this one (stafford)

duration: 33:22

recorded: 20140321

type: ambient


this track was a long time coming, and it represents my first serious attempt at a long form piece using nanostudio as my compositional and performance tool. I've been using nanostudio for quite some time now, and I've created ambient music before with it, but I've never attempted anything quite on the scale of "this one".

the creative process is an unusual one, I did something I've never done in nanostudio, two things actually:

1) I built a re-useable template for ambient tracks, that has about 10 - 12 of the most beautiful, most ambient presets loaded into it, and - all synth tracks, no drum tracks loaded.

2) I began the session with a synth, instead of with drums, normally, I begin most nanostudio sessions with a drum track.

I wanted to make sure I started out with the best possible chance of creating something quite beautiful, so I spent quite some time trialling pretty much every preset that nano has, including a few of my own custom designed presets, to try and ensure that I had THE most beautiful sounds possible to create this long form ambient piece.

I imagined that the track might end up like one of the long form ambient bindlestiff tracks from the "distant" album, or one of brian eno's long ambient tracks, but in the end, because of the unique set up, mainly, it came out sounding more like a rather unique dave stafford track, rather than the way any of my imagined / historical precursors sounded in my head.

the actual performances were surprising quick, using the most beautiful of the chosen voices, I recorded a couple of short pieces of music, and then I stopped - and I began arranging copies of the same two MIDI clips across the many voices, always slightly overlapping, to keep the song continuous, sometimes a single clip, sometimes, two clips, each using a different synth voice, sometimes - staggering pairs of clips against single or paired clips.

I really like the idea of having the best of the best voices already sitting there, and just picking them almost randomly - four minutes of one, four minutes of another, five minutes of a pair of voices, and so on - it works really, really well the track also sounds quite nice without any bass, but I really feel that the bass adds so much, especially with the wonderful "disappearing act" and surprise "return" - it sounds good.

I spend a fairly short time laying out the tracks, and then, it was just a matter of getting all of the different sounds to sound good, to be at roughly the same level, and to flow nicely based on the MIDI patterns. I did spend considerable time "treating" each sound individually, adding, variously, eq, chorus, delay, or reverb to get each voice to sound as ethereal, and as beautiful, as possible.

then, I decided I wanted to add a continuous bass line, so I spent some time trying different basses until I settled on one that worked well with all of the different voices, and proceeded to hold my finger down on one key for many, many minutes.

later, I re-arranged the MIDI clips in a peculiar and particular way - for the first half of the song, there are actually two complementary bass notes playing throughout; and then, suddenly, they both drop out - leaving a particularly beautiful pair of synth voices to bring us through what suddenly had become "the quiet part" - and I am so pleased that I made this rather strange musical decision - I feel it works quite well.

some five or six minutes later, the bass returns in style, this time, a single continuous note, which then runs uninterrupted until the end of the piece some fifteen minutes later.

after than, it was simply a case of ensuring that all levels made sense, the mix is very straightforward, then onto mastering and we are done - a very interesting process; I worked on the piece on the go, so during lunch breaks, in cafes having coffee, waiting in the car - wherever I had a few minutes, I would load up the track and continue work on it.

I took a very leisurely approach, just doing maybe 30 minutes or less each day, with the occasionally longer session maybe of an evening or on a weekend. it was a very, very enjoyable two weeks, and I would find myself leaving the playback running over and over - the piece was really relaxing to listen to even in it's unfinished state - which is always a good sign. finally - I felt that the track was ready to mix and master, which it did, like a dream - I really wish I oould conjure up more pieces that sound like this, and now that I have my ambient template saved, I am planning to attempt just that in future nanostudio sessions.

it would seem that creating long form ambient music using nanostudio is very, very possible indeed.