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) photo
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, with reduced amplitudes (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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