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Going Ape with a Koala: A Bed Of Crimson Joy
“O Rose thou art sick / The invisible worm / That flies in the night In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed / Of crimson joy: / And his dark secret love / Does thy life destroy.”
- William Blake
I was very impressed by @sevenape’s Koala-only Dark Ambient track Häxsabbat:
…And felt I had to give it a go myself. The ‘reading’ at the front end is from the text I input to the Elevenlabs AI demo page, screen capped and messed with in, yes, Koala using the ‘import video’ function. The principal ‘instrument’ here is a single brief vocal sample of my own voice singing a single note, extensively warped and stretched using Koala’s own tools. An interesting exercise for me. Might try this again.
Comments
Oh awesome.... Sounds great! And very inspiring to hear that koala can do this so well... and hopefully an sp404 mk2 can get there too... Obviously it's still the magic in your hands that brings these qualities out and my results will definitely vary :P
So when you say "The principal ‘instrument’" is it the "only" instrument? If not can you cast light on the other sounds and fx processing going on?
Thank you so much in advance...... off to check out what I'm sure is another inspiring sevenape piece (thanks for that link!)
Hi, @stown, and thanks for the listen and comment.
Yep, it is pretty much the only thing going on here. I did use one instance of Decent Sampler running a free sample called Gjallarhorn (the Viking war horn), for the ‘monster’ groans, demo and link here:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Gjallarhorn+sample+pack&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:73fe42b7,vid:Use2cIQNXMo,st:0
This was just for speed. I already had the sample pack, and thought it might do a better ready made job of monster noises than me making, well, monster noises, and so it proved. Didn’t bother sequencing or, gasp, actually playing it. Just hit a few keys in the standalone, screen capped and converted into wav inside Koala. The exercise was to do it all using Koala, after all.
Everything else was me, a single shakily held note of unknown pitch sung directly into the iPad, (I don’t sing), then diced, sliced and slowed with multiple iterations of the Stretch function in Koala.
just set up a bank of looped and repitched slices on the Koala main page, then triggered them manually to build the piece, messing with the on board performance effects a little, screen capping it all, for a final conversion into Wav in a second iteration of Koala. Top and and tailed that recording in a final iteration of Koala, and uploaded the exported mix to SoundCloud.
Not so different from my AUM workflow really, which also often relies a lot on multiple dupes of the same loop, pitch shifted and sliced.
The great thing about using repitching for me, having a tin ear, is that as long as I stay at fixed ratios from the original sample - a third or a fifth above or below, or half speed/double speed etcetera - I can guarantee that the result will be in tune with itself, which lets a little initial noodle go a long way.
Thanks for that break down of the process. I know you didn't say it but do you resample your voice with fx back onto pads? Before triggering them to build the piece? I ask only because when listening to your track I feel like there is some separation of fx.... like some are unique to some elements.... Though I could be totally wrong. I'm assuming that Koala applies effects globally. Anyway I really like the gravelly grit you achieved.... didn't know if that was resampled distortion that was then pitch shifted down.
oh I hear you about the fixed ratios from the original sample (of unknown note)! I am extremely sample based and leverage that all the time. :P My stuff would be woefully out of tune with synths and often is at odds with my other samples (but thankfully most are atonal).
Also.... again... thanks for a really impressive and inspiring piece/effort.
Yes, I think I did sample some passes with fx on from the ‘Perform’ tab, the Crush, Dirty, Filter, Pitch and Distortion can all add grit, which sounds great slowed down. I do it over multiple times as I build out the thing from a duped original in the first pad slot. I’d like to claim it is a highly structured and thought through process… but it isn’t. Just me messing till a bit sounds good, resample, rinse and repeat. Very haphazard.
Glad you liked it!
You had me at William Blake. Can’t listen now, but will listen later.
This is amazing. I love what you have managed to do with the limitations you set yourself! Just goes to show that talent really trumps what gear you use! You’ve made something quintessentially yours and very very impressive!!!!
I don’t know why, but this made me think of Japanese ghost stories. Culturally very different from European ghost tales, but something made me think of modern takes on Japanese horror like Junji Ito.
Was there an option for an English accent for the Blake lines? Seems odd to hear them with an American accent (don’t take that as a criticism, it just struck me as not right in an American accent).
@michael_m : yes, but the demo page of Elevenlabs only gives you a restricted selection, and the character of the American voice was deeper and darker, (and I made it darker still by pitch shifting it down and slowing it) - more evil? - which seemed the more important quality over the accent. If I had had totally free rein, I would probably have chosen a mature English female contralto voice, more akin to mine on a good day. In fact, I tried reading it myself using their voice changer preset, but that was disappointing.
Sinister is always one of those things that is hard to pin down. That lower register is quite commonly used for more evil voices, but it’s a shame you couldn’t manipulate your own voice adequately - it’s always so satisfying to nail the right feeling yourself.
Great to hear your take on the famous Blake poem filled with depths of horror and sadness.