scottmfr – Page 4 – SUBLIME SOUND

Upcoming gig at Sequential Circus 11!

I’m pleased to announce that on August 18th I’ll be opening at Sequential Circus! Playing at one of these shows is a real honour for me as they’ve been a big inspiration for my own music. They’re a bi-annual party focused on live electronic music. Always a lot of fun with a friendly happy crowd.

Here’s the official word: “Sequential Circus is dedicated to promoting the understanding and recognition of live electronic audio/visual performance as an evolving artform. Through our events, we will provide a venue for artists to explore and develop expressive technologies and to perform before an appreciative audience. We will strive to provide the best possible experience for artists, audiences, volunteers and staff, and to foster a healthy artistic community with Vancouver as its capital.” http://sequentialcircus.ca/

One of the guys playing is someone that I actually learned from in developing my own live set. If you’re looking for some ideas or instruction on how to acquire and put together a live electronic gig he’s got a very thorough blog entry. He’s got some other great stuff on site too so it’s worth checking out. http://tarekith.com/assets/playinglive.html

For my live set I’ve stemmed all of my songs down to 8 tracks. Specifically Kick/Snare, Percussion 1, Percussion 2, Bass, Chords & Leads 1, Chords & Leads 2, Chords & Leads 3 (this one is usually my solo horn stuff), and SFX. That way, I’m using each track on the APC40 and I don’t have to scroll side to side. I use a custom Live Effect Rack on each track with Looping, Bit Reduction, Distortion, High and Low Pass Filters, and an Auto Filter. I’ve got Delay and Reverb on sends. I use Send C for my white noise sweeps. I have a noise generator controlled by an envelope follower that I created in Applied Acoustics Tassman on Send C, and each track is sending full blast to that return (along with Sends A & B). I use the crossfader to control volume and the Cue button knob to vary the cutoff frequency. It occurs to me now that since I’m not ever changing the value of Send C I could assign that one to something different if I wanted. I’m also not making use of the Panning controls at this point. So there’s still a couple things I can change to spice things up. Oooohhhhh the possibilities!

One last bit of exciting news: I’ve been featured on CITR Radio! You can listen to a podcast here: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Citr–ClassicalChaos/~3/ZXbm3uVjU6g/20120722-090104-to-20120722-100117.mp3

Audio Trademarks

This is an interesting article from the Vancouver Sun regarding the recent move by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) to allow the trademarking of sounds: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Sounds+that+send+message/6490368/story.html?goback=.gde_726837_member_109465483

When I was working on the concept audio for the Chevy Volt, there was a tremendous amount of thought and discussion that went into the emotional impact that the sounds within the vehicle would have on the driver. They wanted to convey the power of the Volt, but at the same time make it feel welcoming and not agressive. They also wanted to highlight the green technology of the car. I experimented with synthetic and natural sounds like water and wind to zero in on the tones that best suited what they described. I recorded spinning magnets, my breath through a conch shell, and a plucked cello and layered them together for one cue. The whole project was an interesting challange and a fun process. I’m glad to see that CIPO is taking audio trademarks into consideration and I hope it means that more companies will consider audio branding.

More travel means more recordings

I recently returned from my honeymoon in Japan and Thailand. Naturally, I brought my Zoom H4N portable recorder, but this time I also brought a Rode NTG3 shotgun mic and a small contact mic. I recorded over 5GB of audio over the three week trip and I know I’ve got some great stuff but I haven’t had a chance to touch it yet. I really enjoyed all the chirps of the Cicadas and the rhythms of the trains so I spent a lot of time recording those.

I’ll post my recordings once I’ve had a chance to go through them and clean them up. Then I’ll start mangling them into music!

Sonidos De Cuba

Back in March of 2010, I travelled to Cuba with my fiancée. We had a great time soaking up the culture, music, and architecture around Havana and Vinales. While there I also did a number of recordings with my Zoom H4N. Since then I’ve been using those recordings as the foundation for an album. The first three songs are now posted in draft form on my soundcloud page here.

The first song uses recordings from the Vancouver Skytrain serving as a departure point and a contrast to the later songs. Calle Musica features a recording from a cafe in the Plaza De Armas. You can hear the clatter of cutlery and dishes along with the chatter of the restaurant patrons mixed with the music from the band. Jinetero uses a recording from Jose Marti Square. There was a large crowd of Habaneros gathered there talking and shouting passionately at each other. I was told they were probaby talking about baseball.

I’m trying to finish up the album by the end of the year. We’ll see how that turns out, but I will be posting more songs as they materialize. Hope you like them!