Organization’…

It was a dry run of improvisational tape loop style music set I’m trying to put together. The underlying “drone” voice is a Morphagene sampling who knows what. The main voice is a Mother 32 played on a midi keyboard. I run the M32 into the top section of a Cold Mac for panning, the stereo outs each going into their own W/ which have loops set up in different lengths. A slow triangle LFO is patched to cold Mac survey. Sounds like the W/s are running in reverse. I mult a +/- 5v offset from Maths to each of the W/ to control feedback level and work this knob throughout.

In the later sections I turn the VCA of M32 on, turn the filter down and then use the LFO to open the filter up. I patch the square wave of the LFO into the LFO rate which changes the triangle wave into a saw, essentially emulating a Decay envelope. I spend a while slowly messing around with different drone notes, the LFO speed knob, filter settings on the M32. Building up and tearing down through the W//.

There may be more happening, but this is the basic idea. I regret not capturing the patch on video.

robotboot · 2019-02-14T17:44:43.770Z

Some notes from my song The Hue of Q.
I started in Ableton at work on my lunch break and used a lot of max for live devices to create to program cords and arps in a in a particular scale and heavily lfo ed lfo’s into lfo’s into perimeters with the operator being the source of the sound. I did this over and over across a week and took the content and cut it up and arranged it. I then took the project home and moved what I created into Ableton and ran it through some delays and filters and laid it down on a 4 track. I then did one full improve track over it with a korg polly 800 ran through my modular to add some extra movement to the polly 800’s pads. I captured this all back into Ableton to mix because and do some light mastering. I focused mostly on tonality and shape of sound. After completing the song I created a sort of generative visual video for the whole song. The amplitude/frequency of the song is leading particle generators around the frame and feedback is creating a vortex, and there is also added randomness with hue and other setting. I am launching that tonight for all the lovers out there.

mateo · 2019-02-15T14:18:16.884Z

I’ve slowly started listening through everything, and everything I’ve heard so far has been amazing! Really happy to have participated

As for my track, the idea for it originated from a conversation I had with a friend about long-form ambient music: he told me about a youtube video titled Blade Runner Meditative Ambience that he often used to fall asleep. Listening to it, I recognized the familiar washes of Paulstretch, which turned out to be bits of the original soundtrack, with rain and other incidental sounds mix in.

I decided to see what I could come up with using a similar approach. I dug up an experiment I made a few years ago that used ableton’s clip envelopes modulating several midi pitch devices to sequence a 303 in a chaotic manner. After a few tests, I made a some adjustments to optimize the original for best results and then bounced a 90 second segment that I stretched to about 60 minutes. For the natural sound part, I wanted something that didn’t repeat and was more subtle than rain, so I simply set up my recorder near a window and went for a long walk. Threw on a few effects (including some pretty intense tape saturation), and it was done!

WhiteNoise · 2019-02-16T10:47:24.901Z

This was such a beautiful experience! We should do a part 2 for 2019!!! I am also very curious to listen to the tracks “unstretched”

steveoath · 2019-02-16T19:30:42.391Z

Postcards from fast places?

adrien75 · 2019-02-18T15:59:44.837Z

This turned out amazing everybody! Was listening to it all weekend.

howthenightcame · 2019-02-20T19:57:08.285Z

making gradual progress through the compilation. so much variety on offer and these tracks stood out for me so far:

@dnealelo powerful use of silence before the emergence of voice, as if the composition were modeled on a conversation (listening >> speaking)

@3Keay beautiful guitar line and flowing rhythm tracks which sustained each other really well

@Benjamin_Mauch a warm, lush, giving environment which made me imagine new life growing in the womb. the crackling that emerged around 9m55s was both unexpected yet perfectly timed