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I haven't tried to capture much audio lately, but we had some good storms come through. Here's something from the backyard.

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I take the sound of cicadas in summer for granted having been around it for a long time. It's such a specific sound, that when I hear it in media, it instantly reminds me of summer. I wanted to capture it before the summer was over, but it's a little tough avoid any other sounds from the neighborhood. This is a pretty good sound of an August in our backyard.

I'm still using the DR-05X and this was captured at 60 gain.

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I've been getting a little frustrated with the Subharmonicon. I knew I was getting in over my head, but I was looking for a new challenge and a new addition. I still think it was the right choice, but I needed to find a little guidance. This was a great video on how to setup an initial patch to have the DFAM dictate the tempo down to the Subharmonicon and Mother32: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Beau_hkEP_g.

Beginnning the patch in this way also has the added benefit of keeping the percussion from the DFAM and the baseline from the Subharmonicon running while I try to find a sound that fits well from the Mother32. Over the last few weeks, I've been trying to find a way to incorporate sounds from the Subharmonicon to the Mother32 or the other way and just finding that things conflicted in a way that didn't sound good or out of tune. I think a risk I have is having a lot of what I try to create from here beginning to sound the same, but it's at least a good starting point to better understand how to patch the instruments together.

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When I had some time that I should have spent practicing a text based adventure in Unity, I decided to get lost in some tinkering with the Subharmonicon synth. I'm still trying to figure out how things together with the Mother32 and the DFAM. I'm finding that I really enjoy some of the sounds I'm making, but a big piece of the motivation was to create my own tunes for game development. Here's something that I wanted to expand on.

I enjoyed some of the rythm provided by the Subharmonicon, and the percussion from the DFAM, but I couldn't seem to find a melody that I wanted to incorporate. Although, I'm often finding that I think I'm hitting a wall on what sounds good, but when I come back to it I actually like it quite a bit more. One criticism of the Subharmonicon that I heard was how it was difficult to retain a sequence between sessions because something is lost when it's powered off. We'll see if I have the same experience.

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Our trip to Japan was filled with tons of opportunities to capture some audio, but I usually felt like I didn't want to hold everyone up while I just stood there staring at the audio levels. I also didn't take the opportunity to connect my headphones to real dial in the gain levels. I'm happy with what I captured, even if it can't really translate to a game. I think some of the sounds could be a great addition if I can extract some pieces to mash up with other sounds. Here are some of my favorites.

We had just started out on a hike and we heard these drums coming from a nearby temple. Pretty fricken awesome, but I missed the crescendo

The sounds from the trains was an interesting example of just how quiet all the passengers are on the trains. Most everyone is looking at their phones, and a handful were asleep. Usually if we were talking, we were making the most noise.

Just some fun bird sounds from Japanese birds.

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I've been interested in what others are doing with some geneative patches with their synthesizers to let the machine make some interesting sound while I just just take a step back after modifying some knobs. The truth is I don't know anything about making music. I know when I hear something I like, but I feel like I've missed out on the potentially lifetime of hours required to learn about making music.

The large amounts of reverb seems to give it a spacey feel, but I'm looking to capture some pleasing ambience that isn't too overbearing. As much as I like the chiptune sound, I feel like I'm looking for something to maybe take a backseat to a game as a medium for story telling. Maybe it's the upbeat sounds of the classic SNES games that really helped take them further. I'm reading more about how the chip, Manufactured by Sony, allowed for a richer sound than other consoles of the time. I doubt Nintendo was terribly interested in purchasing audio chips when Sony joined the fray with their Playstation.

Here's a lil' something I captured this morning. I'm not sure what it is about my ability to tolerate repetitive sounds, but I recognize it's not for everyone.

I'm interested in continuing to pursue this generative approach, partly because I enjoy letting it play while I work on other things, but also because I'm looking for something subtle. I may have to see how I can get my Werkstatt to provide a little something extra. I really do prefer the audio side of things quite a bit more than coding and working in Unity for my game engine of choice, but seems like Audio is always getting put on the back burner. I'd really like to capture some sounds from nature, but I'm not sure my iPhone is up to the task. It captures sound, sure, but there always seems to be lot of background noise. We'll see. I'm trying to learn a lot all at the same time, so no sense in spending the money on something if I don't make the time for it.

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Things coming soon!