Jeremiah Savage @echoexist - Tumblr Blog

From the January 2014 issue of the German Beat Magazine released today, here is my full interview answering questions about Kinetic Metal.

German Beat Magazine - www.beat.de

1) What inspired you to create Kinetic Metal?

Metal is a very versatile material for a sound designer. There are so many states and shapes that create a wide variety of sounds. Just by manipulating a piece of metal into another shape or by hitting and scraping it against different objects or materials you can create very different sounds and resonators. I really wanted to explore the world of metal with this project. But I wanted the sounds to demonstrate that there are more ways to think about metal. When I look at the market of sound libraries that are based on metal, it's normally that very familiar percussive banging, crashing and highly dissonant harmonic sound that you expect. I wanted to create something more unexpected and flexible in terms of greater tonal ranges and control. I did a lot of research and experimentation to find ways to achieve that goal. A big part of inspiration came from the steampunk genre, the idea of taking discarded pieces of metal and creating something new, useful and futuristic. That's really what set me off in the direction for Kinetic Metal. Several years ago when I started making these types of libraries for Native Instruments I had an idea to make playable, musical instruments out of objects that otherwise had no musicality or playability. There were many challenges to overcome and I really feel like I pushed Kontakt to unexplored territory to make it happen with Kinetic Metal. Kontakt facilitated that process quite nicely.

2) You spent over a year recordings sounds for the library. Please tell us more about this process. We’d especially love to hear more about the custom-built objects.

Everyday was sort of a new adventure in seeking material and recordings. First, the imagination process. I had to come up with an idea for a sound that fit the concept of Kinetic Metal. Then the problem solving process of how I could re-create that idea into an audible form. That involves dissecting the idea and thinking about how to achieve the sounds you need using various tools and specific objects. The challenge is to bring out musical qualities in an idea or otherwise non-musical object. There's much experimentation in recording techniques and microphone positions. Sometimes you stumble on an interesting, suitable sound but many times your imagination is far better at knowing what sounds you need. For example, with my instrument Tin Man Locomotion, I really wanted to understand the process that propelled the Tin Man forward. When one sees the Wizard of Oz you don't really get a sense of the mechanics of the Tin Man. It very much looks and feels and is a human being painted in silver with some armor. I imagined him more as a machine, with gear wheels that create movement, exhaust chuffs and whistles, oil cans, his empty tin chambers, and even the allusion of a heart beat.

Sometimes the best way to get the sounds you need is to break open the tool box and build your own custom-built objects that represent the idea better. This can take up a lot of time so I have to feel the amount of good sounds it creates has to be worth the sacrifice. I've built thumb pianos from rake tines that I set to various metal resonators, I've built tonal percussive instruments out of propane tanks, I've built very large spring tubes that create nice eerie sounds, etc. Mainly, though, I spent a lot of time in garages and junkyards, train stations, etc. collecting and recording various old antique metal pieces. Once I get my material (which for each sound is at least four layers of sources and recording dynamics) I start the process of shaping them into the sound ideas I imagined. This work is both very technical and creative like shaping pottery. It involves a lot of time cutting and processing all the material in various audio editors and finally transferring the best pieces to Kontakt and building the key mapped layers so they are smooth and organic like a real acoustic instrument. Then, adding a touch of effects and convolution to achieve just the right color and expressiveness. I like to think the process by which these sounds are created is a form of sound sculpturing from the imagination.

3) What challenged you the most in the recording and production process?

Probably the biggest challenge, aside from the work of gathering the samples, cutting them and processing them into pieces that fit the sound concept, was getting the harmonics and shape of the tonal layers to fit and match the characteristics of the source material. Not just in a spectral exaggeration of pitch like I've seen in other libraries, but something that is more spectacular and, if I can even say, "hand-crafted". I created a program in SuperCollider (a real-time audio synthesis programming environment) to facilitate this process. The program allowed me to create my own sound waves using complex algorithms and some experimentation to fit the sample material and make it come alive in forms only your imagination can create. The objects I recorded were mainly objects that you would never imagine having musical qualities, so in the process of shaping sound sources and building harmonic layers you really have to be careful you don't end up with a sloppy amalgamation. I wanted them to sound as natural as possible. These are real objects that have been surgically altered to give musicians and sound people a unique and wider pallet of sound to choose from, with all the subtle and intricate dynamics that come with real acoustic instruments. Speaking of those dynamics, the ability of one instrument to morph into very different sounds while respecting the overall concept of the instrument was another challenging aspect in designing the sounds in Kinetic Metal. I had to think about that in nearly every step of the production process. From the recording of samples to designing specific effect combinations that suit the Forged layers.

4) How did you process the raw sample material in the next step?

I followed the "less-is-more" approach to the raw material before bringing the cut and processed samples into Kontakt. I tried to get the recordings as clean as possible at the start. This meant that most of the processing included subtle things like EQ and/or spectral edits. Actually there were a lot of spectral edits for these sounds. I work mostly in the spectral view of audio editors these days. It's important to remove any tonal elements while keeping the character of the samples so they sound natural and don't clash with the harmonic content I bring to the samples later. I also designed quite a lot of my own convolution effects that I used as a sound design technique within Kontakt. Strangely enough there are even some synthesis techniques I employed within Kontakt such as spectral synthesis, subtractive synthesis, and even a form of physical modeling within Kontakt. One thinks of Kontakt as a sampler but after some experimentation I found and implemented these other useful techniques to facilitate the creation of my instruments. Other processing techniques included sample layering to get specific moods in texture and color and also streamlined processing in Kontakt itself. Streamlined processing allows the user to effect the sounds and create their own custom processing much like you would do in programming synth sounds. The beauty of Kinetic Metal is that while it is designed with particular conceptual sounds, one can easily turn the instruments into something completely new with a few twists of the controls in the Forge and FX panels.

5) Please tell us more about the Forge and the FX wheel as well as the Motion button.

All the power and complexity, all the layering and finely tuned sound sculptures, all the work in making real world objects morph and come to life can be condensed into easy manipulation using as few as one knob (or gear) in Kinetic Metal. There is a reason why the interface looks the way it does. It's trying to convey a sense of complexity in one simple turn of a gear wheel that starts all the other gears moving. And beyond that, within the Forge and FX wheels, are some interesting parameters that give you even more control over the sounds. First is that you can store presets in four slots around both the Forge and FX wheels so morphing between sound sources within each instrument is very easy, flexible and customizable. You can link and unlink the Forge wheel to and from the FX wheel. The FX wheel is assigned to the Modulation Wheel (CC1) and the Forge wheel is assigned to MIDI Expression (CC11). You can have a lot of fun unlinking them to see how different stages of effects work with different Forge settings and vice versa. Within one sound there are so many possibilities and that is just the beginning.

The Motion panel is the "Kinetic" in Kinetic metal. You can automate different movements on one or both of the morph wheels. There are many creative options for setting them in motion. You can choose between four different waves with settings for Speed, Strength, etc. It can be Looped for continuous motion or set to One-Shot mode so it begins and ends when the wave has run its course. My favorite function on the Motion panel is the Recording feature. You can record any movement you like and have different recordings for each morph wheel.

Morphing through the Forge settings and FX settings whether by way of the morph wheels or with the Motion control is very satisfying as the effects have been programmed specifically for each instrument and even each Forge layer. Where a lot of products on the market have general effects across the board I knew I couldn't do this with Kinetic Metal. Each instrument is different and the effects are just as much a part of the sound as the sound sources. And because of their unique algorithms, even subtle movements have a drastic effect on the sound.

6) What are the most exciting features of Kinetic Metal to your mind?

There are so many. The interface was designed to let you have total control over what goes on under the hood while being intuitive and simple. One nice feature of Kinetic Metal is the ability to hone in on individual sound layers for subtle effects or zoom out to hear the entire conceptual sound picture. This can be achieved by simply soloing each layer in the Forge panel or mixing layers in and out. It's also very exciting that you can dial in your own settings of the Forge and FX panel into the Forge and FX presets to create your own morphs quickly and intuitively. You can take an instrument and make something very different than what it was originally. Overall I'm really excited about bringing these ideas to life. Exploring and experimenting with sound is a real obsession for me and I hope to keep pushing the limits with new and interesting concepts.

7) Can you give our readers some tips on how to get the most out of the library?

Kinetic Metal is a deep instrument and there are many ways to discover and create interesting sounds with it. I've given a few hints already but here are a few things to try. The easiest way to get the most out of Kinetic Metal is to just play the sounds out of the box and manipulate the Forge and FX gear wheels. A lot of care went into programming the four different presets and there is a lot to discover with just those two gear wheels. For example, you can link the Forge and FX wheels and hear all the Forge layers and FX morph together fluidly. Or you can unlink them and hear how morphing just the FX wheel sounds on each Forge preset (and vice versa). Just those two tips will produce nearly endless sound possibilities. To add to that, start dialing in your own settings in the Forge and FX panels to save your own modifications or completely new presets. Switch on Motion to create interesting mechanical movements between the presets. Try creating simpler and subtler morph effects. Within each preset is essentially four instruments, instead of drastic morphing to very different sounds try making patches with more subtle effects that evolve from preset to preset. You can make your sounds as complex or as simple as you like. As I mentioned before, try honing in on individual Forge layers by soloing or mixing them in and out. Each layer stands on its own but is also meant to work well with others to create the overall instrument sound concept. Try bringing out the tonal wave layers while lowering the textural metal layers for more harmonic musicality. On percussive sounds, try reducing the harmonic content and raising the percussive characteristics for interesting impacts useful in creating percussive sequences. Ultimately it depends on the instrument but there are endless possibilities for adding the colors of Kinetic Metal to your music and sound projects. I've already heard some things people have been doing with Kinetic Metal and they're very exciting and inspiring. I'm looking forward to hearing more! Experiment and have fun!

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