Disquiet Junto Project 0216: Thin Layers
The Assignment: Add a thin foundational bed to beats of pin-prick audio.

Step 1: For this project you’ll be adding sounds to a pre-existing track of your choosing. Select one track from the previous Junto project, in which beats were made with five tiny, pin-prick sounds:

http://disquiet.com/0215

Step 2: Confirm the track you selected in Step 1 is available for creative reuse. If you’re not sure, correspond with the musician. If you’re short on time, select a different track.

Step 3: Create a new track by adding a thin layer, or several thin layers, of an ambient foundational bed to the pre-existing track. Don’t alter the pre-existing track significantly. Maintain its original length.

Step 4: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process — identify the source track and include a link to its SoundCloud page.

Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Deadline: This project was posted at noon, California time, on Thursday, February 18, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, February 22, 2016.

Length: The length of your track should be the same as that of the source track.

Upload: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, only upload one track for this project, and 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.

Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please in the title to your track include the term “disquiet0216-thinlayers.” Also use “disquiet0216-thinlayers” as a tag for your track.

Download: It is preferable that your track is set as downloadable, and that it allows for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).

Linking: When posting the track, please be sure to include this information:

More on this 216th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“The Assignment: Add a thin foundational bed to beats of pin-prick audio”) at:

http://disquiet.com/0216

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

The image associated with this project is by Evelyn Flint, used thanks to a Creative Commons license:

https://flic.kr/p/rKoG1i

Disquiet Junto Project 0216: Thin Layers

Marc Weidenbaum

I've wanted to get a white-noise module for awhile, and finally added one to my setup. This module has 7 different noise sources, including white, red, grey, and blue. Each is being triggered by a different sequence. They're all in sync, though one is slightly delayed, which lends a tiny bit of character to the cadence, I think. The only reason I skipped pink is because I don't have any pink cables right now, and the color-coded cables helped me keep track of things.

You can blame this on someone who's listened to too many Chain Reaction releases, too much Consolidated, and too many scores to Michael Mann films.

Slightly more technical information: The sequences are all in CV Toolkit (a piece of software running on my laptop), and they're getting to my modular synthesizer via an Expert Sleepers ES-3 module. The noise-source module is the Quantum Rainbow 2. The white, red, and grey sources are all receiving sequences directly from the software. The blue source is getting a slight trigger delay (and a slightly extended length to the trigger), thanks to the Doepfer A-162. The whole thing is being mixed in an ADDAC 802 VCA Quintet, and out through a Pittsburgh Outs, through a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4. It was recorded in Audacity. 

White Noise Beat

I was asked by the Dutch musician Michel Banabila to contribute a remix to Marilli Remixed, a collection of reworkings of tracks from his very first album, Marilli, released in 1983. I selected the fourth track on the first side of the LP.

The original was elegant, but had percussion throughout. I wanted the ambient quality more formalized, and the percussion a little more muted and arhythmic.

. . .  

Here are some notes on my remix. I’ll note in advance, they’re fairly technical, as a notebook entry on what went into this, and what I learned in the process.

I used the my modular synthesizer (mostly filters, and a little triggered live sampler), the software Audacity (to sequence it, and also for some effects), and my Monome (running the mlr patch in the software Max). 

First I stretched a relatively percussion-less segment of the original track to get an ambient bed, yielding in the end something about 30 seconds long. I set it to run eight times in a row, overlapping to varying degrees at each repeat. 

Then I extracted a small percussion loop from the original. I did a "live performance" of that percussion loop with the Monome (four simultaneous tracks: one straight through, two running tighter sub-loops against each other a little quieter, and one in reverse even quieter still, though it's also the last bit to fade out of that sequence, so it has a little moment in the sun). The loop ran a little slower than the original, and I used a small Novation Launch Control to manage the relative volume of the four tracks within mlr.

And then I used my modular synthesizer to create variations on the ambient bed, which I layered in at various stages. 

In the end I had eight tracks in Audacity:

The 1st and 3rd tracks are the eight sequential repeats of the ambient sound bed, each intersection overlapping to varying degrees.

The 2nd track is a filtered version of the ambient bed, which has a slow LFO on it (giving it a light Laurie Anderson–ish "ha ha ha" feel) and some echo. This was done on the modular using a filter (either the A-121 or the A-136 or the Z2040 — my notes are unclear — influenced by a digital LFO, the Hikari Sine, and then run through an Eko module).

The 4th is the "live performance" on the Monome of the percussion loop, running mlr. It has four tracks of the loop doing different things. I used a Novation Launch Control to balance the volume of those four tracks.

The 5th is a copy of the ambient sound bed, pitched lower for the full length of the loop. This gives it that deep vibe for the penultimate repeat of the ambient bed. In track 1 at that same stage the volume of the original ambient bed is a little quieter, to let the deep version sound even louder than it is, in relative terms. 

The 6th track is a copy of the ambient bed but pitched higher, and I just use it for a very short moment, a final peak before the track fades out. 

And the 7th and 8th are two different instances of the same tweak of the ambient bed, which I did in the modular using a Harvestman Polivoks. It's a tingling, slightly irritating sound, a momentary breach in the ambience.

The whole idea is it opens with this expanse, and then goes to something a little tribal, and then returns to the expanse. I'll be honest about my influences here. The ambient bed is striving toward Brian Eno's Thursday Afternoon, and the rhythmic part has Peter Gabriel's soundtrack to The Last Temptation of Christ in mind. The first appearance of the Polivoks "irritant" is then repeated toward the end to provide a sense of reflection on where the piece started, but in between is that percussion performance. The deep vibe in track 5 gives an orchestral sense of closure, and the peak in track 6 is little filigree, like the clouds breaking, before it all ends.

At least that's where I ended up. It wasn't where I started. When I started, it was all gonna be about this firecracker/rattle sound in the original, but in the end I went a totally different direction.

Free Album Download

"A4. Marilli Rmxd 14"

**Production Notes**

I went for emi minami’s lovely „tinyrhythms“, a mixture of pins and insects, recorded with a contact mike. You find it here: [https://soundcloud.com/emiminami/tinyrhythms]

Picked some tonal parts of a newer drone piece, arranged them. I cheated a bit in the length, it’s not quite the same, but otherwise the loops would have sounded somewhat strange. 

Some EQ’s and sidechain compression… and that’s all.

* * * 

**Disquiet Junto Project 0216: Thin Layers**

The Assignment: Add a thin foundational bed to beats of pin-prick audio.

Step 1: For this project you’ll be adding sounds to a pre-existing track of your choosing. Select one track from the previous Junto project, in which beats were made with five tiny, pin-prick sounds:

http://disquiet.com/0215
Step 2: Confirm the track you selected in Step 1 is available for creative reuse. If you’re not sure, correspond with the musician. If you’re short on time, select a different track.

Step 3: Create a new track by adding a thin layer, or several thin layers, of an ambient foundational bed to the pre-existing track. Don’t alter the pre-existing track significantly. Maintain its original length.

Step 4: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process — identify the source track and include a link to its SoundCloud page.

Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Deadline: This project was posted at noon, California time, on Thursday, February 18, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, February 22, 2016

(…)

More on this 216th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“The Assignment: Add a thin foundational bed to beats of pin-prick audio”) at:

http://disquiet.com/0216
More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/
Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/
Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/
The image associated with this project is by Evelyn Flint, used thanks to a Creative Commons license:

https://flic.kr/p/rKoG1i

Bed & Crackers [disquiet0216-thinlayers]

Disquiet Junto Project 0216: Thin Layers (Introduction)

i used my own track (Disquiet0215) as the source material 

in ableton live   
track 1 Helm played live
track 2 Disquiet0215
track 3 Disquiet0215 with delay 
track 4   armed  to record 

done in one take :) 

track 4 was exported  to audacity  where the .wav was trimmed 
a general compressor was applied 



ambient  synth 
Helm synth by Matt Tytel
http://tytel.org/helm/



Eps Sample Disk94SIDE B Disquiet0216- Thin Layers

I really like the collaborative aspect of this weeks assignment and strongly feel this could be the main strength of the whole junto idea. The main track I choose to work with was Emi Minami's gentle and understated piece "disquiet0215-tinyrhythms"https://soundcloud.com/emiminami/tinyrhythms?in=disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0215  I liked the outdoors vibe and thought it offered a lot of room to roam around in. I went to free sound looking for some nature sounds. I downloaded and used the following sound files.
1)62487__sagetyrtle__1103campfire1
2)13576__acclivity__batwalk
3)269570__vonora__cuckoo-the-nightingale-duet
4)190112__tran5ient__flail6
I added the files onto the Minami track. I then proceeded to do a lot of fx and proceesing and crossfading which got out of hand and I decided to stick to the simplicity of the original and left the files as is except for looping the very short flail sample to give it more of a rhythm. I still decided it needed more of a tempo so I added the beginning of Audio Obscura's excellent track https://soundcloud.com/audio-obscura-music/super-tiny-sound-disquiet-junto-project-0215-tiny-rhythms?in=disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0215 looping that in. The title "Night of the Cuckoo Batwalk" came from the free sound files.    More on this 216th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“The Assignment: Add a thin foundational bed to beats of pin-prick audio”) at:

http://disquiet.com/0216

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

The image associated with this project is by Evelyn Flint, used thanks to a Creative Commons license:

https://flic.kr/p/rKoG1i

Night Of The Cuckoo Batwalk (disquiet0216-thinlayers)

disquiet 0245
Disquiet Junto Project 0245: Practical Music
Write a piece of music for getting things done, suitable for playing on repeat.

Clean up, routine, tiding up....that leads me to repetitive stuff.
I played a simple riff on my “diaz custom5”  drake bass guitar, very repetitive and yet variations going from A to D to D/E with no real structure.
Added a synth bass drone, and a Wurlitzer A200 electric piano improvising a bit.
Then some repetitive voices (tah-tah-tah-tah...) in four part harmony/
My usual rhythmic delays played a big role, here in 1/8th and 1/4th notes.
You can loop this, there’s no lead in or lead off.
Love
DD
Recorded in Paris, France September 9th  2016.

More on this 245th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Write a piece of music for getting things done, suitable for playing on repeat” — at:

http://disquiet.com/0245/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

http://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0243-synth-trial/4288

There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

Image associated with this project is by jurek d. and is used thanks to Flicker and a Creative Commons license:

http://flic.kr/p/npLwcU

clean it and loop it - disquiet0245

This is based on a Pure Data patch I made called "Oval Noise" because it reminded me of Markus Popp's ovalcommers-era sound. 

The patch is a mess since I just kind of threw it together with 3 oscillators playing one of four pitches randomly, with 2 of them summed up and the other being sent to another effect along with being summed with the other 2. 

Pure Data measures tempo by millisecond, so I started at 500 (i beat every half second), then divided it by 2, 4 and 6. The last little bit is divided by 8. 

Recorded into Audacity where I cropped it and fixed some clipping issues. 

||||

More on this 246th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Compose a piece of music that increases speed in stages as it proceeds.” — at:

http://disquiet.com/0246/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

http://llllllll.co/t/double-quadruple-sextuple-music-disquiet-junto-project-0246/4549

There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

Image associated with this project is by Oliver Gouldthorpe and is used thanks to Flicker and a Creative Commons license:

flic.kr/p/sMDxq

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

Latticeworks (disquiet0246)

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.