Carma car sharing invited me to San Francisco, and offered me a unique challenge: to sample the sounds of San Francisco traffic and turn them into something beautiful. I recorded everything from cars honking, trucks running, garbage trucks, cross walk sounds, street musicians and sirens. I took these samples and altered them using different plugins and production methods, to create drums, synths and other musical sounds. I started with the drums – primarily using the sounds of car doors slamming, repitched to create kicks, snares and hats. From there, I took the sounds of a truck engine and put it into a sampler with some effects, creating a synth that could be used to create the backing melody. I was very lucky to record an incredible musician in China Town playing the Erhu, a Chinese string instrument. I used this as my lead. The strings were created from different tones recorded from cars and trucks as well. The full result is on my soundcloud page, and is a piece that I am exceptionally proud of. After the campaign ran and millions of people viewed the video, Carma took it down – so I wanted to share it again. Here is the video, and the full song.
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