Bassling blog

Disquiet Junto 0771 Phase Incident

The Junto prompt this week celebrates Steve Reich’s 90th birthday, which is cool because I enjoyed his 80th.

This recording developed as a collaboration with my partner Jo, who contributes to my Junto recordings and only occasionally appears in them but often shares a perspective along the way.

When the Disquiet prompt arrived I gave Jo a quick background on Reich and realised how much of his work I've enjoyed.

I wasn't interested in singing Happy Birthday, but Jo thought there was a section in it worth looping and I decided it'd be more enjoyable to work with her voice.

Tim Prebble discussed phasing experiments recently and, at that time, I'd pondered why would he use video editing software?

I realised that it made sense to try it because, where audio software works in milliseconds, it would adjust loops by frames and that could be 24-60th second easily.

Somehow the idea of changing in those increments seemed easier to manage!

So I made a quick recording with Jo using my Nikon and Rode mic, then opened FCP for the first time in ages.

I picked a six-second section and multiplied it, then shortened sections by 2-3 frames.

This edit was placed against a section with only six-second loops and it sounded close to something resembling my memory of Reich's Rain piece -- dunno, I should go back and listen to him again.

Anyway, I put the video into Ableton Live and ended up phase-cancelling out some of the vocal so that I could add another track!

Then I added reverb and compression and some percussion loops.

Now I'm wondering if it should be remixed?

Ancient latrine

Disquiet Junto 0770 Reverb x Reverb

The assignment is to: "Use some reverb. Then use some more."

I grabbed the guitars that I've been jamming with recently through Chase Bliss pedals driven with an Omnichord.

There's a ukulele (with a Klon clone) and a bass that each have a Habit pedal, as well as a 626 drum machine going through Generation Loss and the ride has Onward.

With a plan to add reverb, I recorded four mono tracks with these pedals and edited them a little (like dropping out drums in places).

There was some reverb added, like Lossy on the bass, then two reverbs added with busses.

These were Capitol and Motown emulations on guitars and drums, with some cross-pollination.

Normally I probably wouldn't add so much reverb to bass, but I think it sits okay.

Mellow Tron

Disquiet Junto 0769 Let's Poetic

The prompt for the Junto this week is "Do something poetic."

It brought to mind a file in my folder of lyrics that developed from a poem about a swamp.

Fivebough Wetland is a significant site for birds and I had a piece published that recalled a visit before sunrise.

Today I recorded those lyrics and put them to a file in my folder of song ideas.

Footage from here.

Mistakes make you stronger

Disquiet Junto 0768 Remix Therapy

The Assignment: Do yourself a favor and re-work it out.

There is one step for this project: Take care of yourself by remixing something.

Lately I’ve been wondering about how older music seems kinda reserved.

Partly it was prompted by a friend commenting on the Angry Women Music at a local concert.

Anyway, I recorded the track here and had been wondering if it’s better to make music with less angst?

So, as a way of working out my trauma with a remix, I answered that question “always”

When you listen

Disquiet Junto 0767 Your Move

The Junto this week is to "Record background music to have playing while playing a specific board game."

When you come back from vacation

Disquiet Junto 0766 Rock Math

Mathematics is wasted on the young.

The Junto this week asks one to consider how a label like "math rock" might be subdivided, such as algebra or calculus.

I feel as though I am not familiar with either the genre or the discipline to give math the attention it deserves.

In my recent foray into teaching I found the subject to be a lot more interesting than I remembered of my time in school.

To begin I asked advice of my family and it seemed to provide a distinctly wide-ranging survey of the field.

My son studies extended mathematics in high school and began pondering co-sine equations as a way to generate sound, which was more advanced than I was willing to consider.

In contrast my partner chuckled at the thought of the "dummy maths" class and this seemed better suited for rock.

The little I know of "math rock" is the idea of using varying time signatures in composition and I really enjoy layering loops of differing lengths for the generative quality it adds.

However, my existing ideas were all a bit jazzy for rock.

So I began making riffs and that led me to add a 303, because it always seems a way to add energy to MIDI instrumentation and I think it rocks.

The public domain footage from Archive seemed perfect for the "dummy" class flavour and also captured something of my new found interest in mathematics.