If radio doesn’t appear, it means you haven’t installed the Flash plugin or that your version is too old. You must also activate Javascript.
Sondes (Multiple Soundings) by Randall Smith brings us four years in the life of this versatile composer, condensed into an earjam of seventy-five minutes. Known for his delicately conceived musique concrete collages, typically working with thousands of found sounds, here Smith adds acoustic instruments to the mix, in order to more faithfully reflect the complexity of all he encounters. Filled with sorrow, celebration and dance, Smith plunges into worlds we’re unable to see, in order to bring back, like some explorer of centuries past, some idea of what they might sound like. Whether the sounds of continents taking shape, or the internal chemistries of mother and child, each turn is unexpected, graceful, filled with discovery and invention. If no one has heard music like this before, and no one has, it’s only because each personality fills with the tumult of the world in an entirely new way, like a signature, or fingerprint. Sondes is an invitationto uncover the hidden worlds beneath this one, to cleanse the ears until everything appears as it really is: infinite.
Mike Hoolboom, Toronto [xii-99]
notice@imed_9948-0001
In remastering the works on Sondes (Multiple Soundings) I was primarily concerned with enhancing the clarity while revealing as much of the sonic detail as possible in each composition. To accomplish this I created a series of proprietary software processes to be performed in non-realtime mode. These custom processes are not compromised by the limitations imposed by realtime mode, and result in superior enhancements of sound quality. The tasks of each of these processes and their affects on sound quality and compositional detail are described below.
Equalization is the first signal processing performed. It was performed in 32/64-bit floating point with FIR filters (phase linear filters). Before optimizing the sound of each recording a very accurate analysis of what the actual overall spectrum of each track was first required. The strategy of the equalization was to balance all the frequencies present in the signal so that all the components would be heard with no dominate frequency band masking or overpowering any other frequency bands.
The removal of the frequencies below the audible range was also performed with high-quality digital high-pass filters. This was useful because a common result of intensive sound editing and mixing of music, especially in the composition of electroacoustic music, is the creation of sidebands, particularly in the frequency range between 1 and 20 Hz. The complete removal of these frequencies added clarity and dynamic range.
Reverberation was also added to the mixed electroacoustic works Continental Rift, Convergence, and Liquid Fragments 1, in order to add spaciousness and depth to there overall sound. The reverberation signals have midrange and treble emphasis (with much less energy in the bass region). This type of reverberation spectrum was chosen to enhance the clarity of the transients yet add a spacious component to the overall sound. The stereo field of the reverberation signals was designed to minimize the image smearing by having the reverberation signals positioned at the same point in the stereo field as the source instrument.
A dithering signal was used to convert the 32-bit floating point signal into the final 16-bit soundfiles for the final CD. A proprietary process of extracting the 8~12dB below the 16-bit signals noise floor in the original 32-bit floating point soundfile and adding this music into the lowest 8~12dB region of the final 16-bit signal was also performed.
Finally, the bringing together of these processes in an effective way was as much a pleasure as a challenge. The repeated listening required for this remastering gave me the chance to appreciate the rich sonic layers developed in Randall Smith’s music. Working with contemporary composers gives me the first hand opportunity to witness as well as participate in developing technology for music.
Ernest Cholakis, Numerical Sound, Toronto [xi-99]
notice@imed_9948-0002