disquiet. Mark Weidenbaum

07. "Sing, Sing On for No Reason" by Kate Carr (aka The Frigatebird)

09. "The Magic in the Music" by Shawn Kelly (aka Y?Arcka)

11. "the squealing of rats and the squeaking of boards" by Marielle V. Jakobsons (aka darwinsbitch)

13. "In Praise of Absurdity" by Paula Daunt (aka Agnosie)

15. "Paz" by João Ricardo (aka OCP)

16. "Desassossego" by OCP (aka João Ricardo)

17. "Original Installation Field Recordings" by Elvis Veiguinha

12. "last remnants of a final illusion" by darwinsbitch (aka Marielle V. Jakobsons)

Disquiet - audio case study

Available for free download on the album @@TRANCOUNT - http://schemawound.bandcamp.com/album/trancount

Please record the sound of an ice cube rattling in a glass, and make something of it.

Background: Longtime participants in, and observers of, the Disquiet Junto series will recognize this single sentence as the very first Disquiet Junto project, the same one that launched the series on the first Thursday of 2012. Revisiting it a year later provides a fitting way to begin the new year. A weekly project series can come to overemphasize novelty, and it’s helpful to revisit old projects as much as it is to engage with new ones. Also, by its very nature, the Disquiet Junto suggests itself as a fast pace: a four-day production window, a weekly habit. It’s beneficial to step back and see things from a longer perspective.

I recorded ice in four different cups using my Tascam DR-40.  A mug, a wine glass, a tall glass and a plastic cup.  I cut up the sound file and rearranged it using Renoise to create this track.

Free Download

If You See Nothing, Say Nothing [disquiet0053-ice2013]

I recorded the sound of an ice cube knocking the side of a glass using a cheap £5 mic and a tape deck.  I then did the same with a different sized glass... and then another... I think I used 6 glasses in the end to get varying tones. I used the same ice cube too as it got smaller and smaller.
I looped the sounds using a delay pedal as well as making some tape loops and altering the speed in the deck to get different effects. I then stuck it all together in Audacity.
Coincidentally, I finished making an album all about ice this week and posted it on bandcamp (Here it is: http://theholocene.bandcamp.com/album/eis) and now using this track as a bonus download!  Thanks Disquiet Junto!



More on this 53rd Disquiet Junto project at:

disquiet.com/2013/01/03/disquiet0053-ice2013/

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:

Groups – Disquiet-junto

. . . . .

Eis weg geschmolzen [disquiet0053-ice2013]

Audio recording of steady beat of drip from drain pipe the day after massive rainstorm in Sacramento, California. Recorded downtown in alley next to Marriott Hotel.

Mecha-Organic Drum Machine

Hi. My name is Marc Weidenbaum and I was invited to participate in the SoundCloud Heroes project, which SoundCloud has described as a collection of individuals "who bring people together around sound by cultivating and engaging unique communities." It's an honor to be included. I write about music and I work with musicians on collaborative projects, such as the <a href="https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/instagr-am-bient">Instagr/am/bient</a> compilation and the ongoing <a href="https://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/">Disquiet Junto community</a>.

I've created this little introduction at the request of the folks in the SoundCloud Community department. The audio provides a bit of autobiography — who I am, where I am, what I'm up to — and I've embedded related links. I recorded this at home in San Francisco, California, on Sunday, January 13, 2013. 

More of what I'm up to here:

My website: <a href="http://disquiet.com/">disquiet.com</a>

The SoundCloud group I moderate: <a href="http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/">Disquiet Junto</a>

My Twitter account: <a href="http://twitter.com/disquiet">twitter.com/disquiet</a>

The Disquiet.com Facebook page: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/disquiet.fb">facebook.com/disquiet.fb</a>

Marc Weidenbaum (What I'm Up To)

The sound of one dishwasher rumbling. 

Perhaps the most widely distributed domestic generative audio device.

Associated image via Creative Commons from <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/2476450625/">flickr.com</a>.

The Generative Rhythms of Domestic White Noise

Recording on my Nexus 4 cellphone of two dragons and one percussionist outside a restaurant on Larkin Street in San Francisco, part of the ongoing Chinese New Year celebrations. 

Made around 11am on Saturday, February 10, 2013. Photo shot at the same time, while recording was being made, on the same Nexus 4.

Chinese New Year in San Francisco

A remix of Disquiet's Library Drone:
http://soundcloud.com/disquiet/the-library-drone

Library SyFy Drone (20130212-ssu3012)

Sometimes quiet sounds are the most jarring, such as hearing what could be a stream while walking down a particularly cement-lined and tree-less street in a large city. It's a sunny winter Friday in San Francisco, not far from the ocean. There's a strong wind, and passing planes and cars, and yet the sound is there, for certain, the sound of a small stream. Of course, it isn't a stream, not in the general sense. It's a drain, whose holes let the passing water echo above. A struggling bit of microfoliage, tiny weeds making their way to the sunlight, confirm the liquid below. 

Track recorded on my Nexus 4 cell phone using Easy Voice Recorder Pro on Friday, February 22.

The Urban Stream

Every Tuesday at noon the Outdoor Public Warning System (OPWS) rings out around San Francisco. It has two stages. First there is a siren. Second there is a spoken announcement: "This is a test. This is a test of the outdoor warning system. This is only a test." 

As of October 2012, there are 111 speakers set up throughout San Francisco to broadcast the message. The majority have the message in English, but there are 2 in Cantonese and English and 17 in Spanish and English. See the attached image for a map of the OPWS speakers.

Because of the city's famously hilly terrain, as well as the speed at which sound travels, and the apparently inexact timing of the system's triggers, the sirens and announcement can often be heard to overlap, creating an artificial echo effect in addition to the actual echo. Also, because it rings at noon, the sound of the warning often overlays with another form of announcement: the bells of churches and other institutions.

I made this recording on Tuesday, February 26, 2013, in the backyard of my home in the Richmond District of San Francisco. This was an especially clear day. It was made on an H4n, recorded directly to a WAV file. At five of the hour I placed the H4n in the backyard and set it to record. Only after the announcement had fully trailed off and been replaced by the bird song and church bells did I approach the H4n and turn it off. Then I trimmed the length of the recording to focus on the runtime of the OPWS.

More on the OPWS system at the website of the City and County of San Francisco Department of Emergency Management: <a href="http://sfdem.org/index.aspx?page=55">sfdem.org</a>.

Outdoor Public Warning System (San Francisco, CA)

remix of disquiet's sample http://soundcloud.com/disquiet/siren-san-francisco-tuesday

working on a soloed single channel in Alchemy vst.

thanks for the audio 

Sfsiren song [disquiet remix] -alchemy

The waiting room at the doctor's office is self-enclosed. It contains a handful of chairs and is lit by two large windows, their blinds tucked just below a high, generically tiled ceiling. No one else is in the room. A tiny speaker sits on the windowsill, nearly a dozen stories up from the busy city street. The speaker emits barely perceptible music, a tinny whimper of sodden melodicism, as if the Whoville Pops is being overheard. What the speaker itself fails to do service to is further muffled by the incessant drone of the building's ancient HVAC system, and the whole resulting thick ether of white noise is punctuated by the thuddish tic of an unseen clock. 

In the audio recording made on a cellphone, the noise-like elements are greatly emphasized. They are far more prevalent and evident than they had been in person. It is as if the texture of the open road, so uniform when seen through the windshield of a fast-moving car, has been cast in high relief.

Track recorded on my Nexus 4 cell phone using Easy Voice Recorder Pro on Friday, March 1.

(Image via <a href="http://pixabay.com/p-22952/?no_redirect">pixabay.com</a>.)

disquiet. Mark Weidenbaum

Allso