Are you single?

I'm a box set with previously unreleased tracks

Disquiet Junto 0314 Ice in a glass



"Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something of it" is traditionally the first Junto each year.

I think this is the seventh time I've followed these instructions and it's still challenging to make music from this material.

Ice in a glass becomes kinda abrasive quickly when listening to short loops over and over again. Those high-pitched transients are sharp even when unbroken.

Naviarhaiku207 – the woman



The haiku this week led me to think about foggy beaches at low tide.

My original inspiration was a sea shanty after reading about shipwrecks, then I MIDI'd the chord progression and brought the shanty in to Live.

In my name


How guitar pedals work

Disquiet Junto 0313 Audio Diary



I'm preempting the Disquiet Junto's annual audio diary with this edit of snippets from some of the recordings I've made during 2017.

When I searched my files I found 100 videos but to keep it simple I selected 60 and gave them a second each.

Recorded music in band breaks

And to think some people complain that pornography creates unrealistic expectations!

Disquiet Junto 0312 Amplify/Magnify



Some weeks the Junto directions fly out of my mind soon after I start recording. This was one of those weeks.

The exploration of the difference between 'amplification' and 'magnification' was straightforward and can be heard in the first and second 30 seconds.

My idea was to use a diaphragm microphone to amplify a quieter sound, then use a contact microphone as I've described them as having an effect like a microscope.

The source here is a candelabra that I liked the sound of enough to buy at an opp shop.

Then the remaining two minutes go off on a tangent, as I repitch and add reverb to create a gamelan-like effect.

I suppose the reverb does kinda invert the idea of magnification but making it sound more distant.

Disquiet Junto 0311 Ceramic Notation



The Junto this week asks participants to interpret this photograph of a ceramics display as a graphic score.

Graphic scores are one of the ideas I've learned from the Disquiet Junto and at times they've led to some great tracks.

This week isn't one of those times but I've still enjoyed the process, particularly for producing something despite feeling lacklustre.

When I looked at the photo I decided the boxed items were notes an octave apart and those in-between were a fifth.

As there are 14 items I decided to make the time signature 7/8 but, while getting the notes in place, decided it sounded better 3/4.

This morning I settled on the key of C# and decided to use MIDI in Ableton Live to produce the track.

Originally I'd thought I might route hardware for the result but once I started adding distortion I knew I'd keep it in-the-box.

Which led to the challenge of producing a video and in this situation previously I've simply filmed the Spectrum effect to visualise the track.

For the video above I filmed Spectrum three times, coloured each take red or blue and layered them.

Disquiet Junto 0310 From Memory



The Disquiet Junto this week asks participants to recreate a sound from memory.

I've chosen a birdsong that I hear when camping in Matong State Forest for Burning Seed.

Watt is love?

Music In Objects



There's a lot to like in this series of videos but making music with a bicycle is especially fun.

When I grow up

Disquiet Junto 0309 Military Matrix Mixer



The Disquiet Junto this week conflates two different matrices, one a military tool for judging radio signals and the other a mixer used for merging signals.

Thinking about distorting signals led me to think of effects pedals, whiles thinking about merging signals led me to think of my Roland TR-707 for its individual outputs.

The result here runs the drum outputs through various pedals, then merges them together again.

I've used a Bass Synthesiser pedal on the low tom and the Talking Machine pedal on the high tom, as well as Space Echo on the high hats and a Lofi Machine on the snare.