10 - 11 - 14 Adding New Techniques

I did everything but make the sounds on this track. I did all of the writing and sequencing. I added reverb, delay, and filters. I also did the mixing and EQs. I made this song to play around with the overdrive lead synth I found.

Bradley Jardine Cogswell Submission 1

On this track, I experimented with the layering of reverb on different sounds. I also threw a couple sounds back and forth with pan together, and I'm satisfied with how it turned out. Again, I did all of the composing, adding of effects, mixing and EQ.

Bradley Jardine Cogswell Submission 2

For this song, I went a more grand sound. I also tried my hand at more melodic writing for the piano. Another idea I had that I think turned out well would be the note that I going from a saw sound into more of a ring as it is bounced back and forth using pan. I did all of the sequencing, effects, EQ, and mixing for this track.

Bradley Jardine Cogswell Submission 3

With this track, I tried to keep it simple. I went for more of a dance track. One you might hear at a party, as apposed to my usual style which I would recommend you sit back and listen to. I only used one bass sound and minimized the amount of synths. I also played around a little with automating pitch-bend in substitution to portamento. Again, I did all of the sound selection, sequencing, effects, EQ and mixing.

Bradley Jardine Cogswell Submission 4

Quake WIP

This is my final project for my Digital Sound Synthesis class at Cogswell Polytechnical College. Here is my write up about the work:

For my project, I wanted the listener to feel as though they might be in a dream. With the use of randomized parameters to create chaos and airy sounds to lull the listener into a dull focus, I’ve created a piece that flows as one, with individual parts that one might believe to be out of place next to each other.
For my lead synth, I used an additive synthesis patch played with midi through Logic. I adjusted the levels of the separate harmonics live as the loop progressed. I then ran that recorded session through a granular synthesis patch where I added a random element to pan, grain-size, and grain-transpose. I also changed the number of simultaneous grains by hand as the file played through. The bass at the beginning of the song was created using a polyphonic frequency modulating patch, where I made slight tweaks to the modulation index and carrier-modulator ratio. I also ran this through the granular patch, implementing similar methods.
The airy pad that comes in at 24 seconds into the piece is a resampling and looping of a section of the granulized additive recording, and the second instance of it at 42 seconds is just pitch shifted. The screeching pluck sound was created using a wave-shaping patch, where I adjusted the waveform by hand as the midi loop played through and the recording was made. I added a low-pass filter to this, as well as a stereo spreader, and added some delay. The pad entering at 1:38 was created using subtractive synthesis by means of multiple phasor modules in PureData and a couple of filters. The timbre changes for this sound are due to me changing the midi key triggering the second and third saw-tooth oscillators with the change in notes. The dual, hard-panned pads at about 2:00 were made with the same patch, but without the same timbre changes. They are also slightly detuned, one up in frequency, and the other down, making them feel larger than they really are. They are also running through a stereo spreader and a spectral gate, giving them their sweeping chime sound.
The white noise throughout the piece was a simple noise patch with a low-pass filter. I again recorded the changes in cutoff and gain live while listening to the song. I changed these parameters in such a way to create the sound of crashing waves, helping to bring a little bit of natural sound to the song and pulling the listener further into my dreamy soundscape. The pad with the large changes in timbre and oscillation at 1:14 was made by running the subtractive pad through a ring modulator patch, where I had used a combination of hand adjustments of the modulator slider and button presets for it, and with the depth set all the way to 10. Lastly, I resampled a couple more notes from the granulized additive synth and pitch shifted them. All of the channels are running through a reverb bus.
I think I did a good job of meeting my goal. I know when I listen to this piece I tend to drift off into a sort of trance. The whole process was incredibly rewarding, for I’ve never fully synthesized an entire piece such as this. A couple of my favorite components to this work would be the spectrally-gated pads, as the pitch comes down and creates the chime sound, and the evolution of the granulized FM recording.


Wiser