Even the most humble of raw recordings can form compelling layers of drone-based, atmospheric textures
We start by importing two audio recordings onto two new audio tracks. One is a recording of a small cardboard box being opened and closed, while the second is of five dice being shaken and rolled inside a plastic container. Both are completely unprocessed. Next we add a sound called ‘Circuit Pad Raise Ambience’ from Omnisphere 2. We head to the in-built effects and increase the Tape Slammer Saturation, whilst also turning up the ‘Age’ parameter. We run this alongside our sampled cardboard box texture. We vary the box’s tone with Soundtoys’ Filter Freak 2, using opposing band-pass filters for movement. Add Tremolator to create a rapid, snuffling volume modulation treatment making the sound more animalistic, particularly with a long reverb. Firstly, we drag the Cardboard Box file into a sampler (any will do). We map its root note to C3 but allow the entire key range to play it. So at C2, it plays at half speed and at C1, a quarter speed. We use the sampler’s low-pass filter to roll out some high end. The pitchbend at the start of this sound isn’t ideal, nor is its volume decay. Create a loop by selecting a section and use equal power crossfades across each repeat. Roll out some bottom end and boost the top. Make a big space for this sound with Eventide’s Blackhole. Sample the Dice roll and record two low notes for it. Set up a band-pass filter in the sampler and send a four-bar sine wave LFO to this so the sound glides in and out. Add saturation from Soundtoys’ Decapitator and auto-panning from PanMan, plus reverb and delay.