Sunrise -- Water Fowl

Tape manipulated saxophone and piano.

Somewhere in the Pacific Northwest I sat and watched the sunrise over the ducks on the pond while the others slept in the truck. This piece reminds me of that.

(Get Flash to see the track player.)
posted by dagosto (5 comments total)

This is really quite lovely- just as you said, it reminds me of solitude and beauty. Thanks.
posted by potch at 12:00 PM on June 23

Very beautiful and blue indeed. And perfect music for midnight contemplation, might I add.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:58 PM on June 24

Wow, dagosto. To be honest, this is exactly the sort of music I wanted to hear right now. I love good drones. Makes me think of the song "My Roots Are Strong And Deep" by The Microphones. How did you manipulate the tape? Why does manipulating tape sound so cool (since a lot of my favorite musicians seem to do that)? Why is it that manipulating tape seems to have such different results than digital manipulation? Or is this digital manipulation of a tape recording?
posted by Corduroy at 10:37 PM on June 24

Thanks for the comments.

Corduroy - I just recorded at a higher speed and changed the speed a little during the recording. This is actually a digital recording throughout. My audio interface (RME Fireface) allows me to change and manipulate the sample rate during recording. This project was at 48kHz and I recorded at 32kHz plus or minus 0.04%. It sounds exactly like tape manipulation so I just call it that.

Why is it that manipulating tape seems to have such different results than digital manipulation?

I would guess because it affects both pitch and time where the standard digital manipulations attempt to affect just one at a time. Also when things are pitched down in this way, overtones can become coherent notes and the texture of a sigle not can become more complex.
posted by dagosto at 10:22 AM on June 25

For being straight up mood/ambient stuff, I really like it.

Sometimes when I'm camping people wake up at 6am and start blasting country music and stuff...that totally kills it for me. If someone played THIS it would be bliss.
posted by snsranch at 4:07 PM on June 26