lucanag.github.io

Twitter: @luca_nagy_
Instagram: @pushebp

Sampling

Tasks / Requirements

1. An Ableton project by using
    1. Only existing audio file or record one
    2. Sampler
    3. Simpler
    4. Warping (with different algorithm)
    5. Slice to MIDI
    6. Resampling
    7. Freeze
    8. Collect and Save
2. Vision - a predefined story which the music has to stick to, requirements
3. At least 750 word analysis
4. Presentation
5. WAV file (90 sec)

Sampling Vision

Luca Nagy

You can read it in Hungarian here.

The story is a documentary movie which is played to the students on the Mars in the future on a history lesson. The story is about the Mars before the colonization.

  1. The first third part of the documentary is about the surface of the Mars and it’s climatic conditions before the terraformation including the wind of the Mars which is unknown term for the students as the terraformation successsfully terminated the wind.

  2. The biggest part of the documentary is about the discovery and exploration of the Mars and the challanges of the discovery with the many many excitements about solving the most questions on the colonizaiton and terraformation. The documentary highlight the rivalry of the nations on who to discover it first and how, the different space probes, space ships and target devices for exploring and study the Mars’s surface. In this section I want a break which should remind us to the challenges and infinite brainstormings about how to terraform the Mars. So this break should be dark tone and should suggest some excitements and improvements which all happened before the people found the solution. The solution is also included in the documentary.

  3. The last part of the movie come back to the drear, uncolonized picture on tha Mars which it was in 2021. Samingly as all the good documentaries about a Planet ends, the end part shows the surface of the Mars as moving away forward to the huge infinite space.

I will use the audio files uploaded by “Perseverance” named Mars rover of NASA which is designed for exploring the Mars and was landed at 18 February 2021.

I want both background and dance music in approximately equally, regarding the genre I want some dub, ambient, minimal or techno elements around between 110-130 BPM.

Sampling Analysis - colonists

Luca Nagy

You can read it in Hungarian here.

Inspiration

The main requirement of this exam was which inspired me mostly, that we have to work with a recorded file or use any existing audio file and work only with that. As I am interested in the behaviour of sound properties in different medium or atmoshpheres, I wanted to record sounds in different medium, such as under water on in different gases. Then I started research about which other Planet has any atmoshphere which can transfer sound wave and found that Mars has some kind of and NASA has project to it. I also was interested on radiowaves received on Earth from the space and project on scale that up to sound waves for exploration reasons, but that concept I may will keep for another exam. So I decided to use the NASA’s records on Mars, and due to this my vision was connected to it, which is shortly a documentary movie about the Mars before the colonization.

Implementation Process

I divided my sounds into 3 different groups, such as CLIMATE, DRUMS and ADVENTURE. In the part of CLIMATE I tried to give back the dusty, drear surface and climatic conditions of the Mars, while the exploration and discovery challenges in the ADVENTURE, while in the DRUMS I just focused to give back the elements of the predefined music genre. There are many sound in ADVENTURE part which are more dark but remind us some movements and excitements which was predefined. I also tried here to create some musical note not only noises and to create some pattern in the melody.

Since I was amazed by the original records in raw form already, I wanted to keep them almost in raw form too for keeping as much from the original mood as I can.

1. CLIMATE

a, WIND

I used the first audio record which was recorded by the mars rover on the Mars.

First Audio Recording of Sounds on Mars

This is the only record which I edited only a bit and left there in it’s full length in order to keep the original vibe of the record as a background noise. At some silent places I cut out and copied another part for being more consistent. Some of these places I used mirroring to drag the next section at zero point. As the amplitude was vary I consolidated at some places and increased or decreased the amplitude and modified the Clip View gain value too.

b, ATMOSPHERE

I wanted to symbolize the climate conditions here from another record uploaded by NASA. There is a record where we can hear the range rover’s own noises as it is moving on the surface and having some metallic sounds due to it’s material. This record had more powerful noises and was more usable then the previous records I checked.

Sounds of Perseverance Mars Rover Driving – Sol 16 (16 minutes)

I used two slices from this record. One I used for a background noise to symbolize the basic element of the atmosphere (carbon) and a higher frequency metallic noise appearing at some parts only (metal).

I used Sampler at the carbon part in sustain loop mode in order to get a long released background sound. In order to use the note-on part too and not only the release part, I increased the Pitch envelope’s peak to get little bit different vibe too. I cut off the high frequencies and used Vocoder and Echo with small LFO and high stereo effects.

I used one-shot mode with a Simpler at the metal sound with a small resonance set band pass filter, small LFO to have some movements. I used Vocodera and Echo here too.

2. DRUMS

a. KICK

I tried to find a sine wave from the records using in a Sampler to cut at zero point, but for having stronger impact used in Sustain loop mode, not one-shot.

First Audio Recording of Sounds on Mars

I increaset the peak of the Pitch envelope, filtered the high frequencies and used a Shaper. I highlighted the low frequencies with Saturator and EQ Eight.

b. BASS

The BASS is made from the KICK, I only changed the attack of the filter envelope and increased the released time of the amplitude envelope. I highlighted different frequencies and cut out the 50-60 Hz part. I used Drum Buss here to have stronger impact to the whole.

c. SNARE

When I checked the records on the static laser shot of the Mars rover I thought it is perfect for SNARE and HIHAT, only a bit modification is required.

First Acoustic Recording of Laser Shots on Mars

I warped it in Beats mode and edited each 8th transients to grids. Then I realised the amplitude value is not even similar in each of the 8th beat, so I just selected a bigger slice and duplicated for having at least some pattern and to be a little bit more static.

In order to fit to the genre I selected in the vision I used band pass auto filter and played with Drum Bass and Reverb. I used Echo for slightly driving the sound into another music structure section, such as at break.

d. HIHAT

I used the laser shot records, but this time I left Ableton to create slices based on the transients and I just selected a more powerful one.

First Acoustic Recording of Laser Shots on Mars

I used Pitch tool for increasing the pitch and applied Saturator. For driving into another music part I used Echo and Delay.

3. ADVENTURE

This part has the most vary sound which I chose by leaving Simpler to cut slices based on transients again. But here I used another record which was more vary in frequencies.

Sounds of Perseverance Mars Rover Driving – Sol 16 (16 minutes)

I used here NATIVE INSTRUMENTS KOMPLETE KONTROL M32 controller for experimenting with the slices. I freezed this channel as it contained many sound and effects. I used 5 sounds, most of the cases used LFO and Echo, some cases Vocoder and Reverb.

The solution sound is the only one where I tried to find a sine wave and used in sustain loop mode to try to create a musical note. I used here Sampler, Pitch and Chord.

The storm sound symbolizes a climate condition, I used Sampler to cut the wave in the following way.

At strange sound I cut a slice in the following way.

At question sound I left a huge slice and used Vocoder.

At enhance part I worked also with a longer slice with Vocoder.

Presentation

pptx

WAV

wav