This weeks Disquiet Junto asks us to abuse software to make music. I was going to pass on  this one quite honestly - there has been lots of interesting work in this field - using data files as audio etc etc. but then, and I’m not quite sure why, a project in an electronics magazine from when I was a child came to mind. In the project they created (an incredibly lofi)  video by using electro-mechanical scanning of a light resistor. Seeing video as an analog signal then prompted this. 

I’ve got a Max/Jitter patch collecting video. The video is split into 4 pieces - each piece is treated as a wavetable and the volume of it is modulated by taking the video segment using the average of each column from left to right scanned at quite a low frequency. A few parameters here and there let me turn it into music rather than noise and there is a reverb and a bit of delay in there for good measure. And then I recorded an improvisation on the whole setup. 

I’m still not quite sure it counts - surely using Max/MSP to make music is its entire reason for existing! But perhaps it’s ok since ALL the audio signal is generated by a video camera……

[disquiet0702] moving to light






Update: All my music is now Creative Commons licensed. This means if you want to use it in a video or an app then go for it. All I ask is that you credit me and link back here to my soundcloud (http://soundcloud.com/junklight). It would also be cool if you could let me know you've used it. 


I love listening to music. I love making music 

I love technology, but only as a means to an end when it comes to music making. 

I'm after music that has life not music that is perfectly constructed 

Here is my music 