There was a show on WFMU‘s Give the Drummer station called “Ken’s Last Ever Radio Extravaganza“. The show was a live experiment in audio, as each episode was a sound collage. Episodes of that show were typically two hours, and, when live, people could call in and add their own audio to the mix. It was a neat idea for a show, but it is currently on indefinite hiatus.
So I got to thinking, could I do something like this? Could I make my own sound collages? Shouldn’t be too difficult, right?
I opened Adobe Audition, and started making music loops, by taking sections of songs that would work when repeated. I looped them, and set them as the main backing tracks. I then added audio samples, sound clips, repeated some in short loops. I listened to the results, and balanced the audio, to keep the music in the foreground and the clips subdued. It was an experiment. How would this sound? Would this be listenable?
I kept adding to that first project, and the initial ten-minute grew to 20-minutes then ultimately to an hour. I fine-tuned the clips, adjusting their timing and balance levels. I tried to structure the piece as a narrative, by repeating clips throughout and putting together parts of an entire clip. I exported the file and gave it a listen. There it was, my first sound collage project. I decided to upload to to Radio Free Caemlyn.
So there you have it. There are now two sound collage projects on RFC. I’ll maintain a list of them and future projects on this post.
RFC Sound Collage Projects:
Internet Archive Links:
SAFTWR 1: “A Step Out”
SAFTWR 2: “What It Means to Be”
SAFTWR 3: “Letting Go, Moving On”
SAFTWR 4: “The Pressure of Noise”
SAFTWR 5: “The Beginning Ends”
SAFTWR 6: “Unending Madness”
SAFTWR 7: “Down the Rabbit Hole”
SAFTWR 8: “It’s Never Over “(Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 9: “Chaos Emerging “Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 10: “Turbo Signal Boost”
SAFTWR 11: “A Town in My Mind” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 12: “Good Night and Farewell” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 13: “Outside”
SAFTWR 14: “Bearing Witness to the Light”
SAFTWR 15: “Escaping Into Dreams”
SAFTWR 16: “Farewell to Hornets”
SAFTWR 17: “In a Hurry to Remember”
SAFTWR 18: “The Popcorn Edition”
SAFTWR 20: “Meditation Among Noise”
SAFTWR 21: “Returning to Goodbyes”
SAFTWR 22: “Bored of Canada”
SAFTWR 23: “Hearing Voices”
SAFTWR 24: “Peace and Friendship”
SAFTWR 25: “Too Much”
SAFTWR 26: “Endless Journeys”
SAFTWR 27: “The Legend of Curly’s Gold” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 28: “Nowhere to Go”
SAFTWR 29: “Entwined Memories”
SAFTWR 30: “Identifying With Static”
SAFTWR 31: “Running Without Meaning”
SAFTWR 32: “When it Gets Dark We’ll Go Home”
SAFTWR 33: “Escaping Torture”
SAFTWR 34: “Together We’ll Plan to Live Forever (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 35: “Crowned With Laurel in Oblivion”
SAFTWR 36: “Radio Free Caemlyn”
SAFTWR 37: “Randomly Encountered”
SAFTWR 38: “If This Were the End…”
SAFTWR 39: “Helpless”
SAFTWR 40: “Operating in Dreams” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 41: “I Used to Listen”
SAFTWR 42: “Anniversary of a Legend” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 57: “Untitled” (Debuted on Internet Archive)
SAFTWR 58: “A Time to Begin” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 59: “Whether the Weather” (Debuted on Internet Archive)
SAFTWR Mini-Episode 2: “Farewell to Trivia”
SAFTWR 60: “The Eternal Now” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 61: “Ghosts of Our Past” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 62: “Chaos is the Road to Wonder” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 63: “Traveling to Nowhere” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 64: “Strange You Never Knew” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 65: “I’m Counting on You” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 66: “Dancing Among the Waves” (Playlist and Notes)
TalkShoe Links (Probably Broken):
SAFTWR Mini-Episode:“Unfinished Thoughts”
SAFTWR 19: “Moments in Time”
SAFTWR 43: “Outside Again” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 44: “Imperfections of Man” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 45: “The Night is Alive” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 46: “Drifting Up” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 47: “Ongoing Weariness”
SAFTWR 48: “Through Broken Glass” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 49: “Love Without Sound”
SAFTWR 50: “Intro to a Mind”
SAFTWR 51: “I Have Something to Say”
SAFTWR 52: “A Silent Rain”
SAFTWR 53: “Collage Hassle” (Playlist and Notes)
SAFTWR 54: “Paradoxes in Content”
SAFTWR 55: “Forever Missing You”
SAFTWR 56: “Through Tears” (Playlist and Notes)
Update: The sound collage project now has a name. The series will be called “Super Awesome Fun Time With Rand”, a title suggested by @Dead_Pixels_ on Twitter.
Update 2: As of January 2018, TalkShoe has been pruning their servers of old files, cleaning out old call directories. This means that the site is no longer reliable for hosting podcasts and old stuff is being quickly lost. I’m migrating episodes over to the Internet Archive in an effort to preserve them. As part of this, I’m finally updating ID3 tags on the files, but Internet Archive doesn’t seem to take that metadata into consideration. Any new material I upload will debut on the Internet Archive and remain there exclusively.
Update 3: As of today, the first day of February 2018, all but one episode is available, between Internet Archive and TalkShoe. The only missing episode is Episode 19. I’ll keep searching my backup drive, because maybe it’s in some other folder somewhere. Technically, the first mini-episode (“Unfinished Thoughts”) remains missing, but it became the basis for the 18th episode. Thank you for your patience. I’ll continue uploading the rest of the catalog to the Internet Archive, mainly to have them all in one place, but also because TalkShoe has become an unreliable hosting site.
Also, thanks to RBCP of the Phone Losers for a mention on the latest episode of the Snow Plow Show. It was really neat to hear one of my favorite podcasters recognize my podcast.
