Jabberwocky -- Cyber Celtic Fairytale

[emdot_ambient]

The only poem I ever memorized in full, Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky, performed by a voice synthesizer run through Spektral Dealy, backed up with NuSofting's HarpTime, hand drum and tambourine.

What could be nicer than that?

Now available for personal, non-commercial use only at The Auditorium

Hey, vurt! Are you finished your version yet? Now's the time to post it. I'm dying to hear your take on it

[mystahr]

but why was it so short

Very pleasing to listen to; although I sometimes felt as if the timing in speach was a bit glitchy and off, but barely noticable really and at some points it adds to the track . The background melody was sweet and spot on to accompany the poem

[emdot_ambient]

but why was it so short

Very pleasing to listen to; although I sometimes felt as if the timing in speach was a bit glitchy and off, but barely noticable really and at some points it adds to the track . The background melody was sweet and spot on to accompany the poem

Why so short? Only because the poem is that short. I can see stretching it just a bit by allowing a little more music between verses, but I thought a short sweet song would allow full focus to be on the poem.

I had thought about re-recording the vocals either with a real live person, or by forcing the text-to-speech program into a more natural pacing but as you say, it kind of adds a little something. I like the fact that the vocals are so obviously synthetic (note the words "'twas", "slithy", "borogoves", "Jabberwock" and "Bandersnatch") yet somehow so tenderly human (note the phrase "and burbled as it came"). That duality is fascinating to me.

To be honest, I did force the pacing a bit by breaking the poem up into words and phrases and then placing those wav files at appropriate beats in the song. You can hear this best with the line "One, two! One, two! And through and through." That line simply wasn't fitting, so the One, two parts were inserted as single word events and the rest of the line was put in as one phrase.

I had created the background music as a first start at recreating a celtic harp & tambourine piece I did with a friend back in the late 1980's (with cicadas in the background). But I had the poem already and threw the vocals in on a whim . . . thus sidetracking my original idea altogether. The kind of stumble in the rhythm came about by trying to match the unfinished harp parts, which were a bit skewed by some rather sloppy cut & pasting in the MIDI event editor. Once the drums were put to that somewhat irregular part it actually captured some of the stumbling rhythms om the original harp/tambourine/cicada piece I was paying homage to. I thought they felt nice with the vocals, adding a bit of that same "something ain't quite right" sense that the synthetic vocals give it.

My favorite part is the Spektral Delay burble, which actually was an FX put only on the word "burble" so even though you can't hear that word in the FX, it did come from that word. Subtle, perhaps, but I like it

I'm glad you found it a good listen!

[celticdale]

The only poem I ever memorized in full, Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky, performed by a voice synthesizer run through Spektral Dealy, backed up with NuSofting's HarpTime, hand drum and tambourine.

What could be nicer than that?

Now available for personal, non-commercial use only at The Auditorium

Hey, vurt! Are you finished your version yet? Now's the time to post it. I'm dying to hear your take on it

Loved it! Very, very cool.... thanks.

[Borogove]

I dig it. I'll make sure Mrs. Borogove hears it when she gets home from work, too.

[emdot_ambient]

Loved it! Very, very cool.... thanks.

Excellent, the celts love it too!

[emdot_ambient]

I dig it. I'll make sure Mrs. Borogove hears it when she gets home from work, too.

He he! Well, I hope she likes it too and that all's mimsy in the Borogove household

[egarrard]

The voice is too far back in the mix. A LOT of the tale gets buried. The track is supposed to support the vocal, not the other way around.

[emdot_ambient]

The voice is too far back in the mix. A LOT of the tale gets buried. The track is supposed to support the vocal, not the other way around.

Hmm. I've never noticed this and no one's mentioned it before. How are you listening to it? I've listened on my stuido monitors, studio headphones and crappy consumer headphones plugged into my work PC and the voice is fine. I've not heard it on a PC playing out to PC speakers w/sub-woofer.

It's so hard to get mixes just right for all systems unless you want to spend $ to have them professionally mastered.

[vurt]

Hey, vurt! Are you finished your version yet? Now's the time to post it. I'm dying to hear your take on it

far from it
and now im not sure its worth it
yours is such a beautiful piece and mine well,sounds like noise + poetry hehe

definitely keeping this(not just because of my alice infatuations either)

[emdot_ambient]

Hey, vurt! Are you finished your version yet? Now's the time to post it. I'm dying to hear your take on it

far from it
and now im not sure its worth it
yours is such a beautiful piece and mine well,sounds like noise + poetry hehe

Never underestimate the power of noise + poetry! I'd really like to hear it whenever it's done.

definitely keeping this(not just because of my alice infatuations either)

High praise indeed! I'm so glad you like it.

[Barnadine]

Ah, the old 'banderzntch'. You're right, that disjointed voice adds a certain eeriness to it all. Lovely antique mood.

[emdot_ambient]

Ah, the old 'banderzntch'. You're right, that disjointed voice adds a certain eeriness to it all. Lovely antique mood.

Hmm . . . did I forget to press Submit the last time I typed this?


<<ahem>>
It's always amazing when little accidents like this song happen. I recorded the vocals before the song, not intending to use them in a song. I later started the song not intending to add any vocals to it. But they're both so well met.

I'm glad this song translates into Aussie as well!