FM3 Buddha Machine used under Creative Commons License.
http://www.fm3buddhamachine.com

Available as a free download: http://jbutler.bandcamp.com

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“Grey” is a song I wrote using a recording of ice in a glass, guitar, ebow, ukulele with electro-harmonix freeze pedal, and electric piano.

6/27/2012 - This song has been expanded and is available on Sequence 4, a compilation on the Future Sequence label. http://futuresequence.com/releases/sequence-four/

Grey [disquiet0001-ice]

Track 2 on the album Real and Surreal, available now on bandcamp - digital + edition of 50 tapes.

https://jbutler.bandcamp.com/album/real-and-surreal

https://jbutler.bandcamp.com/album/real-and-surreal

Real and Surreal

Tome

The title track from the album Real and Surreal, available now on bandcamp - digital + edition of 50 tapes.  

https://jbutler.bandcamp.com/album/real-and-surreal

Fog horn sample by Schaarsen: <a href="http://www.freesound.org/people/schaarsen/sounds/69663">http://www.freesound.org/people/schaarsen/sounds/69663</a>/
Train whistle sample by Ecodios: <a href="http://www.freesound.org/people/ecodios/sounds/119963">http://www.freesound.org/people/ecodios/sounds/119963</a>/

More about this piece on my blog: noisecycle.com/archives/586

Ships Adrift [disquiet0002-duet]

This was produced using 3 different stemless wineglasses tuned to the pitches B, D, and E.  There were 4 tracks recorded in ableton live in realtime.  Each track was pitch shifted down 2 or 3 octaves and delayed using the KT Granulator plugin.  Some eq, compression, and reverb were applied to the master track.  What you hear is an excerpt from a slightly longer improvisation with the glasses.

This was done as an experiment for the Disquiet Junto and is a tribute to Benjamin Franklin.

expanded notes on noisecycle.com/archives/730

Ben F. [disquiet0003-glass]

For this Disquiet Junto project, the theme was 'Sonic Decay'. We had to record an instrument, subject the sound to some sort of degradation or decay, and integrate that with new material recorded with the original instrument.

I recorded my acoustic guitar using the lo-fi voice memo app that comes with the iphone. This was then played back into a coffee can and recorded using my Zoom H4n. I then layered guitar on top of that track in Logic.

The artwork was created with 1-bit camera, InstaCRT, and Decim8 on iphone.

More details on the Disquiet Junto at: 
Disquiet Junto

Rust [disquiet0022-sonicdecay]

The opener for the album 'Found'.  Releases on October 19th, 2018.

Found creates an imagined environment with slow guitars and oscillators. Loops punctuate the scenery, weaving worn and undulating waves of sound.

Recorded May-July 2018.

Created with guitar, delay pedal, and modular synthesizer.

Mastering by Taylor Deupree
Design by Rosalie

Found

Theme

The inspiration for this track came from the opening of chapter 17 of William Gibson's 1986 novel Count Zero.  It was created for the 29th Disquiet project.

To create this, I used a field recording I made of a stream in the nearby Schenley Park in Pittsburgh.  That was the main requirement of this project, using a recording of water and relating it to the quote, which says it is "one of the oldest songs."

I used a sine tone to create the bass and pad sounds were created with KT Granulator.  The main, short, bell-like sound was created with the Disco DSP Discovery plugin and Logic tape delay.  I set the tempo of the song to 160 so that the delay would sync to what I thought the tempo of the water felt like.  There is also a Korg Monotron buried deep in the mix, creating bubbling sounds.

More on the 29th Disquiet Junto project at:

http://disquiet.com/2012/07/19/disquiet0029-countzero/

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/info 

Water Down Stone [disquiet0029-countzero]

This is a piece that utilizes a cassette loop inspired by a David Chandler design.  Once I recorded 4 tracks to the cassette, I layered 2 more tracks of guitar.  I felt that the stutters (from my recently built pedal) and the imperfections in the tape loop helped this to fit the 'dirty minimalism' of this week's Junto project.

My signal chain for this project:

guitar - volume pedal - stutter pedal - el capistan - cathedral reverb

More on this 41st Disquiet Junto project at:
http://disquiet.com/2012/10/11/disquiet0041-dirtyminimalism/

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/info/

Cassette Loop [disquiet0041-dirtyminimalism]

For the 51st Disquiet Junto Project, here's the assignment:
This week’s project is a sound journal, an audio history of the past year. You will select a different audio element to represent each of the past 12 months of 2012. You will then select one five-second segment from each of these audio elements. Then you will stitch these dozen five-second segments together in chronological order to form one single one-minute track. There should be no overlap or gap between segments; they should simply proceed from one to the next.

0:00-0:05 January - Crows
0:05-0:10 February - Disquiet Junto Project 5
0:10-0:15 March - Rain hydrophone recording
0:15-0:20 April - Monotron and Buddha Machine experiment
0:20-0:25 May - Guitar
0:25-0:30 June - Grey, a song included on Future Sequence 4
0:30-0:35 July - Swimming pool hydrophone recording
0:35-0:40 August - Purring kitten
0:40-0:45 September - Teenage Engineering OP-1 experiment
0:45-0:50 October - Failed cassette tape loop 
0:50-0:55 November - Guitar with delay and fuzz
0:55-1:00 December - Study for paper and dsp

More on this 51st Disquiet Junto project at:

http://disquiet.com/2012/12/20/disquiet0051-audiojournal/

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

2012 in 60 Seconds [disquiet0051-audiojournal]

Room recording of live set performed on September 4th, 2019, opening for Autumn Pool and Jason Calhoun at The Government Center, a record store in Pittsburgh, PA.

Live At The Government Center - 2019.09.04

J Butler is based in Pittsburgh, PA. His work focuses on minimalism, drones, field recordings, guitar pedals, looping, synthesizers, and toy instruments.

J Butler

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