Icee [ disquiet0314 - coldstart ] by Belly Full Of Stars

Created for the Disquiet Junto Project 0314: Cold Start
@disquiet

The project: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something of it.

I've decided to make this annual beginning-of-the-year challenge a long drawn out Work In Progress, each year expanding on the work done the year before. Last year: samples recorded! But... that and a few short loops were as far as it went (note: no entry for last year).

This year: a cohesive idea! I used a short loop and a one-shot recording made last year of ice in a Sam Adams specialty pint glass, and made those the foundation of the piece. All sound sources are from those two short samples. Each sample was loaded into it's own instance of iZotope Iris 2 - one made into the loop that is the repeating backbone of the piece, and one performed live as first accompaniment, and then the bitcrushed melody.

Everything was performed as one live take, processed as recorded through my latest series of pedals: JamMan Express XT looper > Earthquaker Devices Avalanche Run delay/reverb (reverse delay + slight verb)> Neunaber Immerse Reverberator (on 'shimmer' setting). An Old Blood Noise Dark Star orchestral reverb was also used on an aux send, to take care of resonant bit crush duties for the melody.

Thinking about this as a work in progress: this was a bit of an experiment with the new pedal lineup, as I had just gotten the Immerse over the weekend. One of many *completely different* takes. (Most were ambient noise-builds.) I like the flow of the piece overall, but feel the sound of the melody could have possibly been put together differently (a more subtle/smoother tone), which would have made it gel a bit better. I do like the bitcrush tone itself, and the contrast to the rest of the tones, though. I would have also liked a more subtle mix or different processing on the higher pitched ice loops that come in later. But... live takes! So there you go. It will be fun to play with this next year.

Hope you all enjoy it, as is, on your frosty mornings.

More on this 314th weekly Disquiet Junto project (Cold Start: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something of it) at:

https://disquiet.com/0314/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0314-cold-start/

There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.