Disquiet Junto Project 0575: On Ice
The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it.

Welcome to a new year of Disquiet Junto communal music projects. This week’s project is as follows. It’s the same project we’ve begun each year with since the very first Junto project, way back in January 2012. The project is, per tradition, just this one step:

Step 1: 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 assignment — “Please record the sound of an ice cube rattling in a glass, and make something of it” — as the very first Disquiet Junto project, the same one that launched the series back on the first Thursday of January 2012. Revisiting it at the start of each January ever since has provided a fitting way to begin the new year. By now, it qualifies as a tradition. 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 regular if not weekly habit. It can be beneficial to step back and see things from a longer perspective.

Disquiet Junto Project 0575: On Ice

The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it.

Welcome to a new year of Disquiet Junto communal music projects. This week’s project is as follows. It’s the same project we’ve begun each year with since the very first Junto project, way back in January 2012. The project is, per tradition, just this one step:

Step 1: 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 assignment — “Please record the sound of an ice cube rattling in a glass, and make something of it” — as the very first Disquiet Junto project, the same one that launched the series back on the first Thursday of January 2012. Revisiting it at the start of each January ever since has provided a fitting way to begin the new year. By now, it qualifies as a tradition. 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 regular if not weekly habit. It can be beneficial to step back and see things from a longer perspective.

More on this 575th weekly Disquiet Junto project — On Ice (The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it) — at: https://disquiet.com/0575/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0575-on-ice/

Disquiet Junto Project 0575: On Ice

I always look forward to the beginning of the year when this project comes around.  This year I used this piece as a study for a much larger work - specifically using it as a way to experiment with a complex scripting language I have built on top of the RTcmix (www.rtcmix.org) scripting language, MinC.
My scripts allow me to create algorithmic musical patterns in a large number of dimensions:  volume, pitch, sample selection, tempo, placement in a simulated room-space etc.  Each dimension can be moved about in via an algorithmic plug-in, for example, random choice, sequential access, fixed value, etc.
The Psychedelic Ice Machine uses three sets of ice sound samples I have recorded over the years.  The score loops, creating an ever-changing set of patterns.  The relationship between these is sometimes clear and sometimes obscured.

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More on this 575th weekly Disquiet Junto project — On Ice (The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it) — at: https://disquiet.com/0575/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0575-on-ice/

The Psychedelic Ice Machine

The Psychedelic Ice Machine [disquiet0575]

I always do the "ice" junto,  This is my 12th.

Cold Facts was made from ice recordings loaded into the iOS program Samplr with various pitch and loop options selected, and then run through my boxes.  

This year's boxes are the Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork+ (set on 1 to 2), an Empress Echosystem (green Tape with various knob settings), and an Empress Reverb (green Ghost with various knob settings).  That's my rig.  Everything fits perfectly in a laptop bag.

Find out more about me at https://www.markrushton.com

I'm a 100% independent recording artist who has been publishing original music in the ambient, electronic, and avant-garde genres, as well as environmental field recordings.  

I have over 2800 recordings distributed worldwide under more than 20 band names and pseudonyms, including my own name.  Member of ASCAP since 2002.  I've produced and hosted the Ambient Rushton Podcast since 2004.  Songtrust is my worldwide administrator for mechanical and publishing royalty collection.  Airtable manages my catalog.  I use DISCO.AC for sync library and licensing submissions.

Making music should be fun.  That's why I keep doing it.

*

More on this 575th weekly Disquiet Junto project — On Ice (The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it) — at: https://disquiet.com/0575/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0575-on-ice/

Cold Facts (disquiet 0575)

Disquiet Junto Project 0575: On Ice
The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it.

Welcome to a new year of Disquiet Junto communal music projects. This week’s project is as follows. It’s the same project we’ve begun each year with since the very first Junto project, way back in January 2012. The project is, per tradition, just this one step:

Step 1: Please record the sound of an ice cube rattling in a glass, and make something of it.

Track notes:

Happy new year all! 

For this year's ice challenge, I put about ten ice cubes in a large  wine glass and filled it with water. I placed an Aquarian hydrophone into it and routed it into my little modular skiff, using an ohcd LFO,  DLD(stereo delay) and Morphagene module.

Recently I'd been playing around with Karpus-Strong delay effects on the DLD, which is in essence 'resonance feedback', which is useful for generating plucked string sort of sounds from an incoming signal.

One of the things I like about experimenting with resonance feedback is how very transient and discrete sounds can become powerful (and unpredictable) impulses when used in conjunction with the effect.

With an ultra-short delay and high feedback threshold set on the stereo delay module, I rattled the ice in the glass and recorded the very end of the tail of the rattle to the Morphagene and used a couple of LFOs to control the CV of the sample's grain and morphology. 

Because the sample captures the tail-end of the rattle, there's only a little movement interspersed with very discrete crackles, squeaks and pops.  

For recording this track, the dry/wet of the Morphagene was set to 50/50 so that the ongoing 'quiet' action within the glass is heard in conjunction with the granulated sample. At a couple of points, this develops dramatically, with some incidental ice movement, followed by a large crack. The final part involved me turning the Morphagene mix to 100% wet and attempting to break the sample apart, so that only vague traces of the original sample recording can be heard.

[Disquiet_Junto_0575] Ice Murmur

This is my submission to Disquiet Junto Project 0575: On Ice
The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it.
It is also my recording for the 5th day of Jamuary.

I recorded the ice cube using my recently purchased Zoom H1n recorder. In Ableton Live, I turned the recording into a drum kit using the Slice to New MIDI Track function (splitting up the recording into equal segments instead of splitting at the transients).

Meanwhile, I took a MIDI file I had made earlier(a recording of a folk song I had written 11 years ago that was fed into the WIDI Audio to MIDI plugin), doubled its tempo and used the Canonize function in XX to create a second track that duplicates the original but with a delayed start and a higher MIDI pitch.

Finally, I placed the two MIDI tracks in Ableton Live, one panned left and one panned right, both playing the ice cube drum kit. I duplicated each of these tracks and applied Dieter Zobels Resovative IV Reaktor ensemble, a resonator effect that creates the strumming sound. Ableton's reverb was applied to everything.

More on this 575th weekly Disquiet Junto project – On Ice (The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it) – at: https://disquiet.com/0575/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/ 1

Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0575-on-ice/

Jamuary is an annual challenge in which participants aim to make music every day in January, posting the results online. For more information, go to jamuary.org/

Glacial Strum [disquiet0575]

Enhanced recorded sounds of ice cubes in a glass, edited with Audacity.

More on this 575th weekly Disquiet Junto project – On Ice (The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it) – at: https://disquiet.com/0575/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/ 1

Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0575-on-ice/

Metallic Ice (disquiet0575)

5 Layers of a single sample of ice cubes in a glass fulfilling various functions alongside a single rhythmic synth line audible near the end.

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More on this 575th weekly Disquiet Junto project – On Ice (The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it) – at: https://disquiet.com/0575/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/ 1

Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0575-on-ice/

On Ice (disquiet0575)

More on the 712th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Zebra Code — The Assignment: What rhythm do you hear in a bar code? — at https://disquiet.com/0712/

Ii|1|]:'IIll|:!! [disquiet0712]

ballade

My 33 1/3 series book about the Aphex Twin album <i>Selected Ambient Works Volume II</i> was published in 2014. The book was one of the top 5 bestselling titles for the calendar year, and in 2015 was ranked by Pitchfork as one of the "33 best" of the 100-plus books in the 33 1/3 series. It has subsequently been translated into Japanese (2019) and Spanish (2018)

Since 2012 I have moderated the Disquiet Junto group, which began on SoundCloud. More at disquiet.com/junto. 

I've written for Nature, Pitchfork, The Wire, Down Beat, Boing Boing, NewMusicBox, Red Bull Music Academy, Art Practical, the website of The Atlantic, and many other publications. 

I've exhibited sound art at galleries in Los Angeles (Crewest), Manhattan (apex art), and Dubai (DUTAC), and I had a audio-visual installation at the San Jose Museum of Art as part of its 45th anniversary.

And since 1996 I've run the website Disquiet.com about the intersection of sound, art, and technology.

This is an account to store my Disquiet Junto creations.

On Ice (disquiet0575)

ChalkWalk Junto

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