Blackwater Mix

A remix of "Dew'n Time" commissioned by Tal Klein for an upcoming remix collection of Trancenden songs.

Part A - the sampling

While snorkling in Blackwater Creek (near Deland, FL) I collected a handful of small pebbles which had a quartz-like appearance. These pebbles were used to create eight "scores". The pebbles were first scattered at random across a piece of 8.5x11" graph paper and outlined. Chance operations were then used to locate and hilite two vertical and two horizontal lines on a piece of graph paper. A single diagonal was drawn from top right to bottom left between each pair of lines, and the pebble outlines which they intersected were numbered using the roll of an eight-sided die. Measurements (using a typographer's "point" ruler) were then made from the points of intersection to the furthest boundary created by either the straight or diagonal lines.

Each sheet of graph paper (landscape orientation was used) consists of 44 blocks. To determine length and starting point of the sample to be used for that score, each block represented one second, and the vertical lines drawn previously would mark off begin and end points for the sample within the original song. Each new score began where the previous one left off, so the first score marked off seconds 0-44, the second seconds 45-88, and so on up to 352.

The measurements became the parameters by which samples were to be taken from the song and modified. The numbers written in the pebble outlines represented the parameter ("CyberSound" effects plugins for Peak were used) to which the measurement numbers would be applied:

  1. Splice Patterns: Add the digits of the total measurements for that outline, this becomes the number of milliseconds from the beginning of the bracket. Then use each digit of the measurements (put in arbitrary order) to pattern off how many seconds of sound is sampled followed by how many seconds of sound to skip before sampling again. For example, two measurements of 345 and 254 would become 345254 = 23ms from the beginning of the sample space, then skip ahead 3sec, sample 4sec, skip ahead 5sec, sample 2sec, etc.

  2. Flange

  3. Dynamic Filter

  4. Delay

  5. Splice Patterns

  6. Chorus

  7. Echo

  8. Pitch Shift
After sampling (concatenating samples together in the case of more than one) and going through the appropriate effects to be added, the finished sample was shrunk, cut or expanded to fit within the alloted time bracket originally defined by the vertical lines.

Part B - the building

For the most part, samples were placed back-to-back in the order in which they appear in score form, with two interesting samples appearing a second time towards the very end. Beginning at time 00:30, each sample is placed every 30 seconds and repeated to fill that entire 30 seconds while still allowing for overlap (i.e. samples were not cut off if they extended beyond the next 30 seconds).

A background was created by a portion of one sample which gave a very interesting patterned result which helped to hold the entire piece together. To add spacial interest, samples were panned left and right according to predefined patterns and move across the stereo spectrum during the piece according to those patterns. For smoothness and more subtle transitions, several samples were also faded in and out.

"Blackwater Mix" is copyright 1999 by Matthew Ross Davis, BMI
"Dew'n Time" is copyright by Tal Klein, available at http://www.mp3.com/trancenden