Variations on a theme

I thought I would continue straight on with the "space sound paintings" today, but ... instead my inspiration lead me to do some vocal tests even that I hardly have begun writing lyrics. Hah! Such is the story for today so far. I've spent something like 3-4 hours on doing vocal tests on my own. In the end I started to get close the kind of vocals (effects, aftertouch) I might end up using in case if I decide to do the vocals myself. Though like said, I have few options with the vocals ... sound testing never harms in any case.

Now I'm off to shop and after the quickie trip to heatwave still raging outdoors, I'm going to continue with some space sound mixing, too. More about that later.

Space trip vol 4

So, yeah ... I worked through all the afternoon with creating more spacy soundscapes. Not just with using guitar, but using some other devices as well. Heavy devices, no strings attached (literally, hah!)). That combined with really hot weather today again (closer to +30 degrees celsius) it was rather exhausting task. Noticed only after finishing the day's soundworks, how tiresome it was, thanks to heatwave. Working in the apartment with indoor temperature being +28 degrees celsius, it can be tiresome, yeah!

Originally I thought I'd start mixing the new soundscapes in, combine them with the sections already finished, but ... thanks to the forementioned heatwave going on, I didn't mix a thing tonight. Well, that shall happen tomorrow then.

After I get the new sounds integrated, I'll start working more with the lyrics. Expecting that one guest intro expansion in coming week or two, but probably that's the only guest section there will be. I've got enough ambient elements of my own by now.

Early startin'

Started quite early today, around 7 AM ... but not with the way I thought I would. Instead of going into soundworks directly, I got an idea for lyrics, for one song. I even could see for what song the lyrics might well be ... and yes, after writing big bunch of lyrics and quickly listening to that certain song and singing the lyrics along in my mind, I could see them fitting nicely. Well, anyway, I stopped the lyrics there since I wanted to get recording more ambient sounds.

And so I did. I started recording aroun 8:30 AM and now as it's bit over 11 AM, I have about handful of effective sounds created with guitar this time. Room for more, soundwise, I imagine - but having crafted some good sounds, it's soon time for well deserved coffee break. Even that I don't have a cherry pie with me (Twin Peaks, Twin Peaks, Twin ...). ;)

I'll continue soundworks after coffee break.

But before I go, here's a pic I took while in the middle of recording sounds. Once again, I had assistant for creating some moody sounds.

Space, act III

Very productive day once again. It was a very hot day, awesome summer day actually - and I spent most of it indoors tweaking the soundscapes ... hah! Well, I did get a breath of fresh air in the evening. And even some ice cream (which I'm going to enjoy right after this blog post!) ...

I did work on the material during weekend as well, not all the time but completed about one song worth of space sound painting. This morning I did the rest two songs' space base ambiances. What do I mean by saying base ambiances? It means literally base ambiance - I intend to record some more sounds still, over the base space elements, but in a different way I recorded the first soundscapes a week or two ago. The plan is to get even more depth to the space / otherwordly soundscapes. And I think it'll turn out great.

The songs seem to go according to sort of numerology, in multiple ways as well. Not only the song order is certain kind of ... well, magic by numbers and tempos, but the same numbers came out in the fact that there are certain amount of songs which have almost zero space sound effects during the actual song (if not counting possible intros / outros). Same numbers, anyway. Funny coincidence.

After I got the base space soundscapes done today, I went through all the songs and adjusted them into good bouncing stage. Did bounces out of all the eight songs and listened them through twice today with the space elements. Sounds both exciting and good to me. There might still be something to tweak in the space elements, but nothing major. Originally I planned to continue recording space elements already today but ... the above tasks took most of the day, so - I'll continue with space recording tomorrow, so it seems. With all new inspiration, too.

Until next time!

More space in my face

Spent about two to three hours this morning post processing rest of the sound recordings I did about a week ago. The space ambiances. At that point I got all those recordings finished and most of them produced stuff varying from quite usable into extremely usable & satisfactory from atmosphere's point of view.

Late afternoon I started experimenting with planting the soundscapes into selected songs. Quite a timetaking and demanding process in itself - it takes lots of listening, tweaking, re'listening, re'tweaking, ... again and again. I lost count of hours but at this point I have already three songs which have space (or just otherworldly) elements in them.

Initial feeling is once again awesome. I only have one positive problem with these soundscapes - some of them are massive, longer creations ... and here I have doom songs that have "less silent sections than the debut album songs had" ... haha! Well, I have a strong feeling it will turn out great anyway. Not all the songs will get space elements throughout the song, some might just have intro/outro etc.

Phew. Gotta continue perhaps only after weekend break. So far, so amazing.

Day of spacy soundscapes

Spent pretty much all the day working with the space sound creations & processing of the soundscapes. Timetaking process, to get the kind of soundscapes I want out of the sounds I created last weekend. But was it worth taking full day? Certainly. I'm once again really satisfied with what I got done today and especially how it sounds. It would be blasphemous to talk about just "some sounds" ... it's more like a sound world of its' own. It's not short, small samples & effects, but it's ... more like the opposite.

These space elements will definitely expand this forthcoming M4D album exactly the way I want ... to put it shortly: Mysterious, weird soundscapes. I still have few more space sound creations to post process tomorrow, then we'll see what happens next. Lyrics ... one thing I ought to do, but I might do more space sound recordings, too.

Space mandala .... zap!

At first ... for some reason blogger throwes those big spaces between the chapters - ugly and annoying - but no can do. Tried different tricks but them spaces stayed ... perhaps that space picture is so powerful? :)

Built a stone mandala (of creativity) intuitively this morning. After building it and combining the scene of stones with spacy background through photoshoppin' I noticed it's clearly connected with this ongoing M4D project / new material. It is evident. The colors, the shapes ... darkness of space, certain kind of mythical colors glowing ... shapes, etc. See the picture included.

Originally I did this just for fun and to start a day bit differently (and even that currently I'm not lacking in creativity, boost never hurts) - and as it happens after creating this I suddenly got a very potential idea for album coverart. Gotta see how it would work, it demands (of course) some photography as usual, planning a scenery, combining several pictures and doing lots of post processing.

Well, that's that and ... I have a feeling I might end up writing more lyrics today. What I've already done (if putting that mandala story aside) is that I've listened the whole package through with the song order I came up with yesterday. And yes, it was exactly as I thought ... that song order works great.