The Assignment: Make music using just three sine waves.

More on this 60th Disquiet Junto project at:

http://disquiet.com/2013/03/07/disquiet0062-lifeofsine

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Image via http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Interference_of_sine_waves.JPG

Disquiet Junto Project 0062: Life of Sine

This is an interesting project for the week, considering I was doing a self-test on my hearing recently by creating sinewaves at high frequencies to see if I could hear them.  

Apparently, I can't hear anything above 14500khz, which is about typical for someone in my age-group (and amazing considering the amount of damage I thought my 30+ years of drumming would've done).

As an experiment, I purposely chose frequencies I cannot hear: 16000 (for 5 seconds), 18000 (introduced at 10 sec) and 20000khz (at 15 secs).  I can only hear the 'click' at the beginning and ends of the sample.

At the 20 second mark, the three waves are chopped into millisecond samples and played in a dance-techno loop using the lunchbox program (http://www.brambos.com/downloads/lunchbox.zip).  I used the 'overdrive' setting after 16 bars, which actually revealed the sounds (52 seconds in).

I do not recommend playing this while your dog (or probably any pet) is in the room.

photo by Leon Wilson: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chop/4329524896/

***

This week’s project involves making music from the basic building block of sound: the sine wave.

You will compose and record a piece of music using just three different sine waves, and nothing else — well, nothing else in terms of source material, but the waves can, after the piece has gotten underway, be transformed by any means you choose.

These are the steps:

Step 1: Devise which three sine waves you will employ. They should be different from each other in some evident way.

Step 2: The track should open with just one of the sine waves.

Step 3: Add the second sine wave at 5 seconds.

Step 4: Add the third sine wave at 10 seconds.

Step 4: Only at 15 seconds should you begin to in any way manipulate any of the source waves.

Deadline: Monday, March 11, 2013, at 11:59pm wherever you are.

Length: Your finished work should be between 1 and 4 minutes in length.

More on this 60th Disquiet Junto project at:

http://disquiet.com/2013/03/07/disquiet0062-lifeofsine

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:

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

Lee Rosevere - Kraftwerk for Dogs [disquiet0062-lifeofsine]

Disquiet Junto Project 0062: Life of Sine

 Instructions:

This week's project involves making music from the basic building block of sound: the sine wave.   You will compose and record a piece of music using just three different sine waves, and nothing else — well, nothing else in terms of source material, but the waves can, after the piece has gotten underway, be transformed by any means you choose.

These are the steps:   Step 1: Devise which three sine waves you will employ. They should be different from each other in some evident way.   Step 2: The track should open with just one of the sine waves.   Step 3: Add the second sine wave at 5 seconds.   Step 4: Add the third sine wave at 10 seconds.   Step 4: Only at 15 seconds should you begin to in any way manipulate any of the source waves.

Information:

Displaced - why?

1. Lost my main audio hard drive a few weeks ago so feeling a little musically lost at the moment. I started recreating everything, but … Kontakt libraries are big.

2. I'm travelling for business a lot at the moment. In a couple of hours I need to wake up to head to Heathrow then on to San Francisco.

Sines were created (in a simple Max for Live/Pluggo patch) and layered. Once through a couple of loops, the sines were resampled in a granular sampler/synthesizer and pitched around to get some harmonic movement. A few other choppy granular effects were added as a bed. And it was (too quickly) mixed.

  Credits:

Photo: Descending toward MIA (@echosonic)

More on this 60th Disquiet Junto project at: http://disquiet.com/2013/03/07/disquiet0062-lifeofsine 

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:   http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/info

Displaced [disquiet0062-lifeofsine]

When astronomers look for planets in the so-called Goldilocks Zone (planets at the right distance from their suns would have temperatures suitable for liquid water), they can't view the planets through their telescopes directly. One technique they use instead is to measure slight changes in colour of a star's light caused by gravitational tugs by the orbiting planets. 

I used this principle for this piece: the two first sine waves are directly audible, but the third is not. Instead the harmonic content which starts to emerge after the first 20 seconds is the third sine wave influencing the first two. Later in the piece, the first two sine waves start to influence the third, resulting in a denser harmony.

Technically, here's what I did: I set both channels of an analog dual filter to self-resonate which results in two sine waves. The first was tuned to 50hz, the second to 150hz. You first hear the 150hz sine, followed by the low bass of the second. Then I use the third sine (tuned at 550hz, coming from an analog oscillator) to amplitude modulate the first two sines by manually increasing the amount of AM. Later in the piece I took a mix of the first two sine waves and used that to frequency modulate the third sine, creating a feedback loop. Of course with analog oscillators, it's hard to tune them exactly, so you get some nice beating from them being off a few tenths of a herz. I added some reverb to the whole thing to bring it all alive.

Using AM and FM in this way results in the added harmonics, and the sines end up sounding less like sines and more like filtered sawtooths. All sounds in this piece come from just the three sines with a bit of reverb.

More on this 60th Disquiet Junto project at:

http://disquiet.com/2013/03/07/disquiet0062-lifeofsine

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

The Goldilocks Drone [disquiet0062-lifeofsine]

Below the instructions...
I decided to keep it simple - nothing but the 3 sines - panning and volume changes to form the piece. I suggest headphones...
Came up with the title course I hear the sines dancing and Signe (sounds the same as sine) is a Danish (female) name.... 

This week's project involves making music from the basic building block of sound:
the sine wave. 
You will compose and record a piece of music using just three different sine waves,
and nothing else — well, nothing else in terms of source material, but the waves
can, after the piece has gotten underway, be transformed by any means you choose. 
These are the steps:
Step 1: Devise which three sine waves you will employ. They should be different from
each other in some evident way.
Step 2: The track should open with just one of the sine waves. 
Step 3: Add the second sine wave at 5 seconds. 
Step 4: Add the third sine wave at 10 seconds.
Step 4: Only at 15 seconds should you begin to in any way manipulate any of the
source waves.
More on this 60th Disquiet Junto project at:
http://disquiet.com/2013/03/07/disquiet0062-lifeofsine
More details on the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Dancing Si(g)ne “disquiet0062-lifeofsine”

My contribution to the 62nd disquiet-junto on Soundcloud.

1-800-dial-a-sine is composed of a 350 Hz, 440 Hz and 480 Hz tone. Why? Well, as it turns out, a dial tone is 350 Hz and 440 Hz (held steady) and an audible ring tone is 440 Hz and 480 Hz (for 2 seconds on and 4 seconds off). 

I used these as the base for making this piece. Most of it was done in Bidule and then i also ran a tone through a pitchshift and widi plugin to make the pulse.  I was planning on making some complex rhythms but ended up happier with the simple pulse.

--I've had a bit of an addiction over the years to telephones and the sounds they make and have a shrinking collection of phones from the 50s, 60's and 70's.

For more on this 62nd Disquiet Junto project visit:

http://disquiet.com/2013/03/07/disquiet0062-lifeofsine

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

-----

Original call:


Disquiet Junto Project 0062: Life of Sine

This week's project involves making music from the basic building block of sound: the sine wave. 

You will compose and record a piece of music using just three different sine waves, and nothing else — well, nothing else in terms of source material, but the waves can, after the piece has gotten underway, be transformed by any means you choose. 

These are the steps:

Step 1: Devise which three sine waves you will employ. They should be different from each other in some evident way.

Step 2: The track should open with just one of the sine waves. 

Step 3: Add the second sine wave at 5 seconds. 

Step 4: Add the third sine wave at 10 seconds.

Step 4: Only at 15 seconds should you begin to in any way manipulate any of the source waves.

Deadline: Monday, March 11, 2013, at 11:59pm wherever you are.

Length: Your finished work should be between 1 and 4 minutes in length.


1-800-dial-a-sine [disquiet0062-lifeofsine]

I am a composer, sound designer and media artist. I like creating environments through sound, and exploring the sonic qualities of found sounds, field recordings and 'machine languages' of everyday things. I get inspired by constraints.
I have performed internationally as 1/2 of the duo Coin Gutter, and received international awards for the my installations and performances as part of Manufacturing Entertainment.
I work with performance artists, dancers, theatre companies, film/video artists, animators etc, creating experimental sound design for their work.

1-800-dial-a-sine [disquiet0062-lifeofsine]

Emma Hendrix