[Dark Ambient / Soundscape / Granular] Aether [EP]

[Autobot]

4-Track EP entirely made with an granular like synthesis. As always, feedback is highly welcome...
https://ccur.bandcamp.com/album/aether

[frank1985]

Great atmospheres Perfect for sleep! What granular software are you using to create this?

[collider]

Sounds like you like Sleep Research Facility a lot

[MogwaiBoy]

4-Track EP entirely made with an granular like synthesis. As always, feedback is highly welcome...
https://ccur.bandcamp.com/album/aether

Oooh droney. This is great - you really feel like each piece puts you in a specific physical location, dripping in widescreen atmosphere.

Wanna share some details about the process? What kind of source signals you begin with and how you process them (pitch shift, reverb, delay, lofi noise layers etc)?

Also I see you mastered it yourself too - nice work

[Autobot]

4-Track EP entirely made with an granular like synthesis. As always, feedback is highly welcome...
https://ccur.bandcamp.com/album/aether

 

Oooh droney. This is great - you really feel like each piece puts you in a specific physical location, dripping in widescreen atmosphere.

Wanna share some details about the process? What kind of source signals you begin with and how you process them (pitch shift, reverb, delay, lofi noise layers etc)?

Also I see you mastered it yourself too - nice work

 

Thank you. Nice description of my sound.

This was my first attempt to make this kind of music with my beloved Polyend Tracker. It's the very first run and came out quite good.

Regarding the sound design / track making
(1) I used the Polyend Tracker as an 8-voice (pseudo) granular synthesizer. As samples I used recordings from local radio stations. The Tracker has a built-in radio so I sampled straight into the machine.
(2) Sound design: envelopes, filter, lfo's, etc. A heavy use of the built-in reverb and delay.
(3) I made a couple of patterns to trigger the individual voices. Plus, there is usually also one 'instrument' I play live on top of the patters (see step 5).
(4) I use Live to record. The Tracker's stereo-out goes into Live. I set up three effect sends: ValhallaUbermod (Delay), ValhallaUbermod (Reverb), Valhalla Supermassive (Reverb) which are mixed to taste. Additionally the effect-mix as well as the Tracker's stereo-out is routed to an Aux-Track for parallel NY-style compression (forgot which compressor I used). This Aux is just slightly mixed into the whole mix. apShaper is on the master for some slight transformer like waveshaping.
(5) I hit play on the Tracker and record the master-output of Live. I play the patterns in no particular order and I switch between the patterns, so different notes get triggered. On top I played (most prominent in Track 4) one of the 'instruments' I made in Tracker live. Also additional live tweaking of filters and lfo's during the recording. So the tracks are recorded live. I was very happy that the first run was kinda successful.

Mastering Process
(0) The four pieces I made for this release are already carefully mixed (4 Stereo tracks) and recorded (aiming K-14)
(1) Import into Reaper.
(2) Checking the peaks of the items. Adjust the gain of the items to match as close as possible the peak of the loudest one, so that the items are having the same peak.

Mastering Tools
SlickEQ GE (Tilt-EQ) - per track
Nova GE (dynamically lowering some ugly resonances) - per track
SlickEQ M (HP/LP, adjusting stereo width) - master
Molot GE (OptoComp like settings for some color and dynamic control: ~70/30 dry/wet) - master
Kotelnikov GE (dynamic control: very low threshold, low ratio) - master
Dark Dither (Airwindows) - master

Monitoring: Airwindows Monitoring, SPAN, Correlometer, Limiter No.6 GE

I did a lot of mixing and mastering for other people and I would always recommend that someone else than the producer/mixer should master. Yet, I'm very happy I found ways to master my stuff kinda unbiased and without getting to annoyed by them