The mix is ready! The SOW: Blacksmith collection is over 52 minutes long (a test compilation for temp. download). I’m currently in discussions with Frederic Font Corbera from the Freesound.org staff in hopes of finding a convenient way to upload the files to their servers. The entire package is 1,68GB. Also testing Archive.org services, which seem to be capable of handling multiple files more easily. Below is a full list of all of the files in the package. Tomorrow I’ll add metadata to the .wav files and if everything goes well I can upload the files to Freesound.org and Archive.org later this week.
20170318
Performances as magic rituals state that there is magic. What then? Magic is not speculative it is affirmative! Magic solidifies status quo.
Visited Angakoq performance event at SIC gallery. Seppo Salminen made a touching performance with a skeleton. The skeleton belonged to an prisoner who’s corpse was left unclaimed from the Suomenlinna civil war prison camp. The corpse had been donated to the medical school and the bones were assembled to be used as an anatomy model by the Academy of Fine Arts of Helsinki. Art students had used this skeleton for over 50 years to learn anatomy! Salminen salvaged the bones around 1990 (the skeletons assembly had deteriorated) and stored the bones in his basement. During the performance he used them to illustrate his mortality and the burden of his class. The visual cues of the performance was easy to read but the real bones made the thing fucking real.
Visited the Finnish refugee policy protest camp next to the railway station and had an educational chat about Naom Chomsky. I felt humbled as a refugee urged me to contact local politicians and to convince them to change the way refugee urgency evaluations are handled. I told him I can’t even remember whom I voted for and argued that such activism is in a crisis as it fails to effect EU policies, which are responsible for the crisis. He looked me dead in the eye and urged me to read Chomsky. The refugee had more faith in democracity the I do. There are 320 000 new skeletons caused by the civil war in Syria. Imagine the anatomy study classes they will facilitate.
There are two camps at the Helsinki railway station. The Finland-first camp (they are protesting against immigration) and the Finnish refugee policy protest camp (they are fighting for their lives). Their camps are at the far corners of the plaza. Both camps are manifesting a struggle against the same financial and political elites.
20170317
Studying at Zodiak Men’s Contemporary Dance classes has been fun. The movements we’ve practiced serve as brain-puzzles. So far the series we’ve done have not been very complexed or physically intensive. I’m using the opportunity to learn how to teach movement. Both classes have offered tricks for ground work. The official host Andrius Katinas was sick last night and we were taught by Ima Iduozee.
“By losing our notions of universality, transcendence and ultimately the notion of the real we have also lost the ability to change.”. A Star Wars Utopia and the Slow Cancellation of the Future by Zero Books.
Midway through the SOW: Blacksmith edits. Exporting the files too. The entire project will be around 1gb! Found a decent looking tool for adding metadata Kid3 – Audio Tagger.
20170316
Magnus Lidström developer of PO-32 for Teenage Engineering discussing software and hardware development with Cuckoo. He has made artificial intelligences work for him: Patternarium offers beats made by algorithms (users can help make them better).
20170314
Edits on the SOW: Blacksmith sample pack are progressing steadily and I’ll have all of the samples chopped by the end of the week. After this I’ll continue with mastering. EQ fixes are almost done but the dynamics of some loud machines and hammers pose a challenge. After the fixes I’ll export the samples and continue organizing them into folders and adding metadata. If everything goes as planned we can publish the pack by the end of the month. I plan to make a intro video for the collection at Jesses smithy.
Did some benchmarking and found a few companies and private artists offering blacksmith sounds and other industrial noises for sound designers and musicians. Some of these links have been collected by Paul Virostek who runs the Creative Field Recordings blog.
- Freesound offers 134 sound tagged “blacksmith” for Free!
- Bluezone Corporation offers the “Metal Impact Sound Effects” pack for 14,95€
- Eiravein works offers the “Ilmarinen” Blacksmith sample pack for 16€
- Echocollectivefx’s offers the “Lockdown” sample pack for 40€
- Hart FX offers a massive “Hart of Steel” collection for 99€
Minttu also recommend a Finnish musician who is working with junkyard sounds called Pentti Dassum. He works under the title Umpio and he’s currently engaged in a sounds of craft and labor project related to textiles.
I regret we didn’t use more professional mics for our recordings. The tonality of our samples is suitable for projects that are flirting with lo-fi field recording aesthetics. If we’d invested in more advanced mics we could could have reached out to the professional foley artist community too. Our efforts will provide a great addition to the Freesound community.
Assisted Ilkka Wahala (a graduate from the Kankaanpää Art School) with his real/simulation shooting documentation. He had organized a shooting range, an instructor and guns from Osuva a range located in the center of Helsinki. He shot with a Scorpion Assault Rifle and a pistol. I got to shoot too but only with a training gun. It was fun and the staff was very welcoming. Relatively cheap too.
Meeting Kristian at the gym in preparation of the Kontula Electronic gig.