Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 239
April 30, 2020
Disquiet Junto Project 0435: Woodshed Report
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.
Deadline: This project’s deadline is Monday, May 4, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, April 30, 2020.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0435: Woodshed Report
The Assignment: Share something you’ve been working on (and respond to what others post).
Step 1: The past six weeks of Disquiet Junto projects have encouraged and rewarded collaboration. This week’s is more insular. There’s no formal constraint. Just share a recent piece of music, or create a new piece for this week.
Step 2: After uploading your track, please take a few minutes to listen to and respond to tracks by other participants.
If you’re interest in background on the concept of the “woodshed,” here’s video of a talk I gave a little over a year ago on how it relates to the Disquiet Junto:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzHrOpBwhMU
Seven More Important Steps When Your Sample Kit Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0435” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your tracks.
Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0435” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation of a project playlist.
Step 3: Upload your tracks. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your tracks.
Step 4: Post your tracks in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0435-woodshed-report/
Step 5: Annotate your tracks with a brief explanation of your approach and process.
Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #disquietjunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.
Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.
Additional Details:
Deadline: This project’s deadline is Monday, May 4, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, April 30, 2020.
Length: The length is up to you.
Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0435” in the title of the tracks, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.
Upload: When participating in this project, be sure to 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. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.
Download: Given the nature of this particular project sequence, it is best to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).
For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:
More on this 435th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Disquiet Junto Project 0435: Woodshed Report — The Assignment: Share something you’ve been working on (and respond to what others post) — at:
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0435-woodshed-report/
There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
Image associated with this track is by Josh Self, used thanks to a Creative Commons license and Flickr. The image has been cropped, colors shifted, and text added.
Buddha Machine Variations No. 17 (Step Wise)
It occurred to me that all the Buddha Machine Variations so far have neglected one particular thing: What a single loop on a single Buddha Machine might sound like all on its own.
To address that situation, this video originated with a completed patch. I then noted the approximate relative volumes of the five channels of audio in the mixer. I then set all five channels to silent, null, void. Then I started the video with no sound at all, turned up the Buddha Machine (not yet plugged into the synthesizer), plugged it in, and proceeded, a step at a time, to introduce the four subsequent channels of audio.
To break it down: The first channel is the sound of the Buddha Machine (second generation) loop, unadulterated. The second and third channels are individual spectral bands extracted from that initial loop, and then each delayed a bit, so there’s a sense of repetition, even veering toward reflection. The fourth channel takes two other spectral bands from the source loop and puts them through a comparative process, so that only the higher pitch of them at any given moment is heard. And the fifth channel is the highest bracket of those spectral bands (the soprano among sopranos) put through granular synthesis (the input gain is set purposefully high).
To break down the tool set: The Buddha Machine is introduced to the synthesizer via the Erica Synths Pico Input. The mixer is the the ADDAC802 VCA Quintet Mixer. The initial division of the inbound audio occurs in the Malekko Heavy Industry Performance Buffered Mult. The spectral bands are extracted via the out-of-print Make Noise FXDf. The delay occurs in the Orthogonal Devices ER-301 (standard Delay unit). The comparison in the fourth channel involves the Whimsical Raps Cold Mac (specifically the “AND” route). The granular synthesis occurs in the Antumbra Smog, a remix of the out-of-print Mutable Instruments Clouds. The output is a Befaco Output (V3).
Video originally posted at youtube.com/disquiet. There’s also a video playlist of the Buddha Machine Variations.
April 29, 2020
Buddha Machine Variations No. 16 (Split Level)
This after-dinner patch doesn’t fully count as office ambience, because it had to wait until late in the day, but it had been on my mind all day. Yesterday (for “Murky Trough”), I’d used the Cold Mac module, from Whimsical Raps, to compare a pair of inbound sounds and from them extract the lowest of either signal at any one time. Hence the “murky.” That was the AND route. There is also an OR route on the Cold Mac. After consulting an aftermarket manual, I came to understand that the OR route would also send its initial inbound signal to the AND route if there’s nothing else going into the first jack of the AND route. So, I sent two different narrow strands of the Buddha Machine’s spectrum (split by the Make Noise FXDf, after first going through the granular synthesis of the Antumbra Smog, a remix of the Mutable Instruments Clouds), one to AND and one to OR, and compared each to a third strand. The pair of end results go to two of the five inputs of the mixer. The second of them, the OR, is having its relative volume shifted by a slow-moving square wave from the Dixie II.
The third mixer input is the VCA-out of the Cold Mac: more muted, less volatile. The fourth input is one single band of the FDXf-filtered spectrum. And the fifth input is the right channel of the granular synthesizer, sent first to the ER-301, to be delayed a bit. Lends an orchestral call-and-response feel.
At the risk of burying the lede, the main evident sonic component here is how the music shifts up and down, over and over, between two registers. That’s accomplished by a slow square wave sent from the Batumi to the pitch control of the granular synthesizer via the S.P.O. If the S.P.O. weren’t used to squash the highs and lows of the square wave, the shift would be inelegant. Here it is more controlled.
Oh, and one more thing: the “size” of the granular-synthesis grain is shifting back and forth due to an inbound wave from the Batumi.
I’m not sure what’s up with the clicking. It’s not been this pronounced previously, and seems to have something to do with the LFOs from the Batumi and the Dixie II. I’ll look into that. The sound does lend it a kind of classical-on-old-vinyl-LP vibe.
Video originally posted at youtube.com/disquiet. There’s also a video playlist of the Buddha Machine Variations.
April 28, 2020
Buddha Machine Variations No. 15 (Murky Trough)
Today’s question: What is the lesser sound of two loops melding in the murky depths? Like many folks who venture into the dense formation of inputs and outputs that comprise the Cold Mac module (from Whimsical Raps), I benefited from the aftermarket manual developed by Martin Doudoroff. In the very helpful document, Doudoroff explains the many pathways through this module, which appears opaque at first, and then, following a bit of study, clear as geometry. In this case, I’m following one specific path through the Cold Mac, that being the AND path (in contrast with OR). Per Doudoroff’s notes, “If you patch two signals into AND(1) and AND(2), you get the lowest (trough/minumum) of the two signals at any one time from AND(OUT).” And so, two Buddha Machines here are sending different loops into the synthesizer. Both loops are immediately sent to the Cold Mac (by way of a multiples, because earlier in this lunchtime experiment I was trying a different approach), and then into the Make Noise FXDf. The purpose of the FDXf is to isolate a few mid-range bands of the signal’s audio spectrum, because the highs were getting a little too high if I went straight to the mixer. Three of those bands then go to the mixer: one straight through, and two with their volumes being tweaked a bit by slow-moving hybrid LFOs from the Batumi/SPO combo. That about covers it. If you have a Cold Mac, or are simply interested, the manual mentioned above is at doudoroff.com/cold-mac.
Video originally posted at youtube.com/disquiet. There’s also a video playlist of the Buddha Machine Variations.
April 27, 2020
Buddha Machine Variations No. 14 (Battery Fidelity)
Three strands of sound from the first-generation Buddha Machine. The first is the straight audio, its volume raised and lowered ever so slightly. The second is a combined couple of bands of that audio, after it’s sent through a granular synthesizer, and then the contour of that utterance shaped to follow the shadow, or envelope, of the original audio. The third is one more narrow band of the granular-synthesis-derived sound, put through a digital version of tape delay, the speed of the instant replay changing slightly as it rolls.
The audio enters the system through an Erica Synths Pico Input, the gain control of which is quite useful. The initial splitting of the signal occurs via the Performance Buffered Mult by Malekko Heavy Industry. I recommend the Performance Buffered Mult because of that little plastic button at the bottom: It allows you, at any point, to switch back and forth between one or two source audio elements (not that I use it for that purpose here). The mixing occurs in the ADDAC802 Quintet Mixing Console. I don’t know of anything better at this width. (If you do, let me know.) The granular synthesizer is the Antumbra Smog, a narrower remix of the Mutable Instruments Clouds (which is no longer manufactured). The splitting of the bands of the signal occurs in the Make Noise FXDf (also no longer manufactured). The tracking of the source audio’s envelope occurs in a Detect-Rx, from Steady State Fate. (I previously had a Doepfer A-119 for this purpose.) The various LFOs adjusting the volume of the first strand and the speed of the third strand are produced by the combination of a Xaoc Batumi and an S.P.O., the latter also from Steady State Fate. The simulated tape delay occurs in the Expert Sleepers Disting mk4 (that’s setting D2 in the menu). Oh, yeah, and one of the LFO outputs is moving around the position of the granular synth.
I’ve learned a heap from other people’s videos of their work, so I’m sharing these detailed notes in that spirit, and also for my own reference, because once you un-patch the cables it can be difficult to re-patch with any particular fidelity. The track’s title relates to how the sound of the resulting audio, largely due to the tape delay, resembles at times, in an idealized and utterly fictional manner, what a Buddha Machine sounds like when its batteries are dying.
Video originally posted at youtube.com/disquiet. There’s also a video playlist of the Buddha Machine Variations.
Buddha Machines on (Turntable) Loop
If you meet the Buddha on the road, put on a pair of headphones. That’s the best way to experience the three-dimensional quality of this inspired experiment by musician Darren Shaw. He put two different Buddha Machines on a turntable platter (one from the first generation, the other from the second). An audio recorder (“with the stereo mics on their wide setting,” Shaw explains in accompany project description) captures the sounds in motion, the turntable’s lid providing “a bit of reverb.” In other words, inspired by the loop-based nature of the original device, Shaw has literalized the looping by sending a pair of them in circles, letting the relative volumes, among other factors, cycle round and round. The best part: this is listed as “Piece 1,” meaning variations are likely to follow. (It was also a pleasure to learn this recording was inspired, in part, by my little Buddha Machine experiments of late.)
Video originally posted to Shaw’s YouTube channel. More from Shaw, who is based in Rochdale, U.K., at anexium.com.
April 26, 2020
Buddha Machine Variations No. 13 (USB-C Blues)
A simple set of shifting gates are applied here to four different bands of the Buddha Machine loop, which first goes through a granular synthesis stage in the Smog module (aka a remixed Clouds) before being segmented in the Make Noise FXDf. The gates are sourced from the slow-moving Batumi square wave, and then shifted in the O_c module (running the Hemispheres alternate firmware).
This is titled “USB-C Blues” because I’d planned an especially quiet/subtle variation on the Buddha Machine source-audio processing precisely because I thought I’d sorted out how to record from my modular synthesizer to my Android phone (which is what I’ve been filming these clips with) using a USB-C adapter. This approach worked from the Buddha Machine straight into the phone (via the adapter), but for reasons I failed to sort out, no matter the combination of jacks and cables and routing options, no other audio managed to be recorded. So, this video is, again, going audio straight to the phone’s regular old microphone array (a sub-optimal arrangement if ever there were one). In any case, I ordered a GoPro and will be using that (or so I hope, as it also involves a USB-C adapter, albeit one designed for the task, not from a third party) in a few weeks.
Longer version at youtube.com/disquiet. There’s also a video playlist of the Buddha Machine Variations.
Aspiring-to-Stately
At some point — and judging by wear and tear, “some point” was a long time ago — one of two things happened. First: someone got a deal on these stately (or aspiring-to-stately) doorbells. Or second: that someone made a decision to add something perceived as classy to the front of this otherwise standard multi-unit building. These doorbell fixtures look less like a modular system, and more like individual devices intended for single residences. Perhaps there was a consideration in that regard. Perhaps the idea was to lend an aura of spacious suburban self-possession to the, in fact, close confines of urban apartment existence. There are at least three further stories to be tracked: What’s with that red paint at the bottom? Why is unit 3805’s button pristine in contrast with the three others. And why are the top two screws of the facade clean and bright, while the bottom two seem rusty and old? But those stories are overshadowed, so to speak, for to the right is a telling shadow: a dark, narrow, vertical gap provides stark evidence of just how close the next neighboring building is. The gap is a reminder that in a dense urban setting, even if you bring an illusory touch of the suburban to your own space, tight interpersonal proximity remains a fact of life.
April 25, 2020
Buddha Machine Variations No. 12 (Pulse Artifacts)
Playing with relative volume and tape delay and granular synthesis. A loop from the first-generation Buddha Machine goes straight into the Clouds (granular synthesis) module (remix version, called Smog, from Antumbra). The output of Clouds is divided in two. One line (left channel) goes straight into the fifth input of the mixer. The other (right channel) goes into the FXDf (a filter bank that splits the audio along the spectrum). Two lines of that, both on the low end, go into the mixer. The relative volume of the audio of both of them is then affected, individually, by a pair of five-step sequencers from my O_c module (running the Hemispheres alternate firmware). Finally, a third band from the FXDf goes into a digital emulation of tape delay in the Disting mk4, and two separate variations head into the mixer. There’s also some clocking and LFO activity from the combination of the Batumi, the SPO, and the Dixie II.
Longer version at youtube.com/disquiet. There’s also a video playlist of the Buddha Machine Variations.
