Disquiet Junto 0101 Analog Binary

This week the Disquiet Junto focused on the binary code aspect of the project number:

Record the audio of three objects in your home or workplace that have on/off switches. Capture the unique sound of them being turned on and off. For each of the switches, record several seconds of this on/off action so you can create loops of a steady pace. Then create an original piece of music that employs phase shifts — that is, in which the tiny distinctions between loops create noticeable patterning as time progresses. You can use some light processing, but the sense of "switch-ness" of the source audio should never be lost.

That last bit about "switch-ness" was a sticking point for me. Uusally I like to make sounds soupy so I can mangle them but the short transients of the switches pointed to a different approach.

It occurred to me that the switches would sound best if I recorded them with different microphones but time wasn't going to allow me to get too carried away. This weekend I had a couple of events, including the launch of Reimagining the Murrumbidgee. So I used my Nikon SLR with a Rode VideoMic to record the sounds with a view to editing together a video.

I cheated in using four switches across six tracks in Ableton Live. I recorded eight switches, mostly at work but a couple in my garage too. One in The Roxy theatre was mounted on metal, which gave a bigger resonance. Another was old and had a nice zing sound from a spring I think.

Once in Live the process was to find short interesting loops, where the transient didn't peak too much. I experimented with using Beatrepeat but switched (haha) to Audio Damage's Bigseq2 gating and filtering effect. A couple of busses were used, both with tape delay-syle effects. Loops were pitched, mostly down -- the bass part about two octaves.

South of the Grapevine

Doesn't really work for me. "This just makes Slayer sound that much more awesome" was my beloved's observation.

WHILE

Here's the first of two recordings I'm publishing on Bandcamp this week. These are 20 of my favourite Junto pieces, from the 36 completed in the first 100 Juntos. It's a mixed bag in terms of genres but it's had a good response from listeners.

Some electronic instrumentals and some rock and some made from things like boiling water, ice in a glass, a ticking wristwatch, an interstellar space recording by the Voyager satellite, handclaps, etc. Only one playground this time :)

Merry Christmas from Clan Analogue

Downloads have been merrily enabled on the Clan Analogue Soundcloud account for festive purposes

Cheb i Sabbah

Early this century, when I was buying lots of music on CD, I bought a few albums by Cheb i Sabbah.

His global approach to dance music seemed more 'authentic' and used more than just a few flute and tabla samples, incorporating ambience and field recordings to enrich the Indian and Northern African flavours.

To be honest, his material hasn't been heard on my stereo in recent years but I listen to less music now. However, I was saddened to learn of his passing via a Bassnectar email promoting the fundraising effort for his family above.

His music was an influence on me, particularly this track called Slumber on my first album, SHAKES. I remember listening to one of his tracks to calm down a bit and focus when Toby and I jammed on the material.

Disquiet Junto 100 Vapor Wave

This week is the 100th Disquiet Junto project:

The instruction for this project is simple: Please record the sound of water boiling and make something of it.

Background: This is the 100th weekly Disquiet Junto project. The milestone happened to fall on Thanksgiving in the United States. The simple instruction this week  is intended as an echo of the very first Disquiet Junto project (“Please record the sound of an ice cube rattling in a glass, and make something of it”).

My plastic kettle provided the boiling water, which was recorded using a Barcus Berry Planar Wave contact mic into a Zoom H4.

There were nice tones throughout the process of heating water but I restricted myself to the couple of seconds when the water was boiling. Missed that lovely rumble when the switch first went on.

Using Ableton Live I created four parts using two takes of a couple of seconds of boiling.

The first rotated through four loops pitched differently, which were gated using a couple of instances of Beat Repeat.

The second used Beat Repeat to create a percussive hit, hyped and massaged through various EQs and compression and then Beat Repeated again for variation every two bars.

The third was a bass loop, pitched down and reverbed before being Beat Repeated.

While the fourth was pitched up and followed a similar effects chain for the spray can-like noises.

This is my 36th Disquiet Junto I think. I've been revisiting the pieces recently with a view to compiling an album of the better tracks.

Reimagining the Murrumbidgee

Reimagining website is now up. So is the catalogue, which I desktop designed for Western Riverina Arts. Download a copy with my soundtrack via Bandcamp, see below.

This pic shows Sarah McEwan's artwork, which is really beautiful to behold.

The soundtrack for the exhibition is an ambient remixed landscape including birdsong, creaking branches and passing traffic.

"At one point you can hear a train crossing over the river near Wagga," Mr Richardson said. "I wanted to raise the idea of how far the water travels in produce exported from the Riverina.

"You can also hear the hum of Leeton's rice co-operative among the sounds of passing water. It was a challenge not to make a piece that would make people want to pass water."

Disquiet Junto video game music

My Junto piece this week took a bit of a leap from the instructions:

Disquiet Junto Project 0099: In the Key of X

This project investigates video game sound — not the sound of video games, but the sound of game consoles themselves. The newly released Xbox One has its own distinct startup melody of just three notes: first an E, then a G, then a D. The project this week is to imagine those notes being the core of an original piece of music: What if the theme of the Xbox One were a song, and a lo-fi one at that?

The project instruction is as follows: Record a piece of music with an 8-bit flavor. It should begin with a replication of that same three-note Xbox One pattern (E G D), repeated several times, and then veer off into whatever direction you desire. As the track goes along, feel free to add common video game sounds like explosions, karate chops, crowd noises, engines revving and so forth. Try to keep the whole thing under 90 seconds.

This morning I wasn't sure I'd get to the Junto. There's a CD I'm mastering and an article I'm trying to finish before an interview for another piece, as well as the catalogue mentioned last week. Anyway, when the opportunity presented itself to to work on a tune my instrument died. I'd planned to use my circuit bent omnichord but it seemed to short-circuit, which really sucks.

So I was kinda down and sulked for a bit before playing with the notes in Ableton Live. I picked a Phosphor preset that reminded me of what I'd heard of the X-Box. It didn't sound very 8-bit but I thought I'd use tape delay to reference the magnetic memory of the computer games of my youth.

Amon Tobin made a cool soundtrack for a video game and I was fascinated with how it manipulates the dynamics of the track to accomodate action (or the lack thereof) in a level setting. My track uses loops and automates the compression, channels, delay, EQ and tempo to create dynamics. It'd be cool if computers had delay artefacts in their noises I think.

Ended up enjoying myself and let the track run overtime. The tempo changes I imagined as processing problems in my hardware. Like how games would slow down when there was a lot of action onscreen.