Disquiet Junto Project 0601: Hard Six
The Assignment: Let a roll of the dice determine the relative prominence of various parts of a track.

Basically made six tracks filled with different loops of about 20 seconds. Randomly chose between 1-6 for each track to determine how many loops would appear.  Then organized the result in a way that seemed to work compsitionally.

More on this 601st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Hard Six (The Assignment: Let a roll of the dice determine the relative prominence of various parts of a track), at: https://disquiet.com/0601/

The project was inspired in part by recent correspondence with Junto participant Robert Precht. More to come in that regard.

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0601-hard-six/

Harte Sechs(disquiet0601)

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.

Listening to the other tracks people did, maybe I should have been a little more minimal. Well, there’s no bass really. So, I left out something. I tried to focus on dynamics for this one, with the swelling guitar chords, contrasted with the fading synth rhythm every two measures. Also got a chance to use this weird 2 in 1 wood block/shaker my friend got me for my birthday. Scale is B Hungarian Major with no 7 or 5 so it’s pentatonic. Probably a name for it but I don’t know what it is.

More on this 609th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Speed Limit Pt 1 (The Assignment: Record a track at precisely 60 BPM with the intention someone will subsequently rework it), at: https://disquiet.com/0609/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0609-speed-limit-pt-1/

60 and Sexy (disquiet0609)

Disquiet Junto Project 0610: Speed Limit Pt 2
The Assignment: Combine two or more pre-existing 60 BPM tracks into something new — at half the speed.

Combined two tracks that seemed like they shouldn't go together:

https://soundcloud.com/red_robin/disquiet_junto_0603-refactored-drift-60-bpm

https://soundcloud.com/atw/transient-melter-60bpm-disquiet-0609

More on this 610th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Speed Limit Pt 2 (The Assignment: Combine two or more pre-existing 60 BPM tracks into something new — at half the speed), at: https://disquiet.com/0610/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0610-speed-limit-pt-2/

Tristan Louth-Robins & ATW - Transient Drift (disquiet0610)

Disquiet Junto Project 0612: Drum Vector
The Assignment: Walk the listener through variations on the same percussive instrument.

Dragged my wooden tongue drum out of the closet for this one. Recorded too many variations and had to cut a few. Basically just used different reverbs and delays to give each variation it's own space.  Also played with panning on the cross fades to make it seem like you're walking from one area to the next.  Then for a noise bed I routed everything to a new track with more reverb, resonator, effects and so on.  Automated the stereo width on that one rather randomly.

More on this 612th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Drum Vector (The Assignment: Walk the listener through variations on the same percussive instrument), at: https://disquiet.com/0612/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0612-drum-vector/

splinter vector (Disquiet0612)

Disquiet Junto Project 0622: Know the Shadow
The Assignment: How do you depict a shadow in sound?

It finally occurred to me when I was playing guitar that each note on the fretboard has a sort of shadow note that you can sometimes hear if you play unplugged.  If you pluck the string on the other side of your fret hand you get a different note.  The pickup on an electric of course won't get this.  I recorded with my phone because the mic is pretty sensitive and still had to jack up the volume a bit in the DAW. Anyway, I held the same chord the entire time, AbMaj #4 7 10, and went back and forth, picking on one side of the fret hand and then the other.  On the other side you get a BMaj 6 (no 5).  The two chords together, the regular and the "shadow chord" give you a 6 note scale: Ab B C D Eb G.  Sounds like some ancient exotic lyre or something. Who knew?

Added some echo and reverb because ya know, shadows.

More on this 622nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Know the Shadow (The Assignment: Use recently discarded material to make something new), at: https://disquiet.com/0622/  About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/  Subscribe to project announcements: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/  Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0622-know-the-shadow/

Shadow Notes (disquiet0622)

Disquiet Junto Project 0632: Shear Wind
The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording.

I made a windy recording down by the Redondo marina.  It was a quiet day for once.  It's usually kind of noisy with human activity.  Good day for a windy field recording with just a hint of birds and sea lions.  

I converted the field recording to midi notes.  Ableton has a few options when you convert audio to midi, "harmony, melody, drums."  I chose harmony first and didn't get very many midi notes from the conversion, then chose melody and got a lot more.  I used both and even made one more sparse one.  Chime sounds seemed like a natural choice.  I put the same midi effect on all midi tracks making all the notes part of the same 5 note chord.

With the wind recording itself I faded in some resonator and phaser, and faded them out again towards the end.

More on this 632nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Shear Wind — The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording — at: https://disquiet.com/0632/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0632-shear-wind/

blame it on the wind (Disquiet0632)

“Create music that emerges from the sound of fireworks”

Fireworks field recording: freesound.org/people/lezaarth/sounds/260665/

I started by looping a particular part of the fireworks recording that sounded like it had a certain rhythm. Timed the BPM and added a somewhat straight beat so the fireworks acted as kind of a unique back beat. Then layered synth tracks as well as ambient tracks made from the field recording. Later I got bored and messed with it in Girl Talk in a Box, static.echonest.com/girltalkinabox/index.html, the app we experimented with in a previous Junto assignment. That girl talk part is about 2/3 the way through the piece.

More on this 164th Disquiet Junto project — “Create music that emerges from the sound of fireworks” — at:

disquiet.com/2015/02/19/disquie…64-juntofireworks/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

disquiet.com/junto

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

disquiet.com/forums/

Image associated with this project by Carl Guderian, used via Creative Commons license:

flic.kr/p/dGNiDc

gung hay fat beaT (Disquiet0164-Juntofireworks)

Its more of a remix of myself than a cover of myself but in the spirit of the assignment I tried to go out on a limb and do something completely different than usual. I treated the song abstractly. It's more like a collage than a song really.

It's vastly different than the original track which can be heard here: moduspony.bandcamp.com/track/funky-despot

I started by making three alternate masters with different effects applied to each one. Those plus the original master were my four pieces of audio that I cut up randomly into clips of various sizes. I then strung together these various clips randomly into a sort of sound collage. There was some picking and choosing of more rhythmic parts of the collage after the fact because some of it was just too crazy. It straddles chaos and order until it finally settles on a loop with some new instrumentation, and the rest you can just listen to...

More on this 140th Disquiet Junto project — “Take a recent track of your own and ‘cover’ it with different equipment″ — at:

disquiet.com/2014/09/04/disquiet0140-soloswap/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

disquiet.com/junto

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

disquiet.com/forums/

The image associated with this track is by Antinephalist and was used thanks to a Creative Commons license. Originally posted here:

flic.kr/p/bNpTrT

pesKy fuNpot (disquiet0140-soloswap)

Disquiet Junto Project 0697: First Third
The Assignment: Record the first third of a trio.

I used a drum kit made from a sample of water dripping in a hotel bathtub, obviously warped in various ways.  I used a sequencer that triggers the samples in a random way then I went back and did some editing, leaving some pauses.

With the Bathwater (disquiet0697)

Disquiet Junto Project 0698: Second Third
The Assignment: Record the second third of a trio.

I chose a track randomly from the lines thread last week and ended up with @xhg 's field recording (https://soundcloud.com/xhg/disquiet0697-sunday-morning-gardening).  All the sounds I used for the beat came from xhg's recording and I tried to take cues from it as well.  For example, I tried to match the steps in the middle section for the pace, 109BPM.  I used a resonator set to G# because the bell heard in the last third of the recording is roughly a G#.

Look what I Found in the Garden (Disquiet0698) (feat. xhg)

Disquiet Junto Project 0699: Third Third
The Assignment: Record the final third of a trio.

I just wanted to play bass on something because it felt like it had been a while since I picked up my bass.  The third part of this project always felt like the right time for basslines too.  I don't really like when the low end is panned hard left or right to be honest.  It feels unbalanced to me.  Anyway, Torpid and Coraline's beautiful piece from last week really stuck out to me so it was an easy choice.  I liked writing counter point to Torpid's fills at the end of the measure.  Hope I didn't funk it up too much

You're not a Burden Either (disquiet0699)

Disquiet Junto Project 0699: Third Third
The Assignment: Record the final third of a trio.

I went through some of the tracks no one had done yet from last week and chose Lee Evans and Ray Cobley's track from last week for my second submission.  I once had John Cage's Music of Changes and Terry Riley's In C open in different browser tabs and played them at the same time to see what it would sound like.  It was interesting.  All the randomness of Changes was suddenly put into a harmonic context.  I heard Evans and Cobley's track and thought I might do something similar.  I kept it super basic and played some chords in C# Major.  Created some swelling with reverse and delay.

3 Tabs Open (disquiet0699)

Disquiet Junto Project 0709: Overclocked
The Assignment: Speed up a machine (or process) until it falters.

I used to do this thing with the guitarist in my old band where we kind of leap frog off of each other's riffs to create new parts for the song.  So he'd have a riff, I'd write something for it, then he'd listen to my part and write a new part on top of it, and so on.  It's something I still do occasionally just to see what comes out of it.  For this prompt I decided to use this technique but cut the bars in half at a regular interval until the song speeds out of control.  As it started to really speed up, it felt kind of comical to switch back and forth between bass and guitar after recording only one little note.  The synth pad was just to make everything blend together a little better and distract from some of the more jarring changes.  I like it because it seems to kind of herald the chaotic break.  After the breakdown, it felt kind of short so I brought back the groove but tried to make it sound kind of broken, like a walkman running out of batteries or something.

More on the 709th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Overclocked — The Assignment: Speed up a machine (or process) until it falters — at https://disquiet.com/0709/.



Bridge to Nowhere (Disquiet0709)

Disquiet Junto Project 0711: Show & Tell &
The Assignment: Share some recent music; get and give feedback

Just a song I've been writing off and on for the last few months.  I wanted it to be all one rough take but ended up fixing some parts that were a little too rough.  Hopefully it can stand on it's own without overdubs, as has been my goal for my compositions the last few years.

More on the 711th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Show & Tell & — The Assignment: Share some recent music; get and give feedback — at https://disquiet.com/0711/.

Praenomina (disquiet0711)

Disquiet Junto Project 0720: One from Two
The Assignment: Combine a pair of your recent tracks.

Actually, neither of these tracks are very recent.  One is pretty old.  But both were tracks that I've wanted to do something with for a while.  And they are pretty different from each other so they seemed like they would make a good challenge.  One, as you can hear is a developed groove that I could have made a traditional song out of (but honestly didn't feel like it and probably never would have), and the other is just a little drone thing on guitar, just 3 notes.  I started layering effects on the guitar drone, making a new track each time until I had a nice noisy mess.  Then went in reverse removing effects and that process makes up the second half of the track until you hear the uneffected guitar to finish off the track.



Oh yeah, and the title came from a recent dream I had about “a crazy band I used to listen to”

More on the 720th weekly Disquiet Junto project, One from Two — The Assignment: Combine a pair of your recent tracks — at https://disquiet.com/0720/.

Antojito Ocho (Disquiet0720)

Disquiet Junto Project 0729: Community Remix (Nina)
The Assignment: Rework a shared recording from over 100 years ago

I decided to keep it simple.  I noticed when playing the track on Internet Archive that the 10 second rewind button was kind of a built in remix tool.  I recorded me using the button to sort of play the track in reverse and add a glitchy feel to the piece.  There's some light editing towards the end because I wanted to get different "performances."

More on the 729th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Community Remix (Nina) — The Assignment: Rework a shared recording from over 100 years ago — at https://disquiet.com/0729/.

Nina in 10 Seconds (disquiet0729)

X-files Andy Griffith mashup (not sure what compelled me to do this)

M. Ackerman's second page, mostly for Disquiet Junto pieces projects.

modusMatt

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