frequencies, alva noto style, how to ?

fromkaraoketostardom · Sun Dec 04, 2005 8:55 pm

Hello everyone

I'd like to produce tracks with lots of frequencies à la alva noto or ryoji ikeda, u know, the (very) high frequencies that pierce your eardrums, and the tiny clicks that make the boomers move, that in a more dancefloor orientated way. I've tried making short frequencies in wave lab, but didn't achieve the sound i wanted, tried with some reaktor ensembles, same thing, tried pitching samples to extreme levels, never found the right thing. I know those people use their own software or max/msp or a real, hardware frequency generator. The thing is i don't really want to get into max/msp, it seems, to me, a little too mathematical/complicated and i finally found the tools i'm comfortable with. Do you guys have any ideas of plug ins, software i or what kind of hardware frequency generator i could use (something cheap). I hope my questions are clear enough. Any suggestions, ideas will be really helpful, so thank you if you've got something for me.

fromkaraoketostardom · Tue Dec 06, 2005 7:18 pm

hey, come on, help meeeeeeeeeeee !!!! please please please

anyone ???

fredrik_h · Post by **fredrik_h** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 7:31 pm

can't come up with anything special... maybe sample, loop a small fragment of a suiting part of the sound, pitch, high pass filter it... experiment. also, I suggest recording in 48khz for sounds like that.

alot of glitchy click/pop sound can be achieved if you sample while you're connecting a cable to the port, you can also achieve static hum that way, which you later can pitch/loop or whatever... play with timestretch at extreme-settings if you got some variation in sound, that way you can make the sound like a evolving drone or so.

and besides that, if you just want some poppy sounds - you can always just take a percussion sound (hihats, snares, whatever) and cut out a very small part of the attack of the sound.

Otherwise, you can always try to not imitate alva noto, and come up with something a bit more fresh - probably more fun aswell than just hunting down the exact same sound. though, I can understand that it's good with knowledge of how to do different sounds, to put them in another context.

on the other hand, if you're using same techniques you'll probably paint yourself into a corner in the end where you find it hard to break the techniques/working patterns you built up - which might make things harder to find your own sound... if that's what you want.

fromkaraoketostardom · Tue Dec 06, 2005 7:51 pm

Thanx, that's good food for thought, though, this was for some "side project", trying something new, but i don't want to sound like raster-noton...1 : they're too good at it and 2 : yeah, i'd like to sound like myself and not an emulation.. But i really appreciate your answer....thank u

i think i'll go for the 48Hz road, tried that on another computer and...it worked, until i put it back in 44.1....

plaster · Post by **plaster** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 8:32 pm

he uses basic sound tones...nothing odd about his work.

open an oscilator and press play while you choose sine or square tones.

ace · Post by **ace** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 2:37 pm

creating alva-noto-like sounds might work by using basical waveforms and modulating the amplitude (problably also a high resonating low-pass-filter) with a square-lfo....

PatStormont · Post by **PatStormont** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 4:48 am

Ryoji ikeda's music is mostly sinewaves and white noise. Try layering a few high pitch sines that are slighty out of tune and they will modulate, I noticed Ikeda uses this a lot in his music.

I saw his C2 piece at a local art festival. Thank jebus for earplugs!