THE STORM ORCHESTRA: A VIRTUAL INSTRUMENT BASED ON FIELD RECORDINGS OF WAVES AND BOULDER MOTIONS

The Storm Orchestra (TSO) is a library of virtual instruments that allows users to manipulate wave and clast-collision sounds to “play” a coastal storm and create evocative compositions, allowing people to engage with wave physics and boulder beach geomorphology via digital music.

During summer 2022, we recorded waves breaking and clasts in motion under uprush and backwash on boulder beaches and rocky coastlines in western Ireland, simulating higher energy clast interactions by rolling and throwing cobbles and boulders. Digital sound design then permits us to imagine and render the sonic impact of extreme storm waves and their interactions with boulder beaches by recreating their dynamics from these recordings of lower-energy situations. After processing the audio with effects such as EQ, compression, and saturation, to intensify the wave sounds and add to their musicality, we compiled the recordings with sampling engines Kontakt 6 and EXS24, generating TSO’s virtual instruments.

The library allows users to recreate the experience of a stormy coast by layering wave samples (varying wavelengths and breaking intensity as wished) and sounds of boulders in transport. TSO also includes tonalized instruments that amplify specific resonances in the wave recordings, as well as percussive instrument samples to supplement the sound design, allowing users to creatively engage with the sounds and geoscience of high-energy coastlines.

A suite of companion compositions using TSO illustrates how sound design can evoke or recreate different sea states and coast-wave dynamics. A completed piece called “The Restless Calm,” for example, uses digital orchestration (mixing woodwinds with TSO synths) to conjure the idea of wind pulling the waves into motion in a building storm. Harmonic and rhythmic devices (such as unusual time signatures) are also used to convey the simultaneously inevitable and unpredictable nature of waves.

Eventually, the complete musical suite will provide listeners with a visceral sense of the power of ocean waves and—bundled with educational material about coastal geomorphology and wave energy—an understanding of high-energy coastal processes. EXS24 instruments can be downloaded and played by anyone with the free program Garageband, making this an accessible product that we hope to distribute widely.