Okta 4: community ambient project [express your interest!]

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

Hey folks, for the past three years I've helped co-ordinate a collaborative ambient musical project.

Listen to the past volumes here!

Do we wanna do this again? Shout out if you are interested!

Very important: there is no baseline qualification of how "good"/"experienced"/"skilled" you have to be to participate. If you want to make/shape sounds and have the means to do so, you are welcome!

The proposed "soundworld" is generally more on the minimal/floaty/airy side of things — "okta" is a system for measuring the cloudiness of the sky, so that's a good guiding image, giving a range from peaceful wisps to portentous rumbles.

I'd first like to see if we have a quorum to move forward, and the more the better. then we can settle on particulars.

In the past, we did this as a two-stage project. First, folks generated a collection of sounds (less processed/produced being better), then everyone used other folks' stems as source material to wrangle into finished tracks. (I like this process, but it's not written in stone!)

Anyway, this is meant to be low-presh and fun, and a chance to interact with some of your fellow ILF-ers. It'd be cool to have old hands and new faces taking part, so let's see what sort of interest is out there!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Participants:
coldbrightsunlight
Paul_C
cantremember
D.o.S.
MrNovember
ognoy
Heraclitus Akimbo
Dowi

[coldbrightsunlight]

I'm in!

I've enjoyed doing these in the past. I guess I have one comment in terms of what I like for sample inputs - when people put up a bunch of 5-10 minute things it feels like they're already complete tracks, it's overwhelming to listen to them all and decide, and I end up using a few 10 second slices because that's my process and what I like to work with.

Not saying we need to change it. If everyone else likes the current approach of freedom to upload whatever as source sounds, I can deal!

[Paul_C]

I'm in.

[cantremember]

I'm in, this was a lot of fun last year!

[D.o.S.]

I haven't indulged in my bald white guy sits seriously at desk tendencies in a while. I'm in, tentatively!

[MrNovember]

I am also in tentatively! Also, I agree with coldbrightsunlight; I prefer working with shorter samples to make my final track. That being said, I don’t think we need hard and fast rules. We all work differently

[ognoy]

I'm in! And I also agree with CBS about sample length. Max 30 secs samples?

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

Yay, cool, looks like we have a quorum! I will compile a list of names later today.

Re source track lengths, I agree that shorter is probably better... it's also a matter of the track density — if someone shares, say several minutes of unadorned drone, that's useful to me 'cause I can chop it to the length I want and use it as a layer. and it'll probably have more natural variability than looping a short bit to the same length.)

I think the key will be to try and stress more strongly the conceptual difference between the two stages: the first part is for raw, unprocessed sounds, and then you can go to town in the second phase with making something "finished".

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

Oh, and re: timing, I've always tried to find the sweet spot between giving too much so it's easy to say "I'll do it later" and never get around to it... but still have enough time to you can plan ahead a bit to get something done.

How long do people think is good to generate sounds? Four weeks? Six weeks?

[cantremember]

4-6 sounds good to me.

Question on how and what people are going to create sounds for the first part of this? I can't really remember what people did in the years past but I did field recordings last year and I felt like they sucked if I'm being honest. I'd like to try and contribute something a little better this year so just trying to see what you guys were thinking.

[MrNovember]

I like field recordings and found sound stuff. I usually try to incorporate that stuff in my final piece. For the first part, I usually try to provide a wide range of sounds: some simple synth sounds, some more complex synth sounds, maybe a bit of guitar, bass, piano, banjo, etc.

[coldbrightsunlight]

I enjoyed the field recordings last year - used a fair bit of someone's and thought it was cool. I think last year I may have just made modular drones? I don't remember to be honest, I just use whatever seems fun and don't put much thought into it since to me the fun of these sample bank projects is all what you do with a limited set of sounds rather than starting with the perfect thing.

Re source track lengths, I agree that shorter is probably better... it's also a matter of the track density — if someone shares, say several minutes of unadorned drone, that's useful to me 'cause I can chop it to the length I want and use it as a layer. and it'll probably have more natural variability than looping a short bit to the same length.)

I think the key will be to try and stress more strongly the conceptual difference between the two stages: the first part is for raw, unprocessed sounds, and then you can go to town in the second phase with making something "finished".

Totally agree with this. Wasn't necessarily trying to suggest we implement a really strict rule, it's just being open about what I find useful. And I think you're totally right, density/complexity is the thing. If a sample has a million bits I'll just choose my favourite 5 seconds. If it's a drone with some slow changes... maybe I'll just throw the whole thing in cos like you say it's better than looping.

30s sounds good to me as ognoy suggested but if the consensus is that freedom is good I wouldn't want to harsh anyone's mellow.


Aaand 4-6 weeks sounds good to me.

[Dowi]

I missed it last year but I guess it's time to jump back in.
Hopefully this will force me to decently record some of the 4567thousand ideas stored in my phone audio section.
I am up to do some artwork too if needed.

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

Participants (so far):
coldbrightsunlight
Paul_C
cantremember
D.o.S.
MrNovember
ognoy
Heraclitus Akimbo
Dowi

Great list, can we shake a few more names out?

Wallflowers, infrequent posters + lurkers: you do not need a certain number of "ILF cool points" to participate! Come on down and engage with us, why not?

[manymanyhaha]

Count me in.

From what I learned last year, I agree with the advice of tending towards unprocessed and raw for the initial phase. Found sounds are great too.

I didn't mind if it what was provided was really long but if it was, I probably didn't listen to the whole thing if, as I skipped through it, it seemed to be somewhat the same all the way through.

Everything I provided last year was really short except for the field recordings and looking back after, I decided that next time I would provide more medium length stuff.

I experimented with everything everyone provided last year but if I recall correctly, quite a few of us tended to use the stuff that had some melody to it so I'm going to try to come up with a few melodies, in addition to the field recordings and whatever else.

But experimentation is the fun part, right? As Heraclitus said, there is no right way and I really enjoyed the end result.