This is a 2-channel reduction of a 6-channel piece. Samples provided by Andris Balins, Blake Fleming, and Julie Licata. All samples cooked in some sort of Max patch. Artwork taken from a piece by Nick Golbiewski.

Trio - Of - Duets   StereoMIX

Recorded at More Art Space on September 24, 2015. Equipment included a Pittsburgh Modular System-10, Korg Montron Delay, and computer (for sampling and recording).

Pitts - Mono - MAS

ode to black

TrainScape (2007) in an 8-channel acousmatic work. When I first moved to Chicago in 2005 I was rather annoyed by all the noises in the city, mostly the sounds of the trains because I lived so close to the L-tracks. Around the same time I was reading R. Murray Schaefer's book The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Through my studies of the sonic environment I learned to embrace the sounds around me by saturating my listening space.

When I began working on TrainScape I spent a couple of weeks riding Chicago trains and recording the sounds to create a large sample library. To generate the piece, the sample library was randomly accessed to play a specific clip and create a specific spatial path. The recordings were also analyzed in real-time to find peak amplitudes in the spectrums. The pitches of the peak amplitudes were then used to control frequency information for a bank of oscillators. The bank of oscillators was then cross-synthesized with the original train sounds in order to accentuate the most prominent pitches of the trains. The resulting sounds are not drastic alterations of the original sounds. Instead, the resulting sounds are a kind of meditation that I entered into during the process of creating this piece.

TrainScape (excerpt)

2017-09-09. Minneapolis, MN.

This work was created by manipulating a variety of modular synthesis feedback loops. The setup for "All Three Debut" uses three different contained systems which all interact with each other. System 1 is a classic synthesizer from the early 1970s assembled in Trumansburg, NY. System 2 was built in the mid 1970s... am guessing it was made by a few different people working on a small line. System 3 consists of contemporary euro-rack modules. All of those modules are pretty kick ass. I built some of of them with kits from the makers... others modules were made by the amazing groups of people dedicated to doing cool shit in the 21st century.

All Three Debut

2017-09-09. Minneapolis, MN.

This work was created by manipulating a variety of modular synthesis feedback loops. The setup for "All Three Debut" uses three different contained systems which all interact with each other, plus a feedback network of classic guitar pedals.

System 1 is a classic synthesizer from the early 1970s assembled in Trumansburg, NY.

System 2 was built in the mid 1970s... am guessing it was made by a few different people working on a small line.

System 3 consists of contemporary euro-rack modules. All of those modules are pretty kick ass. I built some of of them with kits from the makers... others modules were made by the amazing groups of people dedicated to doing cool shit in the 21st century.

At the root of System 4 is a DD-5 pedal (I think I got it '94). It has some nice features. The short delay times can make some nice combs with high feedback. There is also a cool 0-2sec hold/sampler that can grab sound based on the the start/stop of hitting the pedal. It can make stutters or longer loops. Though, the most useful feature I have found is the "reverse" function. It has a 2sec buffer that acts as an analog delay. Analog delays are cool because you can create pitch shifts, flanging, and chorusing (plus some other weird shit most folks won't notice). Enjoy.

drone dd5-ch1

Created for a shadow puppet and stop-animation piece titled, "She Took To The Sea." This is an ABC collaboration that was conceived by Chelsea M. Warren.

Script by Ann Boyd.

Music and sound design by Brett M. Masteller.

Puppets and performance by Chelsea M. Warren.

Songs Of The Sea

Make Noise STO > some filters and distortions > Mutable Instruments Clouds > some filters and distortions

CV provided by Mikrophones (contact microphones) and Moog LFO.

Filthy Ghost Train

Recorded on March 20, 2019 at STRUM studio, University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus. This piece is a combination of the studio's ARP 2500 and some of my eurorack modules. Editing and mixing at sous-sol Vincent.

StrumDrum

Feedbacz is a structured improvisation inspired by the paintings of Clyfford Still and and the music of Steve Baczkowski.

This performance was recorded at the Electronic Music Midwest Festival in Kansas City on September 7, 2019. Performed by Drew Whiting.

Feedbacz

bazss_2.0 is the fourth in a series of pieces focused on the use of a bass. The bazss series began in 2002 and resulted in a fixed media electroacoustic piece. Since that time the source material has been used in a number of my works. At this stage of the bazss series, the piece that resulted was a live interactive work involving a performer and real-time computer processing.

bazss_2.0 is a structured improvisation. The performer is given a series of cells and can perform the cells or just use the cells as inspiration for performance. This piece is the result of various spectral-based processing techniques. At the core of the work is some basic cross-synthesis. In one section of the piece a variety of oscillator banks are crossed with the sound of the bass drum. The computer can analyze amplitude and frequency information from the bass drum and this information can then be used to control and playback the oscillators. Another section of the piece uses recordings of a poet, riffing on the word bass, and is crossed with spectral information derived from the analysis of the bass drum.

This piece was written for Dr. Julie Licata. She was involved in every step of the composition process and her insight into performance techniques and improvisation were key in the development of this work.

This is a recording of Patti Cudd performing bazss_2.0 on March 27, 2013 in the SUNY Buffalo - Center for the Arts - Black Box Theatre.

bazss_2.0

I am a sonic artist.

I have also used the following words to describe what I do: composer, audio engineer, sound designer, performer, programmer, hacker, maker.

Brett Masteller

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