Darkwave Music Questions

S

Supa Drop Kick Man

Guest
First off I must commend everyone who has posted here for making this site not only the most informative I have reached but the most adult and mature. It seems like here we have a haven for musicians, not frightened producers. So many other sites flame anyone who uses the word Acid and so many fogies scream about how making programs user friendly will offer it to the general public....thus they will have to be creative to stand out rather than just old.

Huzzah wonderful site!

Anyway, I have been perusing the site and found nothing thus far about Darkwave or Illambient music. It might not be a topic for a DJ site, but this site is more than just that.

My question is: Any tips or tricks in the way of making Robert Richian, Lustmordian, Last Temptation of Christian music?

I have a bedroom studio with a Pc and G4 living in harmony, with lots of little gadgets I use to make wierd sounds...I am wondering if anyone here can give me some help in the following:

1. Ideas for setting up samlpers loaded with dark ambient noise so I can record a live dark jam instead of writing out sequenced parts.

2. Ideas for wierd and exotic sounds...i have a list of some I used and will post when I get home, what are some of yours?

3. Anything else dark artists may have experimented with in the process of creation.

Look forward to reading replys...and keep up the best site online!

~SDKM

[Edited by Supa Drop Kick Man on 03-26-2001 at 01:47 PM]
 
Hi and thanx for your nice words about ODJ ! ;)

For your G4 (I'm a mac user) and if you want some weird sounds you should try Reaktor and Metasynth ! :)
 
Thanks so much for the post.

I will quest for Reaktor and Metasynth today. Demos and such.

I posted in the sampler section a question I had that I will bring up here in a slightly different way.

If you are familiar with Robert Rich you know his dark soundscapes are so beautiful but have to be triggered via sampler.

What I ultimately want to do is be able to take a sample I have grabbed (like a long train wail or the clang and toll of bells) and play chords with them via midi sampler. Instead of being enslaved by organized sequencing, I want to be able to jam with this dark library of sounds I have collected....but will the pitch shifting used to make a chord just distort the original sound into something unusable?

What is your advice here?

Thanks again,

~SDKM
 
Well for metasynth you import a sample in it and can apply some crazy weird audio "treatments" like granular synthesis, time-strecth, filtering, ... try it you'll see how you change your original samples to something completely new !

With reaktor you can do analog synthesis, audio FX, drms and you can also import your sample to edit them and apply FX, you can also edit audio input directly in reaktor for audio FX, it's very powerfull. You can use some ensembles which comes with the softs or build your own ones (you'll need to know a little bit about synth programming to understand what you do exactly), you can build some crazy ensembles where you can trigger your samples, do some step sequencing, etc... the possibilities are endless ! :)

If you're looking for some weird FX, try the GRM tools (plug-ins for VST or protools), great ones !
 
thanks again nook...you rock

I will check out GRM, use it with Protools which I have.

For some PC programs I have used that tear sound into wierdness there is Sound Raider. A great program for taking your harddrive and twisting the wavs on it into madness. Are there many other programs like that? Not that Meta and Reaktor won't do it for me.

Also, not sure this is the place, but do you know of any forums for this kind of music specifically? Dark ambient, brooding music. I have found some great and talented artists on Mp3.com, but most are too busy to reply with ideas and tips.

Lastly, if there was one keyboard that could create landscapes of dark, intimidating sound, what would that be?

Thanks so much nook, VERY TIGHT SITE YOU HAVE! Any who read these posts need to check him out immediately!

My next post will offer something rather than just ask, I promise.

~SDKM


[Edited by Supa Drop Kick Man on 03-27-2001 at 10:31 AM]
 
Hehe thanx for your nice words man ! :)

Well I don't know a forum for dark ambient music, maybe check the music portal page here. You could also start a thread about this music in the Music of the digital age forum.

Hmmm for the synth of your dream...well it's very hard to tell you, be careful when you're listening to the factory presets of synths, you can make sound a synth completely different from those sounds, when you try to go deeply in each synth and experiment you can always find some good sounds. You know I'm still enjoying creating some sounds on my old ensoniq ESQ1 and sometimes I'm still very surprised.

The important thing is, if it's gonna be your only synth, it's to find one with sounds you like (hehe read above), but a good amount of polyphony, multitimbral voices and look at the edit options (how many filters, controllers, is there a FX unit). If you're going to make some strange and deep pads, you'll have to layer some sounds so polyphony is an important issue here.

Maybe the thing you'd need is simply a sampler, then try to find some sound library CD-roms which will fit to the style you want to reach.

The better advice, try to listen as much as keyboards you can, your ears and your money are your only clue ! :)

Finally, experiment a lot with audio FX, for soundscapes or strange atmospheres it's the way to go.
 
korg kaoss pad is mighty for realtime messin with the sound!
the Korg Prophecy keyboard that a friend of mine has is sooooooooooooo good for making sounds that swish shimmer and twirl, ruminate brood and growl. but it is monophonic, but u create the entire thing from one note...really good. and hey - the initial presets on it suck, mostly, naff as;)

ps - RTAS grm tools good on pro tools, i use 'em.
and interestingly enough, i have the same setup - a g4 and a pc doin stuff. I use PT on mac, other stuff on pc like..cooleditPro (YEAH!)... what is Sound Raider?? is it like CoolEdditPro?
 
Robert Rich replied to one of my emails

This has been a great week. Everyone here has been so helpful.

I attacked Robert Rich with questions and he was cool enough to tidal wave me with synths and info.

He is really into a MTOM modular system but suggested I check out Alesis Andromeda, Kurzwiel K2000, K25000, and K26000; since most of the stuff I will be doing will also need samples.

I have a lot of reading to do and searching as well.

There is a guy on mp3.com who does specifically dark ambient music who is really cool and has helped me a lot. Check out Mindspawn on mp3.

I guess the last question I have is anyone know where one could find a good book which explains sound creation in synths. So I can learn my saws and squares and understand it rather than have such a wispy grasp. Are there any comprehensive sites or books or the like?

Thanks everyone for all your help! I will soon be collecting some ideas and such for a forum so I can somehow repay you all for the help.

~SDKM

oh, i-clan, SoundRaider is shareware I found somewhere that is pretty cool. Check download.com and try it out.
 
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