leafcutterjohn.com

Micro-Song #2

For this micro-song I’m turning what could be described as the national instrument of Greece, a country which for many reasons fills me with joy. The Bouzouki is capable of a wide variety of sounds and emotions and I have not used mine as much as I should so it’s perfect for making a micro-song with.

This micro song is truly experimental in nature. I started of by recording the instrument using my little sony d-50 and my binaural Soundman mics. I gave myself the rule that I could not use my fingers directly to play the instrument in the conventional sense. So I used soft beaters to hit and scrape the body and strings. I used a rubber balloon to create low pitched farts along the strings, and a jaw harp with it’s vibrating metal component against the strings (that’s not me in the video!).

With the sounds transfered to Logic I set about layering parts of the recording to create a composition. I used some compression to get the level up in places and a touch of reverb to tie the sounds together a little. One of the great things about using binaural microphones is that because you wear them in your ears any movement of the head results in panning in the recording. This technique is very evident in the micro-song. From the screen grab you’ll see a MIDI region, this is a sampler playing sections of the original recording.

To listen to the song I’d recommend using decent speakers or headphones as you’ll not hear any bass on most computer speakers.  

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 

Take care,

Leafcutter John. 

To find out more about the origins of the micro-song idea read I thought you used to be a musician once?

Tags: binaural, Bouzouki, logic, Micro-Song, sony d-50, Soundman

5 Comments to Micro-Song #2

Leave a comment