Earth And Steel Barry D. Truax

This soundscape composition takes the listener back to a time a century ago when large steel ships were built in enclosed slips, and rich metallic resonances rang out. These larger than life sounds reflected the sheer volume of the ships themselves that dwarfed those who were building them. However, just as the piece progresses and ends, these soundscapes now have become increasingly distant memories, only to be re-imagined in museums.

  • Year of composition: 2013
  • Genre: Soundscape
  • Format: Fixed media
  • Instrumentation: 8 digital soundtracks
  • Hardware used: Original recordings from the World Soundscape Project Tape Collection, recorded at a shipyard in Caraquet, New Brunswick in 1973.
  • Software used: Sound processing realized with Soundhack convolution and Chris Rolfe’s MacPod software, with spatialization created by Harmonic Functions’ TiMax2 matrix mixer, marketed by Outboard Inc (UK).
  • Duration of the submitted work: 11:00
  • Publisher: Cambridge Street Publishing
  • Premiere: 2013, Earth and Steel was premiered at the 2013 Acoustic Ecology Symposium at the University of Kent, Chatham, UK, on the grounds of the Royal Naval Dockyards
  • Disc publication: Earth and Steel is available on the Cambridge Street Records CD, The Elements and Beyond CSR-CD 1401

More works by Barry D. Truax