Blog Menu

All

Interviews

KSP Scripts

Music Production

News

Tutorial

PLAY THE SOUND OF THE NORTH POLE – BBC’S CHRIS WATSON MAKES ‘VIRTUAL INSTRUMENT’

Acclaimed nature & wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson is behind an amazing ‘virtual’ musical instrument – a piece of software that allows the user to play music created with sounds from the North Pole, the Kalahari Desert, Venezuelan swamps and more.

The ‘virtual musical instrument’ – known as Geosonics – was developed with London sound-software company Soniccouture. They first contacted Watson – known for his BAFTA award winning work on BBC’s Frozen Planet and Springwatch – in 2011, after hearing some of Chris’ recordings made using huge expanses of wire in remote parts of Australia.

James from Soniccouture says : ‘We were privileged to work with Chris because we wanted to create sounds with a very real, natural dimension to them. With Chris we had access to sounds that you literally can’t get anywhere else – he has crawled inside glaciers and fried himself in the desert for these recordings!’

VIDEO

A Short Video Of Geosonics can be seen on Youtube :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mMBOjRTTnoE

Chris Watson talks about the recordings used in Geosonics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1jvq6Y1tT3A http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=guSu1DLC8Cw http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rrtb-N7lb5g http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aEfATLuYpfw

As part of our upcoming Geosonics release, I spoke to Chris Watson over skype to find out some background to the many field recordings featured in the product. What unfurled was a fascinating discussion, adding more colour and depth to the recordings than I could have imagined. Tales of glaciers, baked river beds in the Kalahari, Volcanos in Iceland and of course, the very sound of the North Pole.

The Swamp Interview:

The Ice & Water Interview:

The Wires Interview:

The Wind Interview :

Since that time we have never stopped working with KSP, of course – all our instruments rely heavily on scripts to give them their function as well as their character. Aside from the instrument specific scripts used for our products, there is also Dan’s private collection of ideas & experiments – the ‘inner sanctum’ of the Scriptorium.

We had planned, at some point, to make Scriptorium II – but in all honesty Soniccouture’s production and release schedule is busy enough, and it never seems to be the right time.

So, starting next week, we will release a new script from the inner sanctum every few weeks via this blog. For free. We want to stimulate your inner sound designer; to encourage discussion and experimentation – every Scriptorium post will be an open forum for further suggestions, tips and ideas, which Dan will respond to when he can.

Additionally, to further fuel your sound design urges, we will be permanently dropping the price of the original Scriptorium product to just €29 / $39.

The first instalment from the inner sanctum will follow shortly.