I started by recording a sequenced passage of a Roland JV-1080 synthesizer preset into Ableton, then with the Radial X-Amp sending that signal back out through a Marshall AS50D guitar amplifier, as well as Turbo Rat distortion and Electro Harmonix Cathedral Stereo Reverb pedals. I have been increasingly engaged with this cross-pollinating mode of making; relating the digital and analog together symbiotically. A large challenge, particularly with the Radial X-Amp, is controlling feedback when re-amping. I’m unsure if it’s a quirk of the hardware itself, or central to the nature of re-amping, but balancing an adequate line level output without overloading the input is difficult. I also feel it’s rich for colouring, harnessing and exploring new facets of previously recorded sound.
I then experimented with recording that re-amped signal from Ableton to tape on the Tascam 424MKIII, then drastically slowing it down. This process has a way of rendering a hitherto comprehensible sound as unknowable and mysterious. I think, however, in the case of this experiment, the results seemed a little too science fiction. The feedback in particular, sounded like a computer in the original Star Trek, or Bebe and Louis Barron’s work on Forbidden Planet. The compression of the tape only adding to that quality. Also, some ice scraping sounds snuck in by virtue of using an older tape. Interesting!
Alongside these, I took another sequenced refrain from the JV-1080 and sampled it with Ableton’s Simpler. What was a slow, uneasy orchestral passage that wavered in pitch became a high, fast phrase when applied in Slice mode. It almost resembles what could be a beat, which is not my forte at all. This is also to say, I presently have no idea how a beat, or any overt synthesizer music could be thematically applicable in my more ecological, spatial field recording project, but the processes used in experimenting will help inform and inspire me as I configure this work.