Ten Till Four

This sound piece was created in response to a minimalist dare posted at the Freesound project:

The challenge was to work minimalist.  We were allowed a combined total of 6 sounds or effects.  That's not a lot to work with, but it's entirely possible.  I often find myself working on a song with only one or two sound samples.

For this song I used 2 sound samples:
Alchemic Hunting
Triangle Loop 

and 4 effects in Ableton Live 8 (lite):
Beat Repeat
Ping Pong Delay
Gater Pong
Chorus Fuzz

The total amount of  time I spent on this project was also pretty minimal - about 45 minutes.  But here's what I did (to the best of my memory):

I started with the Alchemic Hunting sample.  It's in track one pretty much untouched - except for some volume changes.

I then took the  Alchemic Hunting sample and sped it up.  From that high speed version I sliced out  some random segments which I put into another track and copied this pattern over and over. I applied the Beat Repeat effect to this, which gave it glitchy off-rhythm rhythm.  And then I also added the Ping Pong delay to this track so that it had a lingering echo.

Next I created an empty track and set it to record what came out of track two (the glitchy off-rhythm rhythm track) as I fiddled with the various settings of the Ping Pong Delay effect.  To the resulting sounds I applied the Gater Pong effect - which makes it sound a bit like a DJ scratching and mixing on a vinyl record. I also shifted the pitch up four semi-tones.

I liked that track so I made a copy of it but took off the Gater Pong effect and moved it back down the four semi-tones to its original pitch.

Next I went back to the glitchy off-rhythm rhythm in track two and cut a sample randomly from the middle.  This I stretched out to play it at 1/4 speed and added the Chorus Fuzz effect

Nearly done, I added the Triangle Loop without any effects. It's nice as it is.  I adjusted volume levels on all the tracks and adjusted the pan (left to right) on the Chorus Fuzz track so that the various sounds and rhythms came in and out of aural focus.

And then finally. I made two copies of the first several seconds of the Alchemic Hunting sample and layered them on to the end of the song to make a nice -almost church organ - sound. And done.  Almost.  Then, because I realized that my song was coming in longer than the 4 minute limit, I bumped up the song's tempo to make it play a little faster and brought it all down to 3 minutes and 50 seconds.

Which, by an outrageous coincidence (I Swear!) is the title I planned to give this song from the beginning - The title refers to Dare # 10, 2 sound Samples and, 4 effects.