the 2014 studio diary is a project where i will be exploring sounds in my studio on a day-to-day basis (or whenever i'm not too busy to play.) typically i'll be making loops, phrases, sounds... experimenting with different equipment and techniques. no rules, no big goals, just exercising my creativity and hopefully learning a lot along the way.

i originally intended this to be a modular synthesis sound-a-day project, as i have fully  jumped back into eurorack after 10 years away from it, but the creation of a nice loop with some non-modular gear as i was setting up my new studio lead to the start of the project. i will always choose serendipity over most planned courses of action.

please check back to this diary on a regular basis. i will do my best to explain the sounds when i can and if you have any questions please leave them in the comments section.

may your 2014 be creative, productive, and peaceful.

2014 Studio Diary

stephen vitiello and i had a concert at PS.1/MoMA in new york yesterday. he came in a day early so we could rehearse and come up with some ideas in the studio for what to do.

we let the recorder roll for a while just capturing everything we were doing, hopefully for fodder for a future project.

here's the first three minutes or so, some nice textures. stephen's eurorack modular and mine.

for the concert we ended up going with stephen on the modular and me on hohner pianet and eventide h7600.

november 15, 2014 (studio rehearsal with stephen vitiello)

november 21, 2014 (soulmate)

my first experiments with a ciat-lonbarde sidrax synthesizer. wonderfully expressive and tactile. limited and focused. a real instrument.



november 22, 2014 (sidrax 1)

another experiment with the ciat-lonbarde sidrax. this time creating a cloud with the aid of an eventide h7600.

november 24, 2014 (sidrax 2)

the sound source here is an intellijel atlantis being sequenced by a make noise rené. the atlantis feeds into a phonogene in broken echo mode.

a wogglebug modulates some phonogene parameters and its burst output feeds into the atlantis filters for those brief stutters of modulation.

everything goes into a bit of erbe verb....

november 25, 2014 (satellites (atlantis, rené, wogglebug, phonogene)

recorded a week ago (today is dec 1st)... totally forgot what i did here or what the sound sources were.... but i'm fairly certain the echo and reverb are make noise modules... and something is going through a phonogene.

it's nice to step away from a sound to the point where you forgot how you made it.. because in the end, it doesn't really matter what you used to make a sound.. only the end results.

november 26, 2014 (forgotten)

here we are on the first day of the last month of 2014. i hope i can finish out the year of this studio diary with a lot of sounds. looking back i wish i had done more, but i'm also quite happy with the explorations that took place. the amount of output is interesting to measure exactly how much time i tend to have available. there's data in there somewhere.

this last sound really took a lot of bends to end up where it did. this is a modular sound. the sound source is an intellijel atlantis being FM'd from a dixie sine wave. the dixie, however, is being sequenced from a moskwa sequencer... so the FM rate going into the atlantis is changing, looping.

oh, not only that, the dixie sequence is going into a phonogene in broken echo mode, first, so you're getting a fractured delayed sequence as the FM source for the atlantis.

the atlantis is in cycle mode, so the envelope is playing itself and the whole signal feeds into a make noise MMG filter whose strike input is being hit from the gate out of the moskwa. this gives the sound much of its rhythmic, and quite woody, character.

december 01, 2014 (grey trees)

here... the intellijel shapeshifter is in chord mode with its wave shape being sequenced by the moskwa. it goes into a phonogene in broken echo mode and into an mmg filter for smoothing out.

that's one loop.

on top of that i play some honhner pianet into the swirling eventide h7600

and the two live happily together.

december 02, 2014 (shapeshifter hugged by pianet)

the nord lead 1 is, hands down, one of my favorite synthesizers. i've probably said that before.

here is a realtime improv with the nord and an asynchronous quad-looper in the eventide h7600.

i could do this stuff all day...

december 03, 2014 (nord lead 1 X 4)

some turn toward the sun
a snow warm within
when the winter keeps its skin

december 04, 2014 (when the winter keeps its skin)

sound sources:
hohner pianet
evaton rf nomad

sound processors:
mungo g0
make noise phonogene
verbos amp & tone generator
intellijel dr. octature II

i find this small patching with the above eurorack modules so effective. quiet, calm, dusty, worn, unsure, worried, unhurried.





december 05, 2014 (the world would be happier if it were quieter)

a darker, more fragmented variation of the previous sound. a few extra patchings, a new pianet line... some knobs turned and some dreams shattered.

december 08, 2014 (variation)

a slow, late night drive with a nord lead 1 being looped by a mungo g0 and make noise phonogene. the chord that scrapes over the top is a sample on the qu-bit nebulae.

various filters are involved... intellijel dr. octature ii, verbos amp & tone.

there's also an intellijel atlantis pinging off a sine wave here and there every time the phonogene loop cycles....and a verbos harmonic oscillator fading in and out via an LFO.

it's a patch based on the the previous two days patch.. but it's starting to devolve now and will be dismantled this morning.

december 09, 2014 (late night woozy loops)

it's been a week since i've posted. too long. weekends are difficult and i spent a couple of days with the studio a bit torn apart installing a new mixing board... but it's up and running and today i'm experimenting with a ciat-lonbarde sidrax synthesizer through a looper on the eventide h7600....

december 16, 2014 (sidrax uneasy)

tonight i just set up a fairly simple sound, though i ended up liking it the more it droned on. it's basically a shapeshifter oscillator playing a static drone .. via a dual oscillator combination.. mixed with a verbos harmonic oscillator being modulated by a synth tech e355 and a vulcan modulator.

these oscillator drones feed into some filters (intellijel and pittsburgh) and through some reverb from a TC m2000.

i was just trying to set up a basic sound to drone along while i set up the tube channel inserts on my new mixing console, an allen & heath GSr24. i just got the insert cables today so it was the first time setting up and playing with the tube channels. i'm really impressed by their sound and what it adds to what goes through them. looking forward to getting a lot of use out them.

not the most complicated eurorack patch today, but my goal was setting up the mixer. i never did have time to really dig into the modular today.

december 18, 2014 (of xylophone and voice)

this is a very rough, first experiment with a process i've been meaning to try for a possible follow up and "sequel" album.... using the same concepts i used a long time ago, executed in a very different way.

this a rough tracking with little or no care taken to the mix. i am, however, encouraged...

december 19, 2014 (sti.ll experiment)

slow music... loops and modulations. don't listen to while driving.

sound sources:
xylophone recorded onto a cassette walkman looped by a make noise phonogene.
verbos harmonic oscillator
piano loop on qu-bit nebulae

modulation by a livewire vulcan modulator

reverb by tc m2000 and make noise erbe verb

december 23, 2014 (slow music)

recorded in florida over christmas. a recordable cassette walkman resting inside a cheap upright piano.

i tried to make long, 20-30 minute passages but the recorder kept failing.

december 25, 2014 (tape piano)

as dirty as the christmas tape piano....

testing out the synthrotek dirt filter (kindly gifted to me from marcus fischer for christmas) on a loop playing from the qubit nebulae.

resampled by the phonogene, filtered by an MMG and intellijel korgasmatron. various modulations, various signals, various hopes and dreams ground into the dirt.


december 30, 2014 (dirt loop)

With over 100 physical releases since its inception by Taylor Deupree in 1997, New York-based music label 12k has decisively defined and developed the concept of minimalism in the realms of electronic music for more than a decade. Fusing elements from Ambient and Electro-Acoustic Composition with carefully arranged digital textures and associative micro-noises, the label's aesthetics revolve around a precisely-outlined, yet deeply emotional concoction of the technological and the organic. Eschewing the typical marketing mechanisms of the commercial music industry, Deupree has sculpted a platform whose influence today extends well beyond the confinements of the experimental community. 12k's integral approach, in which the label's instantly recognizable, elegantly spartan artwork enters into an inseparable symbiosis with the music, has created a timeless audiovisual language respected and appreciated all over the world.