Deconstructing the Boards of Canada (BoC) Sound and Music

Boards of Canada is a personal favorite band of mine and I have studied their music with the aim of learning how they achieved their distinctive sound.

Here are what I think I have learned so far (I will continue to add to this page as I learn more).

Last updated: 30-April-2022.

Field Recording

I like recording ambient sounds of nature, locations, equipment, and other assorted noises. When I play my recordings back, I want them to sound exactly like when I was there. Here is my technique, equipment, and settings I use.

Last updated: 22-February-2022

A Study of Ambient Drone Music

I like ambient drone music and would like to expand my expertise in making such music, so I’ve begun a study of some of what I consider the best ambient drone-type of music. This will be an ongoing collecting of information and you are welcome to check back when it has been updated.

Last updated: 22-February-2022

How to Replicate Biosphere’s Shenzhou Track Using Loops and a Few Effects

I like Biosphere’s (Geir Jenssen’s) music very much and one of my favorite albums is Shenzhou. The album is made up of repeated looping of Debussy orchestral track samples. The title song is particularly interesting to me as I like the depth and width of the sound. I was able to figure out how to remake it and I’d like to show you how I did that.

Replicating Background Noise – Susumu Yokota’s, Saku

It may seem strange to want background noise in a recording, but it gives it a certain realism as opposed to the cleanliness of a digitally-mastered DAW creation. I like the sound I hear in the background of Susumu Yokota’s Saku from his Sakura album, so I was able to replicate it using common pink noise and equalization. Here’s how:

Equalizing Field Recordings

Equalization can be of benefit in the post-processing of most field recordings. Here are some of my commonly-used equalization schemes and reasoning. I will update this periodically as I make changes to my workflow or learn new methods.

Last updated: 19-August-2021

On Musical Loops

Making music with loops is not a new process. However, after thinking about it, I was surprised at how many different ways there are to loop samples to make music. I’ll add to this as I discover more, but the list is long right now.

Last updated: 26-December-2020

TAL Sampler Presets with a Boards of Canada Sound – Free Presets

I have been building presets for TAL Sampler for awhile and thought I would share some of them that I particularly like. These have a sound that reminds me of Boards of Canada. I even named a few with telling names based on Boards of Canada tracks and titles.

They are free for you to use in your commercial works. Yes. Free. (Not that you would, but please don’t resell them or anything crazy like that.) You can download them in one Zip file (see below).

How to Make Convincing Disintegrating Tape Loops in a DAW (no tape)

For the aspiring tape loopers out there, I’m sure I speak for us all when I say that we’d all like to have the time to play around with splicing tape into loops and recording through a four-track. But when this is not possible, here’s an easy alternative right in your DAW.

Looping in FL Studio

Loop recording in FL Studio is one thing I would like to master because it means I can potentially create Eno-style tape loops. In the following months, I will be adding to this post with whatever I can find that can enable me to get some good loops going.

I have put my method for getting perfectly seamless loops from Edison and FL Studio in here also. I divide this post into my research first and then my practice section after where I have tried various things.

Updated: 21-September-2020

Pianobook

Pianobook is a site self-described as “Curated by one of the founders of SPITFIRE AUDIO pianobook is a collective sample project that aims to bring together a community of likeminded music makers to talk about their stories through the pianos they use, admire and are inspired by.”

Spitfire Audio’s Gwylim Simcock Felt Piano Microphones

There’s not a manual with the Gwylim Simcock Felt Piano by Spitfire Audio, so here are my notes about the microphones used to record this wonderful piano. This piano is excellent and I highly recommend it.

Microphones recorded the sound with Neve pre-amps and Cranesong AD converters at 96k. In the interface, the microphones can be involved more or less by sliders with letters beneath them. Here are what those letters mean:

Synth VST Plugins That Sound Like Boards of Canada

Here below is a selection of synth plugins that I have found have that nostalgic, lo-fi, vintage sound epitomized by Boards of Canada and others.

Last updated: 8-February-2022.

Fracture Sounds Woodchester Piano Presets (Kontakt Snapshots only)

Fracture Sounds makes an outstanding Kontakt instrument called Woodchester Piano for NI Kontakt.

Listen to it here:

These below are presets, or as Kontakt calls them, “snapshots” that are various settings of the Kontakt instrument. These are NKSN (.nksn) files that need to be placed in your Kontakt snapshots folder for the Woodchester piano.

You must own the full version of Native Instruments Kontakt and also must own the Fracture Sounds Woodchester Piano Kontakt library/instrument in order to use these Kontakt Snapshots.

I have used many piano vst plugin instruments and have a page dedicated to that: Getting Authentic Piano Sound in a VST Plugin and DAW

Processing Field Recordings Using Absentia DX and Izotope RX

Absentia DX can be a valuable asset in the cleaning and processing of field recordings. I use it with Izotope RX software to enhance the results.

Last updated: 30-July-2021

Book Recommendation: Composing Electronic Music

Composing Electronic Music is a book that has proven invaluable in my equalization settings in my electronic music creations. I would highly recommend it!

[click here for a link to it]