visa tapani - s / n (Signal to Noise)
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for microspace project



With this piece I consciously avoided the temptation to force the material into my "comfort zone" by running it through some randomized comb filter / granulator / delay / reverb / multi-effect -patch and make glitchy loops or ambient textures with the sounds. I was trying to listen carefully what the material suggested itself. 

I ended up playing around with the idea of signal-to-noise ratio. The piece starts with noisy static sounds - transmission devices trying to tune in for the signal. In the beginning any "signals" are only faint ghost sounds behind the noise, but gradually the layers of noise get peeled off... 

The most prominent DSP technique here is noise reduction. I made different versions of the material with different noise reduction parameters, and also versions where only the residual output - the noise - is kept. The second most used processing is (extreme) time stretching. (After all - these sonified "space sounds" are probably stretched or compressed in time and/or frequency domain already.) Sound morphing is also used twice in the piece, but almost no effects in the classic sense are used. 

The rest is mostly very basic collage techniques with editing and volume & pan automation consuming most of my time. With panning, monophonic sounds are made to suggest many voices like a single-voice melody can suggest harmony. 

Almost everything is based on material derived from the space sounds, only the opening passage uses other sound sources.

The dynamic range of the piece is quite wide, so relatively loud listening is recommended.