Disquiet Junto Tosca accoster



The Disquiet Junto this week takes the regular Soundcloud picnic to a whole new level. Read the Disquiet site description for details of the piano overlay exercise, the 65th Junto project.

I've been involved in more than a dozen projects now and there were a few others that I misinterpreted that were interesting experiences for me too.

When I first listened to Jared Brickman's piece I was reminded of Tosca, the Austrian downtempo electronica duo of Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber. Particularly the disc of piano recordings that came with their Delihi9 album, I think.

Since I spent Good Friday afternoon playing bass and kick drum, I was feeling kinda groovy by the time I'd put my kids to bed and started working on my composition.

After a little bit of time jamming along with Jared, I settled on the two bass parts and looped them to accompany a drum beat straight out of the Audio Damage Tattoo presets.

Then I experimented with effects and EQ to shape the piano and bass and make space for each, before creating another percussion part.

Then more experimenting with effects, like amp simulators and modulators, to keep it interesting and moving along. I'm not sure what the sound is that comes in around the two-minute mark, the growling drone in the mids that starts to hum like reverb feedback or something but I really like it. Reminds me of 'the wires'.

Anyway, when I returned to my project on Saturday morning I was very happy with it and got to work on the final export. I'd been working with headphones last night so it was good to hear it on my monitor speakers and add some polish with my UAD effects.

The phasing on the percussion in the section where the piano is gated and delayed gives me a good feeling but overall I'm super happy with my contribution and reckon I got a good Dorfmeister-style dub bassline going on.

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Re-Endtroducing



This is a great homage and a great way to revisit a classic modern album, DJ Shadow's Endtroducing. Read about it here.

50 Shades of Decay



Got one of my new tracks using circuit bent instruments on this compilation from US-based netlabel Waxen Wings.

The opening tracks are OTT but there are a number of good tunes on this album and I like that's there's another Diabolical Device, which is the name of the mods on the Casio I used too.
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Beyond circuit bending

super mario spacetime organ (illucia & soundplane) from paperkettle on Vimeo.

Disquiet Junto School bus Friday pm



Disquiet Junto Project 0064: Composing from Memory

This week’s project's theme is composing from memory. It is recommended that you read through all the steps in the project before proceeding to attempt to execute it.

These are the steps:

Step 1: Find a place, preferably outdoors, where you can sit for five to fifteen minutes without being disturbed. This place should have a fair amount of inherent noise to it, and that noise should be variable, not static — i.e., not the long held drone of an overwhelmingly loud HVAC system, but the bustle of a street corner, or of a playground, or, if weather or other circumstances keep you indoors, perhaps of a busy cafe.

Step 2: Bring with you a portable recording device as well as something on which you can quietly take a small number of written (or typed) notes. You may wish to do a test recording to be certain that your note-taking isn't part of the audio recording.

Step 3: Settle into the space and get a sense of its sounds. Listening closely.

Step 4: Make a field recording of one full minute, or a little longer, of continuous sound in this place. While recording the sound, use time codes to make note of any memorable sonic instances.

Step 5: Trim the field recording to exactly 60 seconds.

Step 6: Without listening back to the field recording, compose and record a 60-second piece intended to complement it. Refer back to your time-code notes to align composed instances with those real-world instances that you recall having distinguished your field recording. You can use whatever instrumentation you like, but it is recommended that you use no more than one or two instruments. You should not employ any field recordings in your composed piece.

Step 7: When your composed piece is completed, layer the two tracks together into one new 60-second work. They should be played back at equal volume, more or less. You can adjust a little to achieve the impression of balance between the field recording and the composed work. The only editing you can do is to fade in and out, if that is so desired.

Deadline: Monday, March 25, 2013, at 11:59pm wherever you are.

Length: Your finished work should be 60 seconds long.

Information: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto.

Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please include the term “disquiet0064-halflive” in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track.

Download: Consider setting your track in a manner that allows for attributed, commerce-free remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).

Linking: When posting the track, be sure to include this information:

More on this 64th Disquiet Junto project at:


More details on the Disquiet Junto at:


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Soon after reading the Junto email I concluded that recording the school bus stopping outside my house on Friday afternoon would be a good field recording, for convenience as well as interesting material for my Rode NT4 stereo microphone.

Bass guitar was also settled on for convenience, as I've more experience on that instrument and I could use a light semi-acoustic model to spare my aching back.

After hitting record when the bus entered my street, I scribbled a few notes while watching the time on my Zoom H4. I can hear my eldest comment on seeing me but he decided not to try and get my attention. The 60-seconds ran out just before my daughter walked up to the microphone and asked what I was doing.

At first I wasn't sure what key to use, the bus sorta sounded like a D or maybe I just associate that low pitch with D. Anyway, I thought I'd pick something that wasn't D in case it clashed, remembering this riff using a C 7th (I think).

The idea was to progressively pick up the pace as the bus stops and the kids excitedly enter the scene, then I thought I'd ramp it up a bit more with the slapping while the bus roars away.
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Disquiet Junto: Greg or Ian at the Park


Disquiet Junto Project 0063: Gregorian-orian-ian

This week’s project involves the role of architectural spaces in the composition of music. It is a shared-sample project that takes a piece of Gregorian chant as its source material.

These are the steps:

Step 1: Download this OGG audio file that contains a recording of monks singing Gregorian chant at the Abbey of Sant’Antimo in Italy:


Step 2: Play back that recording loudly in a highly reverberant space and record it. Your best bet may be a bathroom.

Step 3: Create a new piece of music using the recording you just made as your primary source material. You cannot add any new source material. You can manipulate the audio recording as you please, but restrict yourself to effects that simulate echo, such as delay, reverb, and looping. You may also use the original OGG file, but only in addition to your own recording of it being played back in the reverberant space.

Background: For additional thinking on the role that architecture has played in the evolution of music, this 2010 talk by David Byrne is recommended:


Deadline: Monday, March 18, 2013, at 11:59pm wherever you are.

Length: Your finished work should be between 1 and 4 minutes in length.

Information: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto.

Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please include the term “disquiet0063-gregorianorianian” in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track.

Download: Consider setting your track in a manner that allows for attributed, commerce-free remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).

Linking: When posting the track, be sure to include this information:

More on this 63th Disquiet Junto project at:


More details on the Disquiet Junto at:


The source of this piece is a recording of monks singing Gregorian chant at the Abbey of Sant’Antimo in Italy:


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On Friday afternoon I considered cranking the monks and recording them reverberating in my bathroom but I didn't get to it before my kids returned from school.

So I thought the drains at the park might be interesting, putting my 3V sound system at one end of the storm water drain and my Rode NT4 stereo mic at the other.

The noise from the nearby rice processing facility added a nice low rumble and there were some birds chirping too, a bit of a fail in terms of ensuring fidelity to the sound source.

The results were okay but I wanted more of those resonances that really warp the frequencies out of proportion.

I returned to Waipukurau Park on Saturday to try resonating the monks on the metal slippery slide.

This slide has featured in a song I composed with the Park, as has the nearby metal fence of the Leeton Childcare Centre -- which sounds fantastic.

The 3V sound system was placed facing down on the top of the platform on the slide, with a contact mic was affixed halfway along one of the legs which support it.

The results showed more exaggerated frequencies but was a bit weak on its own.

In Ableton Live I put recordings from both locations together, finding them stretched for some reason. I added additional tracks, delayed a few seconds and then experimented with effects including phase, the vocal-doubling preset on a tape emulator and church-style reverbs, settling on a wooden one.
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Return to the fence

Went down to the park today to record some material for the Disquiet Junto this week. Disturbed a large group of ibis.

While I was there I decided to revisit the Leeton Childcare Centre fence, which featured in the Waipukurau Park track on For 100 Years.

I've posted a recording of this fence previously.

Methinks, it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a World like this,
Where e'en the Breezes of the simple Air
Possess the power and Spirit of Melody
-- Samuel Coleridge
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How to write electronic music


Tom Cosm produces cool psytrance and makes excellent tutorial videos for Ableton Live. I liked his previous ebook on creativity so I thought I'd share this forthcoming title.

100 years of noise



Create Digital Music has a piece on the anniversary of Luigi Russolo's Art of Noises manifesto, which surprised me to see it shares the day with the centenary of Canberra where I was born.

Thought a remix was in order and I've been admiring the sounds from this monument since Vic McEwan mentioned it a few weeks ago. Vic's developed a keen interest in contact microphones over the last year and, as well as asking about my techniques, has put forward the idea of us working together, which would be a great opportunity to share skills and ideas.
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Disquiet Junto: Sine of the times


Disquiet Junto Project 0062: Life of Sine

This week's project involves making music from the basic building block of sound: the sine wave. 

You will compose and record a piece of music using just three different sine waves, and nothing else — well, nothing else in terms of source material, but the waves can, after the piece has gotten underway, be transformed by any means you choose. 

These are the steps:

Step 1: Devise which three sine waves you will employ. They should be different from each other in some evident way.

Step 2: The track should open with just one of the sine waves. 

Step 3: Add the second sine wave at 5 seconds. 

Step 4: Add the third sine wave at 10 seconds.

Step 4: Only at 15 seconds should you begin to in any way manipulate any of the source waves.

Deadline: Monday, March 11, 2013, at 11:59pm wherever you are.

Length: Your finished work should be between 1 and 4 minutes in length.

Information: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto.

Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please include the term “disquiet0062-lifeofsine” in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track.

Download: Consider setting your track in a manner that allows for attributed, commerce-free remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).

Linking: When posting the track, be sure to include this information:

More on this 60th Disquiet Junto project at:


More details on the Disquiet Junto at:


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One observation about the Junto this week, going into it I had no preconceptions about the process but it was soon decided when I started googling to find which audio application I own would produce sines. The results for Ableton Live included a tutorial on using gated sines, which was how I went about covering Prince's 'Sign o the times' since I was short of ideas beyond wordplay. I had to use Soundtrack Pro to make the sines though.

I hadn't used a sine in a production since Postal about a decade ago, despite hearing great applications for adding low frequencies under samples. They're very effective. This was an interesting exercise because I came to conclude that sines only sound great in some keys, particularly F, C and G. Dunno why but these were the tones that made me feel best, maybe it's something to do with the relationships between notes? (Now I think about it, maybe it's the room I'm in?)

The three sines I chose to work with were 43 Hz, 71 Hz and 77 Hz, which weren't such a good idea as these low notes (C0, D# and F) would largely be filtered out before the end of mastering. (Could 43Hz really be reproduced in a room?)

The low note was chosen to serve as a kick drum-essque thump and because it would be easy to put up one and two octaves for the bassline melody, which might work better up an octave

Through trial and error I pitched four other notes, from A3 to D4 with A# and B (233 Hz -- 277 Hz). These form the outline of the vocal melody, which I phase reversed to avoid the muddiness of the mix. Once again I'm thinking I should've tried a higher pitch because these frequencies aren't easily reproduced on some audio systems, like my laptop.

Distortion was added liberally to create higher harmonics on the sines to give them character and to cut-through the mix. The gating was achieved with a MIDI file, I deleted the notes other than the frequency being triggered. I tried vocoding the kick and snare but don't think I did it right, they benefit from reverb and compression though.
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Disquiet Junto: Insta/gr/ambient


Disquiet Junto Project 0061: Textinstagr/am/bient

This project requires a single die, or the digital equivalent.

Here are the steps in the project:

Step 1: Roll a die six times (or six dice once), add up the combined results, and then subtract five from it. Make note of the resulting number. If you don’t have access to a die, you can use various digital equivalents. This link, for example, will roll six dice simultaneously:


Step 2: Visit this Twitter account:


Step 3: Count the tweets of that account backwards from the most recent tweet at the time of your visit until you reach the tweet that coincides with the resulting number from step 1 above. Make note of this tweet, unless it begins with an @ sign. If the tweet begins with an @ sign, then use the next tweet (continuing down in reverse chronological order). If the next tweet also begins with an @ sign, then continue until coming to a tweet that doesn't begin with an @ sign. This final tweet will serve as the title of the track you will soon begin composing and recording.

Step 4: Now, roll a die twice (or two dice once), add up the combined results, and then subtract one from it. Make note of the resulting number. This link will roll two dice simultaneously:


Step 5: Visit this web page and locate the list of Instagram filters: 


Step 6: Count down the list of filters on that page until you come to the filter that coincides with the resulting number from step 4 above.

Step 7: Close your eyes and imagine a simple photograph that would be described with the tweet that is the title of your track, and that would have been treated with the filter that resulted from the step 6.

Step 8: Now imagine that the image from step 7 is the cover of your next single. Record a track of original ambient music that would be this single. It should be between one and two minutes in length, true to the postcard-like quality of Instagram — and, by extension, Textinstagram. 

. . .

Background: This project is a low-key followup to the Instagr/am/bient compilation that I developed at the end of 2011, and that was in many ways the direct precursor of the Disquiet Junto. Various contributors to Insta/gr/ambient were among the initial participants in the Junto.

Deadline: Monday, March 4, 2013, at 11:59pm wherever you are.

Length: Your finished work should be between one and two minutes in length.

Information: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto.

Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please include the term “disquiet0061-textinstagrambient” in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track.

Download: Consider setting your track in a manner that allows for attributed, commerce-free remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).

Linking: When posting the track, be sure to include this information:

More on this 61st Disquiet Junto project at:


More details on the Disquiet Junto at:


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I forget what numbers I rolled now but I remember the outcome. The text read:
Girl holding something innocuous just to conveniently show off a little too much boob.
And the filter was:
Valencia Effect: True-to-life contrast, with slightly gray and brown overtones

Originally I thought, stuff it, I'm going to record bowing on a cymbal and say it's whatever seems appropriate because that's what I want to do this weekend.

Well, bowing on a cymbal sounded terrible.

So I thought about the directions I'd been given and decided it needed to be a guitar. It was probably for sentimental reasons because I began playing a riff that I've always liked but never used in a song. It's kinda discordant but I've always liked hearing notes rub against each other.

And I got to thinking about the girl I rubbed against when I played the riff in 1990. Now I've got sore fingers from playing the guitar and a musky smell on my mind.
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New piezo contact microphone

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