EARTH AND STEEL (2013)
for 8 digital soundtracks

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This soundscape composition takes the listener back to a time a century ago when large steel ships were built in enclosed slips, and rich metallic resonances rang out. These larger than life sounds reflected the sheer volume of the ships themselves that dwarfed those who were building them. However, just as the piece progresses and ends, these soundscapes now have become increasingly distant memories, only to be re-imagined in museums.

Original recordings from the World Soundscape Project Tape Collection, recorded at a shipyard in Caraquet, New Brunswick in 1973. Sound processing realized with Soundhack convolution and Chris Rolfe’s MacPod software, with spatialization created by Harmonic Functions’ TiMax2 matrix mixer, the Soundhub, marketed by Outboard Inc (UK).

Earth and Steel was premiered at the 2013 Acoustic Ecology Symposium at the University of Kent, Chatham, UK, on the grounds of the Royal Naval Dockyards where ships and submarines were built and repaired for many centuries.

Site of the premiere at the Chatham Dockyards, Kent, UK

Materials:

All sounds in the piece were recordings of steel shipbuilding. Twenty-two files, consisting of various metal hits plus a saw, were convolved with themselves using SoundHack to produce various hybrids, each normalized with high frequency boost, and later EQ'd with fades added; granular time stretching and digital resonators using Chris Rolfe's MacPod were also used.

Note: The Hit file number indicates the number of hits in the sound source. In the case of the peak event (Hit3-7 which is 3 hits followed by 7 others), a "moving impulse" was used in varying amounts (1, 2, 4, and 6 sec.) to control the resulting density since the source sound is convolved with less than the full duration of the impulse which in this case is about 7".

 

Steel Shipbuilding Percussion Convolved with itself, and Stretched

Original Source Materials	*self	*self*self	*self*self*self	+Reverse	AutoConv+Stretch**	Mix
Ambience 1  Ambience 2  Ambience 3
Hit1	Hit1*self	Hit1*self*self	Hit1*self*self*self			Hit1*self*selfMix  Hit1*self*self*selfMix
Hit1A	Hit1A*self	Hit1A*self*self	Hit1A*self*self*self	Hit1A*self*self+rev
Hit1B	Hit1B*self	Hit1B*self*self	Hit1B*self*self*self	Hit1B*self*self+rev
Hit1C	Hit1C*self	Hit1C*self*self	Hit1C*self*self*self
Hit1D	Hit1D*self	Hit1D*self*self	Hit1D*self*self*self	Hit1D*self*self+rev
Hit1E	Hit1E*self	Hit1E*self*self	Hit1E*self*self*self	Hit1E*self*self+rev
Hit2	Hit2*self	Hit2*self*self	Hit2*self*self*self
Hit2A	Hit2A*self	Hit2A*self*self	Hit2A*self*self*self		Hit2A*selfStretch1  Hit2A*selfStretch2
Hit2B	Hit2B*self	Hit2B*self*self
Hit2C	Hit2C*self	Hit2C*self*self	Hit2C*self*self*self		Hit2C*selfStretch1  Hit2C*selfStretch2
Hit4	Hit4*self	Hit4*self*self	Hit4*self*self*self
Hit5	Hit5*self	Hit5*self*self	Hit5*self*self*self
Hit6	Hit6*self	Hit6*self*self	Hit6*self*self*self
Hit7	Hit7*self	Hit7*self*self	Hit7*self*self*self
Hit3-7	Hit37*self  Mov1  Mov2  Mov4  Mov6	Hit37*self*self	Hit37*self*self*self		Hit37*selfStretch1  Hit37*selfStretch2
HitS	HitS*self	HitS*self*self
HitSeq	HitSeq*self	HitSeq*self*HitSeq	HitSeq*self*self
HitSeq2	HitSeq2*self	HitSeq2*self*HitSeq2
HitSeq3	HitSeq3*self	HitSeq3*self*HitSeq3
HitSeq4	HitSeq4*self	HitSeq4*self*HitSeq4
Saw1	Saw1*self
Saw2	Saw2*self

** Stretched amplitude correlated 1:20 with resonators 9.9/15 ms @80% feedback (Stretch1); 8.1/15 ms @ 80% feedback (Stretch2)

Production Score

 Stereo Reduction

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