Many Windows On A Troubled Mind

Mr Sandbags

Another one from my ambient crackpot series.

This features two instances of my new instrument the Novaphone 340 Imperial. A grand name for a grand instrument (Xylo just didn’t do it justice).

The first Novaphone is playing three samples: some clicks, some rustles, and a cello scrape. The second is playing a piano note and a note from a music box.

These two are sequenced using MIDI clips in Ableton. The first Novaphone is going through PSP MicroWarmer to limit pops and spikes while the second uses a triplet dub delay via DubStation. I use PanStation on both to add some movement.

Both of the Novaphones are feeding TimeFreezer on a return track and I have MIDI clips controlling TimeFreezers Freeze and Pitch function to create pitch soars and swoops.

I’m using a plate reverb setting from Eos and PSP VintageWarmer 2 on the master track.

I think this one warrants a listen on headphones. There’s quite a lot tucked in the background.

All being well I plan to make the Novaphone 340 Imperial available to Reaktor users, via the UL, next month.

It’s been pointed out that this track doesn’t have a lot of “body” and, indeed, it’s frequency spectrum is quite lop-sided with peaks at 300Hz, 1KHz, and 1.8KHz and a steep roll off over 2KHz. I think that’s the result of the LP filter in the Novaphone and the degree to which I mixed it. Also if the frequencies aren’t in the source samples they won’t be much present in the output. I’m going to experiment with a bandpass filter instead of a LP filter although I like the way the LP filter can be made to decay over time. Tricky thing this filtering!