The piece I made is a rather structured musical composition – we can call it a track – somewhere between electronica and ambient. I did not have a clear idea of the structure or how it will sound initially. The core of the composition is the melody played on chimes, percussion is made from a few objects in my room, and everything else went from there.

I made the sound design and structure in Ableton Live 11. I focused as much as possible to get all sounds and samples balanced at their source so the mixing later would be effortless.

As effects create more atmosphere, there have been hybrid reverb from Ableton Live with a long decay, simple delay, moderate long reverb Valhalla and more types of long reverbs – one hybrid and one from an external device of effect processor, and finally grain delay, which is creating a layer of low end in the ambience of the outro.

I mixed all tracks in ProTools. Since I was happy with how tracks already sound on its own in groups, I approached mixing process in more simple way and tried to balance out only the grouped tracks and exports of effects on return tracks.

For mastering I created separate session in ProTools and only used maximiser to raise overall loudness of the track.

I started to build my own modular synthesiser in Euro rack format in 2020, mainly based on the open-source schematics from YuSynth designed by French cellular and molecular biologist and synth hobbyist Yves Usson. Modules can be found on his website https://yusynth.net/Modular/index_en.html.

The synth part of the track is made from a simple saw wave shaped by an ADSR envelope, run through the YuSynth’s copy of the Moog low pass filter and modulated by LFO. Tones were played on the CV controller Arturia Beatstep Pro, which perfectly works with modular synthesisers to trigger various modules’ gates.

The lead part has been recorded and modulated by Ableton Live grain delay and hybrid reverb. I also used my digital multi-effect module from Lexicon.

The other week when I was at work outside on the night outreach shift, we had a referral to visit Parkland Walk, an abandoned rail track turned into the green walk connecting Finsbury Park and Highgate. There was a bridge, and I immediately noticed very interesting reverberation underneath the bridge. I like the natural reverberation of various spaces, and this one, in particular, is very intriguing, primarily because of its size. It is a small space, but the reverb’s decay is between 3 and 4 seconds.

I decided to come on the upcoming night of the same week with a field recorder and a few of my favourite items, which I like to sample (metal wine calyx, metal pot for cooking and metal kitchen tray) and capture their sound within the space. Various items worked better than others in capturing the reverberation. For example, the calyx was not that prominent, like a pot hitting the ground. Capturing the actual reverberation of the space recording on my iPhone 11 sounds much better than from my Zoom H6 for some reason – at least from my point of preference.

As the night progressed towards the morning, birds started to sing and were captured in the background. I will need to come back another night earlier, around 2 A.M., to record the same sounds again, but without birds.

After all, I have used the field recording of the footsteps and the sound of me switching on the recording button on my iPhone in the intro of the track. I pitched down the sample to -12 cents. The sound of the iPhone nicely lingers one of the chime hits and resembles it as it would chime with a delay. They are two samples randomly sitting next to each other, so they work together well. From samples recorded on iPhone, I have used only one, which became the clap at the climax of the track.

I have always been captivated by metallic and industrial sounds. This piece from a dining set in our kitchen recently became ‘an instrument’ and a standard part of my experimental live sets and compositions.

For the recording of sounds coming out from playing on this fantastic piece of metal, I have used AKG C414 Condenser Stereo Microphone. Sound is induced by hitting it with mallet sticks and ‘slicing’ the edges with a metal knife. The tray is hanging down from another microphone stand to rotate if needed. I was particularly intrigued by the sweeping low end and its movement within the stereo field when captured during the rotation.

By applying low pass filters, pitching down the tone of the sample for even -24 cents and reversing samples, I have achieved a variety of sounds being used as risers and atmospheres on the background of the composition.

AKG C414 mics possess fantastic clarity, but despite that, sometimes I would enhance the metallic feel by applying a small amount of very short reverb.

I was delighted with the results of the percussion for the Creative Sound Projects – Element 1. Since I am playing with the idea of recording other tracks similarly and creating the conceptual album based on those two projects, I have decided to use the same drum kit, with different processing and enriched by a few new samples.

I created quite a minimalistic drum kit from recorded samples of only a few items in my room. Kicks and toms were made by hitting empty laundry baskets with mallet sticks, and hats were made from ceramic teapots. Cymbals come from metal trays from the kitchen, which I also used for creating risers (I will talk about them separately in another blog post).

I recorded the sound of duct tape with no idea of how I will use it, and I enjoyed the sound and texture when the tape was stretched and peeled. I have used the tape sound in the previous track for various glitchy textures throughout the composition, but at this point, I am still determining if I will use it in this one.

I have used the Condenser stereo microphone sets listed below to record every single sample. I have compared how they sound and chosen various samples based on personal preference.

AKG C414 Condenser Stereo Microphone set generally appeared to catch higher mids and frequencies, and the AKG C451 Condenser Mic Stereo set was more affluent in the low end.

The drum kit has been processed with Ableton Live EQs, Drum Buss compression and, in some places, added Valhalla reverb.

Once during the afternoon walk, I discovered a set of large metal chimes situated at the playground of an estate between Arsenal Stadium and Finsbury Park. I decided to come back again to record them at different times of the day. I did so on 25th April at about 1 am when I expected the site to be quiet and ideally with no people around.

For recording, I used several types of microphones. I compared them during the recording and later decided which sound best suited my liking. The idea was to capture the sound and tones of resonating pipes as clean as possible. I have used 1x condenser microphone Oktava MK-012-01, Zoom H6 and 2x Korg contact microphones. Firstly I recorded each pipe separately to capture single tones with each microphone. Using the condenser microphone outdoors did not turn up to be the best idea due to its high sensitivity. Even with a foam filter, the wind destroyed any sense of clarity with an overwhelming hum. The result from the Zoom H6 stereo microphone was slightly better however surrounding city still had a severe amount of background noise even at night (there was always someone parking the car in the street around the corner or a dog barking). Clip-on contact mics from Korg attached to the frame of chips (not to actual pipes. I tried that too, and it completely dumped the resonance of the pipe into a dull sound with, to me, not likeable character).

After recording every chime separately, I attached contact mics to the frame on the left and right sides to create a stereo image and played a few different melodies. Two melodies captured that night became the core element of the track.

The final composition became 3 minutes and 23 seconds long track pending between jungle, IDM and electronica.

Another way of stepping out of my comfort zone and pushing creative boundaries was certainly the amount of time spent creating this track. I have recorded, arranged and mixed this track over period of few days and total amount of hours spent on production is somewhere between 24 and 30. This is way less than I would usually dedicate to a track because I can easily come back and forth to a sound or music piece and work on it for months.

The deadline definitely pushed me to make sharp and quick creative decisions and not to overthink certain moves. Creating this track was very inspirational and made me to consider recording the full album leaning towards IDM glitchy compositions based on electroacoustic recording of organic sounds and field recordings.

The final mixdown has been another challenge since for that purpose I have used a different DAW than Ableton Live which I have been using for mixing as well. For mixing I have chosen Pro Tools and this track became my very first project mixed in Pro Tools.

Since I have focused on most of the sound design and recording quality samples at the very beginning mixing session happened to be rather pleasant and very subtle polishing job.

I have mostly adjusted only volume levels of tracks, added compression on the drum group and EQ on few selected track where I felt that certain frequency needs enhancement as well as maybe a bit different colour of sound and improved automation of panning on glitchy sounds.

I have left of course the head room of -6dB.

For arrangement of the composition and creating the sound design I have used Ableton Live 10. I have attempted to make the whole composition quite minimal with not too many tracks and instruments. For example I kept the drum rack as a single track and focused on levels and sound design before hand in order to leave it in the mix as a single track. I used six effects on Send/Return channels in order to enhance instruments and create the space within the track.

Creating quite fast percussion (170 BPM) together with layer of delay gave to the composition quite a jungle feel and manipulating samples from duct tape with grain delay and pitch shifting them created glitchy layers which brought the track closer to the realm of IDM.

For the melodic part I have decided to use my home made modular synthesizer connected to controller Arturia Beatstep Pro in order to create various sequences. The main theme of the track is a simple sequence originated in the single oscillator with a saw wave evolving through the low pass filter into the climax where sequence became groovy by adjusting the attack (from short to long) of ADSR envelope. Second synth layer of ‘bell’ sounds is a single oscillator this time with a triangle wave. ‘Horn’ sound is again simple saw wave recorded and pitched down enhanced by very long reverb. Envelope on filter of horn sound is manipulated manually by hand during recording.

To the start I created quite minimalistic drum kit from recorded samples of only few items which were present in my room. Kicks and toms were made from hitting empty laundry basket with mallet sticks and hats were made from ceramic tea pot.

I have recorded the sound of duct tape at the moment with no clear idea how I will use it. I simply enjoyed the sound and its texture when the tape was being stretched and peeled. I have used the tape sound later as a miscellaneous glitchy textures throughout the composition.

For recording of every single sample I have used Condenser stereo microphone sets listed below. I have compared how they sound and chosen various sample based on personal preference.

AKG C414 Condenser Stereo Microphone set generally appeared to catch more high mids and high frequencies and AKG C451 Condenser Mic Stereo set was richer in the low end.

I have uploaded selected samples into a Drum Rack in Live and added various effects in order to enhance their sound. Started with EQ, added various amounts of compression on kicks and toms by using Drum Buss compressor and added some colour by using Amp as a distortion. I also achieved interesting sounds bending the pitch of various samples either steadily or on timeline with automation (mainly with the glitch sounds).

Our collective release will consist from various sonic works summarised under common collectively agreed concept – stepping out of our comfort zone.

I have been questioning what it will means for me as a sonic artist and music producer and couldn’t find the solution for quite a while. Then I have realised that I should probably create something different than I usually tend to create whilst also use different techniques, different instruments and tools as well as divert myself from the usual sound which I naturally incline to.

My usual music production could be described as dark experimental electronics leaning into industrial with a lot of ritualistic percussion. It has usually very slow BPM, a lot of metallic sounds, deep atmospheric ambience and not really a firm structure in terms of composition.

As an example you can listen to the EP ‘Theatre of Plague’ released on The Judgement Hall Records in 2022 below:

I have decided to create something where I will do the most of steps and creative decisions in exactly opposite way than I would normally do, think or would be drawn to.

I have recorded my own samples from very few items present in my room at the very moment and used as least instruments possible. In terms of composition I decided to make something adhering to the grid and following bars in contrary to less structured tracks, with use of absolutely no metallic but rather organic sounds. I also went for way more faster BPM than usual.