Disquiet Junto Project 0591: The Loneliest Number
The Assignment: Record the first third of a trio.
More info on Disquiet Junto: disquiet.com/0591/

Last summer, after an accident, I had to stop playing double bass. This is my second attempt to get back to the instrument after months of silence, I thought this could be a nice opportunity to share the process and slowly start to get my hands on it to see how it feels and how my body responds to playing.
Focused on improvisation, gesture, silence and number 7. 

7 seconds of music are followed by 7 seconds of silence. 14 seconds of music are followed by 14 seconds of silence. 21 seconds of music are followed by 21 seconds of silence. Repeat and then decrease time until the last 7 seconds of silence.
Loosely based on recording pre-count at ~ 60.50 bpm 
No timer was used during the process, so there may be irregularities.
I only played my double bass open G string with a bow.
Added some slight Mimeophon delay-modulation then a bit of chorus + phaser + tape effect (encoderaudio Ferro) in Ableton Live.
I kept volume low in order to make it possible to work on it and mix further things for future use.

7 + 7 + 7 (disquiet0591)

Disquiet Junto Project 0592: Better Than One 
The Assignment: Record the second third of an asynchronous trio.. More info on Disquiet Junto: http://disquiet.com/0592

Inspired by @alyceobvious composition (https://soundcloud.com/alyceobvious/abstraction-cactus-flower) I decided to continue exploring Georgia O’Keeffe’s Radical Abstraction. 
I was inspired by the painting “The Beyond” (1972 - https://learn.ncartmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/OKeeffe_The-Beyond-1024x772.jpg) and a quote:
“The color […] had little to do with what I’d seen. The color grew as I painted”. (from the lecture www.okeeffemuseum.org/georgia-okeeff…l-abstraction/)

I tried to apply the same concept to time, playing and painting bigger spaces every time, tracing a line between my previous submission disquiet0591) and this one. After the accident I have to rebuild a new relationship with my body: this time I worked with breathing and feeling space-time oscillations in my legs, my ankles, my shoulders and let the flow be my metronome. It was fun dancing with my double bass again, after a long time, it felt like meditation or one of the delicate and at the same time intense paintings of O'Keeffe. 

“Fill a space in a beautiful way.” - G. O’Keeffe

At bar 6 I start playing an ascending phrase with the notes F#, C#, F, D#, length 1 bar 50bpm. I then leave a full bar of silence and there starts the growing process, stretching spaces by adding eight note silences after every repetition of the musical fragment.
I doubled on fretless bass with a bit of chorus and then sprinkled both basses in a bit of convolution reverb. It was very interesting to observe the discrepancies and similarities of time and body-feeling with the two instruments, as well as phasing and subtle time differences that this process creates.

Beyond Abstraction Cactus Flower (disquiet0592)

Disquiet Junto Project 0593: The Charm 
The Assignment: Record the second third of an asynchronous trio. 
More info on Disquiet Junto: disquiet.com/0593

@triermusic last submission (https://soundcloud.com/triermusic/two-of-three-disquiet0592) inspired me with his melody added to Andreas Kitzmann (https://soundcloud.com/andreas-kitzmann-27370936/disquiet0591). It reminded me the great Augustus Pablo. So I decided to dub and pay a tribute to the great melodica master.

I recorded bass and guitar tracks and a rhythmic experimental track with AudioThing Noises. Guitar & Noises are processed by AudioThing Outer Space for delay and reverb. I then added encoderaudio Ferro to give some tasty tape hiss, wow & flutter to my tracks.
It was challenging to work without a BPM and with such fluid structure.

Dem Three (disquiet0593)

Disquiet Junto Project 0594: Threemix The Assignment: Remix an asynchronously produced trio. More info on Disquiet Junto: disquiet.com/0594

This week I chose to work on @Campos-1(https://soundcloud.com/campos-1/a-loneliest-numberdisquiet0591), @halF-unusuaL  (https://soundcloud.com/half-unusual/half-loneliest-disquiet0591-collaboration-with-campos) and @NoodleTwister (https://soundcloud.com/noodletwister/half-feedback-disquiet0593-with-campos-and-half-unusual) track. 
Thanks a lot for sharing their works.

Initially I was thinking about processing it with modular, but when I imported the tracks I started working in Ableton and forgot my initial plans. Everything was already there so I just worked on textures and levels. @Campos laid the drums, @halF unusuaL became a watery/glitchy ambient and @Noodle Twister the crunch.

@halF unusuaL track was panned and split in order to use right channel only. I imported it in Ableton and duplicated the track. The two tracks have different warp settings (Textures and Tones), Auto Filter with bandpass, pitch hack (12 & 24 semitones up), phaser and Valhalla Shimmer. Tracks panned extreme L and R
@Noodle Twister audio effect rack with 2 lines, one heavily processed with GrainSpace, a m4L Formant and  GongAmp. The other is effected just with Formant. The rack is then processed with Color Limiter and Slink Pan
@Campos is effected with Drum Buss, Saturator, Glue Compressor, Auto Filter high pass and Beat Repeat, panned 20L 20R

4 1 #4 / (Campos - HalF unusuaL - Noodle Twister Remix) (disquiet0594)

Disquiet Junto Project 0595: Filter Progression
The Assignment: Make music by processing a static sound.
More info on Disquiet Junto: disquiet.com/0595

[…] The numbers that form the first harmonics conform to the universe as our senses can perceive it. They form the legitimate human field in the magic world of sounds - the field that is open to us through the physical laws we depend on and the organs we posses, which are themselves in conformity with these laws. - A. Daniélou (Music and the Power of Sound p.26)

Harmonics are at the root of sounds as we perceive them. Their series and the possibilities given from the interaction with a filter inspired me to work with the first eleven harmonics of the series starting from the note A3 (A, A, E, A, C#, E, G, A, B, C, D#) I gradually added notes, raised filter cutoff, resonance and the volume of one of the two filters I used to get crescendo .
Today, 27th May is also Drone Day. Happy droning y'all!

I started off recording the series with 0-coast into Morphagene as a series of splices; due to the limits of range of 0-coast’s oscillator I transposed the last 3 notes of the series down one octave. Morphagene output went into QPAS’ low pass and smile pass outputs. Low pass output goes to right channel of XOH. Smile output goes into Mimeophon in green zone, then XOH’s left channel. 
As for modulation there are 3 sources: one sine LFO coming from Blue Marvin osc 2 set to minimum value, then into a mult that goes to QPAS Radiate left in and to Mimeophon Rate in and µ in. Wogglebug sends Smooth to a mult to go to Qpas Q, !¡!¡ and Radiate right inputs. QPAS freq 1 input is modulated by 0-coast slope circuit passed in its Voltage Math section and triggered by Wogglebug’s Int Clock out.
In Ableton I just added a bit of Shimmer to give some sparks.

Harmonics study(disquiet0595)

Disquiet Junto Project 0596: Phylogeny Junto
The Assignment: Depict genres’ evolution over time in music.
More info on Disquiet Junto: disquiet.com/0596

For this assignement I took Gute Nacht, o Wesen from BWV 227 Jesu, Meine Freude and tried to depict a kind of evolution starting from mellotron, to ARP 2600 to Ableton's Voice Box. Not much of a genre but I wanted to focus on electronic redention of a vocal score.
I first thought of two voice inventions inspired by this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm4tBnUGW1M) but then I thought of recording a chorale singing a part and blending the other instruments in, but then I thought of outlining this kind of possible technological evolution within this "genre" in the XXth century. I am in a hurry today so I recorded everything without taking patch notes. 

I first copied the part with Dorico, exported single voices MIDI files and full score MIDI. Used a Mellotron emulation, my Arp 2600 clone and then Ableton Voice Box Choir preset. Added a bit of Shimmer Plate reverb (Hybrid Reverb Preset).

Switched on Bach (disquiet0596)

Disquiet Junto Project 0597: Goal Line
The Assignment: Get started on a plan by getting over getting started.
More info on Disquiet Junto: disquiet.com/0597

Every goal is made of two elements: the first step and perseverance. 
I wanted to experiment creating glitch drums, with irregular lenghts and tempo changes. I then tried to integrate modular synths with it through midi clock via 0-Coast. Most of the work was done in and through Ableton, and came out as a chaotic piece of electronic music. I think there's still some work to do to make smoother tempo changes and loops transitions but I'm satisfied; maybe it'll lead to new material, maybe not: at least I learnt new techniques and reminded forgotten ones.

I started with a drum rack created with DS Kick, DS Clap, DS Hi-hat and two processed hits and a snare made off a field recording of an engine made in 1903 of a steamboat. I used beat repeat quite heavily and used Bathrööm reverb for the whole drum kit. I then created 8, 7, 3 1/2, 2, 1, 1/2 bars patterns and used Follow Action to program a random beat at 138 BPM. 
After recording it I automated master tempo, combining 69 BPM and 102 BPM. 
I then used 0-Coast to send midi clock to 0-Ctrl that sequenced two ARP2600 clone sine oscillators to create a bass. 
I added some heavily processed audio samples and Plucked Harp Effects to add some "melodic"/atmospheric voices.

Problema Tecnico (disquiet0597)

Disquiet Junto Project 0598: Mixmaster Mic
The Assignment: Record the same sound with multiple mics; mix the results.
More info on Disquiet Junto: disquiet.com/0598

Inspired by Eliane Radigue and this interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dByqwi7Jvbo&t=1310s) where she sometimes mentions Larsen effect I wondered what effect could glass have on capturing sound and feedback.
I also took this opportunity to shake a bit of rust off my double bass playing.

I placed a glass with a contact mic attached on it on one of my loudspeakers and panned it 20 Right. 
I then put a glass covering the capsule of my SM-58 Beta and panned it 16 Left.
I then boosted the loudspeaker volume and improvised over an E drone. In the center a clean recording off my Underwood pickup.
A little bit of editing, EQ and ValhallaPlate reverb in Ableton.
Contact mic can be heard solo from 1:45 to 1:56.
From 2:45 to the end, while the Underwood pickup fades, you can hear the sound of SM-58 Beta.

Double Glass (disquiet0598)

Disquiet Junto Project 0600: Reaching Out
The Assignment: This is a shared sample project. Rework a set of seven WAV files provided by Marcus Fischer.
More info on Disquiet Junto: disquiet.com/0600

This is the 600th Disquiet Junto. 600 weeks of fresh music! Congratulations to Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet and all the Disquiet Junto community for this important achievement!
This week I had the pleasure of re-working a collection of Marcus Fischer's wav files from which I selected nacre_voit and no_input_matrix_mixer files.
I decided to keep focusing on the higher part of the spectrum, just as I did on my previous disquiet 0599. I used synths and norns clone to interact and/or mangle the two selected .wav files.
It was difficult to keep things interesting and having control of everything while keeping an eye on the timing of such process.
For this recording I set up Morphagene to play nacre_voit.wav as a reel. The output was sent to a mult and then split to a mixer and to QPAS and Mimeophon for effects, then into the mixer with a non effected output.  
Arp 2600 clone and 0-Coast produces an high pitched voice that is similar to Marcus Fischer's nacre_voit.
Fates is running Gemini script with no_input_matrix_mixer.
The latter two are then effected with Hologram Microcosm Granules, Haze, 3rd preset. On previous takes I also tried Graintopia and Twine.
It's been the longest process I've ever had with any Disquiet Junto since my (recent) first submission (0590). For this last assignment I collected 13 different takes, it's a process that could have resulted in even more if I didn't restrain myself to call it finished. 
Lesson to be learnt is to keep patch simples: for this one I had complex patches running as I was trying to better understand all the capabilities of my newly arrived NANO Caixa 104 case, but the process of keeping everything under control and improvising without overdubs has been demanding. I think this one has suffered of a strange kind of horror vacui. 

Synth Voice.
Both synths are controlled via MIDI through Arturia Keystep.
• 0 Coast. 
Maths Voltage circuit: Stepped out and Arp's S&H out patched in. The outputs modulates MLTPLY and OVRTN params.
DYNAMIC out to ARP Filter VCO1 input
LIN FM controlled by ARP Triangle LFO
•ARP
VCO 2  Square normalled to Filter.
VCO 2 Sine patched to Filter Control VCO 2 in
VCO 1 Square + Filter Output are sent to Ring Mod channels 2 and 1 respectively.
Filter is set to self-oscillate.

•Modular Synth
Morphagene out -> (Morphagene) mult -> Caixa 104 Mixer 1L 1R
(Morphagene) mult -> QPAS in -> QPAS LP out-> Mimeophon in -> Mimeophon out -> Caixa 104 Mixer 2L 2R
Morphagene CV out -> Mimeophon µ in
Morphagene EOSG out -> Mimeophon Hold in

Caixa LFO 1 Square -> mult -> QPAS radiate L in, QPAS Q in, Mimeophon Clock in
Caixa LFO1 Triangle -> Morphagene SOS in

Caixa LFO 2 Square -> mult -> QPAS !¡!¡ L in, Wogglebug Clock in, Caixa Precision Adder X in
Caixa LFO 2 Triangle -> Caixa Precision Adder Y in 

Caixa Precision Adder -> Sum out -> Morphagene Gene Size in, Moprhagene Slide in

Wogglebug Stepped out -> QPAS Freq 1
Wogglebug Smooth -> Caixa S&H in
Wogglebug Woggle -> Morphagene Varispeed
Wogglebug Woggle Audio out -> Wogglebug speed in
Wogglebug INT Clock out -> Caixa S&H Trig in

Caixa S&H out -> QPAS Freq 2 In

Mimeohpon Delay Gate Out -> QPAS ¡!¡! R in

Generation (Son Of 0599)(disquiet0600)

Disquiet Junto Project 0602: Choice Words
The Assignment: Make a piece of music that strives to express a specific word.
More info on Disquet Junto: http://disquiet.com/0602

"Chiaroscuro", italian for "light-dark" [...] is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition.
I chose the word "chiaroscuro" as I find this contrast appropriate to my mood of this period of my life.

For this patch I recorded bass into Morphagene and then effected it with a bit of Mimeophon. Then I added a lead line made with ARP2600 clone into Norns Pedalboard with Phaser and Resonator, then plugged into a preamp and then to QPAS for further effects. 
The bass plays harmonics A-D-A (7-7-5 frets) and G-D-G (5-5-3 frets).
I used G double harmonic scale (G-Ab-B-C-D-Eb-F#) for the lead voice.

Morphagene -> Mimeophon -> Out 2
Wogglebug Int Clock out -> Mimeophon Clock In
Maths Ch. 4 (Cycle) -> Morphagene R in (Pmin option on)

Arp out(osc1 and osc2 square out +filter+ar)-> Norns Pedalboard (Phaser + Resonator) -> preamp -> QPAS smile out -> Out 1
Preamp -> mult -> QPAS, Maths Ch. 1 In
Maths Ch. 1 out -> QPAS Freq 1 in
Maths Inv out -> QPAS Q In

Chiaroscuro (disquiet0602)

Disquiet Junto Project 0603: Animated Suspension
The Assignment: Record a piece of music that suggests something floating in air.
More info on Disquet Junto: disquiet.com/0603

Ether: From Old French ether, from Latin aether (“the upper pure, bright air”), from Ancient Greek αἰθήρ (aithḗr, “upper air”), from αἴθω (aíthō, “I burn, shine”). Doublet of Aether.
(Roman mythology) The god-personification of the bright, glowing upper air of heaven. He is the Roman counterpart of Aether.

Yesterday evening I recorded white noise into a filter. I wanted to get a kind of AM radio intermittence effect, to give the idea of soundwaves floating in the air. With this starting idea I built my patch but the result turned out to travel greater distances than those of radio waves on planet Earth. Still it gives the idea of something floating suspended in the air. When I heard this I couldn't stop thinking of Frank Poole in 2001 Space Odissey (both the movie and the book).

The patch is centered around Caixa 104 Sample & Hold Noise out, sent into QPAS. L High pass and R Band Pass are multiplied and sent to Morphagene and Mimeophon then to Out 1. Smile Pass is sent directly to Out 2. 
Wogglebug, Maths, Caixa 104 precision adder and 2 LFOs are used to move things a bit.
Wogglebug audio section is alto sent to QPAS R in.
Then the recording is duplicated in Ableton and both channels are effected with rEQ (one odd the other even outs). The duplicated channels are effected with Auto Pan and Box, both modulated with two Envelope Followers and Slink LFO.

Etere (disquiet0603)

Disquiet Junto Project 0604: Heaven’s Gate
The Assignment: Use a picture of the clouds as a plan for adjusting your sound.
More info on Disquet Junto: disquiet.com/0604

This week I didn't find a moment that was stimulating to find a picture, so I got an old one from 2019 that suited my needs. I decided to start creating a sound in Ableton, so I took that picture, converted into a wavetable with Image2Wavetable and then processed it with Pathways. I recorded a minute and then loaded it in Morphagene to work on it with modular and norns at the end of the chain, with Massif and FX mod with resonator on.
I am continuously searching for ways to have discontinuous sound, so I decided to use 0ctrl for this purpose.

After exporting the tracks I reminded myself of a beautiful documentary I watched on art brut where I discovered the artist Julius Bockelt and his wonderful works which take inspiration from sounds and the structure of clouds. https://christianberst.com/en/artists/julius-bockelt#artworks

Morphagene L-R Out -> Mimeophone in Zone 0 -> Out 1
Maths EOC Ch. 4 -> QPAS L in -> QPAS HP LR out -> Out 2

0ctrl clock out-> Wogglebug CLK in
0ctrl pitch out -> Morphagene Gene Size in
0ctrl strength out -> Morphagene Slide
0ctrl time out -> QPAS Q in
0ctrl gate out -> mult -> Moprhagene Play in, QPAS ¡!¡! R in

Maths INV -> QPAS Freq 2
Maths SUM -> QPAS VCA in
Maths OR -> QPAS Radiate L
Maths Ch. 4 Unity out -> Maths Ch. 1 in

Morphagene CV Out -> Maths Ch. 4 in
Morphagene EOSG -> QPAS !¡!¡ in

Wogglebug Stepped CV -> Maths Ch. 4 Both
Wogglebug Smooth CV -> Maths Ch. 3
Wogglebug Woggle CV -> 0ctrl dir
Wogglebug Burst out -> 0ctrl clock in

The Structure of Clouds (disquiet0604)

Disquiet Junto Project 0605: Fifty Fifty
The Assignment: Compose a piece of music with as much silence as notes.
More info on Disquet Junto: disquiet.com/0605

I feel I had explored something similar to 0605's assignment in my previous submission for disquiet 0591 (https://soundcloud.com/micheleisoni/7-7-7-disquiet-junto-0591?si=050e4e1202c4412f93dae7e17b7e82aa&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing).
This week I reflected upon rhythm and the balance between the first beat and the silence that follows it until the next one arises. 
I set up a patch to explore "space in time" building a rhythm that tries to change continuously space between beats to obtain something like a "gridless" time structure. 

The patch is basically a QPAS filter ping using a clock output from Tempi and Burst from Wogglebug. Maths and manual control of QPAS' VCA and a bit of Mimeophon + Microcosm Interrupt's second preset to glitch things.

Lo Spazio Nel Tempo (disquiet0605)

Disquiet Junto Project 0606: Three to One
Compose a piece of music with three times as much silence as sound.
More info on Disquet Junto: disquiet.com/0606

This week’s assignment was a major challenge to me because I felt 75% to be a really high percentage for silence in a piece. 
This “rule” lead me to think how to determine precisely the 75/25 silence/sound ratio and I decided to start planning a period of time, 3 minutes and to see how many notes would fit. I then asked myself what could be a good source of material to achieve a kind of “coherence” in such conditions and I came up with a 12-tone row, and for this purpose I revised my initial plan of 3 minutes reducing the time to 2.30 minutes. I had never experimented with 12 tone rows before but I've always been fascinated, so I decided to take a plunge and limited myself to just 1 voice, since I’m not skilled enough in counterpoint/composing. I used Webern’s op. 27 Variations for Piano as a rough guideline. It could become an interesting analysis-study starting point for future studies.

I think that the most difficult result to achieve is to have a coherent flow despite the fragmentation of melodic material and sound. It’s an exercise in tension and restraint (hence the title). When writing it I felt tense as the following notes had to erupt violently from silence and/or restrain themselves from appearing. This feature gives a sharp tension to both the process and the music itself. 
I’m still not sure if I achieved the goal of coherent flow despite fragmentation or it just sounds as a broken mess. 
Silence gives a lot of weight to the notes coming out of it. 

I generated a 12-tone row with 0 being G. 
The row is: 11-10-4-0-2-6-8-7-3-5-1-9  (F#-F-B-G-A-C#-Eb-D-Bb-C-Ab-E), this form is called P0.
I used original form P0, retrograde-inverted IR11 (G-Eb-B-C#-A-Ab-Bb-D-E-C-F#-F) and retrograde R0 (E-Ab-C-Bb-D-Eb-C#-A-G-B-F-F#).
I knew that to respect the above ratio I had to fill the time of 48 quarter notes in a period of 47 bars at 75 bpm, which equals to 2:30 minutes. 
I wrote it on Dorico with the help of a spreadsheet where I wrote down the respective quarter note sound/silence values for every bar, so at each step I knew exactly how many notes I had used and how much time left I had. I then exported a midi file in Ableton and used 0-coast via midi, Polyphylla and Equal Solo Piano + Upright Piano to play it.

Restrizione E Tensione (disquiet0606)

Disquiet Junto Project 0609: Speed Limit Pt 1
The Assignment: Record a track at precisely 60 BPM with the intention someone will subsequently rework it.
More info on Disquet Junto: disquiet.com/0609

A little bit of QPAS pinging with Tempi as a master clock. Started a metronome at 60BPM and tapped on Tempi to follow it. Tempi clocked 0ctrl, Mimeophon and pinged QPAS. 
The second voice is just Morphagene magic with snippets of feedback/Wogglebug ring audio out + QPAS and Mimeophon.

Chirper (disquiet0609)

Disquiet Junto Project 0611: Music That Listens to Itself
The Assignment: Record a piece of music that repurposes itself as it proceeds.
More info on Disquet Junto: disquiet.com/0611

Today's assignment was created with QPAS pinged by 0ctrl clocked by Tempi that was being modulated by Wogglebug Stepped out selecting modes and Burst in Tempi's Mod input.
QPAS Low Pass out into Mimeophon multipled to go to Morphagene. 
Mimeophon in blue zone (last one) acts as a looper and so does Morphagene. 

Didn't quite turn out as polyrhythm busy as I wanted it to be, but it certainly has an hypnotic/dreamlike/trance vibe as it is.

Pendulum Of The Sleepless (disquiet0611)

Explorer of sound world(s).

This profile is for my Disquiet Junto submissions
More info: https://disquiet.com/2012/01/27/the-disquiet-junto/

Michele Isoni

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