HaM Radio Ensemble was a collaboration of me (M, aka Senshent) and my musical collaborator Jeff H. I think HaM started around 2001. We used acoustic drums, an SPD, MPD, a cd turntable, and a whole host of samples and instruments and noise makers of all sorts, many that we made and played ourselves. At that time I used Cakewalk to do the recording, mixing, and mastering. Jeff used other programs as well, FruityLoops (now FL Studio) and Audacity as I recall. Somewhere I have folder full of samples of all sorts of weirdness from pots, pans, and kitchen utensils, to skateboards, to a trumpet we struggled to get a clean note out of and more.
There are many live takes in these tracks, lots of live drums, some remixing and moving of those live takes, some almost pure DAW slicing and dicing of fun.
All of HRE’s music is currently only at SoundCloud and embedded below.
Lessons Learned
Ham Radio Ensemble is one of the reasons I share almost all the music I make under the CT Noise moniker, no matter how bad it might really be, or how little I might like it. Well, I do have some standards, but they are relatively low now. Besides, I am amazed at the noise I hear in the world, and that some people like some things that I can’t really deal with, but I no longer scratch my head as to why someone would like xyz.
The primary reason I share almost everything rather than delete them or just store them like dirty laundry piled on a skeleton in a closet, is that at one time Jeff had a few tracks that I REALLY liked, but he deleted them all. HRE could have had a fourth release, maybe, or more tracks on vol2, but he didn’t like them. It was his creation, so OK, I get it, but I was sad they were gone. In addition, I made “Someone Out There” for HRE, as in “someone out there might like this,” but I don’t. Turns out I met someone that loves that track, so ya never know. Art is in the ear of the beholder?
FREE-D vol.I Spoken
1/2002. Our first creation, mostly HaM music with spoken word tracks in the vein of toasting by many different voices, the Ensemble part of H and M.
The suffix after the song name tells who, h and/or m, created or mixed or remixed the track etc.
The original cover art intentions. I think I have it somewhere, there is only of these, though as you can see we had ambitions to send them off to be duplicated.
FREE-D vol.I Dubs
12/2003. If I recall correctly there were no plans for a physical release, we had no money, and were happy to just make noise and record at our leisure, though there was some plotting and scheming on how to get it off the ground and out to a show. The SoundCloud image is from an iron-ore roaster in Sterling Forest, NY.
Jeff H below noodling around during tracking in a beloved Santa Ana studio:
FREE-D vol.II
12/2004. I don’t think we had any art or cover for this release either. I shot the SoundCloud (and website header) image in Sterling Forest, NY. All of these releases happened around December each year because that was the only time I had enough downtime to collect and mix what we had been doing during the year in question.
The releases were called FREE-D because they were “free discs,” we never charged for the music or planned to, nor had many takers at the time. Many years after the fact I like to think that Free-D is also represented by or simpatico to this freed.