Rainforest Raven

RAINFOREST RAVEN (2020)
a soundscape composition for eight digital soundtracks



This soundscape composition takes you on a journey through a West Coast rainforest, starting with water dripping down the rock ledges at the edge of the forest. As guided by a raven, the overall emotional trajectory for the listener goes from joyful to very sombre, and finally we re-emerge (as hopefully we all will from this dark time we're going through) into a brighter day.

Rainforest Raven is available on sonus.ca

Original recordings the composer's cellphone recordings on Galiano Island, BC. Sound processing realized with Soundhack convolution and Chris Rolfe’s MacPod software, with spatialization created by Harmonic Functions’ TiMax2 matrix mixer, marketed by Outboard Inc (UK).
Production Score
SCENE

 Dripping Water & Raven
Water Resonated
0:00 - 2:09 - 3:30
 Water & Chimes
Sustained Chimes
3:30 - 4:20 - 5:25
 Raven & Wings
Rain, Gong & Darkness
5:25 - 6:56 - 8:40

Morning Dawns
8:40 - 10:35
PRODUCTION SCORE
 prod1, prod2
 prod3, prod4
 prod5, prod6
 prod7
STEREO REDUCTION

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5

part 6

part 7
SPECTROGRAM
 part 1, part 2
 part 3, part 4 part 5, part 6 part 7

 Stereo Reduction

Materials: A number of recordings were convolved with themselves using SoundHack to produce various extensions of these rich sounds. In addition, other sources were resonated and subjected to hybrid convolution with two musical instruments (windchime and gong) that are not heard directly.

Original raven flying overhead recording
Equalized and edited raven recording
Raven & Other Recorded Sound Convolved with itself
(note: when a moving window is used with 1, 2 or 4 sec it is indicated as Mov1, Mov2, Mov4)
Original Source Materials
*self
*self*self
*self*self*self

Raven5

Raven5*self

Raven5*self*self


Raven5EQ

Raven5*selfMov1

Raven5*selfMov2

Raven5*selfMov4

RavenEQ5*selfMov1*selfMov1

RavenEQ5*selfMov1*selfMov2


Raven2

Raven2*self

Raven2*selfEQ-1oct

Raven2*selfEQ-2oct

Raven2*selfEQ-3oct

Raven/Raven2*self*self

Raven/Raven2*self*self-1oct

Raven/Raven2*self*self-2oct


Raven1

Raven1-1oct Stretch

Raven1-2oct Stretch

Raven1-3oct Stretch

Raven1*selfNB

Raven1*selfNB-1oct Stretch

Raven1*selfNB-2oct Stretch

Raven1*self*selfNB

Raven1*self*selfNB-1oct Stretch

Raven1*self*selfNB-2oct Stretch

Raven1*self*self*selfNB

Raven1*self*self*selfNB-1oct Stretch

Raven1*self*self*selfNB-2oct Stretch

Wings

Wings*selfNB

Wings*selfNB-1oct

Wings*selfNB-2oct

Wings*selfNB-1oct Stretch

Wings*selfNB-2oct Stretch



Chimes1 (not heard alone)

Chimes1*selfEQ

Chimes1*selfEQ-1oct

Chimes1*selfEQ-2oct



Chimes2 (not heard alone)

Chimes2*self

Chimes2*self-1oct

Chimes2*self-2oct



Gong1 (not heard alone)

Gong1*self



Gong2 (not heard alone)

Gong2*self



Soft Gong (not heard alone)

Soft Gong*self Mov10



Dripping Water & Rain Convolved as Hybrid or Resonated
(note the hybrid convolution uses a moving window of 100 ms on the left ch. and 50 ms on the right, identified as MovSt)
Original Source Materials
Resonated
Convolved Hybrid

Water1

Water1 ResonA

Water1 ResonA+1oct

Water1 ResonB

Water1 ResonB+1oct

Water1*Chimes1MovSt

Water1*Chimes1-1octMovSt

Water1*Chimes2MovSt

Water1*Chimes2-1octMovSt

Water4

Water4 ResonA

Water4 ResonA+1oct

Water4 ResonB

Water4 ResonB+1oct

Water4*Chimes1MovSt

Water4*Chimes1-1octMovSt

Water4*Chimes2MovSt

Water4*Chimes2-1octMovSt

Rain1

Rain1 ResonC

Rain1 ResonD

Rain1*Gong1Mov1BSt

Rain1*Gong2Mov1NBSt

Rain3

Rain3 ResonC

Rain3 ResonD

Rain3*Gong1Mov1BSt

Rain3*Gong2Mov1NBSt


The resonators were realized with MacPod5 with L/R delay values as follows:
ResonA: 6.8 and 3.38 ms, feedback 92%; ResonB: 5.14 and 2.55 ms, feedback 92%
ResonC: 8.9 and 7.38 ms, feedback 92%; ResonD: 8.52 and 7.07 ms, feedback 92%
Granular parameters: duration 20 ms +/- 8 ms; delay 50 ms +/- 25 ms, offset 20 ms, envelope 100%, no time stretching
Spatialization:

The raven files (flying overhead and the wing sounds) are spatialized with the TiMax2 Soundhub digital matrix mixer with trajectories of Echo based spatial images simulating symmetric reflections of 171 ms on either side of the source (which broaden the stereo image to 6 output channels for a stereo pair), using presets such as:

Echo 1
Echo 5
Echo 8

Note: the delays (indicated with small arrows) are set constant at the maximum on each channel to avoid any interpolation of time delays during a trajectory (which would otherwise result in an audible modulation of the signal). In fact, the delays turned out to be unnecessary as their constant value did not produce an echo. For each channel in these diagrams, the pairs of faders control amplitude (left) and time delay (right).
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