I’ve been working on this one for a while and I’m getting happier with the mix. Need to tweak the arrangement though – not sure about the first appearance of the guitar or its sound. I think that will be removed once I have the vocals. It seems incongruous early in the piece.
You can follow the history of work in progress as Johnny developed and the story of the track’s title on this post.
One thing which Pure Tone suggested, was some “girly vocals”. This set a train of thought in motion and I was looking around some movie sites last night. The track is pretty light and bouncy so I was after something with a touch of humour for some of the quiet sections. I thought these four lines would work well and I’m delighted with the way Salwa Azar has delivered them.
Johnny, is this true? ‘Cause if it is…
Good luck Johnny
Bye bye Johnny
Say kid, what do they call you?
…never should have picked a name like that. A name like that you gotta live up to.
Any last words Johnny?
Johnny (A Name Like That) by kieronjames
FOUR, by Kieron James
This is the second track I’ve put together for my debut album FOUR, which will be released on 1st July by Clear Notice. (This will leave six months to create the three sibling albums for Somió, Half-BIT and Blue Omen.)
Recap is a remix of Capitulation – the first piece of music I composed, at the time using the Jonathan Scary moniker. It has been mastered by Pure Tone, though we may tweak a little when I have all the other tracks for the album completed.
Recap by kieronjames
Edgard Varèse
So here it is. The fruits of around three weeks work and the first track for the album FOUR. The track has been beautifully mastered by @pure_tone whose attention to detail and ability to make stuff sparkle is second to none.
My plan at this stage is to complete FOUR before moving on to the other three albums, two of which are collaborative. I’ll be posting four bars of some of the individual channels here too – to see which inspires the collaborators and me to write for Blue Omen, Half-BIT and Sómio.
“Organised Sound” is a phrase coined by the stratospheric colossus of sound, Edgard Varèse. I was switched on to Varèse’s life and work by Chris Randall’s Analog Industries blog. From time to time he produces limited run, sound-themed tee shirts. I missed his Delia Derbyshire edition (sold out), but managed to get hold of one of the fabulous Varèse shirts designed by Stefan Goodchild.
And that’s the story behind the first track for FOUR.
Organised Sound by kieronjames
There. I’ve said it. I’ve even written it down. And when I’ve finished this blog post, I’ll tweet about it to 400 people. There’s clearly only one reason for such behaviour. By telling the world, the pressure I place upon myself to deliver is increased and hopefully even more focus is brought to this ludicrous plan.
OK, by James Fahy’s standards, 48 tracks isn’t even vaguely prolific. It’d probably take ambienteer a couple of months but it will represent more than three times my total output this year. So how on earth do I expect to achieve this? Well, there is some method in my madness.
My aim is to produce four albums, each containing 12 tracks. These will be released under the following artist / project names and two of them are collaborative, so the work will be shared:
The first will be an instrumental album entitled Four and at least one element – however filtered, glitched and twisted – from each track will make its presence felt in its counterpart on each of the other three albums. Some of these tracks may share more than one sound or idea from the original. They may even extend to full-blown remixes, but because these musical projects are so different, I imagine the foundation track will bring very little to bear on its sibling.
I’ve talked in broad terms about the project with Shadi, my collaborator in Blue Omen, but I haven’t had the opportunity to discuss this with Fernando Fonseca, the other half of Half-BIT as he’s taking a well-earned rest and I really don’t want to disturb him. I’m just hoping that Fernando is as “up for this” as he has been with our other work together. If he isn’t, I’ll need to find another collaborator, because the idea is really starting to resonate with me!
I’m not going to add too much content to my own blog, since it’s being covered in detail over at Half-BIT.com, but I will take a moment just to add a brief description of what Fernando and I are working on.
It started with a tweet from @AudioPornTwitz about a Little Boots remix contest. The Earthquake stems were posted online so I DM’d Fernando to see if he was interested in having a play with them for our follow up to Separate.
Earthquake – GAP RMX by Half-BIT
Anybody remember Cosecha? And the fun we had pulling together PS011, recently released by the outstanding PublicSpaces netlabel?
Well, Mr Fonseca and I require your help again. Our newly formed collaboration, Half-BIT will be providing an art sound installation at Netaudio’s EXPANDING 09 Festival on 14 November in Barcelona.
Half-BIT is all about collaboration. It’s our raison d’être. It’s how the whole project was kicked off. And we want it to be global. Our first track started life as a wonderful IDM piece from Alka’s Dog Lost in the Woods album. It was remixed by Fernando Fonseca, then remixed again by me. None of us have actually met. Alka is based in New Jersey, Fernando kicks around Barcelona and I inhabit the far less urban-cool, though equally chic 
Cheshire, UK.
What we need from you
Just like Cosecha, Fernando has asked me to seek parameters to create a new source file for him to glitch the hell out of for a sound installation on 14 November (when I’ll be tucked up in front of Faithless at Manchester’s Warehouse Project). And we need YOU to help with those parameters.
This time, I intend to use two of my favourite VSTs: Ohm Force’s Symptohm and BigSeq2 from Audio Damage. I’ll request some parameter values to create the sound (e.g. send me a number between 1 and 5000) and you’ll tweet back with your number. Just like Cosecha, I’m not going to disclose which values are being requested, but unlike Cosecha, I anticipate far fewer requests being made of the contributors. (Promise!)
Once I’ve handed our sound over to Fernando, he’s going to work even more collaborative magic to create a very special piece for Barcelona.
Play your part by adding a comment below with your Twitter username, or tweet us up with #halfbitbarcelona in your tweet.
We’ll keep you informed of progress via our favourite collaborative social networking wonder-drug: Twitter.
The Contributors
The following people / organisations have volunteered to respond to data requests.
@_alka
@BlueEydGlambert
@dust_bunnies
@fbish
@groovecriminals
@heuristicmusic
@HipGnosis23
@leeconnolly
@LucidAcid
@madebyrobot
@publicspaceslab
@pure_tone
@retorta
@ronsens
Sound 1 – Ohm Force Symptohm Output [30/10/2009]
Thank you to all the contributors for providing numbers today. Below you’ll find a SoundCloud player which previews the three bar loop your numbers have generated. Don’t get too excited just yet. There’s a second stage to the process where we mash this up using Audio Damage’s BigSeq2.
The table below illustrates how the sound was generated from the numbers supplied:
| Parameter | Request | Received | Contributor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Note | 1-12 | 5 | @alka |
| Note | 1-12 | 5 | @BlueEydGlambert |
| Note | 1-12 | 12 | @dust_bunnies |
| Note | 1-12 | 3 | @fbish |
| Repeat (0) Reverse (1) | 0-1 | 1 | @groovecriminals |
| Tempo | 110-180 | 123 | @heuristicmusic |
| Beats | 2, 4, 8 or 16 | 8 | @HipGnosis13 |
| Loop Length | 1-4 | 3 | @leeconnolly |
| Symptohm Sample | 1-123 | 72 | @LucidAcid |
| Slide Time | 1-4000 | 1 | @madebyrobot |
| Morphing | 1-6 | 3 | @PublicSpacesLab |
| VCA | -30 – +4 | -7 | @pure_tone |
| VCF Cutoff | 60-8000 | 4358 | @retorta |
| Voice Filter Type | 1-3 | 2 | @ronsens |
None of the contributors was aware of the parameter for which they were submitting a value. The request simply read (for example), “Please send me a number between 1 and 4000 (inclusive). Thanks.”
Phase 1
Here’s how the loop was generated:
The first four contributors provided the notes for the loop. I preselected C major scale and with 12 notes in an octave we have a pattern of E, E, C, D.
Parameter 5 governs whether the pattern should then repeat or reverse (0 for repeat, 1 for reverse). So the second four notes are D, C, E, E.
Parameter 6 establishes the tempo of the loop: 123bpm. Parameter 7 sets the note length: 2 being a minim, 4 a crotchet, 8 a quaver and 16 a semiquaver. The loop length was established as 3 bars by Lee Connolly. The sample preset from Symptohm is 72 (literally counting through the sample files in the Symptohm library!) and the remaining four parameters establish the filters applied.
Loop 1 – Symptohm
Symptohm (Half-BIT #Netaudio) by Half-BIT
More to come! Stage 2 will be the mash up and sequencing in Audio Damage’s BigSeq2.
Phase 2
Here’s how the loop was generated:
Phase 2 of our Netaudio project applied a VST plugin named BigSeq2 from Audio Damage to the source file above. Once again, the values were requested without conveying to the contributors which parameters they governed. The table below illustrates how the values were applied:
| Parameter | Request | Received | Contributor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preset | 1-40 | 25 | @alka |
| VCA Step Size | 4, 8, 16 or 32 | 4 | @BlueEydGlambert |
| VCA Gate | 1-100 | 43 | @dust_bunnies |
| VCA Decay | 1-70 | 36 | @fbish |
| Filter Type | 1-6 | 5 | @groovecriminals |
| Filter Frequency | 40-2000 | 1688 | @HipGnosis13 |
| Filter Resonance | 0-100 | 76 | @HipGnosis13 |
| Delay Time | 1-8 | 8 | @leeconnolly |
| Delay Feedback | 0-100 | 37 | @LucidAcid |
| Delay Send | 1-100 | 40 | @madebyrobot |
| Bit Rate | 1-100 | 89 | @PublicSpacesLab |
| Bit Depth | 8-24 | 19 | @pure_tone |
| Distort Fuzz | 0-20 | 15 | @retorta |
| Distort Warp | 0-20 | 17 | @ronsens |
Loop 2 – Symptohm plus BigSeq2
Thank you to all the contributors. That’s my bit done. Now it’s over to you, F.
I think the single most impressive thing about Twitter has been the opportunities for musical collaboration which it has brought about. This, my third significant ‘joint venture’ is with the amazing talent, Scott Lachance, aka Digitube. I really am absolutely thrilled to have an opportunity to work with such wonderful musicians and producers from all over the world.
I’ve only just begun with this and I do have a slight problem with one of the VST instruments drifting slightly out of time (around 2′10″ which I’ll fix). I’m uploading the small amount I’ve done and I guess here will be as good a place as any for Scott and I to exchange ideas as the piece develops. The upload of work in progress has become something of a tradition and people do seem to enjoy chucking in their two pennyworth as a track evolves (which I both seek out and value hugely).
This has not been mixed at all. Levels are definitely awry.
Update: 07/11/2009
FInished track. Mastered by @pure_tone
Update: 24/10/2009
Really great to speak with Scott on the telephone this evening. Felt very inspired after our call and so I did a little more work on this track. Spent quite a bit of time on the percussion and created a kinda funky guitar out of one of the stems (actually came from the drum stem, using BigSeq2 to create the groove).
I’ll have another listen tomorrow, but in truth barring level checks and EQ tweaks, I quite like the place this has got to.
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First Upload: 23/10/2009
Just playing around with some deep percussive ideas for this first upload. No arrangement and no mixing completed so far.
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Digitube Original “Organic Build 2″
Scott published his ‘let’s kick things off’ MP3 on SoundCloud and I’m uploading it here too for reference. Clearly, it’s much more than a ’starter for ten’!
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Absolutely delighted that PublicSpaces has today released seven tracks (and the original source file) which resulted from my Twitter Random Sound project earlier in the year. The project, inspired by eavesdropping a Twitter conversation about databending, is described in detail on this website and also over at PublicSpaces.
My own track, Naranjo de Bulnes is included under the artist name Somió. This was a challenging project from a sound design point of view. As you will learn from the project description, all the artists were constrained to using only the source file (generated from numbers sent to me via Twitter and appearing as the first track in the SoundCloud player below) to create their final track.
I think you will agree, the diversity and quality of the results is a tremendous credit to the creative ability of the artists.
PS011 VA – Cosecha by PublicSpacesLab
Another fantastic weekend in the North East!
The weather was fabulous (again) and the event was as colourful as ever – though I have to say, the atmosphere was not as warm as it has been in the past. Not quite the camaraderie of previous years somehow. But I don’t want to overstate that, it was still a brilliant day.
Although it’s painful to read, I shouldn’t be disappointed with my recorded time of 1:58:33 (1:59:23 official GNR time). I could say that I didn’t train enough, but that would be misleading. I didn’t really train at all. There’s plenty of evidence of how unfit I’ve become in the Forerunner race data. My HRM statistics are screaming at me. Apparently I was running at Heart Rate Max (for my age, height and weight) for two hours. It seems to make little sense, but my resting heart rate (normally quite low at around 47bpm) and exercising heart rate (generally very high) appear completely unconnected.
Anyway, those BPMs and min/mile averages are going to tumble between now and next September. I’m not performing like that again. Period.
So why was my half marathon performance so poor?
I recorded the following training mileage over the three months leading up to the event (though I acknowledge that problems with the Forerunner 305 mean that August is definitely understated):
June: 19 runs / 85 miles
July: 13 runs / 87 miles
August: 2 runs / 8.5 miles
September: 8 runs / 40 miles
To put those monthly distances into context, when I was training for the Himalaya 100 Mile Stage Race, I was putting in 260-300 miles a month. Don’t be impressed by the Himalayas. I had to cancel after a year’s training due to work commitments clashing with the even. The £800 lost deposit was nothing compared to the disappointment of dropping out so close to the event. I do want to get that back in the diary again. Maybe in two to three years time.
I’ve said it so many times on this blog and it disappoints me to re-read it, but I really need to FOCUS. I have a long standing target of 1:30 for the Great North Run and it’s absolutely within my ability to achieve it. This year I placed 10,914 in a field of around 52,000 runners. My best position was 1,058 with a time of 1:32. So I’ve slipped from top 2% to top 20%. Whoops!
I now have the Brass Monkey in my sights (24th January) and I must be the right side of 1:45 (or even 1:40) for that race. So, it’s feet up today and back to it in earnest tomorrow. NO EXCUSES.
13.1m | 1:58:33 | 9:04 | 182bpm
This contribution to the Artists 4 Freedom project (organised by @fjfonseca of PublicSpaces) has been a long and at times, emotional, journey.
It’s the first true collaboration I’ve done and my sense of responsibility to the track’s featured artist has been strong. There are still many aspects which I’d like to improve, but I’ve felt recently that constant “tweaking” was having a negative impact.
Background
Having put together the basic idea for the track, I sent a link through to Fernando (11 July) and he immediately suggested vocals. Later that day I placed the following ‘advert’ on Twitter:
Desperately seeking: FEMALE FARSI SINGER for modern take on traditional Persian piece. #MFF #iranelection
This was picked up and re-tweeted by a couple of people including @JCLemay. I received a reply within the hour (via JC) from Shadi Angelina and sent her a link to the work in progress. She very kindly agreed to get involved and from then on I’ve been revisiting and refining this track whilst working on other pieces such as Separate.
The lyrics – and hence the title – are from The Wind Will Take Us by Forough Farrokhzad.
The Wind Will Take Us
In my small night, ah
the wind has a date with the leaves of the trees
in my small night there is agony of destruction
listen
do you hear the darkness blowing?
I look upon this bliss as a stranger
I am addicted to my despair.listen do you hear the darkness blowing?
something is passing in the night
the moon is restless and red
and over this rooftop
where crumbling is a constant fear
clouds, like a procession of mourners
seem to be waiting for the moment of rain.
a moment
and then nothing
night shudders beyond this window
and the earth winds to a halt
beyond this window
something unknown is watching you and me.O green from head to foot
place your hands like a burning memory
in my loving hands
give your lips to the caresses
of my loving lips
like the warm perception of being
the wind will take us
the wind will take us.
Forough Farrokhzad
Translated by Ahmad Karimi Hakkak
Huge thanks to Shadi Angelina for her wonderful vocals and to @Pure_Tone for mastering.
The Wind Will Take Us by Kieron James and Shadi Angelina
I guess it was the sun, sea and sand of a beautiful Spanish island which inspired me to try and turn a fabulous IDM track from Alka into a clubby groove, but that was my intention with this treatment of “Separate”.
With that in mind, I decided to name it the Jandía Mix after the small resort at the southern tip of Fuerte Ventura, where I was staying 10 days ago when this was put together.
Update: 7th October 2009
The shrill flute towards the end of this track and its incongruity with the rest of the piece has been niggling me since August. I love what Tone had done with the mastering and apart from that, was pretty happy with the track. Last week I could take no more so I opened up Cubase and played around with some different instruments. The flute has now gone and been replaced with a filter-tweaked lead synth patch from Ohm Force’s Symptohm, run through Audio Damage BigSeq2 with a little DaTube FX. Once done, I handed it back to Tone and he’s re-mastered compressing the track slightly to highlight some of the detail.
Separate (Jandía Mix) by kieronjames
And here’s a link to the original track by Alka on Last.fm.
Note re first three comments below:
I did have an earlier problem with the lead synth at 3:28. There was pretty heavy modulation on the original track which (to my ears at least) bent it out of tune – not on the original, but on the remix – so I sought comments from a few trusted Twitter folks. Responses from @digitaldoyle, @digitube and @UBLF are shown below.
I tried tweaking the EQ at 3:28 as suggested but was convinced that the part was still out of tune, rather than just a harmonics issue so I ran the audio file through Cubase Pitch Correct to see how far it was “drifting”. After adjusting and readjusting for about an hour, I ended up deleting that part and writing three new lead synth lines. I’ve also done more work on the arrangement and mix and as ever, I’d love your feedback.
Peter's Hill
On this particular hot and humid Saturday afternoon few sounds proved more appealing than a dog barking.
You may have seen references in my tweets and elsewhere on the blog to Peter’s Hill. This is the name given to a soul-destroying climb up to the isolated house which overlooks beautiful Lyme Park. It’s not really called Peter’s Hill, but we named it after the home of Buffy’s dog trainer which you can just make out – centre horizon – on the photo (left). The shot is taken about one mile into the run and the climb is much steeper than this photo would have you believe.
The increasing clarity of cheerful dog barking as I neared the summit today was such a welcome sound. If the excited shouts of “good boy!”, “well done!” and claps of appreciation weren’t intended for me, I didn’t care. I’d take the praise anyway.
I guess it was the heat and the fact that coat clipping is overdue, but even Buffy looked a little worse for wear as we approached the fifth mile and final ascent – yet another steep one. What was I saying about Cheshire being as flat as East Anglia?
I am not in the least bit concerned about the pace or heart rate on this run. It was warm, it was hilly, it was a challenge. It was great fun!
6m | 1:03:54 | 10:46 | 166bmp | Hills
Musically, things are ticking along quite nicely. Reasonably pleased with the compositions. Just finished a couple and looking to start track number three of Deva in the next couple of days. (Just giving the ears a bit of R&R.)
But I’m finding no rhythm or consistency in the running. It seems that I’m out for a couple or three days and then something comes along and that’s me done for another week. Last week it was the unexpected biopsy, before that a trip to London and earlier in the month, four days at Disney. I’m not sure how I managed to fit the running in around this kind of stuff before, but I think it’s to do with early starts. I know the dog would really appreciate that, so maybe it’s time to kick off the 6.00 am runs again.
Today was very enjoyable. Typically slow pace / high heart rate, but that’s not concerning me at all at the moment. I just want to get two or three months solid running behind me so that it’s locked in again.
4m | 34:12 | 8:32 | 173bpm | 10k zone (hah!)
Naranjo de Bulnes is my working of the Cosecha file. The track was inspired not only by the sounds generated by the random sound, but also the 2500m peak in the Picos de Europa.
After a couple of listens to Cosecha, I began to hear hard, edgy sounds and decided that mountains and the challenges they present would be my synesthesia. Pulling this piece together and referring to various photos of Naranjo de Bulnes has rekindled my interest in climbing. I might just have to pull that gear out of the attic and have at it again. Once mixed and mastered, this track will be included in the Somió release, Deva.
Cosecha has been a fantastic exercise in sound design – something very new to me. Having to work with only one source file to create all the elements of this track was a hugely enjoyable challenge.
Stream MP3:
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San Feliz (track #2 of the Somió release, “Deva”) is now complete, barring levels, volume rides, a little compression and limiting here and there, the swells are not too swell and mastering. OK, so not finished at all really.
My goal with this piece was to create something very lazy and sunny. As I mentioned in another post, “San Feliz” was inspired by long summer days reading Murakami in the garden in Spain. With that in mind, I started by writing an eight bar turnaround with some bluesy chords and just let that roll.
It’s a pretty conventional piece and will probably be the most accessible / least experimental on the album. But there’s always room for one composition like that and – to me at least – it conveys all the memories from last summer, an easy couple of weeks and a genuine “time out” from the day-do-day.
I may also reduce the overall length or add a bridge. It’s a touch repetitive, but then again, I kind of like the way it just drifts along, in keeping with the pace of those afternoons and the feel of Murakami’s writing (can’t remember which book it was, but probably Dance Dance Dance).
I think I’ll leave this for a few days and turn my attention to something much more experimental: Cosecha.
Update: 06/06/09
Final version uploaded. Re-arranged, new instrumentation (Spanish guitar and some pads), remixed and mastered.
Thrilled to say that this track has been selected for PublicSpaces PS010 compilation.
Stream MP3:
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Download MP3:
