ryan rapsys :: composer, producer, musician, filmmaker

Click on the link below to purchase Antiquichrome on Amazon.com as an mp3 album (immediate download). If you’re a fan of Steve Roach, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Biosphere, LaMonte Young, etc…definately check this out: Antiquichrome

Here is the link the story I was featured in on On The Road with Jason Davis: Harbor Sounds. You can view the entire video story at that link. I certainly was happy it turned out how it did…it’s a unique topic to cover with video.

And here is an older, related radio story about some of the same things I have been experimenting with (on Minnesota Public Radio - text and streaming audio): Dancing to the sounds of the Duluth harbor

And since I’m putting links to horrible interviews of myself, here’s another one where I talk about some of my compositional techniques: YouTube: Interview - Craig Blacklock and Ryan Rapsys on PBS-WDSE

If you enjoyed these stories and the music you heard, you may enjoy this album I recently released (available digitally and on CD):

 
Antiquichrome || Ryan Rapsys
Deep explorations into microsound electronic ambience.
Free-form glitches, bleeps and distortions for the open-minded listener.

And number 5 for the May of the series of Sonic Scultpure, 2008 (okay, I cheated a little and did three today…):

2008: 53 Sonic Sculptures - 22. May V [1 min 50 sec, 1.68mb mp3]

For this sculpture, I improvised on my keyboard with a simple piano patch, recording the audio material. I added a delay, reverb, and I EQed the piano material to give it a certain quality, also cloning the track and transposing it up (the higher frequency qualities of the piano tones). This was done in Sonar Producer. When the piano material hits the low frequencies, I enhanced them and added reverb, and then sneaked in some synth bass material that continues on. I also slowed the tempo gradually toward the end, occasionally sitting at near 0 tempo to stretch some of the sounds.

The-Novus-Arcadia || Ryan Rapsys
“Overall, [The-Novus-Arcadia's] an immensely enjoyable experience,
and it could well become a piece of electronic art that may
be a required listen in the near future.”
Muse’s Muse, 7/31/2007

The fourth Sonic Scultpure of the Month of May, 2008:

2008: 53 Sonic Sculptures - 21. May IV [1 min 19 sec, 1.21mb mp3]

This one just spilled out of me rather quickly. I took a sort of hip-hop loop and wah-wahed it, synchronized to the tempo. Next I added a bit of reverb to it in order to give the bass swoosh a little extra staying time (and create a unique low-end sound). This was mostly done in Sonar Producer.

Next I created a sort of bell texture with a MIDI glockenspiel sound, which I then mixed down to audio and gradually changed its EQ properties. This texture gradually moves up to the higher frequencies, where the piece ends.

Thoughts?

Sonic Scultpure number 3 of the Month of May, 2008:

2008: 53 Sonic Sculptures - 20. May III [1 min 9 sec, 1.06mb mp3]

For this sculpture, I began with a little loop created out of the first Sonic Sculpture (I reversed it then sped it up to a couple seconds long). I looped this in Sonar Producer, adding a reversed hip-hop loop of a sort, as well as an odd ambient synth loop. I worked with these loops, shifting between layers, occasionally shifting their pitch, etc. Thus, the creation of this sculpture, which is one of the first with a more distinct drum-loop quality (must be the coming summer…).

Here is the schedule for the episode of “On The Road” with Jason Davis that includes a segment on some of my experimental music making:

Sunday, May 18th @ 10:35pm - KSTP Channel 5 (Minneaplis/St. Paul)
Saturday, May 24th @ 10:30pm - WDIO Channel 10 (Duluth)

More information: Coming Up Sunday: Duluth Harbor

Here is what I had written earlier about my part in this episode:

The show is centered on the Duluth harbor, and my segment focuses on my recording of sounds in Canal Park and then modifying and composing music with those sounds… I was video-taped and interviewed while playing with some sounds in my studio. The resulting music I used for one of my Sonic Sculptures:

2008: 53 Sonic Sculptures - 10 - March III

Check it out if you can…and of course, feel free to let me know what you think! Thanks!

Also, if you enjoyed the story or enjoy some of this kind of music, you may be interested in this:

Antiquichrome || Ryan Rapsys
Deep explorations into microsound electronic ambience.
Free-form glitches, bleeps and distortions for the open-minded listener.

The-Novus-Arcadia || Ryan Rapsys
“Overall, [The-Novus-Arcadia's] an immensely enjoyable experience,
and it could well become a piece of electronic art that may
be a required listen in the near future.”
Muse’s Muse, 7/31/2007

Here’s the final Sonic Scultpure of April, 2008:

2008: 53 Sonic Sculptures - 19. May II [1 min 10 sec, 1.07mb mp3]

I decided to really try and capture this exact moment. About forty-five minutes ago, I set my mini-disc recorder on my windowsill, opened the window, and hit record. I recorded about 6 minutes of the sounds going on outside.

Using Adobe Audition, I broke the segment of audio I had recorded into 5 sections of about one minute and ten seconds long, and layered them one atop another. Next, I did what many purest musicians and music fans would normally be appalled by - I compressed it considerably (using mostly Hard Limiting in Audition).

With a very dense sounding texture of hissy wind and birds chirping, I began sculpting. Next I EQed the sound several times to thin it slightly. Then I proceed to use various Noise Reduction techniques to further thin out the sound, leaving behind only the most interesting of the sounds (mostly the bird chirping). By this point, however, through this process of scultping, the bird chirps of course became a bit distorted and such, but that is the idea of sculpting sound. To finish it off, I reversed the sample, then added a fade in and fade out at the beginning and end.

Here’s the first Sonic Scultpure of May, 2008:

2008: 53 Sonic Sculptures - 18. May I [1 min 58 sec, 1.80mb mp3]

This was done in Adobe Audition by mainly introducing more and more layers of the source material (in this case, some recordings of an accordian). The idea here was gradual transformation of the various sonic qualities of this source material. By layering it through various echo effects that make each successive echo have a different quality, this gradual changing of the sonic qualities of the source material is achieved. Of course, I decided to add some pitch bending toward the end for further conclusive metamorphosis.

I will be appearing on a segment of the show “On The Road” with Jason Davis. It airs on KSTP in Minneapolis, MN and WDIO in Duluth, MN. Here’s some details about the show: KSTP: On The Road

The show is centered on the Duluth harbor, and my segment focuses on my recording of sounds in Canal Park and then modifying and composing music with those sounds… I was video-taped and interviewed while playing with some sounds in my studio. The resulting music I used for one of my Sonic Sculptures:

2008: 53 Sonic Sculptures - 10 - March III

It will air on May 18th on KSTP and on May 24th on WDIO in Duluth. Should be interesting…