PigLick on 11/1/2020 at 12:29
no one listens to my stuff :(
oh wait scumble did
Aja on 11/1/2020 at 17:36
Nah, I listened to all your tracks, Pig. My favourite was the trumpet one -- I wish it had gone on for another three or four minutes. My other favourite was ElevatorFunk, which had a real Can't Buy a Thrill vibe for me. I think if I were mixing your tracks, I'd be using more reverb overall, but that's personal taste. Your playing is great.
Aja on 11/1/2020 at 17:47
Quote Posted by PigLick
vapin in my 4x4 reminded of the Flight of the Conchords for some reason. I'm not a huge fan of ambient stuff so yours sounds...ambient ?
I love the Conchords, so I'll take that. When I think about making ambient music, I think about what Brian Eno said in the liner notes to Music for Airports, that it's music that should be as directly listenable as it is blendable into the background (he put it more eloquently). So my goals are for it to be immersive and relaxing but also interesting if you listen closely to notes and textures. I also try to avoid making it sound cinematic but instead aim for evoking more ambiguous feelings. I've also always loved the way a running furnace sounds although I guess in Australia you don't have those.
Quote Posted by demagogue
Those were great Aja. I like when some voices slip in then back out of detune. It's kind of disorienting in a good way.
Thanks! I like the drowsy feel of subtle pitch modulations, plus it's a good way to add movement to an otherwise static sound.
PigLick on 12/1/2020 at 00:14
Both you and scumble mentioned more reverb in mixing, which I'm really not very good at as I just tend to leave the tracks as is, something to work on so thanks. I suffer from insomnia and use a white noise generator to help me sleep, so I guess thats a kind of ambient thing right?
Aja on 12/1/2020 at 05:08
Yes!
scumble on 13/1/2020 at 08:43
@aja - Vapin' reminded me of Frank Zappa instead - songs like "wind up workin' in a gas station".
The ambient stuff is good, but could probably be extended to longer forms. I tend to listen to Steve Roach (also influenced by Eno probably) and there are few 40m to hour long tracks I use all the time for work or an attempt to help me sleep.
@piglick - If you could get me some original files for Elevator Funk I'd try mixing it, but could be awkward if you hadn't recorded onto a computer.
@dema - I could see that piece working as incidental music in an anime. I may be thinking that because you live in Japan though. Or the jazz influence that seems to get into much anime music.
PigLick on 13/1/2020 at 11:33
nah dont have the original tracks for that, it was recorded over 20 yrs ago.
Aja on 13/1/2020 at 19:11
Quote Posted by scumble
The ambient stuff is good, but could probably be extended to longer forms. I tend to listen to Steve Roach (also influenced by Eno probably) and there are few 40m to hour long tracks I use all the time for work or an attempt to help me sleep.
Thanks. A couple of the tracks I didn't post are longer, but I was making a deliberate effort on a lot of these songs to keep them short. I'm not too interested in so-called generative ambient music; everyone with a modular synth makes that these days, and it's not hard to set up a drone and record it for an hour. I'd rather find ways to keep the listener's interest in a shorter time frame. Some of the stuff I've been working on more recently is in the eight-to-nine-minute range, which is about where I like it.
edit: here's a private link to the full album in case anyone's interested: (
https://soundcloud.com/sleepmute/sets/its-as-sad-as-a-glass-this/s-cxg9c)
scumble on 18/1/2020 at 11:47
A celebrating stutter reminded me of Brian Eno's Microsoft sound for windows 95 apparently.
I think it's smart to keep the pieces short as creating a longer piece that remains interesting is really hard. Enjoying the pieces on your little album.
I just came across Eno's Music for Installations which is a bit of a 5 hour monster - first track was pretty lovely actually.
I did make one attempt at creating a longer piece - (
https://soundcloud.com/scumble/ambient-thing-v3) https://soundcloud.com/scumble/ambient-thing-v3 - on the face of it it's highly repetitive but the melody repeats so it shifts backwards in relation to everything else. I think the rhodes chords can get a bit monotonous though. But I think the way this sort of stuff works is for you to drift in and out of attention so when you come back something slightly different is happening.
Aja on 19/1/2020 at 00:51
Quote Posted by scumble
A celebrating stutter reminded me of Brian Eno's Microsoft sound for windows 95 apparently.
Oh yeah, I can see that. I love that sound!
Quote:
I did make one attempt at creating a longer piece - (
https://soundcloud.com/scumble/ambient-thing-v3) https://soundcloud.com/scumble/ambient-thing-v3 - on the face of it it's highly repetitive but the melody repeats so it shifts backwards in relation to everything else. I think the rhodes chords can get a bit monotonous though. But I think the way this sort of stuff works is for you to drift in and out of attention so when you come back something slightly different is happening.
I listened to this while I tidied up cables after a day of trying to make music, and I really enjoyed it. It did just what you said. The only part I didn't like was the abrupt cut-off at the end.