from 'conduit' cassette out 7/25 on scissor tail editions
http://scissortail.bandcamp.com/album/conduit

read more about this recording here
http://joshmason.tumblr.com/post/55123646498/in-june-of-last-year-my-brother-in-law-lost-his

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Untitled (For Ruth)

excerpts from "Utility Music"

Westheimer's Discovery: A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a couple hours in the library.
—

Utility Music is the result of a year long exploration of a Doepfer A-100 modular synthesizer system of my own planning, beginning on January 1, 2019 and ending December 31, 2019. It was my attempt to learn more about the foundational building blocks of synthesis and to explore the idea that interesting and compelling synthesizer-based music can be realized without the aid of modern DSP and “fancy” hardware within the format.

Beginning each week on Monday, I would begin a new patch from scratch and continue to develop it until the end of the week. On Saturday, I would freeze the patch and "perform" it without making any new additions. Sunday was set aside for recording the result, taking down patch notes, then taking the patch apart so that the process could begin all over again the next day.

The final audio portion of the project is a mosaic assembled from these weekly stems. Accompanying the CD is a 72 pg. perfect-bound book containing further information on the project as well as weekly point-to-point patch notes and insights into process.

https://j-w-m.bandcamp.com/album/utility-music

Josh Mason "Utility Music" preview

from 'Call, Response' 

--
"Call, Response was conceived of as a long distance musical conversation between Mason & Andree. A single take of material performed by one artist was recorded to magnetic tape and sent to the other with the restriction that accompaniment be recorded in real time as well, closely simulating a live performance. Over time, as the players learned more about each other and their methods, an overarching quality to the body of work developed from their shared sensibilities. The call and response format allowed the voice of each artist to be present, interacting and intersecting, within a murky atmosphere punctuated by melodic fragments and moments of clarity."

Mastered by Taylor Deupree 
--

12" LP now available for pre-order through Own Records
http://ownrecords.com/index.htm

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David Andree + Josh Mason — Winter To Spring, Further Than First Thought

an excerpt from something i was working on and lost track of. can't really remember what is going on here other than that i know a piston mk3 is the drum, and there is some end of chain fx aid. pretty sure there is a piston mk1 in external mode with nothing going into it cycling away. also some detritus caught in tyme sefari(s)

Landscape Artist's Dream

https://joshmason.info/
https://j-w-m.bandcamp.com/album/a-reliquary

Relic

Rework of "Sapphire Road" which is included with the download from Taylor Burton & Andy C. Jenkin's "Astral Oil Works" cassette on Sunshine Ltd.


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Sapphire Dub

Art book + download available from FET Press

Buy Book + Download

Hellified Irie (album preview)

first attempt. pocket piano, pitts filter, mfb dlfo, sbg alm(el cap), mt mikrophonie, mt radio music, synthrotek eko, pitts dvca, boomerang iii, tc hall of fame

Untitled

a last second recording of something that sounded interesting. all sounds originate from a guitar being processed by a piston honda mk1 + clouds (modulated manually and by an mfb dlfo + a147) and sent to outboard gear. there is also some filtering happening in there as well which is also modulated by the mfb.

Untitled III

this was my first random sequence. 

at the heart of it all is a turing machine (clocked by the sample & hold on the mfb dual lfo) which is feeding a quantized braids in SIX3 mode, which is feeding clouds which is modulated by an a147, mfb dual + super sloth. one of clouds outputs is manually being fed to the cv of the frequency cutoff of a pittsburgh filter via a µAtt. along the way somewhere a clock pings the piston honda (also modulated by a147) via a ladik c214 envelope + pitts vca, which feeds a synthrotek eko. also, a radio music plays a texture behind it all. phew.

untitled IV

this is probably the most complicated patch i've managed to build to date. only had maybe 2 cables left at the end. started out just trying to "ebow" rings w/ an audio rate square wave...then it just snowballed from there.

rings, in chord mode, is the only voice. it's being modulated by a wogglebug, which is being clocked by a 4ms peg (which has some cross modulation happening.) turing machine + ladik q-010 is handling sequencing. a batumi (with a metric ton of cross modulation) and a a-147 are modulating rings, clouds, turing machine, z4000, mmg, peg and a piston honda (which is in the rosie's efx loop in external mode along with an aeverb for some crunch)

untitled V

first patch of 2017 and an excuse to goof with the new smr firmware and the tape delay on disting. 

also, man, that polivoks can really get away from you..
—

band 2-6 on the smr is being pinged by pulses from the turing machine, band 1 is at a steady drone. quantized sequence from turing machine is rotating the smr throughout with morph and spread at 0, then towards the halfway point morph is maxed out. smr out into clouds (granular parasite - early on with short random grains, then later with larger smeared ones) and rings easter egg in (reverb) which feeds the tape delay mode on the mk3 disting. disting out to mixer as well as a-189 which feeds a make noise mmg (which is struck once in a while by the ssf ura.) clouds is feeding a harvestman polivoks vcf which is being modulated by attenuated stepped cv from wogglebug as well as the the ifm dunst. both the lowpass and bandpass out is manually being switched back and forth via the erica sequential switch in manual mode.

Untitled VI

this is a very similar patch as Untitled VI, except that now there are three voices instead of one: SMR, piston honda (which is also in the rosie efx loop from time to time, which is a bad habit/crutch that i lean on way too often) and e350. SMR is droning and fluttering into clouds, while the piston honda and e350 are both hitting an optomix before going into rings for some reverb. there is also a field recording churning in the background inside the disting, which i am randomly and manually controlling the playback speed on. 

i could listen to this for hours (and did)

Untitled VII

recorded mainly as a test of the intellijel digiverb 1U tile. tried to have a little bit of drone with some percussive aspects as well.

sound source is a little random progression from the e350 into rings in formant mode, then swirled around in the morphagene with the digiverb in rosie's efx loop. starts dry, then about 50% wet, with about 20% decay...then about 50% decay and 75% wet...introduces some nice lo-fi tape-ish saturation, which is kinda nice.

untitled VIII

here is a reworked and extended interpretation of "plant body" by christopher willits for his remix project. track utilizes tape loop and software manipulation of his original stems. 

to me, the music tracks the process of photosynthesis and reveals a bloom at tracks end.

Plant Body-Willits (Josh Mason Remix)

a multi tracked piece with the instruo scíon and a golden pothos at the heart of the patch driving tons of things (with some manual wiggling here and there.) towards the end there is a frozen loop caught in an el capistan brought into the mix.
—


chord (harmonize on)
—————————————————
root >  a135-1  ch1 in
3rd > pitts binary in
5th > a135-1  ch4 in
7th > a135-1  ch3 in

batumi (free mode, expert fw)
———————————————————————
ch1 square out > scion ch1 gate in
ch3 random out > a135-1  ch3  cv
ch4 sine out (att) > maths ch4 both cv

scíon (harmonic series mode, plant sensitivity ~50%, manual leaf sensor active, secondary gate out mode)
————————————————————————————————
ch1 cv out > chord v/oct
ch1 cv out > ad shapes wave/algo cv
ch2 cv out > chord voicing cv
ch3 cv out > chord inversion cv
ch4 cv out > shapes wet/dry mix cv
ch1 gate out > maths ch1 trigger
ch2 gate out > maths ch2 cycle 
ch3 gate out > batumi ch3 reset
ch4 gate out > a135-1  ch4  cv
raw out  > ssf mmf fm cv

ssf ura
—————
opto-int > clk fm
toggle a/b out (att) > chord waveform cv
sample out-b > pitts binary freq cv

maths
—————
ch1 > a135-1  ch1  cv
ch4 > a135-1  ch2  cv

audio damage shapes
————————————————
mono out > mmf in

pitts binary
————————
lp out > a135-1  ch2  in

ssf mmf 
————————
bp out >  a138m ch2 in

a135-1 vca
———————
sum out >  a138m  ch1  in

a138m mixer
—————————
ch C out > shapes in
ch D out > alm sbg send

alm sbg
——————
return > rosie in A

Untitled IX

from 'timecode beach' cassette on digitalis industries

digital version available here
http://digitalisrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/timecode-beach


Good Luck To You, Sailor (Slight Return)

testing out the more, mmm, mellow? side of the non linear circuits 'digital filter simulator' (DFS)

patch notes: a noodle from sheep caught in the morphagene, which is then multed out to clouds in parasite granular (pitched all the way down) as well as the DFS (which is also being hit with purple + white noise mixed at the second input) + polivoks vcf (bandpass out) combo. this duo is crossfaded between each other and then randomly panned in the stereo field along with a second sheep noodle caught in the modcan cv record, quanta noise  and white noise. modulation spread out across the whole mess via 3 channels of random from batumi and maths ch1 through let's splosh (which is also cross modulating batumi and maths for extra weirdness)

last thing to note i suppose, is the DFS is not receiving a clock at its clock input, but rather using the morphagene loop as its clock due to internal normalization (or so says the panel?) the DFS gets more and more sputtery here the closer the rate knob reaches 0

Untitled X

nonlinearcircuits cellular automata, the rundown:

the voice is a couple of sheep noodles recorded into 3 or 4 splices on the morphagene, which feeds bionic lester (secondary notch selected), which feeds clouds (granular mode) in the beginning, the MG is stalled on a single splice... when the clock (noise tools rand clock) is engaged on the cellular automata, the CA then powers all the modulation from that point out, which includes gene, morph, slide and shift on mg, freeze on clouds and ch's a and b freq cutoff on the bionic lester (whose q is dimed) 

partway into the audio, the clock source and the aliasing of the bionic lester are manually changed to further accentuate the modulation. 

one cool/annoying(depending on your stance, i think its great) thing with the CA is that if you clock it, but don't seed it, it will stall out and you will be stuck on whatever modulation values it freezes at. this is by design, and can be interestingly controlled by seeding the CA with itself...so when the countdown stops, and the gate from the cell that you are using to seed it is low, it will freeze, but can be restarted if desired by unpatching that cell and patching into another one that is indicated as high by the display. this is what happens around 1:50

Untitled XI

an experiment in pinging the bionic lester mk1. never thought to try this, and wasn't sure if it would work since it technically doesn't self oscillate.

random trig from noise tools triggers a short exponential maths env which pings 
 the A side of the lester. the resonance on  the filter is dimed, and then an additional offset is added which seems to make quite a difference. the cutoff is controlled manually (as well as by a random wave from batumi) and the aliasing is manually flip flopped as well. the output of the lester then hits a modulated morphagene which self-records (with inop1) using its own env out, so the harder the filter hits, the more often it erases what was in the loop and replaces it with new material. morphagene then hits clouds which sews just a few random grains, which are sometimes frozen and ping-ponged in a wide pan.

Untitled XII

short demo of let's splosh as a rectification distortion for audio rate signals.

the signal path here is clouds > splosh > mixer. clouds (parasites, reverse buffer, 2 sec, steady grain stream) has a 550Hz sine wave from an MCO and some quanta noise frozen in a buffer, which is pitched all the way down. the MCO then is pitched all the way down itself to around 17Hz and its second output is being quantized by an attenuverted intellijel scales (that has notes selected and deselected manually,) at audio rate, which then sequences the grains on clouds creating chords. the more the audio rate signal is let through, the higher in pitch the grains are sequenced (octaves more or less)

the left and right out of clouds feeds the first two inputs on lets splosh, and the first two outputs in the first + column then go out to a mixer. the third input of splosh is fed with an offset from a quadratt. at around 3V, you get as clean of a signal out of splosh as possible (given that its all rectified,) but as you decrease the offset closer to 0V and below, the signal begins to break up. this can be heard around the middle section and towards the end when the grain density is reduced as well, turning the cloud into clicks.

Untitled XIII

a short goof with kermit mk3

as best i can remember, 3 separate sequences from stillson hammer mk2 feeding a piston honda mk1, donut mk2 (both primary and modulator) honda and donut 1 into double andore with some whack ass envelope selection, donut 2 into a takaab lpg.

all oscillators submixed down with an antimatter sub ring (a small amount of ring mod between the honda and donut 2 is dialed in on ch. 5) which feeds a king slender.

also feeding slender is a short loop caught in a tyme sefari mk2, which is being told to play by a random gate sequence from stillson mk2 and is flipping between fwd and reverse with a stillson mk1, and this hits a polivoks vcf, the cutoff of which is modulated by small (and at times large) amounts of a kermit channel doing code scan.

slender then hits bionic lester mk2. kermit is modulating all kinds of things and is also self modulating via internal matrix.

Untitled XIV

A and B side selections from my new LP on Sunshine Ltd 

Edition of 100

Purchase LP here

Josh Mason—The Symbiont (album preview)

a quick test of the nlc dp filter (headphones recommended):

a bunch of chopped up noodles from a doepfer system stuck inside a squid salmple, the mix of which is randomly addressed, reduced, and crushed, then sent to the dpf, and plays alongside a main sine noodle from an a-143-9. the diode half of the dpf has a high-ish q setting (which is kinda tame compared to other filters) and a low cut off, and later is modulated by a low rate of digital noise from the a-117 and a sine lfo from a second a-143-9. the transistor side (which has no input and is internally fed by the diode side via photo-couplers) has a maxed out q  and an even lower cut off, and its cv2 is randomly assigned the 2 oscillators section from the a-117 808 source via a switch, which gives it that wild feedback sound. the output of the dpf is monitored from the sum output, and a tiny bit of reverb is added in ableton.

this filter is very  touchy, and depending on how its built, can have a very narrow range on control (as mine does,) and the transistor ladder only really gets fired up if the diode ladder is hot enough (mine uses MCT9001 photo-couplers,) so you can get all these really interesting 'edge of breakup' sounds, to use the dirt-pedal/guitar amp parlance of the day...and its quite nice if you can dial it in, but it does takes some patience.

it also gets *real* bonkers when you start swapping the q path and monitoring different outputs...but i haven't really figured out how to bend any of that to my will yet...

Untitled XV

spectral weirdness with the rossum panharmonium (feat. harvesttech)

two oscillators from a piston honda mk3 are sequenced by two tracks of the stillson hammer mk2. piston feeds two vcas onboard the double andore mk1 and are operated by each's respective envelope shape. the mix out from the andore feeds the panharmonium (which receives modulation for bandwidth, and voice count from a kermit mk3, as well as glide amount from a stillson hammer mk1.)

panharm feeds a bastl tromso (modulated by kermit mk3) which in turn feeds a polivoks filter (again modulated by kermit mk3)

polivoks feeds a tyme sefari mk2, which has record and playback vc'd by stillson hammer mk1 triggers, and is pitch shifted (up) via a diy expander from yet another hammer mk1 trigger (hammer is operating in its secondary random mode with a 'stillson nail' at the trigger input) 

the wet/dry out from sefari feeds a doepfer mixer, and the wet-only output feeds a kuzminorgel with low stability dialed, which also feeds another channel of the doepfer mixer, and in turn, an fx aid for a touch of reverb.

the polivoks, tromso and tyme sefari effect amount are not engaged/dialed-in on this demo until the panharmoium is fully wet at 0:20 in. the two sequences cv range and timing are altered slightly throughout by hand.

Untitled XVI

kermit mk3 patch up as an approximation of a benjolin

ch C and D set as triangle and square oscillators respectively, both of which are fm'ing each other. ch C provides data for ch A s&h in, ch D provides clock. oscillator outputs are mixed and sent to bionic lester mk3 ch A, the cutoff of which is modulated by kermit’s ch A (s&h) output. filter mode and cutoff manually adjusted to throughout. 

ch A of lester is panned slightly left, but is also periodically captured by a tyme sefari mk2, the sampling frequency of which is modulated all to hell by a random output of kermit’s ch B. this is mixed in panned slightly right.

props to dysonant

josh_mason

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