Haptic Audio royalty free audio content for sound professionals who like strange noises

Maybe one of the most important trend for the community of Sound this year is the phenomenon of the distribution of high quality audio contents via the Internet. We came to a new stage of evolution, starting from the well-known platforms SoundCloud and SoundSnap and going to projects like Tim Preeble’s HISS and a ROAR, Frank Bry’s The recordist, Chuck Russom FX and others (for a great list read: Independent SFX Libraries by Designing Sound).

Today we introduce Haptic Audio, a new project dedicated to provide royalty-free audio samples, kits, and instruments in (multi-format) 24 bit audio, founded by Jeremy Goldstein and Patrick Campbell, two sound designers and traditional musicians who decided to release their creative output using the web as the preferred platform of distribution.

We interviewed Jeremy and Patrick to know something more about this new project (you can watch the amazing video excerpt below), which recently created its SoundCloud channel and released the brand new Haptic04 libray on the Twisted Tools platform.

Gianpaolo: Hi Jeremy & Patrick, can you introduce yourself?

Jeremy: Sure! Independently, We’ve both been heavily involved in music and sound since the early 90’s. We both initially came from (somewhat) traditional backgrounds; playing guitar, bass, drums, etc and by the mid 90’s we both got into electronic music, djing, and production. We were both influenced by the more experimental forms of electronic music at the time like FSOL, The Orb, early Warp releases, as well as some breakbeat and drum and bass of the time.

Since ’98 or so we’ve both been writing and releasing our own music, working in recording studios, and doing production-for-hire type work.

I’ve been releasing (primarily electronic) music as EVAC since early 2001, around which time I started to take on a substantial amount of commercial music/sound work for TV, web, and multimedia projects. I founded Quadrant 5 Studios, which is my personal outlet for music, licensing, sound design, and production stuff in 2001, basically as company umbrella to release work under. As Quadrant 5 Studios I’ve produced music and sound design for companies like Motorola, Diesel, GM, Time Warner, Adidas, Universal Music Group, and most recently a sample library titled EVAC: Source which was just released by Mutekki Media.

Patrick: I’ve also been releasing music under a few monikers over the past decade, most notably as Rift. The intent of that music was heavily based around a blend of all formats of 4/4 music, but with influence from broken beats as well. My primary music output now is with my close friend Damon Fonooni (Habersham) as Komposit, which focuses on many different styles of electronic music from dubstep to folk. Aside from music production, we’ve done some sample libraries for Resonant Vibes re:produce series as well as work for independent film and sound logo/multimedia work for web.

I’ve also owned and ran my own label for a short time which was called Vellum Recordings releasing my own music along with remixes from artists I respect, like Touane and Mikael Stavostrand. Last year marked a major shift in my creative drive though. I put the label on hiatus and I have really just been focusing on pushing myself to do some pretty experimental sound design, and get back to being a studio geek and explore lots of new production and sound design techniques. Jeremy happened to live pretty close to me, so once we met each other it seemed only natural that we start mucking around with machinery together and see what kind of results we get. . .

(G) Could you explain what Haptic Audio is and why you created it?

(J) Our primary intent with the project is to provide royalty-free audio samples, kits, and instruments in (multi-format) 24bit audio, under a Creative Commons Sampling-Plus 1.0 license.

While we are also working on traditional music releases under the artist name Haptics, Haptic Audio will serve primarily as a platform for us to release both free and premium audio sample-content, limited-edition data & music releases, and other things designed to impregnate your ears and eyes.

The concept for the project came about after a few sessions and studio get-togethers spent sharing and creating sounds. We quickly realized that we both have a very similar approach and appreciation for music and sound. Things clicked and we decided to run with it.

Having amassed such a vast amount of source material from our own personal & commercial projects over the years, we decided to work toward a periodic purging of free content, taken from collaborative sound design sessions, as well as our individual audio archives.

Haptic Audio serves as a platform for us to share these sounds and ideas, give something back, and continue to develop our craft as both artists and sound designers.

(G) What are your inspiration and influence in the field of Sound?

(P) I have always been inspired by the nuances in sound. I enjoy listening to musical compositions and discovering new things that grab my attention each time I listen. Little bits of brilliance that are tucked away in the mix. Its the same thing when we record real world sounds, and put on our headphones and crank the volume to hear all the little things happening. As Jeremy would say “amplify life”. These above all are the things that truly “inspire” me to compose or design.

I will spend more time on discovering and grooming the subtleties of parts that I create for a track, than I will on the main parts. More often then not, I will write a part only to trash it at the end, but walk away with something I made from the room noise or artifacts from the recording. These are the things you can’t sit down and methodically create.

Aside from that, I am really just inspired by people and sound that is really pushing the envelope of what we do. Doesn’t have to be someone who’s playing with the newest toys or the latest techniques. But more so people who are really DIY and crazy like us, and just go out and have the attitude of “what can I destroy today”, or “what is the most ridiculous thing I could capture on ‘tape’ today”. You really can’t be too reserved with your ideas with this stuff, if you ever expect to make unique sound. Sure, you can mangle things with plugins and fx. But to have something that you recorded that really sounds like nothing else that you have on your hard drive, without much post processing. . .that speaks much louder to me than the latter.

(J) Such a big question, but Pat and I really see eye to eye on the inspirational side of things.

I’m wholeheartedly inspired by those willing to really push things out there and delve into the subtleties and experimentation to create/capture their intent. The textures, ambiences, and micro-sounds in music are often things that I really gravitate towards, and as a result I tend to focus on these types of sounds and details in my own music as well as on the sound design front.

We are both (attempting to be) very self-referential within our music/sound and tend to use audio taken almost exclusively from our own lives, experiences, and recordings. Whether it’s recording door slams and impacts of water bottles against the walls of a parking garage to create a snare drum, or the sounds of plunging a clogged sink, all of these sounds have value and a unique character for us. Listening to our music/sound takes on a much different meaning when you have memory and perspective attached to all of the sounds and that level of involvement is important to us.

In step with that, I can pretty safely say that The Books are a major inspiration for us. Over the years their work has been increasingly affecting and something that I consider to be indescribably special in the world of music/sound.

With regard to more traditional/classic sound designers, I’d have to point to heroes like Ben Burtt and Frank Serafine, who have been shaping this industry for about as long as I’ve been alive. Who am I to deny lightsabers and light-cycles?

Lastly, we’d both really like to thank you for taking interest in our work and helping to spread the word. We’re massive fans of the site and it’s very cool for us to be able to contribute to such a great resource.

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Gianpaolo D'Amico

Editor-in-chief at sounDesign

Gianpaolo D'Amico is an independent creative technologist for digital media. He is the founder of sounDesign and a music obsessed since he was 0 years old.

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