bradabels
The first one, bradabel1, was a fairly straightforward one to do. I finished it shortly after I taught the classes in November. It used mainly 'stock' Ableton sounds, but I discovered that a really slow tempo setting, with concomitant time-stretching, helped to undermine the 'beat-orientedness' that Abelton is so good at doing.
The other three came from imbedding Max/MSP audio patches in Abelton using the Max for Live capability of Abelton. I have always loved the sound of the 'piano resonance', or the part of a piano note after the initial strike of the hammer on the strings has happened. I wrote a little Max patch that automates the fade-in after a note-attack and ran the output through a number of delays (several also built using Max for Live). bradabel2 is the direct result of that fun.
I enjoyed the Abelton delays I created so much that I did some goofy Brad monk-imitations. The choir-like results can be heard in bradabel-gates and bradabel4. bradabel3 (not listed here) was the voice part by itself, but I don't really like it as a "standalone" piece. It works really nicely with the piano-delay in bradabel4, I think.
The abrupt transitions in bradabel-gates are an attempt to capture the "inside/outside" transitions that occur when I go outdoors, especially this time of year. I talk about this briefly in my blog, here.