More on this 388th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Random Less / The Assignment: Make a single piece of music with very few tools, all selected at random — at:

https://disquiet.com/0388/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0388-random-less/

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

Image associated with this project adapted is from the public domain book The commoner diseases of the eye: how to detect and how to treat them, published in 1904. Via the Internet Archive:

https://flic.kr/p/oeSWEW

Disquiet Junto Project 0388: Random Less

Uploaded with AudioShare app - http://kymatica.com/audioshare
cool prompt 🙂
Random
https://patchstorage.com/platform/mozaic/

Ch 8 - 120 bpm - 002 random{disquiet0388}

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0388-random-less/23076/7?u=eptc

Desperately, He Searches Through Every Drawer, Dresser, and Cabinet. (Disquiet0388)

Disquiet Junto Project 0388: Random Less
For this project you’ll be using just a few instruments, optimally three, to create an original piece of music.

Ok, so 3 instruments it is :
Fretless Bass
Udu Drum (Moringa)
Charango (Ronroco actually)

This is far from the usual experimental junto track , hope that’s ok.
TBS using a South-American charanago to play this sort Fusion-Flamenco is what I’ll call an experiment indeed.

The charango was recorded on the road in Vejer De La Frontera, Andalucia,Spain, the other two tracks of this trio were added back home. Trying to make a one-man recoding (with no click)  sound like a real group performance is a challenge I took seriously in the years of the midi sequencer galore (80-90’s) but now I might be a bit out of shape, lol.
It quite works I guess.
Cheers
DD

Vejer De La Frontera - disquiet0388

Uploaded as part of Disquiet Junto 0388
Using just a Digitakt sampler and 3 samples

Full process discussion here: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0388-random-less/23076/16?u=mdh

Random Less (disquiet0388)

Disquiet Junto 0388

Silver Zoetrope (disquiet0388)

Uploaded with AudioShare app - http://kymatica.com/audioshare

Flutter [disquiet0388]

This is part of the "disquiet junto" challenges (see more below).
For this months challenge,  choose 3 random instruments, I decided to do a quick “in the box” experiment. Amongst my, admittedly, too many plugins, I let google cast the dice. What I hadn’t foreseen was, of course, that my plugins are a mix of instruments and mixing/mastering tools… so I was given with the following three numbers: 15, 53 and 51 - giving me the following three plugins:

15 - Arturia Piano V2
53 - iZotope Stutter Edit
51 - iZotope Ozone 7 Vintage Tape

The title is an anagram of "more random" - but feels somehow relevant to the result...

More on this 388th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Random Less / The Assignment: Make a single piece of music with very few tools, all selected at random — at:

https://disquiet.com/0388/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

disquiet0388 - mr marooned

The Strachey Love Letter Generator was a computer program developed by Christopher Strachey in 1952. Arguably the first known work of digital literature, the program was created on a Ferranti Mark I Computer (MUC) at Manchester University. 

Using a series of templates, Strachey’s program could randomly produce love letters at a pace of one per minute, for hours at a time, without a single duplicate. A simple sentence beginning with the word “My,” for example, could generate over 424 million combinations from only 20 nouns. 

Here’s an example of the swoon-worthy prose the Generator was capable of producing:

DARLING SWEETHEART,

MY FANCY TREASURES YOUR HUNGER. YOU ARE MY FERVENT ENTHUSIASM, MY LOVING FERVOUR, MY EAGER LUST, MY PRECIOUS AFFECTION.

YOURS LOVINGLY,
M.U.C.

Makes the heart flutter, don’t it? Feel free to try it yourself:

https://www.gingerbeardman.com/loveletter/

For this strange (and thankfully short) piece, Suss Müsik consulted an online random word generator with one simple rule: use the first three instruments that appear, in that order, while also using an adjective that appears in the same set. It took a long time, but here’s where we landed:

organ <> corroded
cymbal <> insistent 
guitar <> utopian

What does a “utopian guitar” even sound like? Who knows. Maybe it sounds like this. Maybe it doesn’t. It’s random!

The piece is titled Strachey. The image is a mashup of two public domain images from the British Library collection.

More on this 388th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Random Less / The Assignment: Make a single piece of music with very few tools, all selected at random — at:

https://disquiet.com/0388/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0388-random-less/

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

Strachey [Disquiet0388]

This week's Junto assignment was to make something with 3 random instruments. I still had my list from last week and used a random number generator. 
The three instruments are:
AudioMulch's 10Harmonics contraption
two free VST synths: 
Tyrell N6 https://u-he.com/products/tyrelln6/ and 
Magical 8 bit Plug http://www.ymck.net/en/download/magical8bitplug/

More notes in the lines forum topic below.

More on this 388th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Random Less / The Assignment: Make a single piece of music with very few tools, all selected at random — at:

https://disquiet.com/0388/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0388-random-less/

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

Image associated with this project adapted is from the public domain book The commoner diseases of the eye: how to detect and how to treat them, published in 1904. Via the Internet Archive:

https://flic.kr/p/oeSWEW

[junto 0388] Random Less

Jet Jaguar - Sawagou [disquiet0388]

I rolled virtual dice to choose 3 of the virtual synths in my arsenal -- which now numbers in three figures. I got Malström, Expanse and Arkana. I limited myself further to a single instance of each, and a single preset.

I allowed myself three random effects as well, a single instance of each. I allowed a re-roll after getting a mastering effect I don't know how to use. So I got the Audiomatic Retro Transformer and the MClass Maximizer strapped to the master output, and the TriTone Waveshaper as a send effect.

The Arkana patch I picked basically dictated that the piece had to be minimalistic and ambient. The Malström patch could fit in, if played softly. Expanse is more of an in-your-face synth, but I found a pluck preset that worked. Feeding it through the TriTone gave it a guitarish quality.

I came up with a minimal 12-bar loop, which I embellished with some fake noodling for variety. The whole output being fed through the Audiomatic, I could gradually make it wetter, and automating the single parameter changed the resonant frequency of the "Eerie" mode.

I fiddled on my keyboard and came up with a sloppily-played riff which I kept for another section, with different accompaniment from the other two synths. However, going from one section to the other was jarring. I resorted to harmonic theory and noted that I seemed to be going from the key of B to the key of A. The circle of fifths shows the key of E in-between, and indeed basing a line on E for a 16-bar middle smooths the progression.


+ + +

More on this 388th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Random Less / The Assignment: Make a single piece of music with very few tools, all selected at random — at:

https://disquiet.com/0388/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0388-random-less/

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

Image associated with this project adapted is from the public domain book The commoner diseases of the eye: how to detect and how to treat them, published in 1904. Via the Internet Archive:

https://flic.kr/p/oeSWEW

Drones Slam [disquiet0388]

Form the "Random Less" Disquiet Project.  Created a matrix of all the acoustic instruments that I incorporate into my music and chose three at random to use for this.  Didn't want to get into random choice of the bazillion software instruments built into my DAW.

Random Less   disquiet0388

Cool prompt! Coming from a musical tradition of punk, metal and industrial, I sometimes have to remind myself that less is more! 

In reading over the prompt and looking at the other submissions (great stuff y'all), I thought back to a lesson I had with guitarist Wayne Krantz. I saw him perform at Berklee during Guitar Week in 1998 and was totally blown away--it was like nothing I'd ever seen. I had to sit down with this guy! 

Fast forward a couple months and I'm in his Soho apartment, telling him I'm in a rut. He puts on the metronome and tells me to pick two, max three notes from a scale and use these to improvise.  What I found was, when I couldn't just blow randomly through my well-worn licks and scales, I had to really think about phrasing and dynamics. And weirdly, my playing became much more musical.

So, inspired by the prompt and my lesson with Wayne, for this piece I did the following:

1. Asked my daughter to pick the three instruments. They were: piano; three water bottles (shown in the picture--they produce the chiming and percussion sounds); and my classical guitar (she wanted me to play recorder at first but we both agreed that would sound awful :) )
2. Recorded the piano and water bottles on my phone. The percussion sounds are partly crafted from the sound of me accidentally dropping the wooden spoon I was hitting them with. It sounded pretty cool! I should drop things more often.
3. Dumped the recordings into Live and put down a basic rhythm track. Not much processing, just some limiting, reverb and panning. 
4. Put down some guitar. Here I limited myself to just the root, third, fifth, and major seventh.  I flubbed this many times! I chose the least-flubbed/most charmingly flubbed version.

More on this 388th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Random Less / The Assignment: Make a single piece of music with very few tools, all selected at random — at:

https://disquiet.com/0388/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/ 1

Subscribe to project announcements here:

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



Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0388-random-less/ 4

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

disquiet0388 Random Less

More on this 388th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Random Less / The Assignment: Make a single piece of music with very few tools, all selected at random — at:

https://disquiet.com/0388/

spir (Disquiet0388)

Post apocalyptic pedal steel guitar and funeral parlor organ....

Bring Back The Bomb disquiet0388

The challenge  - to randomly choose 3 instruments from what you have and make music with only those things. So I ended up with: 

12 string electric guitar, drumset, and these weird tuned plastic tube kid toys. 

I played(?) the drums and the plastic tubes blind to one another with the common tempo coming from a click. Recorded both with a Zoom H1n. Started to assemble something somewhat cohesive in Live, then noodling with the 12 String over that to get ideas. Eventually settled on an A and B section and continued from there. There is a little EHX Memory Boy on the 12 string on the B sections. Otherwise its straight in with Amplitube acting as the amp. The plastic tubes I used C and D in 1 hand, then hit both of those with another note and did multiple passes with different notes - E, F, F# and G. Then in Live I added some delay.

I really enjoyed this one and hope to come back to it and flesh it out some more. I would record the guitar through a real amp, maybe augment the plastic tubes with a complimentary synth, and develop the arrangement further - have it actually go somewhere. Oh - and maybe redo the drums :)

------------
More on this 388th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Random Less / The Assignment: Make a single piece of music with very few tools, all selected at random — at: https://disquiet.com/0388/

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

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0388-random-less/

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

Image associated with this project adapted is from the public domain book The commoner diseases of the eye: how to detect and how to treat them, published in 1904. Via the Internet Archive: https://flic.kr/p/oeSWEW

Random Less disquiet0388

rolled the dice til i got the instruments i wanted
.
kalimba / 12 string guitar / mountain dulcimer
through protoplasm
podfarm, ambient reverb fx
slowed down a little in audacity
.
Disquiet Junto Project 0388: Random Less
The Assignment: Make a single piece of music with very few tools, all selected at random.

Step 1: For this project you’ll be using just a few instruments, optimally three, to create an original piece of music.

Step 2: Select three instruments available to you at random. (Alternately, you can roll a die and add one to determine the number of instruments, yielding a result between two and seven.)

Step 3: Create a piece of music employing only the instruments determined in Step 2.

clear mountain path L(5)2.0 sun setting (disquiet0388)

Randomly selected from my collection of instruments: a Bulgarian tambura, an ocarina and a mandolin. I composed a simple tune for the ensemble and recorded the parts in Logic Pro. No overdubs or heavy processing -- just a little eq and reverb.
More on this 388th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Random Less / The Assignment: Make a single piece of music with very few tools, all selected at random — at:

https://disquiet.com/0388/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/ 1

Random Trio - disquiet0388

I used this Ruby script to randomly select from my instruments:

['korg r3', 'arcturia timbre wolf', 'boss dr-5', 'guitar', 'bass', 'uke'].sample(3)

Ended up with the Timbre Wolf (higher pitch distorted lead synth), Boss DR-5 (used the chord setting and R&B kit for the, well, punchy chords throughout), and ukelele (intro twang). Threw in a chuckle at the end for laughs.

--

More on this 388th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Random Less / The Assignment: Make a single piece of music with very few tools, all selected at random — at:

https://disquiet.com/0388/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0388-random-less/

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

Image associated with this project adapted is from the public domain book The commoner diseases of the eye: how to detect and how to treat them, published in 1904. Via the Internet Archive:

https://flic.kr/p/oeSWEW (edited)

flesh prison improvement plan

saint death [disquiet0388]

I didn't select instruments at random, but I did limit myself to Sugar Bytes’ Thesys, u-he’s Hive 2, and Sonic Charge’s Microtonic. Put it together in Bitwig Studio, and used FabFilter plugs for EQ, compression, and limiting.

More on this 388th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Random Less / The Assignment: Make a single piece of music with very few tools, all selected at random — at:
https://disquiet.com/0388/

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

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0388-random-less/

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

Image associated with this project adapted is from the public domain book The commoner diseases of the eye: how to detect and how to treat them, published in 1904. Via the Internet Archive:
https://flic.kr/p/oeSWEW

Vibe (disquiet0388)

Created for the Disquiet Junto Project 0388: Random Less
@disquiet

The project: Make a single piece of music with very few tools, all selected at random.

Out of the 48 instruments found in our household last week, a random selection of 3 were drawn: zither, ocarina, and an Audiothingies MicroMonsta synth.

It turns out that the zither is an old thrift store find that has not been tuned, or likely cleaned, in decades. Finding strings on it that were in key was a bit of a trick. Due to the discordant nature of strumming chords, other ways of playing were explored. The ocarina is from a music making toy kit, who's origins are unknown, but is probably a good story. 

An ebowed zither drone and synth improv is the backbone of this minimal sketch. Plucked zither parts and layered, delayed ocarina were added in improvised overdubs. The Micromonsta was kept purposely in a supporting role, letting the ringing texture variations of the ebowed zither and the warbling melodies of the ocarina stand out. The zither was recorded with a contact mic on the end brace. Both the zither and the ocarina were processed through the Avalanche Run and Immerse effects pedals.

More on this 388th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Random Less / The Assignment: Make a single piece of music with very few tools, all selected at random — at:

https://disquiet.com/0388/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0388-random-less/

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

Zocarimm [ disquiet0388 - randomless ]

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.