Human Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2

https://soundcloud.com/vldcnch/sets/hcai

Experimental live ep focusing on timbre and minimal melody. Playing with note velocity and tempo to see how it effects the space between notes.

10 short tracks available for free download.

reminds me more of donkey dong country or something. or that lsd game for playstation. I assume the album title's just an homage though

I enjoyed that a lot, conch!

  On 10/28/2015 at 1:24 AM, Ragnar said:

reminds me more of donkey dong country or something. or that lsd game for playstation. I assume the album title's just an homage though

yeah, just came up with the title at the last minute. tracks are played live without a computer so thought the human thing worked and it is similar to CCAI in that there are a few bits that last 20-30 seconds. cheers for listening.

  On 10/28/2015 at 7:13 PM, poblequadrat said:

I enjoyed that a lot, conch!

thanks a lot, feel free to download if you can be bothered :)

i like this. makes me wish i could walk around some creepy bridge at night.. i think the fact that you performed it w/out a computer comes across well.

  On 11/19/2015 at 10:47 PM, moonside said:

i like this. makes me wish i could walk around some creepy bridge at night.. i think the fact that you performed it w/out a computer comes across well.

Thanks dude, I prefer playing live instead of sequencing stuff even if this is really minimal and repetitive. I've got a 20 track cd coming out early next year with similar types of tracks and planning to make a series. Looking to 'develop' on this sound.

There are others with a similar tone here > https://soundcloud.com/vldcnch/sets/untitled

great stuff! I really enjoy the atmospherics/fuzziness as well. I could see you using more relaxed, laid back tones to create a nice meditation track with these methods.

  On 11/19/2015 at 11:11 PM, mat said:

great stuff! I really enjoy the atmospherics/fuzziness as well. I could see you using more relaxed, laid back tones to create a nice meditation track with these methods.

Cheers bud. I sometimes listen to this combined with the new tracks before going to sleep. Like you said very meditative and relaxing (at least to me :))

Very interesting melodies! Especially Xinat. If I were you, and I'm not. I'd let the song play as it does, but at some point I'd have some airy bass chords playing.

Even through laptop speakers I'm really enjoying this, will definitely listen on good speakers after work tomorrow.

The bed of sound on Repec kind of reminds me of the way Neil Young layered idling engine sounds under the guitars in the Dead Man soundtrack album, of all things.

  On 11/21/2015 at 4:41 AM, Brisbot said:

Very interesting melodies! Especially Xinat. If I were you, and I'm not. I'd let the song play as it does, but at some point I'd have some airy bass chords playing.

Thanks dude, appreciate you listening. You made any more piano pieces recently? With these tracks the melodies are really minimal and made without planning so I left them alone. I also like the delay sound between the notes so didn't want anything to clash. I'm not saying that they are 'special' and can necessarily stand alone, I just think that these ones might have been weaker with other notes. I am planning to record and then overdub on some tracks though and maybe look to add some non 4/4 drum loops.

  On 11/21/2015 at 5:04 AM, RSP said:

Even through laptop speakers I'm really enjoying this, will definitely listen on good speakers after work tomorrow.

 

The bed of sound on Repec kind of reminds me of the way Neil Young layered idling engine sounds under the guitars in the Dead Man soundtrack album, of all things.

Cheers man! This is the 'sound' that I was talking about in the other thread. The tracks were recorded at different times and was learning how to use the tape recorder so some have a lot more hiss than others... Repec is just a happy accident I think, even worse recording than normal!

I listened to it again and I still think some nice emotive bass chords with a pad would work. Btw, since the track is short you could extend it.

The reason why I say that is because the track reminds me of Lichen by aphex. The lower chords that come in at some point to compliment the other parts of the ambient track.

  On 11/21/2015 at 8:48 PM, Brisbot said:

I listened to it again and I still think some nice emotive bass chords with a pad would work. Btw, since the track is short you could extend it.

 

The reason why I say that is because the track reminds me of Lichen by aphex. The lower chords that come in at some point to compliment the other parts of the ambient track.

You're probably right. I'm releasing these tracks and ones like these on a limited edition cd next year so I won't be editing these but I will look to do what you recommended in the future. This 'series' of tracks are mostly short but would have no issue extending other tracks at some point.

SAW II is one of my favourite albums of all time so it's probably helped influence these small ambient ones.

i like how xinat feels to some extent, but i feel it would've been much more interesting if you had more range with the notes, particularly more high notes, i think. there was some changing of the timbre, but not enough for it to be satisfying on its own. i liked repec more, maybe you could've had more of those parts where you hit harder on the instrument, and softer, changing volume is also important for it to be interesting. I think you did that sort of idea well with shiki, where you subtly raised the tempo near the end.

I guess what i'm really thinking is that it's important for me to have some sort of expectations built up, then subverted with something unexpected. The best examples of this for me that i can think of are lunatic harness by muziq, where there's this beatboxing thing that goes to a chirpy happy synth melody, and maybe with ambient music, substrata by biosphere has these sections where there's these sounds of shuffling materials around in between some songs, and it makes you wonder if it'll turn into a song or not. maybe these thoughts are useless, but ok.

I get that it's an experiment, just saying stuff that i think about it and related stuff.

  On 11/23/2015 at 8:44 AM, The Sponge Wiggler said:

i like how xinat feels to some extent, but i feel it would've been much more interesting if you had more range with the notes, particularly more high notes, i think. there was some changing of the timbre, but not enough for it to be satisfying on its own. i liked repec more, maybe you could've had more of those parts where you hit harder on the instrument, and softer, changing volume is also important for it to be interesting. I think you did that sort of idea well with shiki, where you subtly raised the tempo near the end.

 

I guess what i'm really thinking is that it's important for me to have some sort of expectations built up, then subverted with something unexpected. The best examples of this for me that i can think of are lunatic harness by muziq, where there's this beatboxing thing that goes to a chirpy happy synth melody, and maybe with ambient music, substrata by biosphere has these sections where there's these sounds of shuffling materials around in between some songs, and it makes you wonder if it'll turn into a song or not. maybe these thoughts are useless, but ok.

 

I get that it's an experiment, just saying stuff that i think about it and related stuff.

Cheers for the detailed feedback dude. I'm learning whilst making these so will look to make more detailed pieces at some point. All of these 'pieces' are made ad hoc without any planning, trying to make them more on feeling. I agree that velocity and tempo make the tracks more interesting, in some of them I decide to do it on others I don't. Like I said, all in how I feel making it at the time.

In terms of range I kind of agree but think it's more to do with my melody rather than the number of notes. Look at Rhubarb or Stone in Focus to see what you can do with a small number of notes. The general theme of these tracks was looking into repetition, playing with note velocity and tempo to see how it effects the space between notes. With this in mind I'm pretty happy with the end result and know what I want to do next time :)