Harsh Noise Walls

2024-07-13

When I first got into noise in my early to mid-20's I could appreciate most of the things I heard. As I grew older my taste narrowed and things I wasn't a huge fan of before now became something I didn't bother to listen to.

One of those things were harsh noise walls, and especially since I became sober, I never got back into them. It is, after all, an incredibly aquired taste.

Lately, however, I have really enjoyed building such walls - digitally I must admit to any purist reading this. It's very satisfying building several noises that are a lot on their own and together they fight among their frequencies to be the one in charge.

I will usually start with a VCO running through a series of filters, sometimes the same filter several times but with different settings, after that it goes into the mixer and that is sent through one or two different reverbs, with various modulations, back into the mixer. If I'm feeling fancy I'll route it through an equalizer.

After that it really depends on my mood that specific session, but it's very rare that I finish a track/patch in just one session so how something started out isn't necessarily how it will sound in the end. A new chain of sounds may change the mood completely.

It's difficult to document the full process of making a wall, and it would probably not make for an interesting listen or watch. Especially since it can take quite some time to really find the right sounds.