Tracks I made in 2014. Most are standalone, several are performance recordings. One track is from a CD release (~60 Hz, on Irritable Hedgehog), and one track is from a netlabel release (Absence sleeps between the buildings at night, Stasisfield), Three tracks are submissions to Disquiet projects, and two are submissions to 60x60 projects.

2014

Fine grain

A short sonification based on a photograph by <a href="http://sidsmith.blogspot.co.uk/">Sid Smith</a> as part of Sid's String Quartet project, where he offers photos to be used as graphical scores. Go <a href="http://sidsmith.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/string-quartet-online-collaboration.html">here</a> for details.

I chose a very literal approach that also afforded me the opportunity to play with the very interesting <a href="http://warmplace.ru/soft/ans/">Virtual ANS</a> software. It is possible to treat an image as a sonogram and then translate it to audio. The vertical axis is used for pitch and the horizontal axis represents time, according to the settings one uses. Every detail in the image is represented in some way in the rendered sound. I did some post-processing in Audacity to add some reverb and adjust the amplitude.

The photograph is copyright Sid Smith, all rights reserved.

String Quartet XIV #4 (for Sid Smith)

My first Disquiet Junto submission for 2014 (and my first one in far too long). This project has us take a visualization of the weather in one's local area, and use it as a graphical score.

My process:
- Use the Awesome Screenshot extension in Google Chrome to clip the image from the WeatherSpark site.
- Open the image in GIMP. Transform it by inverting the colors and posterizing.
- Imported the image to Virtual ANS, a program that can convert image into sound. Tweaked the ANS parameters until I was satisfied with the result, and exported it as a WAV file.
- Imported the sound into Audacity. Added a little silence to the end, applied some EQ to boost the bass, applied a simulated plate reverb, adjusted the amplitude, and exported as an MP3.

Additional notes:
- I decided to prepare the image before submitting it to Virtual ANS because it would allow the graphical elements to emerge more starkly.
- There is an artifact at the end the track resulting from the ANS process; I decided to keep it as it seems to work as a coda.
- The weather data came from the Silver Ranch Airpark in Jaffrey, NH, US, which is one of the weather stations closest to Peterborough, NH (where I live).
- The Flickr set shows the original captured image and the altered image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seidel/sets/72157639652552553/
---

More on this 106th Disquiet Junto project (“Treat the weather as a graphically notated score”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2014/01/09/disquiet0106-sonarvortex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/?p=16588

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

0110 [disquiet0106-sonarvortex]

Experimenting with the Shnth in a Hexany 1-3-5-7 scale:

  1/1 25/24 7/6 5/4 35/24 3/2 5/3 7/4

There is no octave as the Shnth has only eight keys/buttons. The opportunity to use tunings like this is one of the main reasons I got the Shnth, where all pitches are specified as integer ratios.

Shth (stereo) into two Digitech Grunge pedals, combined in a Repeater matrix mixer, then though a Moogerfooger ClusterFlux (back into stereo), then a Deluxe Memory Man. Ehdalh Moisturizer in the FX bus. Photo here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seidel/11939149493/

Recorded in real time. No more than two pitches played at any one time, though with plenty of overlap due to a long decay time plus two layers of flanger resonance (and some reverb).

Image from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Octahedron.svg (Creative Commons).

Hexany Dyads

Recorded in performance at 119 Gallery (Lowell, MA) on January 25, 2014.

I played a <a href="http://shbobo.net">Shnth</a> with processing and looping. The piece is in three sections. To make this version, I edited out the first couple of minutes of playing and added a fade-in at the beginning and a slight fade-out at the ending, but there was no other post-production other than conversion from 96K/32-bit WAV to 48K 320kpbs MP3.

The first section uses an 8-note <a href="http://www.billalves.com/porgitaro/serenadetuning.html">scale devised by Lou Harrison</a>, and the tones and chords were actuated by my breath as I blew into the Shnth's built-in mic. The second section moves back and forth between two 6-note <a href="http://anaphoria.com/wilsonintroMERU.html">metaslendro</a> scales played on the buttons of the Shnth. The third section returns to the Harrison scale, also played using the buttons.

The two channels of the Shnth's stereo output went through two Grunge distortion pedals (used only in the third section), and were then combined into a single channel. This mono channel was split up and routed through a Moogerfooger Ring Modulator and a FreqBox in parallel, and then recombined along with the original signal and sent to a Moogerfooger Clusterflux, the stereo output of which went to a Deluxe Memory Man with Hazarai and finally a Boomerang III looper, both in stereo. I used an Ekdahl Moisturizer reverb unit on the mixer's FX bus. The recording was made directly off the mixer. All the nutty routing was facilitated by a Repeater Electronics 4x4 passive matrix mixer -- a very helpful device.

The Boomerang III loops throughout in pseudo-Frippertronics fashion. In the second section, the Deluxe Memory Man is temporarily switched into a similar mode, but with a different loop duration, which allowed me to build up clouds of notes that were only approximately predictable (similar to the technique used in <a href="https://soundcloud.com/mysterybear/collider">Collider</a>). In the first and third sections, the Deluxe Memory Man is used more like a flanger.

Here's a photo of the setup (taken at home before the gig): http://www.flickr.com/photos/seidel/12135979426/

The image is from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DNA-RNA_D-loops,_greatly_exaggerated.jpg

Loop Studies (119 Gallery, 2014-01-25)

This is track 6 from my new release on the Stasisfield netlabel, <i>Absence sleeps between the buildings at night.</i> For more information (including liner notes and full attribution for all field recordings) and to download the entire release for free, please visit http://www.stasisfield.com/releases/year12/sf-12001.html.

Image copyright 2013 John Kannenberg.

Download

I wish to live with myself (from "Absence sleeps between the buildings at night", 2014)

Playing around with a feedback (no-input) setup. The mixer's FX Send goes into the Grunge pedal, and then through three separate routes (BugBrand μCrusher, Moogerfooger Ring Modulator, Moogerfooger FreqBox) via a Repeater 4x4 matrix mixer into a 4ms Phaseur, then an Ekdhal Moisturizer reverb and finally into the main mixer. There's also a bunch of control voltage stuff going on in its own feedback loop: Moisturizer to Moogerfooger CP251 back into Moisturizer, with CP251 also controlling various parameters of the other two Moogerfoogers and the Phaseur. The <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/seidel/12386626735/">photo</a> shows the setup.

I was tweaking audio and CV settings (and sometimes CV patching) throughout. I also occasionally applied the three items seen in front (chopstick, vibrator, E-Bow) to the springs of the Moisturizer.

Recorded in a single take, then normalized and converted to MP3. No editing or other post-production.

Feedback Study

Buddha Machine 3 (Chang Fang 禅房) with two drones and additional processing. Played and recorded in real time.

Sound sources:
- melody: Buddha Machine 3 (Chang Fang 禅房)
- high drone: Nebulophone through DEP-2b
- low drone: Chaos NAND Synth though Nose Swash

Processing loop: Ring Modulator, MuRF, ClusterFlux, Deluxe Memory Man with Hazarai, Boomerang III, Ekdahl Moisturizer.

Recorded direct from mixer to Zoom H6. Normalized and EQ'd in Audacity, no edits.

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reclining_Buddha_at_cave_no._26.jpg

Under the dream temple

for ten musicians, actor and the active perception

Performed by 
Le Balcon new music Ensemble
conducted by Maxime Pascal
Saint-Merry church, Paris, France

Experientia was composed for Le Balcon new music Ensemble. It was premiered at the church of Saint-Merry, Paris. 
	The work can be considered as a chamber music theatre work, a musical game with the auditor’s awareness. Playing with the idea that every auditor, when being present with his awareness in a work’s performance, he addresses his proper meanings, his own symbols, his personal representation of the work’s experience. The composer on his part, even in a well-defined work with precise objectives, he can only suggest the directions of the auditor’s interpretations in regard to his own personal history of experience and his actual state of mind. Based on this belief, we play with the idea of the work as a ‘self-referential experience’. Like constructing a labyrinth, which will include the content of the auditor’s mind. A construction in which the composer will guide the auditor towards the characteristics of his choice, while the auditor will choose the course of his journey.
	The inspirations are many and this creation is the emerging result of their interactions. Considering the piece as a big construction of interacting ideas, on the first corner there is the philosophical tendency of constructivism, advocating that everyone creates his own reality by interacting with the ‘common’ reality. On the second corner, there is the communicational element of Milton Erickson and neuro-linguistic programming, a model of human experience made by linguistic theories, systems theories and different psychological techniques. On a third corner there is Xenakis’ hypothesis of second order sonorities, that if we consider sound, as we consider light, made of numerous small chunks, then from a number of given sonorities we can create new emerging sonorities – like from the collection of small dots of simple colours a complex pointillist painting emerges. On a fourth corner there is magic artistry, and in particular Derren Brown; the direct connection a magician has with his audience, how he creates a whole unique experience although everyone knows that it is just a trick. And of course last but not list, in the final corner there is ‘playing’, the never-ending lust to play and acquire new experiences through a game. 
	Getting inside the piece, the voice is interacting with the audience, introducing every auditor individually inside his own uniquely personal experience.  This is done by playing a game with the auditor, a game that suggests the main idea of the piece. As the voice sais: “The game is simple: I give you a sound and you create your meaning. Or I give you a word and you will create your sound.” Asking the auditor to close his eyes, providing him with a purely ‘acousmatic’ experience while leading the processes of the experience.

Experientia - Le Balcon new music Ensemble

Experimental electronic music, mostly in the drone category. This is where I put live sets, one-offs, experiments, and excerpts from longer releases.

CD: "~60 Hz" on Irritable Hedgehog - http://recordings.irritablehedgehog.com/album/dave-seidel-60-hz

All releases, including netlabel items: 
http://mysterybear.net/music

https://mysterybear.bandcamp.com/

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Feedback Study

Dave Seidel