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6.30 pm – The floodgates open on a Hamburg boat tour

14-2You can’t really be a tourist in Hamburg without taking a boat trip. EVERYONE takes a boat trip. And to be honest, it’s the best way to see what’s most known and loved about the city – its harbour, its maritime history. I love boats, love harbours, love all things nautical as a general rule (I’ve no idea why – I’m from a distinctly landlocked part of England), so to spend time in this mighty harbour was nothing but a pleasure for me, and this boat tour, narrated by a genial captain in perfect English, was a nice experience. Here we pass through a flood gate after travelling through the main container port – listen as the reverb dramatically increases when we’re inside the huge floodgate, then disappears again as the floodgate opens and we leave.

Mimetik is a Hamburg native, who told us that he chose this sound “simply because I love Hamburg’s harbor: the industrial vibe that it emanates, especially during the latest hours of the night, makes it a very special place for me.

“I tried then to sonically reproduce the feel of a trip amidst a steel and iron landscape, but with an oniric dimension to it.

“The sound sample was used to produce various textures via different synthesis techniques, granular in particular, which have been complemented with digitally synthetised sounds. Different softwares and analog instruments were used, in particular Ableton Live, Reaktor, and SuperCollider.”

City version:

 

Memory version: