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And the way the Mbira drops in on Certitudes is fantastic :

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In fact, listening to the tracks it seemed as though Array Mbira is one of the signature sounds of Minecraft, which is fantastic. So I read a little background on him, and was intrigued to discover that he had got his break writing music for a computer game when he was only 20 years old. Now he has thousands of followers and fans of his characterful, whimsical music.

So, I got in touch with Daniel to ask him how he got started in music..

I started out making music for myself and sharing whatever I created with close friends. Markus Persson, the original creator of Minecraft was one of those friends. When he asked me to create music for his game, Minecraft was merely a tech demo that had nothing but a flat surface you could place blocks upon. As I kinda had nothing better to do, I agreed on helping him out creating music, and sound. So essentially I created every song and almost every little sound effect heard in the game. And I still do, actually. Turns out the game is really popular and sells super well.

Where did you first hear about the Array Mbira virtual instrument?

I kinda learned about Soniccouture in general after I was allowed to play a pan drum for a short while. And there was really nothing about actual hangs in the sampling market, except for Soniccoutures library. I still use the hang library a lot. Mostly in the background as a kind of flavor to the overall sound.

After playing around with the pan library, I got into more and more of the instruments Soniccouture makes, and they’re really brilliant unique stuff. I absolutely love it so so much, haha. Like, the bowed piano, gamelan, music box and the crazy speak and spell library. I pretty much use a little bit of everything in all of my productions.

Oh, and Geosonics is gonna be super useful for some future Minecraft music, and I will use it a lot there.

Would you say Array Mbira is one of the signature sounds of Minecraft ? Could you point us at some of your favourite Array Mbira tracks?

I used the Array Mbira library very prominently for the soundtrack to the documentary about Minecraft. Something about the quality of the instrument kind of made me want to stretch its soundscape over the entire thing. Maybe to make it feel connected, of sorts. So no, I don’t use the Mbira as part of my individual sound, but it sounded so good to me that I decided to write an entire 90 minute soundtrack having it as a backing instrument.

…I think the stuff you make really makes my life easier, since I love to write unique music.

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This algorithm simply generates a random note within an octave range, choosing from the note set or scale defined in the script.   There are five possible voices (VOICE 1 to 5), each of which can be assigned their own NOTE length, OCTave, % chance of occurrence, and VELocity.

You can see the parameters for each VOICE listed to the right of the panel:

The script is made active with the ‘Geo Generator’ button at the top left, and you can mute the input MIDI there as well if you like.  Once active, the script will start playing upon receiving a note, or else when the PLAY switch is turned on.

You can click on the little keyboard to include or exclude notes, or else choose from some PRESET scales.  There is an option for HALF TEMPO if you want to use it to generate random backdrops.  GeoGenerator will chase tempo changes if used in a sequencer.

LIVE TRANSPOSE allows you to transpose the output of the GeoGenerator with your keyboard.  If you play middle C (MIDI 60), the transpose is 0.  Above or below middle C will transpose the output.

DOWNLOAD THE SCRIPT

Requires Kontakt 5.1 or later.   GeoGenerator works best placed before any other scripts in the KSP chain.

For the curious who don’t yet have Geosonics, and existing users who want some power-tips, I’ve made some walkthrough videos to help clarify the way the instrument is structured, and exactly how the original Chris Watson recordings work with the sound design material, etc etc.

It’s taken all week for even this meagre result – I don’t know if it’s the same for everyone (I suspect not), but personally I find that making these things is always an intoxicating mixture of minor technical niggles and searing embarrassment.

Anyway, I hope they help someone!

 Building A Preset From Scratch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bstsscPkkZ4

 Jammer Overview

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Mm8YmxWzo

 Effects & The Space Processor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXb0OyBHYEQ

PLAY THE SOUND OF THE NORTH POLE – BBC’S CHRIS WATSON MAKES ‘VIRTUAL INSTRUMENT’

Acclaimed nature & wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson is behind an amazing ‘virtual’ musical instrument – a piece of software that allows the user to play music created with sounds from the North Pole, the Kalahari Desert, Venezuelan swamps and more.

The ‘virtual musical instrument’ – known as Geosonics – was developed with London sound-software company Soniccouture. They first contacted Watson – known for his BAFTA award winning work on BBC’s Frozen Planet and Springwatch – in 2011, after hearing some of Chris’ recordings made using huge expanses of wire in remote parts of Australia.

James from Soniccouture says : ‘We were privileged to work with Chris because we wanted to create sounds with a very real, natural dimension to them. With Chris we had access to sounds that you literally can’t get anywhere else – he has crawled inside glaciers and fried himself in the desert for these recordings!’

VIDEO

A Short Video Of Geosonics can be seen on Youtube :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mMBOjRTTnoE

Chris Watson talks about the recordings used in Geosonics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1jvq6Y1tT3A http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=guSu1DLC8Cw http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rrtb-N7lb5g http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aEfATLuYpfw

As part of our upcoming Geosonics release, I spoke to Chris Watson over skype to find out some background to the many field recordings featured in the product. What unfurled was a fascinating discussion, adding more colour and depth to the recordings than I could have imagined. Tales of glaciers, baked river beds in the Kalahari, Volcanos in Iceland and of course, the very sound of the North Pole.

The Swamp Interview:

The Ice & Water Interview:

The Wires Interview:

The Wind Interview :