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The Mountains of Madness 1 - Quest (10:40)
A lot of my mixes are influenced by the other artists at TapeGerm. My Mountains of Madness series of mixes were influenced mostly by Don Campau’s Through the Black Forest mix. I really liked how he did that one, and I wanted to try my hand at something descriptive; that is, something that told a story, but also described a landscape. Back when I used to write fiction, people always told me that my descriptive voice was so detailed that they could see every image that I wrote about. I have been trying to do that with audio for the past year. I think I might be getting close.
Genre: Ambient
Credits: Arthur Loves Plastic Loops Private TG ftp, 10 Years Infection Project Loops, including Jesus Crash my Soft Synth loops, SoLaRiS loops, Carpet Glue Unlimited loops, Mental Anguished loops, Hannah Galli vocal loops.
I chose The Mountains of Madness because I am a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft. He always seemed to write in first person, and that is who I emulated when I wrote fiction. First person is just easiest for me when it comes to writing. I’ve read the Mountains of Madness story many times. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make a mix based on the entire tale, since it is just too long, so I chose the part that always had the biggest hold on me. Lovecraft is one of the few writers that can scare the crap out of me.
On to the mix. I work with a cheap little fifty dollar program called Wave Pad that I downloaded off the Internet from NHC.com. I also have Mix Pad, but Wave Pad is the one I use 90% of the time.
When I have a germ of an idea, (no pun intended) I go through the loops I have downloaded from TG, and look for certain ones that are suitable. Some of them I use as they are, and only add a little bit of echo or reverb, but most of them get the full treatment. This includes slowing the loop down to 10%. Sometimes I slow it down to 25% and then slow that one down to 10%. There is no hard and fast rule to it; I simply play around and experiment with different loops that have that certain sound I am looking for. I use the slow down mode the most, and then add the other effects as I go along.
With the Mountains of Madness, I wanted something to create the imagery of an unknown place, something dark and foreboding and ominous. I wanted to create the image of echoes upon echoes, until they became almost like voices of unimaginable monsters. That portion of the tale takes place deep underground, and I wanted to express that in the mix. I re-read several pages of The Mountains of Madness story, trying to capture that sense of fear and dread that comes from reading Lovecraft’s words. Then I began working with the loops until I had the sound I was looking for. It was a lot of trial and error, a lot of mixing and re-mixing, and adding different effects to get the sound I wanted.
One thing I’ve noticed with slowing down loops is that sometimes, you find a ‘voice’ inside the sound; a voice that you could never hear listening to the loop at regular speed. It is almost like the thing a sculptor does, cutting away all the wood or stone that ISN’T the figure beneath. It’s hard to explain, and probably makes me sound like a loon, but that’s just the way that it is for me. It is a mixture of intuition and guesswork.
I usually begin my focus on percussion and bass loops, as they seem to have the best possibilities for drawing out the sounds I am looking for when I am working on a mix. After I have my ‘base’ set, then I go through guitar and organ loops, and synth loops, and even the noise loops, giving them all the treatment that seems to work best.
Much of my technique involves varying degrees of slowing or speeding up loops, and then shifting the pitch, or adding echo, reverb, distortion, stretching the sound out, and even reversing it. I usually will tweak a loop for several minutes until it just sounds right. Some of the loops become unusable, and I have had times where I have worked on a loop for an hour only to have it become a garbled mess. I always work with my ear goggles, as this gives me the best rendition of the mix. I just recently figured out how to use the stereo pan setting, so before that I had to search for loops that already had the panning effect.
I’ve never considered myself very musical, and I have told my buddy Buzzsaw that I wouldn’t know a C sharp from a D flat, even if both of them came up and bit me on the ass. Most of my mixes come together through chance and luck. I do however, know how to write scary stories, and I have a gift for oddball humor as well as creating spooky ideas based on Halloween themes, so I just use those talents to make my mixes. Having no musical ability helps because I have no idea of what I am doing wrong. I am just mashing together some loops that sound good to me, and I have fun doing it. I am not trying to impress anyone. Hell, that seems ridiculous since I couldn’t carry a tune if it was on a stretcher and I had two paramedics helping me. I’m just making noise and having fun doing it. The fact that other people like it simply blows me away.
Album: Leave it to Fever
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