Stereo SD Sketch

Lost Near Some Sheep

For my first sound sketch I knew I wanted to create a sensation of being lost. I thought of building a labyrinth—trying to figure out how to orient and disorient the listener in stages, but I ultimately chose a more straightforward interpretation for this first short attempt.

Samples

I got a sample for footsteps on gravel, and one for kicking gravel—and while looking for those found a weird-sounding clip of a farmful of sheep, which I decided I needed to use. I was aiming for a fairly sparse soundscape but in order to incorporate the effects, I ramped up delay, reverb, and distortion on the sheep noises to sell a kind of dizzy discomfort. There’s also a recording of a mourning dove in there.

Original Sounds

The drone that comes in underneath the rest of the mix is an original recording from my synthesizer, and the breathing noises are me breathing into my hands and pretending to try to warm them up. I think putting the drone in—especially something with so little movement—intensifies a feeling of foreboding.