Linear Obsessional is delighted to present a collection of minimalist slow motion "ambient" works by the Californian composer Paul H. Muller. Despite the similarity of approach on all the tracks, this collection demonstrates the variety that Paul achieves, from the almost Wagner like chords of "Water Receding" to the submerging choir of "Bathyscape". This edition comes with 6 PDF files of composer's notes and scores.

NOTES BY THE COMPOSER

How These Pieces Are Composed

I start out by notating several measures of close harmony using four to six separate voices and this produces a standard MIDI file. The MIDI file is sequenced with an instrument sample set – I typically use strings, voices and sometimes the alto saxophone. The sequencer
creates a .wav file that is then loaded into Paul's Extreme Audio Stretcher (not my invention!). The stretcher program sustains the pitch as notated but over very long durations – I typically expand the written piece by 12 to 20 X in the time domain. The stretcher provides various settings to control the resulting length, digital filtering and volume of the finished piece. I then write the stretched piece to a new .wav file that is processed in Audacity for normalizing gain and to add pads of silence at each end.

The process requires a fair amount of trial and error – it takes a bit of a knack to know how something will sound when stretched 20 times. Often the volume of each MIDI voice must be adjusted depending on its register to achieve a smooth mix. It is a bit like baking a cake – you have a good idea of what you want but it is sometimes difficult to shape all the steps
correctly!
(Paul H. Muller)