Jewel Dirks

The opening waft of sound is the same sound as the melodic sources from before.  

The rhythmic pattern that comes in and out was carved out in Phase Plant.  There are two sounds that comprise the overall sound--a wavetable analysis of a tiny portion of the frog.  There are several effects, including ensemble--a type of chorusing, the ring modulator (which was the source for a sound in the previous piece), and the Trance Gate, and a Transient Shaper, which allowed me to sharpen up the attack of the tones a bit.  The Formant Filter was controlled by the random LFO, making the sound waft between dark and light resonances.  The Trance Gate turned the sound on and off, depending on the cycle it was running through, and that was set rather fast, at 1/32 note, and that’s what gave the whole thing that rhythmic pulse.  It was set for a 17 note figure, so it’s a bit off from just a standard boring beat.  The envelope of the entire sound had an extended delay.  Finally, the neat bloops and quick pitch changes came from controlling the ring modulator’s frequency  with my keyboard aftertouch--the amount of pressure I exerted down on the key after the initial key stroke.   

This is written as if I planned this all out.  It’s just the opposite--I try things out, and then keep the things I like….  When I record these, I export three versions according to the bit rate for different playback systems.  Each time I recorded this piece different effects of the ring modulator occurred.  So there’s even chance at the final stage...