2006/09/04, 05:12:25, UTC

 Colossus

A piece inspired by the film "Colossus the Forbin Project," rendered on analogue synth and some electroacoustics. Colossus soundstage locations: Organ Chords: Basic sound mostly fundamental with some sub third harmonic and even-only higher harmonics. This sounds very pipe organ like and this was put through tank with equal wet and dry levels. Vibrato drive was on a separate ADSR and this vibrato signal was also used to pan via the voltage controlled panner input. Notes 1 to 3 and 6 were panned in the Y direction (left-right) and note 4 and 5 were panned in X. (front-back). Note 7 was the same part as note 1 taken down two octaves and heavily distorted with the clipping circuit. This was also Y panned with vibrato. Bass Drum Straight: This was the plop from an ADSR with rapid attack and decay played though an amplifer and an old Whafedale diamond-4 speaker wrapped in a towel. This was recorded to B-format with the cheap soundfield mic from a distance of about 4 foot with the speaker a little left of centre. No processing was added. Bass Drum Modded: The W signal from the mic was used to feed the tape delay unit. The plain signal was sent via the pan-rotate to +45, output 1 went to -45, output 2 to -135 and output 3 to +135. There was a little feedback with some reverb inserted into the tape system. Relays, Single and X5: The five relays in the relay box were positioned with the middle one straight ahead and quite close up to the cheap soundfield. The outer ones are progressively further left-right and more distant. If the relays are numbered 1-2-3-4-5 from left to right then the centre one is number 3 and this is the one which operates on the single relay track for quiet clicks. When all 5 are active on the louder track they trigger from each others closing contacts in the order 3-2-4-1-5. The relay board is in a aluminium diecast box so there will be plenty of off-axis sound from reflections very close up. Snare: Standard analogue snare patch generally at 180 with occasional joystick control across the stage to 0. No processing. Xylophone: This was recorded direct at +45 with lots of tape echo and super-verb at -135. Colossus Bips: These are sine wave bips with a second ADSR on midi2 used to modulate the basic pitch. This was recorded dry at +15, reverb at -15 and a small amount of tape delay echos at 180. This was a re-use of the xylophone patch with minor mods. Melody and Melody 2nd Part: These were fairly simple sine wave tones with a bit of attack envelope. They were sent to the voltage controlled panner, and the pitch signal with some attenuation and voltage summed in was used to control the Y panning around A440 as centre. Colossus is the title track of my CD-R Colossus which is available in the USA from http://www.electro-music.com/catalog/ or directly from myself at this address: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/henry01/ambitunes/ambitunes_records.htm

Source type: Hybrid
Ambisonic order: F (4 ch) 1st order 3D
Recording device: custom box, Terratec 8X8
Microphone name: cheap soundfield
Array type: tetrahedral
Capsule type: Panasonic WM-55A103
Calibration method: none

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