Spoken Word with Electronics - Weekly Show

EPTC · 2021-04-20T19:43:19.554Z

Greetings all, happy April 20! This week’s show is a tribute to John Wilcock, friend and counterculture icon:

EPTC · 2021-05-11T20:49:00.076Z

This week’s show: An important tutorial on turning broken appliances into synthesizers.

EPTC · 2021-05-26T20:32:12.720Z

A tribute to Mail Workers this week with a 1946 informational from the USPS.

EPTC · 2021-05-29T20:39:34.778Z

Cheers on that - I’d be happy with a dedicated general spoken word thread, absolutely. Would love to know about other projects here with voice and narration.

@ElectricaNada — I definitely do feel a little long in the tooth with weekly posts here in this thread (though really enjoy posting here as a kind of ‘episode completed’ maker) but would love a broader more collaborative topic that I could participate in with others instead. Let’s do it!

EPTC · 2021-06-09T22:40:37.621Z

Ahoy! I went to make a new topic and the Lines Forum Robot suggested it was very similar to this existing one - So here’s a revised idea: I’ll start describing more process specific parts of each episode, and per @ElectricaNada’s excellent suggestion, welcome any other vocal project to post here, too. It doesn’t look like I can edit the title for the first post at this point, regrettably.

Episode 55 is posted. Opening track is a vocal piece on re-entering the world, really. I got vaccinated last month and am now free to do mundane things like go eat eggs at a diner. It’s odd to me how unwelcome that felt psychologically, but there’s some good egg jokes:

The raw audio for this week is the first of a series of mail-order psychiatry records from the 1960s. I speak with a therapist regularly and he found the content very entertaining! But perhaps he’s a target market. But awesome discussion with four doctors here, around 1963 or so:

I loved many of the phrases and manually spliced and grouped them into this reblending for the Side A track, “All of Us Develop Patterns”

And for the Side B track this week, I was able to get some time with some good compressors this month. Finally, a benefit to getting vaccinated! Had access to an AML 54F50, which if you’re unfamiliar is a spec-exact remake of the original Neve 2254 Diode Bridge Compressors from 1969. So, I flattened the mix for the introduction to Mono and sent it through the AML. Ran it about 3:1 and about 12 o’clock on both compression and limiter, just to see how it went. Just guessing that setting sounded just lovely to my ears, so I barely tweaked it but mostly left it alone. These Diode Bridge Compressors are amazing! Clarity, Glue AND Punch. (normally it’s pick two, but here you get all three) It would be tough to always play the instrumental through something like this for voiceover every time, as the signal gain on the music bed would compete with the vocal itself. But man I’m in love with this compressor. Here’s how it sounds:

Finally, just posted the fifth collection of episodes, or an ongoing playlist for Episode 55, forward. Here’s that:

If you’re working on a vocal project right now, feel welcome to post here in this thread! I’ll be very welcome to discussing any other project, too.

In terms of issues I’m working on with these tracks, instrumental/bed volume is a constant consideration. Currently mixing everything to about 70% of my voice with a 3db drop afterward. I’ll post next time about sibolence solutions, too. I’m presently still looking at best de-essers, am using a DBX 520 for live take with FabFilter DS for final processing, but have a plan for a better signal path on that. Cheers, Ethan

EPTC · 2021-07-01T15:47:37.737Z

ElectricaNada:

Sidney Poitier recites Plato. This is so cool. There is an entire album of it!

Ha, holy cow, this is wild. Almost sounds like a mash-up.

I like how breezy and unconcerned the music is with the text. “He will suffer sharp pains!” (music just sings along like it’s a coin fountain at the mall)

This is an awesome find, man. Thanks for posting!

EPTC · 2021-07-02T03:50:06.174Z

(I’ll aim to add other spoken albums here, too - really appreciate @ElectricaNada starting that!)

Episod 56 just posted. Mild tribute to Abbott and Costello, asking "Have you heard their ‘10 Year Old Child Bride’ joke from 1941?

Boing Boing – 1 Jul 21

Have you heard Abbott & Costello's 'Ten Year Old Child Bride' joke from...

Spoken Word with Electronics is an audio series delivering to you a two side recording of unusual stories paired with vintage modular electronic sounds Hi, everyone, welcome back to the show. This …

I’ve been working on sibilance with my voice for the last few months. It’s funny how recording my voice into a regular show has had me considering things like my voice is a synthesizer. Started with basic envelope concepts with compression: attack and decline, with a goal to have a standard ‘radio voice’, news delivery style. By the time I figured that out (it’s specific to each voice, but the basics are a slow limiter with a fast compressor to even out the tone) and lately have been working with a blend of high pass sidechain filtering with a de-esser to catch any high essing. Those of you familiar with the process here probably know the challenge. Getting close to that ‘sound’ I grew up with 1970s radio, so that feels pretty good. Here’s the episode:

Of any track, I recommend the continuation of the Charlie Pickle story. A lengthy introduction to a new component, Angela Simmons, one of the most loyal residents of Clarence TX:

Have a cool night, continued thanks for this forum - EP

EPTC · 2021-09-15T18:31:52.419Z

Hi, everyone - I’m happy to announce next episode of Spoken Word with Electronics will be Episode #60. To commemorate this, I’m looking for your feedback!

Specifically, your droning feedback, guitar feedback, horrible screeches, barking squaks, anything loud and buzzing!

Here’s the installment that talks about feedback and my interest in hearing your’s:

If you have any feedback to share, I’d love to hear it! Send a track, ideally through Soundcloud instant messaging, to my account and I’ll hope to include it, with credit, as feedback for the September 29th show. Please share your loudest noise by September 24.

Thanks in advance for your Feedback, everyone! - Ethan

EPTC · 2021-10-08T18:43:56.650Z

Listener feedback episode posted. Some great stuff here. Thank you if you were among the contributors! Also, “A Bag of Screws” and the continuation of The Other Scenes Inventory Report.

EPTC · 2021-10-29T18:47:17.365Z

New episode up: Soy Sauce Pranks! with ‘The Nature of the Creature’ and ‘Ben at The Blue Eagle Bar’ - Have a nice Halloween, all.

EPTC · 2021-11-24T21:11:04.725Z

Howdy, all. A bottle of kombucha got mic’d to perform a small saxophone solo this week, along with other sounds. Have a nice holiday, EP

EPTC · 2022-01-06T22:05:30.971Z

Hi everyone - Good New Year! - This year opens up with Emoji Panic from the DEA, explores “Microwave Power” and does the math on how many Ants it takes to add up to an Elephant.

EPTC · 2022-01-25T23:21:28.858Z

This week’s show:

How to use a Drawmer Noise Gate, a Trapezoid Envelope Generator, and a Pitch Shifter.

Also, the Price of Certs!

EPTC · 2022-02-10T00:19:03.388Z

Hi all, Hi all, and Howdy! - new show - Samsung had a small environmental accident locally. The show notes are a bummer or at least “how did that happen?”

Boing Boing – 9 Feb 22

Samsung's Big Leak: "Up to 763,000 gallons of sulfuric acid" spilled into an...

Hi, everyone, welcome back to the show. This week was a wet and cold one in local Austin news. But we kept warm with Samsung’s new burning hot release: Up to 763,000 gallons of Sulfuric acid …

Side Two continues our Charlie Pickle serial. Have a nice evening.

EPTC · 2022-02-26T00:22:24.291Z

Greetings, all - slow news week - anything happen? Here’s this week’s episode.

SWWE #67: “Hopeless Dope Addicts!”
(and: Hi, Everyone. Are we at war?)

EPTC · 2022-03-25T21:17:10.070Z

Greetings all - New show - My room is a mess.

EPTC · 2024-04-02T18:25:50.424Z

Ahoy! - After a needed break, I’m returning to shows after a year. Pretty good refresher of an episode with an opening medley of self-improvement cassettes from the 70s/80s and a demonstration on turning your body into an amplified receiver for shortwave radio:

EPTC · 2024-07-03T00:40:03.865Z

Hi all, a festive July 4th episode for anyone needing some abstract (e.g. incorrect) math on making a new quality of milk. Audio for this episode is Nanoloop FM.

EPTC · 2024-07-17T04:05:20.605Z

SWWE # 83 - “Recordings are Fascinating”

EPTC · 2024-08-10T06:09:34.458Z

SWWE # 84: “Is Reddit Down?” (Check Here Now)