Freesound Forums

The place for questions, discussion, feedback, comments, etc (basically anything that is not making a submission or voting) in relation to Dare 11.

subscribing...

@Puniho in the actual thread: Hardware and phone mics it is sir, if not software. Record a sound on your phone's recorder. Rerecord another layer. And then another layer on top.
Man, this should be an awesome project.
Just kidding; it really really sucks having RAM problems. I don't know about today but back in the days (some 5 years ago) upgrading a RAM was a seemingly expensive chore in which I'd never partake. Result: 3 years of 128 MB RAM from 2004 to 2007. I hope you get it sorted out soon, because yours would be an entry I'd actually want to listen to.

I would be interested to know if/how others are doing targeted searches instead of sifting through the something like 91 pages of sounds tagged "spring"

Personally, I plan to compose this piece based on a memory. In college during spring term there were geese that stopped at a little pond on campus for a few months to have goslings. You had to try to get past the VERY protective parents to walk from the houses up to the music buildings (or take a path that was 10mins longer) and as part of getting past the hissing geese you had to run over a metal bridge spanning the stream that fed the pond.

So I've been searching words that relate to that memory looking for sounds and I was just wondering if anyone else has a system for searching...

@Joanna, because this time I am not given sounds to work with, i _am_ forced to first have an idea in mind and compose around that (part of the reason this is a really demanding but awesome dare for me). Initially, i had a little difficulty iiin finding sounds for the dare, but then i started using two or more words for the specific sounds i had in mind. I think it will help studying what keywords you use and what the search results are based on those keywords. There's a subtle pattern that you should be able to find, but try searches with two or more words. Often times you might find a sound that doesn't have the tag "spring," but the description will talk about the date when the recording was taken. To me, thattt's a good indication of whether or not it was spring. (in short, just try to look for the sound directly by the name and then read the description if it qualifies for spring).

another suggestion: can you layer certain sounds to make the end product sound like a hiss? foley effects, perhaps?

while it'd feel really cool to use authentic sound sources for the final composition, i think it'd be ok to lure the listener into thinking that you did use authentic sources even if you didn't. As long as the piece feels spring-y, you know

@All

Just to say that I am enjoying these discussions more and more.

@afleetingspec and jgeralyn
After such a restrictive dare like the last one, it just felt appropriate that you should now get a dare with a lot of freedom. For the last few dares I have been 'prescribing' samples to be used, it was about time I let you loose on the database to find your own samples

This will pose it's own challanges. To begin with freedom itself can be a restriction: given too much choice, most of us have trouble making a decision!

@gjeralyn
I think it is great that you have such a concrete idea about your piece already.
I have found that the pieces I have composed with a specific purpose or result in mind were often my best (or the ones I like the most).
Please remember that you need to include the other meanings of the word spring into your piece, not just the season

@afleetingspec It's a new computer with 2 gigs of ram (I can remember when my PC ram was measured in kbs..!), still under warranty so hopefully I'll have it back soon. Maybe in time for spring in NZ...

In the meantime I've been searching and collecting a few sounds. The sound of a metal spring is the most challenging I've found. Lots of running water sounds on Freesound...! That and birdsong is probly the most common recordings.

alternate search terms:

boing
jews harp / jaw harp

Just to add to thatjeffcarter's awesome example, another example of a mechanical spring is a swimming pool diving board. Got some pretty strong sounds out there on that front.

EDIT (13 March):
One of the best things about thateffcarter's pieces is that all of them are very evocative, and they are all instantly relatable.
This piece screams spring in so many different ways in so many different places, it's unbelievable.
Once again, excellent job, thatjeffcarter!

@AlienXXX (from the entry thread):

Long ago, "someone" said something like "careful what you wish for, you might actually get it".
Well, you invited us to celebrate spring, and I guess that's what we're doing more or less!

Jokes apart, of course I can speak only for myself, but I think it's generally not a matter of the dare not being interesting enough.

Dare 10 has seen quite a few new appearances: soneproject, OSH37, Michael_Trickery, Cannonrayj, and me; but at least for me, it was mostly a good coincidence of factors:

- having more free time forced home by the snow, that put me into a productive mindset to compensate;
- having been teased already by dare 9 for which I had had a vision but deemed myself unable to turn it into an entry in time;
- having already a very limited set of sounds to work on, that saved some time that would have been spent searching.

Also for dare 11 i've had a vision of what my entry could have been, and facing this challenge would have been just as interesting as dare 10 was, but I've been busier/more distracted/not in the right mindset for it. All in all, it's been a matter of time, not theme

All this blabber to support your efforts with the dares, even if I might really disappear until next snow. Not because the dares are boring, but because cats are easily distracted

Track's comments/feedback:
(this is more for the sake of completeness here at the Freesound thread, since more detailed comments were left on each track at Soundcloud)

ThatJeffCarter - The Secret Place of Thunder
An electrically charged piece. Jeff's pieces tend to be very peacefull, but this one is a very tense piece! There is also an hypnotic fragrance to it... Very, very powerfull piece. Great work Jeff! - and in record time, as usual

Spoorloos - The lamb (v4)
My favourite piece.
The connection with Easter and all the religious and pagan conotations of it (essentially a celebration of Spring, is great). I absolutely love the clock sound! - clocks, of course, being driven by a wond-up spring! - because it represents the turning of time, and the cyclic turning of the seasons.
The guitar sounds that at points sound like an indian sitar or the like are fantastic.
There are so many great things to this track that is difficult to list them all. But, above all, it is an absolutely masterpiece musically. Period.

Cajo - FS dare 11
I think Cajo has picked some great springy and metallic dripping water sounds.
The spring sound at times sounds quite spooky, especially in the context of the piece.
Interestingly... this piece is also a noise-music composition... I had not realized that before. But essentially there are no mellodies or rhythmic elements as such: definetely noise music.

Cannonrayj (ro unit) - vernal equinox
I think the strong point of this piece is the mixing of natural and unnatural sounds (created by glitching up natural sounds). We are very accostumed to hearing this kind of effect in electronic music (beats, synth and basslines and even vocals) but it is refreshing to see that these effects can be used on completely different material - nature sounds. The effect on the listener is quite disconcerting!
At places I think this was a bit overdone, or that the result sounds a bit too harsh.
But that is not the point. If there was a prize for 'creative technique' this track would certainly get it. Just goes to show that an old trick applied to novel material is, indeed... a new trick!