Fireworks 2007:

Run length: 26 seconds

Summary: A music video combining "sidewalk fireworks" (the kind you light yourself and set on the sidewalk) with some fast-paced synth/percussion music. The music features a synth instrument that sounds like a weird human voice.

Comments: The fireworks footage (appropriately enough) was filmed 7/4/2007 (Independence Day).

The instrument that sounds like the weird human voice was something that I encountered while trying out various random settings with the DreamStation synth, by Audio Simulation. It's very easy to generate random synth settings in DreamStation - You just hold down your keyboard's shift key and click on the CLR button on their interface. You can get a wide variety of sounds that way. Sometimes the sounds are pretty useless, but lots of times you'll get something interesting. Of course, you can always tweak the settings manually if you get a sound that shows promise but needs a little adjustment. If you get a sound you like, you can save it for later recall on the drop-down list of sounds and/or as a standalone file that you can load in as needed.

Anyway, some time ago using the technique described, I had saved a preset which sounded to me like a drunken chipmonk (so I saved it with the preset name "DrunkenChipmonk"). A few minor adjustments to that preset produced the sound in the video. It's kind of a strange sound. Some people will undoubtedly hate it; others may like it - I think it goes well as a counterpoint to the fast tempo of the percussion in the video.