jamesmccullen-sounddesign

[jamesmccullen-sounddesign]

Two Weeks

Nonsense of the day! :P

On holiday, I decided to draw that mental old lady from Paul Verhoeven's 'Total Recall' from 1990. One of the greatest scenes in cinema history.... Anyway, I decided the illustration needed it's own little ditty and a crude tacky video... All tracks consist of samples from the film (minus the drums)..... here it is. ;)

[jamesmccullen-sounddesign]

This little (cheeky) piece initially started as a small section of music that was to appear in the background of an animation I was redoing the audio to.

[jamesmccullen-sounddesign]

A short little ditty that I used in a segment of one of my projects – a short quirky Japanese advert for the Sega Megadrive. The song itself was a rip-off of an old 'lounge' track, but was given a more upbeat, more ludicrous vibe. Most the instruments used Arturia's Mini V synthesizer, and a sampler instrument was created from Hanna-Barbera's sound effects collection.

[jamesmccullen-sounddesign]

NI Kontakt: Frazzle Synthesizer

This Kontakt instrument is sort of like a sequel to my 'Fuzzy Bear' synthesizer. Frazzle was designed as quite a simple but distinctive sounding synth that combined fuzz and auto-filter pedals to create a quirky toy-like synth.

The original source instrument recorded was a Arturia Minibrute. This was run through a number of pedals, with a different level of intensity which can be controlled via the fuzz knob. Rather than using up GUI space with a selection of additional oscillators, I decided to add a 'crush' effect to shape the sound into a monstrous lo-fi sound instead.

I've always been a sucker for interesting designs of software instrument User Interfaces, so as usual, I went all out again. Frazzle himself is a muppet that used to appear in Sesame Street who made the most peculiar noises. The burger and the corn are total nonsense and merely serve as an area to slap the knobs and switches on. The design was based on late 1980s trading card/stickers and each element was hand drawn with pen and ink, copic markers and pencils. Some of these elements were also drawn separately, so I could add simple animations at the final stage. These included a blinking animation that continues to loop. Then there is a simple 2-frame animation of Frazzle launching his tongue out when a note is pressed.

The song was originally recorded by Hot Butter and is titled 'Popcorn'. All tracks of my version use the Frazzle synth in a variety of different ways. Some of these tracks had additional processing added to them (reverb, panning, tremolo, etc) but many of them were used as they are straight from the instrument.

[jamesmccullen-sounddesign]

Kontakt Instrument: Shortwave Radio (Noise & Static)

I tend to use my old shortwave radio for interesting sounds in my productions and I wanted to build a simple software instrument which I could go to with ease and efficiency, to save plugging in the radio every time I wanted a particular sound.

I recorded about an hours worth of me flicking through channels and frequencies, varying between AM and FM for different sounds. The recording was then cut up and separated in Pro Tools with each sound eventually ending up in organised folders – in order of how aggressive the sound is. This meant the user could switch a dial on the instrument and know to keep this on a higher number for a more extreme sound.

The instrument was built in Kontakt with a total of around 170 samples – all of which had to be looped seamlessly using Kontakt. The GUI design makes little to no sense but I wanted a rather frightening and surreal looking character that would change his facial expression as keys are pressed. This was hand drawn with pen and ink and scanned in, with other visual elements being added in Photoshop.

I like the concept of the instrument and feel I could maybe expand on the idea by adding more features (e.g. an AM/FM switch?) that would make it feel like the user is interacting with an old beat-up radio. I also like the idea of being able to find new sounds each time you use the instrument.

[jamesmccullen-sounddesign]

Practical Project: The Fleischer 100 (Cartoon Sound Effects Toy)

The goal of this project was to design and make a hardware device that could play numerous sound effects by pressing buttons and tweaking knobs and dials. Taking inspiration from old cartoons of the 1930s in particular – the sound effects would be in the form of mostly conventional musical instruments that were often used to create sound effects in this period of animation history.

The intention of creating this device was to bring the performance and hands-on element back into producing cartoon sound effects, but using modern technology.

Most of the sound effects were initially recorded using a Rode NT2-A microphone. These sounds were then cut up using Pro Tools and placed into organised folders. These folders were then copied onto a Raspberry Pi computer, which was connected to a breadboard prototype with rotary switches and push buttons. With some help from a programmer. Some python scripting was necessary to link between the Pi and the breadboard. This meant that when a push button was pressed, a particular sound effect would be played. A toggle and rotary switch were added to select different sound banks – with 100 sound effects in total.

The breadboard prototype was then transferred and soldered onto a new circuit board and this was housed in a home built 'cartoony' typewriter – with it's shape being inspired by an early Looney Tunes short, titled 'Hold Anything' (1930).

[jamesmccullen-sounddesign]

This short and simple retro composition was intended to replicate the era of 16-bit gaming music - going for a more Sega Mega Drive/Genesis vibe. It was mainly to test myself really, as it's something I've never really attempted. I used FMDRIVE to compose the majority of the tracks, with a selection of drum samples used too. There wasn't really much planning involved for this particular track, so I just improvised a slap bass lick, and built up the additional instruments from there. There's quite a blatant John Baker (BBC Radiophonic Workshop composer) 'Toejam & Earl' inspiration here, as clearly heard through the drum samples I used and the funky swing the piece has to it. FMDRIVE is a fantastic software instrument which quite faithfully uses synth patches that replicate the YM2612 FM Chip used in the Mega Drive. Unfortunately as It's windows-based (I own a mac) it's a bit of a pain to run... But totally worth it! :)

[jamesmccullen-sounddesign]

After recording countless hours of electronic clicks, bleeps and noises onto a Revox tape recorder, I managed to find snippets of worthy material. Using a scene from Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis as a visual guide - over fifty snippets of sound were glued together. Most of these snippets had very little processing when imported into Logic, and relied more on guitar pedals, and messing around with tape delay. Maybe some slight EQ to remove nasty clicks or hisses at the mixing stage... Some of these unexpected noises were kept in the piece, as I like the unstable analog feel and sound of the instruments used when they don't behave as expected. Particularly the Yamaha CS-15 synthesizer, which is nightmare at times... a beautiful sounding beast, but the thing will drop out of tune whenever it wants to irritate me! :( Bebe and Louis Barron's incredible soundtrack to Forbidden Planet (1956) was a huge inspiration for me throughout. It's pretty apparent where scene changes occur, so this is why the piece appears slightly disjointed... Equipment used: -Revox b77 -Moog MF-102 Ring Modulator -Korg Monotribe -Yamaha CS-15

[jamesmccullen-sounddesign]

This horrifying piece was heavily inspired by trashy horror films of the 1970s-early 1980s. I tried to make a short collection of noise as terrifying as I could - using synthesizers and a few samples. Most of the sounds were either reversed and/or heavily processed to disguise the original sounds that were created or sampled. Most of the synth effects were created by whacking the filter resonance up and down and maximizing the 'brute factor' on the Minibrute synthesizer to gain some added distortion. A slow arpeggiator of de-tuned notes also plays throughout, with this signal being sent to a series of reverbs. I also sampled some audio from the frightening 1974 film Black Christmas (directed by Bob Clark). This film features some of the most disturbing prank phone calls in cinema history...and is an excellent film! This prank phone call sample was reversed, modulated, filtered, panned, etc, which makes the piece all the more terrifying. Samples of babies laughing (pitched down) were also added left, right and centre to slide the creepiness right off the chart.! :) I also added snippets of noise and static from a Kontakt instrument I created from hundreds of shortwave radio recordings.

[jamesmccullen-sounddesign]

Rough version of a nightmare soundscape that was intended to be that of a dog's nightmare - with a didgeridoo played throughout (of course). Lots of dog samples and recordings were collected up, added and played as a sampler instrument using Native Instruments' Kontakt. An Arturia Minibrute was used for most of the synth effects - these were then sent to a reverse loop pedal. I picked up a 'travel didgeridoo' a while back, which I spent countless hours trying to learn. After turning purple in the face and getting a numb mouth trying to blow into the thing for as long as I could, I attempted circular breathing.... In the end I just joined up multiple recordings together... i.e. cheated. I bent the pitch and slowed down sections of the didge for added quirkiness.

[jamesmccullen-sounddesign]

I created a whole series of sound recordings that could be used for an early 1990s pinball machine. These sounds were then combined (as a demonstration) to create the impression of a fictional pinball machine being played. The idea came from my love of colourful chaotic pinball machines of the 1980s and 1990s that featured popular culture icons like Elvira and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I resorted to using hardware synthesizers and effects, to get a lo-fi quality, which would intentionally make the machine sound dated. Many of the synth patches were run through a Korg Kaoss Pad, which could then be manipulated on the fly, by hand (or finger). Many of the sounds would be cut from hours worth of tinkering, whilst watching various films of pinball machines being played.

[jamesmccullen-sounddesign]

This rather short piece of noise was used as part of a background ambience for a project which entailed implementing audio assets into a game using Unity. This section of the game's environment was a rather large open room that featured various sci-fi like computers, gadgets and machinery... Steam pipes, robots, etc. The finalised version was structured to loop seamlessly - whilst still being relatively short so the game isn't overloaded with overly long audio assets. The piece is built up from a number of electronic drones (panning/volume automation utilised) and recordings of metal pellets hitting a tin for clanking background noise. Most of the drones were created with Logic's ES2 and ES-P synthesizes - sometimes bending the pitch for a machine-like quality. The most prominent layer of the recording is the noise and static sounds, which were recorded directly from an old shortwave radio - cycling through various AM frequencies.

[jamesmccullen-sounddesign]

Severe Turbulence (Excerpt) Synth on Tape: Experiments in noise Equipment used: -Revox B77 -Korg Monotribe -Moog Moogerfooger MF 102 Ring Modulator Mainly utilising the Ring Modulator pedal and Monotribe... Filter cut-off and LFO were tweaked on the synth aggressively, with some white noise also added.

[jamesmccullen-sounddesign]

Blips n' Bleeps Synth on Tape: Experiments in noise Equipment used: -Revox B77 -Arturia Minibrute -Moog Moogerfooger MF 102 Ring Modulator Using a Minibrute and it's arpeggiator - the filter cut-off and resonance was tweaked at random intervals, as was the sustain of each note. Flutter echo was also messed around with considerably.