Heidelberg Automatic Platen, Norwich printing museum

The source recording was made in January 2015 at the John Jarrold Printing Museum in Norwich. It’s an old printing machine that was used on this site a number of years before. The machine is called The “Heidelberg” Automatic Platen.

Using Ableton Live 9 I extracted a ‘drum’ sample from the short recording and applied various vowel sounds using the Soundiron Olympus Elements Pack along with an Acoustic Plastic Bass track.

The first movement includes the original field recording before it gives way to a fairly random mix of vowel tracks and bass started at different times.

Final they all come together and are joined by the sound of the machine being switched off.

By Richard Fair. Part of our Dada Sound project (February 2016) - see more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/dadasounds