Audio News // Week 4, December 2014

Hello there, friends and strangers.

Every week we will be sharing a little of what goes on behind the scenes of the audio department at Antagonist. Dan, head of audio stuff, splits his time between his studio where he writes and mixes music, the office where he sits to edit and develop the design of the audio, and various locations around and about where he records environment sounds, wildlife, ambience, etc.

This week’s audio news:

Hei! This week I have travelled to my Motherland, England, to be with my family for Christmas. One of the great things about my father’s place is that they have two large pianos in their music room. One is an 1806 Clementi square piano and the other is a lovely 1869 Hopkinson baby grand.

Over the past few years I have been buying my little sister, Daisy, the makings of a small recording studio for her birthdays and Christmas as she’s a musician, too. So even all the way over here I have access to a pretty decent recording setup.

My plan for this week is to record some creepy prepared piano type stuff. This means holding the sustain pedal down and recording the airy, unusual ambience inside. When you hold open the hammers and tap the piano here and there, the strings resonate together in interesting ways and give a lovely, natural and open ambience.

Another way to get interesting and unpredictable audio from a piano is to scratch the strings with coins, fingernails, bits of wood and such. Also, pressing the sustain pedal down and dropping objects on the strings can give you shocking and scary sounds. Plucking the low strings instead of playing with the key can produce tense, low droning sounds. I also have an eBow, which is usually used on a guitar. eBows use resonances to cause a string to vibrate endlessly (or until the battery runs out) and can help create epic swells.

So that’s my audio week. If you have any comments, leave them below or if you want to get in touch with me my email address is dan@antagonist.no

Thanks for reading!

Dan

www.trackwriters.com

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