I put this piece together as an exercise in using binaural recording to supplement and immersive-style podcast. So, I took a pair of binaural microphones into Rock Creek Park with some GoPro mic windsocks I had and a wool beanie. In retrospect, my description of a "particularly" windy day might have been underselling it. In fact, I recorded the sound of a huge branch crashing onto the snowy ground just feet away from me. Unfortunately, I didn't own any 32-bit-float recorders at the time, and my gain was set too high, so the audio was clipped.
After getting back, I selected the best recordings from the walk and wrote up a short script based on the park's Wikipedia page. I knew I wanted to try and sell the effect of the listener being transported from the park to the doorstep of a D.C. rowhome, and that I wanted to incorporate some music from a modular synth patch I had put together a few days prior.
I brought everything into Reaper and automated parameters in the patch to score the piece. While I couldn't use the sound of the branch falling next to me in the piece, it did inspire me to include a moment where I reference the age-old adage "If a tree falls and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" For that effect, I layered recordings of wind, snapping branches, a bodyfall, and some ice I recorded sliding past me along the frozen hilltop. I also accented this moment mostly by opening a VCF in my patch that let a number of notes flourish as the tree falls.
This exercise was really fun and the basis for a podcast I'm currently working on.
