I like it so far. I'd be interested to hear more about the writing process, and how this whole "functions" thing works.
Well, I could write something about it right here.
The whole album startet with me making some random graphs (functions) that looked nice/interesting together, some curves, lines.
I then thought how long I approximately wanted to make each song and how long the overall album should be. I chose 19 as a good amount of tracks so the songs are around 3 minutes long. Well, then I numbered my graph... the x-axis got 19 dots for each track and all the curves' values for each x got written down into a table. I then had parameters like "overall speed", "overall agressiveness of sound", "overall lenght", "human voices on the recording" (oh, I forgot to mention, I gonna put that onto the site soon... all tracks' lenghts are a multiple of 00:19s (which is also the amount of tracks and is a number that reoccurs in most equasions I used).
From the last week of July '08 to the first week of September '08 I put together the tracks always having a look at the table I made.
As you can see on the website, I set up a little "home studio" in my room, cramming together all kinds of equipment I had.
It's not much and not expensive stuff but something.
There was: a.) The main recording station (Table, PC, dual-monitors, lots of cables, my USB-sound-interface with connected microphone and stand, amplifier and monitor speakers, I used in-Ear headphones for the mixing though)
b.) The synth-station: My former PC with the Audiomulch-Software on it. (and a connected Keyboard) I also used the PC to channel sounds from the main station through it... kind of like a audio processor but way mightier. All the tracker/drum-machine stuff (mostly on track, for example) was done there.
c.) The Guitar-Corner: I used 2 electrical guitars, actually. One PRS Singlecut and one (highly modified) Ibanez... something... nothing too expensive. (concerning the mod: I got most of the black finish off with a grinder, exchanged some pick-ups, lifted up the string-position, put more and harder springs into the tremolo-system. It's basically the guitar for strange sounds.) Many guitar-sounds were directly processed through my red effect-thingy and sometimes through my Crybaby-Wah.
I also sometimes used a classical guitar. (directly with the microphone)
d.) The drums. They belong to Magnus, my friend and drummer in the project. We recorded all drums with the one microphone we had, simultaneously! I guess you can here that but we tried to cache it out by playing around with EQ-settings, mic-positions, effects. You hardly ever hear really clean drums on the recording.
I (and Magnus) did all of the writing and recording during that 5-week-period. It was a pretty spontaneous process. Sometimes I just got outta bed, had something in mind, turned the PC on, cranked up the guitar and recorded a sample, or I kept up from evening till morning doing some things, had some sleep, woke up the following evening, feeling really fucked-up and willing to do a sample. We did most things in samples! Many things on the recording have been recorded in other versions before, crammed together in different ways until they were finally re-recorded. I had a huge data-base of tracks and samples on my PC and on the internet! (private archive) I exchanged the stuff with my drummer (who was at home most of the time and just came over during the last 2-3weeks to record the drums and play around himself. Some of the tracks are actually based on his ideas. (f(10)=)
I mostly built the tracks with a basic foundation and numerous overlays. Especially f(1)= and f(12=) have lots of simultaneously running tracks. (many guitars) For the overlays we oftentimes looped the foundations over and over through the room and played random stuff over it until we came to something interesting and recorded some samples.
I also have to say that we "recycled" some old material as far as the table-values allowed it. But we never just left a track in it's original shape. We oftentimes cut them, applied some additional EQs, Effects, different kinds of things. F(13=) even contains a whole new, overlayed drum-recording. (last half of the track, all the rest is maybe 1.5 or 2 years old shit I found on my old computer's HD)
The stuff we put into it also wasn't really "recycled" the "official" way. It's more like releasing content that was once produced but never released, we just wanted to open up our "treasure chest of fucked up wonders". :D
Yeah... the last days (when we had all the material) were also pretty intense... we had to get through our whole labeled files-directories, get all the tracks together, make the final mixes, ask other people's opinions, do remixes, get the tracks ready, organize a cover, and finally put it all into a .zip and seal this thing, swearing to ourselves that we never put those backs back into our audio-programs again.
We were actually already pretty fed up with all the chaos, so we liked the idea of simply letting it be.
Well... yeah... that's all I guess... unless someone of you still wants to know somethin'.
The website was built in iWeb (got myself a MacBook this autumn) this christmas holidays and recently I got myself some mbs of webspace and the domain... so now it's released.
Magnus and I can now burn some CDs with Functions on it (like... 50), print the cover-inlays with the tracklist and the website's URL on the backs, put all that into thin CD-cases and throw that shit around everywhere.
We definately want to install something like a flash-based, simple guestbook (any ideas where we get a good one, free?) on the site and simply put the CD-cases with the album inside on some fitting locations in our nearest city. :D Like hang them on a string and let them float around under bridges, tree-branches and so on until someone picks up the CD and gets onto the website. Crazy stuff like that. I think it sounds fun. xD
Thanks for all the comments, by the way!
BaronCid
P.S.: Maybe I could set up a little compo in the "Competitions"-board in which people have to make little games containg the Functions-tracks and also fitting them a bit.
What do you guys think about that idea?
Developer
