Close Encounters of a Special Kind

Rolf Mi., 04.01.2023 - 13:00

Why I´m happy about old inedible yoghurt

What do yoghurt and Tolkien´s evil wizard Saruman have in common?

It was the last sample to make for the day. I needed a sound progression inspired by Tolkien´s character Saruman. The wizard Saruman – not all bad at the beginning – got tempted and misled. He had always been fascinated by the history and power of Sauron´s ring. Wanting to use its power for doing good deeds he was pulled – step by step – into the dark and evil side of the matter.

After some time of thinking about my task I came upon the idea of creating a progression of 4 note chords with each of the notes of each of the chords being played by a different instrument, a different timbre. But the chords should not follow each other, nicely one after the other, but should be interwoven with each chord being alienated by one note from one of the other chords. What´s more: none of the chords should sound in all its glory, but should build up note by note – still carrying the “wrong notes” with it – instead.

The whole thing, the whole sound should kind “thin out” towards the end.

In two more layers there should be crackles like a wall, which is consecutively cracking at the seams, and sounds like blubbering (I was thinking of Saruman´s soldiers being made in the deep cellars and emerging from the mud down there.

Everything went fine, everything but for the blubber sounds. The real sounds I was making didn´t match the imagined sounds in my head at all.

And it was here, that old yoghurt stepped in. Searching the deepest depths of our refridgerator for something to eat (you know, this small hunger between the second breakfast and the first lunch) I came upon a big yogurt pot, opened, half of the yogurt eaten – and then forgotten. Seeing this I thought of Saruman at once.

I took the yogurt, placed some stereo microphones above it, fixed a piezo microphone outside at the pot and put another piezo microphone straight into the yogurt.

The I fed some compressed air into the yogurt, and – voila – the corner stone for my “blub” sounds was found.

What followed was the routine of sound processing.

... to be continued

Enjoy your day!

Rolf

to part 1: https://www.dev.rofilm-media.net/node/337

to part 2: https://www.dev.rofilm-media.net/node/345

to part 3: https://www.dev.rofilm-media.net/node/353

to part 4: https://www.dev.rofilm-media.net/node/362

to part 5: https://www.dev.rofilm-media.net/node/367

to part 6: https://www.dev.rofilm-media.net/node/376

to part 7: https://www.dev.rofilm-media.net/node/383