Kyle aka Anthrocarbon - music and sfx
MUSICAL CHAIRS!
(Silence is vital.)
Months after my previous log, the stars have aligned and some more music has reached Jay for review. I’ve had multiple long sessions keenly tweaking sliders and knobs, until the growing song turned into a distortion-dependent facsimile of any other nameless four-to-the-floor demo track, sitting in a paper sleeve on a dusty shelf, in whatever local CD store still stocks physical media and didn’t notice the ‘DJ’ leave it there. Despite those stepping stones, though, the song I recently sent to Jay had most of what we needed. It only took something like 6 months to break the drought. *kappa emote*
That success may be thanks to my chair. No this is not a sponsor spot for G-string C7, Battle Bucket, or Nipplechairs.
You see, I have this ongoing ‘bet’ with humankind, that it is not possible for any person ever, to design and manufacture a comfortable chair. I bought this current chair from a salvage shop, and because IT LIED TO ME, my apparent comfort morphed into aches after only 48 hours, and that resulted in me half leaning forward, which left me feeling urgent and attentive, thus, able to focus on getting at least one track done. (Sorry for the delay, Jay. At least we might be able to make an ‘all the failed cuts’ album as a standalone gag gift.)
I wish all my chairs were broken in just the right way to make something usable happen, but the truth is that although much of my time is spent on partial songs nobody ever gets to hear, mistakes are terribly important - especially in creative pursuits. The faster I fail, and the more skilful I become at learning something beneficial from the exercise, and the clearer my understanding of how to juice my brainfruits. A huge part of the process is good old experimentation. I’ve probably oozed praise for the “Arcade” plugin in FL Studio before, but in addition, I have a special place in my heart for the Distructor and LuxeVerb plugins. The way they expand the sound stage and mutate vanilla synth sounds is delightful, and they make the process of experimentation an aurally fulfilling little narrative.
However, on the topic of experimentation and process, I still wouldn’t be caught dead using AI generative tools. Slop-machines make ‘prototyping’ easy for some, but the easier the skill floor is, the more I need my creative process to make it hard! It’s dangerous to be lazy when authenticity is the only currency that matters. So whether it’s a pretty butterfly, a horse’s tail, or a reductive relationship with chairs that provides the seed for your internal randomiser, always lean into it. The brain is incredible at abstracting thought from irrational stimuli, and elevating our arts will always depend on us leaning into that mysterious and oft frustrating mechanism. Essentially, you do you. (This is why I’m not heard from most of the time.)
FOLEY MOLEY!
(I’ll rhyme better next time, I promise.)
We’ve managed to find a navigable hill to climb in our most recent approach in the SFX department, focusing on the organic sounds instead of my entertaining my fixation on lofi-ing the crap out of samples to make them more ‘retro’ and tastefully glitchy. Further in that direction, I resolved to reduce filtering and enhancements, and record more takes of the source samples. Although compression is great for compliance with game engine needs and file size control, short SFX samples at higher fidelity are not resource hogs like musical tracks. So, in the pursuit of creating more apt noises, I have reached for more interesting objects to smack, drop, and squish. Here are some of the latest helpers.
I’m not a hoarder, but I’m far from austere and tidy. There have been countless uses for random bits and pieces I’ve held on to over the decades, and although many have been shortlisted for use as Foley tools, the way sounds are created from them are far more influential than an object’s shape or material. Those physical properties govern what is possible to extract from the object, but the experimentation is by far the most critical part of the process. I’m obsessed with my metal Slinky because as once had something metallic to my ear that sounded like power lines snapping (sci fi pew pew sort of thing,) and I’ve chased that noise ever since. I recently started looking at cryoseisms which have similar aural profundity to cable jolts, but here in Australia, there’s virtually no chance of going out to record samples of them - lacking ice, glaciers and all that.
Where I’m going with this, is that I love the variety such a ‘hoard’ offers, but the imagination and creativity of the craft are best spent on discovering how to manipulate and combine these object. A skilled Foley artist can score a film with a fry pan, a cardboard box, and a cup of rice. I think maybe I’m just greedy. Or perhaps, the ‘fun’ aspect motivates the necessary experimentation, and my mind can be adequately juiced when it imagines an object looks like it should sound interesting. Maybe the abundant variety in shape and material is crucial after all.
- Anthrocarbon