Artist Research & Project Changes
Kate Carr
Sound artist Kate Carr has produced the album “A Field Guide To Phantasmic Birds”. This work was inspiring to my creative sound project. I took inspiration from composition for example the floating textures and trance/psychedelic tones in particular track 1 ‘unlikely to be heard’ and track 4 “shy, typically alone or in pairs”.
Kate Carr also participated in the 2024, Sound Art Guest Lecture Series.
After listening to Kate Carr’s work, the mix and mastering were so well done it inspired me to clean my project and listen out for sounds that can be mixed better.
Cleaning Project Menu Screen
Messy Project (Before)
Cleaned (After)
Mixing
Using gain to increase velocity and EQ to boost the mid-range/high mids created a more impactful chime/bong from Big Ben.
Francisco Lopez
Sound artist Francisco Lopez has produced the album ‘DISCREPANT’. I found atmospheric tones and textures inspiring towards my composition from track 4, Lahar. On this album, all the track durations range from 6 to 10 minutes. As I keep my soundscape short-form content this album was useful to my research.
KEROXEN
Valediction
I found the musical composition very inspiring with the atmospheric tones and textures. The velocity of sounds was used to build tension with amplitude this was also very inspiring to my work.
The music composition is not relevant to my research. I didn’t find any inspiration from this particulate work.
Peter Cussak
Sound artist Peter Cussak specialises in field recording his album “Sounds from Dangerous Places Vol. 2 (Caspian Oil and UK Sites)” inspired my research for field recording practice. Listening to his work has trained my ear as well as taught me methods of field recordings for example atmosphere, sound walks and being conscious and intentional with microphone distance from the sound source.
Annea Lockwood
Sound artist Annea Lockwood produced the Album, “Thousand Year Dreaming​/​floating world”. Track 1 “Thousand Year Dreaming: Breathing And Dreaming”
At 4:43, the sound of breath pulsing inspired adding breath to my work. Breathing is a relatable sound that acts as a guild emotionally, therefore fast breath indicates fear and panic.
Using Pixabay I downloaded the sound of breathing also included was heartbeat and composition.
Inspired by the floating tonality heard in Track 1 “Thousand Year Dreaming: Breathing And Dreaming” by Annea Lockwood, I added a reverb to create a similar effect. However, what went wrong was when low frequencies become stereo they are perceived as irregular sounding to the ear.
Therefore I used editing techniques, duplicating the track and using EQ to fix the frequency range. The heartbeat EQ high cut and the breathing had a major low cut and slight high cut. And only using EQ for high frequency. I fixed the problem.
Further Practical Development
Filtering the sound with the ‘Deep Space’ preset was a decision I was stuck on however I feel filtering the sound at this moment keeps the continuity of psychedelic texture therefore filtering the sound benefits the listening experience and emotional purpose. Creating a hallucinogenic state of mind.
Experimentation: Ending
Unfortunately, the sound clipped/peeked in the process of recording. High-quality field recordings are so important as they can’t be saved by editing in post, especially distorted recordings.
Experimentation,
Using ‘Auto Filter’ the preset ‘Panning Band Pass’ has a great sonic illusion effect however I preferred the original recording as the echoes from the tube rumble are raw even if it sounds distorted. The distortion adds to the effect creating an uncomfortable listing experience.
Seymour Wright
I was introduced to the sound artist Seymour Wright from the sound arts guest lecture series. His particular style of work created sounds that would be seen as uncomfortable to listen to as he stated it is not uncommon for people to leave during his performances. However, this effect is chosen stylistically, which has inspired me in my work to create sound in a sensational way where an uncomfortable listening experience becomes ironically desirable. I was inspired by his ability to use sound ominously.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this unit has helped me discover many sound artists who work with soundscapes, inspiring my practice. I’ve learned new methods of field recording inspired by Peter Cussack, a Sound artist who specialises in field recording. My music composition and approach to mixing my field recordings have been inspired by Sound artist Kate Carr. My ability to use Sound ominously has been inspired by Seymour Weight. And I’ve been inspired by more artists I’ve spoken about in this blog. Some of the research into these artists and their work has been irrelevant. However, has trained my ear further as a Sound artist who works within the field of soundscapes.