Day of OceanoGrapy SFX production

After doing two small in between projects I'm working on my OceanoGraphy album again. I have to be finished by end of September so only 3 months left. Looks like a long time, but I still have lots of work to do. I'll try to update you on the status from time to time on this blog. I use a lot of synthesized sound effects in my music and today I spent a whole day making bleeps, sweeps etc. I always make a lot and then later select the ones that fit in the track I'm working on. I also use different synths to get a good diversity of sound character. Today I used the Moog Minimoog, Roland SH-09 and Roland SH-5. I thought it would be fun to let you hear something of the sounds. So I made a very noisy mix of a couple of tracks of sound effects trough another. I already threw the really bad ones away by the way so this is not all. But it will still give you an idea how much you can do in one day. And more days like this will follow for sure the next months. I never throw them away by the way. If I don't use them on this album, maybe on the next. You never know right :) Well here you can hear the result of today: http://www.synth.nl/samples/OceanoGraphySFX.mp3

OceanoGraphy Inspiration

Last week we spend a very nice holiday with the family at sea. We started our trip in Miami and visited George Town in the Cayman Islands and Cozumel on and Island of Mexico. I can tell you it was very relaxing and also very inspirational. Some of you might have heard in the last interviews I did, that I'm working on several new musical projects at the moment. One of projects is an album that will be about the Earth's oceans. This album will be called OceanoGraphy and I hope to release it in the end of 2009. I spend many hours just looking at the sea at views just like the one here. I think there is nothing more relaxing than the sound of the water and looking at the sea.

In the Cayman Islands we did a very cool thing. We went on a real submarine! It holds 48 people that all have their own seat and window, providing a spectacular view. We went down to a depth of about 103 feet (31 meters). The cabin of the submarine was pressurized so we didn't really noticed the depth, but I can tell you this is quite deep. We were down there for about 45 minutes and saw some amazing things, a lot of fish of course, but also sea turtles, a ship wreck and an under water statue of a mermaid. What I didn't know is that under water the colors are different. Some colors are filtered out earlier than others from the suns light spectrum. On the depth we were at the color red was almost gone, so everything looked kind off blue and green. This was a truly very inspiring trip not to be forgotten.

As you know I record a lot of sounds for my music myself. Especially on holidays like this I always take my mobile recorder with me. I did a lot of sampling on the boat but also when we were of. We visited a marina park especially for this reason. I talked to the management there and they allowed me to sample there. Here you can see me sampling the sounds of a dolphin that was specially singing for me there. You will hear these sounds for sure on the album when it is released. So look out for that later this year. But first I have to finish the studio. I think I need another two weeks of work and then I should be able to start working on my music again. Of course I will update you on the progress of this project and also the other projects I'm working on. Just keep reading this blog :)

Sampling: Rain and Thunder

The last weeks we had quite some thunderstorms here in the Netherlands. I have been sampling these kind of weather sounds for the last three years. So when everybody ran inside for shelter I went outside with my recorder :) These sounds are one of the things that inspired me to create my coming album 'AtmoSphere'. I just love the sound of rain and distant thunder. It is very calming in some way. I will be using a lot of these samples on my new album. They will be used in a subtle way but will support the music for sure. I hope you will like it as I do. To get you in the mood for 'AtmoSphere' I've put up one of the samples I recorded this year on my website. You can listen to it here:

http://www.synth.nl/samples/thunder2008.mp3

Sampling: MotoGP (TT) Assen 2008

Last weekend I did even more sampling. I was invited by a business relation to go to the Moto GP in Assen (Netherlands). The Moto GP is kind off the 'Formula 1' of motorbikes. This motor race is also called the 'TT Assen'. It is quite famous all over the world. I was not really into motorbikes untill now. It was a great experience! They go really fast and look how flat they go in the corners. There were multiple races during the day 125CC, 250CC, 500CC (the main event) but also a rookie race and the sidecars. So it was really a full days program. We were wined and dined very well and we could go anywere we wanted on the circuit. A real VIP treatment :) I did sampling of all the races and also took some pictures as you can see on the left. Well if you want to know what it sound like, here is a sample again:

http://www.synth.nl/samples/motogp2008.mp3

Sampling: Air Force Airshow

I did some more sampling yesterday. We went with the kids to the 'Luchtmacht Open Dagen' which is the annual Airshow that our Royal Dutch Air Force organizes. As you might know from my 'AeroDynamics' album I served some time in the Dutch Air Force where I worked as a mechanic on the F-16 fighter plane. My track 'Falcon' is also about this time and you hear some F-16 samples in it as well. In the picture on the left (kindly provided by http://konflikty.pl/) you see this magnificent plane during landing. It is a very fine piece of engineering and though it is getting a bit of an old lady it still performs outstanding. I love the way it can manouvre and off course the sound it produces. Sampling was a bit difficult because the kids were complaining about the noise a lot. And yes it is quite loud :) Here you can hear a sample of a simulated airfield attack that they did during the show. The low bangs you hear were simulated bombs they dropped. Very low and very loud :)

http://www.synth.nl/samples/airshow2008.mp3

Sampling: Le Mans 2008

As you know I use a lot of samples in my music. Most of them I make myself. I use a mobile audio recorder for that. It is an Edirol R-09. I really love it. It is very small so I can put it in my pocket somewhere. It runs on 2 normal AA batteries and it records on a SD memory card. It has a build in stereo microphone that gives a great natural sound in my opinion. The R-09 can sample in high quality. Usually I record 24 bit WAV's in 44,1 Khz. So this is really CD quality.

The samples you hear in my tracks come sometimes from my daily life, sometimes even my backyard, but also I visit special events to record my sounds. I thought it would be nice to update you on my blog as well on the sounds that I record. You might hear them back later in some track :)

As you might have guessed from the car samples I used in my first album 'AeroDynamics' I like cars a lot. I visit car events regularly to watch some nice race or see and hear some special cars. Last weekend I left with a friend to the 24 hours race of Le Mans. Quite a long drive from my home. It was about 785 Kilometers and took us about 8 hours to get there. You can see the route we took on the map on the left. We avoided Paris because we would pass there around the busiest time of the day. So in stead we drove over Calais. From there also a lot of British car enthusiasts joined us on the highway.

The race in Le Mans is a very special one. It always starts at 15:00 in the afternoon and they literally drive for 24 hours after that. The car that has driver the most laps in this time wins. There are a couple of different classes that drive at the same time and this makes it special too. It is amazing to see how much difference there is in speed between these cars. But the most special thing is off course that they also drive at night. That is the most amazing time to watch this race. You can see the brake discs glow red in the dark and also see the flames from the exhausts when the cars shift down before a corner. Off course it is impossible to watch the race the whole 24 hours so we watched for 3 hours after the start and went back late in the evening and watched another 3 hours in the night.

We had a nice place on one of the tribunes. At night it rained a bit but we didn't get wet. This is also the place where I recorded the sounds and also filmed some stuff. I hope to make a track later with the Le Mans sounds and maybe even make a video with it. I put one sample online for you so you know how it sounds :)

http://www.synth.nl/samples/lemans2008.mp3