the rather massive gamble in terms of how the lovely church of Trinity Apse would add to my sounds for gormenghast paid off. incredibly, in fact. it was amazing to hear simple stereo panning of birds’ wings become actual birds moving up towards the roof in the space, thanks to the tilted speakers. at least, there were a few times i thought i could see them (sleep deprivation obviously). i managed to tape up some nice microphones onto the lighting truss for the last two performances, and i’m hoping to assemble a proper live bootlegged version of the show between them. the reverb of the space was incredible, it coated everything in a thick chocolate-y darkness and even muffled the actors at points. here’s how the scary-as-hell death owls sounded in the space on the friday night, 25th november. there are three triggered sounds for this: the slop/chewing sound of sepulchrave eating swelter (with some drone going on underneath this time, i was feeling reckless i suppose), then an owl scream, and then the main death owls flock. for that, i pulled together 15-20 tracks of birds flying/calling/flapping/screaming and auto-panned them towards a point and around to make a squall, but i swear there are sounds in there that don’t exist on the dry track. they must have been added by the church. unless the audience were crying out in fear… for maximum effect, i suggest you close your eyes. then you definitely will see them.
listening to spaces
Advertisement
