Demonstration of the image-to-sound program Coagula (not my program - download it here http://hem.passagen.se/rasmuse/Coagula.htm).  Basically scan this pic from left to right and you'll see how the software works.  Super fun.  Get a full-size pic on my website, http://natetrier.com/2013/07/31/246/

Coagula Demonstration

Alternative title: Freud Eggs
Alternative title: EDM(R)

This week's Disquiet Junto prompt was to create a piece of music that you might hear as you wait to enter a therapist's office.

I knew I wanted some inoffensive "waiting" music that repeated so much that it faded into the background. I also wanted to recreate the white noises machines that are used to block out conversations. I also added to binaural waves that beat at the "gamma" frequency, which allegedly boost self-awareness and problem-solving (I think? For the life of me I can't find the web page I got that info from). 



I used some sidechain gating and flipped sidechain gating to the white noise play with and against the percussion and before I knew it, I had a 3 minute song.

This is licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

* * * * * *
More on this 515th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Talking Cure (The Assignment: Write music for a psychotherapist’s waiting room) — at: https://disquiet.com/0515/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0515-talking-cure/

There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to marc@disquiet.com for Slack inclusion.

Image credit: Lamont Hall, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts. Waiting room, 1956. Public domain.

Therapme (Disquiet0515)

"Please record the sound of an ice cube rattling in a glass, and make something of it.” Happy 10th anniversary to the Disquiet Junto! The first project of every year is to record ice in a glass and make something out it.

This year I was *READY*! I got a waterproofed contact mic from Crank Sturgeon and spent a quiet Saturday morning recording sounds of ice cubes in a glass of water. The coolest sound was when I tentatively sang a few notes in the direction of the glass of water. With a *lot* of processing, they became the really cool organ sound you hear in this track. I banged the ice cubes with some metal chopsticks to make percussive sounds that became the bass sounds and "xylophone" kinda sound. The cubes hitting the side of the glass became the kick drum.

I think the first Disquiet Junto ice-cube piece I did was in January 2015? Here's to traditions and growth!

Cooler Than Cool (disquiet0523)

This week's Disquiet Junto prompt was to add the third part of a trio. I chose from the list of duos at random and got "Trial Run," a nice blend of upright bass and chattering electronics. 
https://soundcloud.com/lazenbeeindustries/trial-run-disquiet0526?in=disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0526

I immediately heard a brass melody in the beginning, which I added by just grabbing my horn and playing by ear rather than trying to identify the key, etc. I used a pitch-shifter to turn it into a trumpet (and a tuba, but the tuba didn't make it into the final recording). 

Thanks to Daniel Diaz and Lazenbeeindustries for providing the track!

* * * * * *
More on this 527th weekly Disquiet Junto project – Magic Number (3 of 3) (The Assignment: Complete an asynchronous trio begun by two other musicians) – at: https://disquiet.com/0527/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0527-magic-number-3-of-3/

Trial Urn (disquiet0527)

This week's Disquiet Junto prompt was to consider the various interesting aspects of the number 23. In this track, you'll hear sections of 5/4 time, a percussion pattern of 5 and then 2, and scales/arepeggios constructed of alternating minor 2nds and minor 3rds. Also, many of the sections modulate up by minor 2nds and minor 3rds. This was a fun challenge, I really enjoyed it!

Sounds provided by AudioThing's Noises and Spitfire Lab's new "Glass Piano" samples.

Octagons and Squares (disquiet0529)

Late night, so I won't be verbose. This week's Disquiet junto assignment was to write something in 5/4 that doesn't sound like Take Five. I thought I'd experiment with a couple of ideas, one being a clave over 5/4 (which I guess is very much a thing), and, in the B section, a pattern that goes over the barline of 2+6+2. Threw together some ideas and came up with a very short track that hopefully grooves!

More on this 540th weekly Disquiet Junto project — 5ive 4our (The Assignment: Take back 5/4 for Jedi time masters Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond) — at: https://disquiet.com/0540/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0540-5ive-4our/

Math Skills (disquiet0540)

This week's prompt was to "make some phreaking music," inspired by the 2600 tone that let people gain operator-level access to phone systems. 

I used the ideas of 2 and 6 as a guide and began the piece with two arpeggios of 6 notes each. These are harmonized with a pair of dial tones that move in contrary motion.

From there I made a drumset using a recording of an old rotary phone (downloaded from freesound) and supplemented it with Ableton's CR-78 kit.

A little whole-tone line takes is into the B section, and then the A section repeats at the end.

From freesound.org:
"Phone with rotary a dial" - https://freesound.org/s/550380/
"14k_MODEM_1999 » MODEM_2.aif" - https://freesound.org/people/G_M_D_THREE/sounds/454650/


* * * * *

More on this 542nd weekly Disquiet Junto project – 2600 Club (The Assignment: Make some phreaking music) – at: https://disquiet.com/0542/

Thanks to Alan Bland for proposing this concept for a project.

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co 1: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0542-2600-club/

Image by arbyreed. And it is used (cropped, with text added) thanks to a Creative Commons Attribution-license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/. Original at https://flic.kr/p/56Efud.

Dial Tone (disquiet0542)

This is not a real gabber track - this is just a tribute.

(Actually this is the source I used to create some highly processed "gabber ambient" for #disquiet0556)

Gabber Sample

This week's prompt was to create a track of "gabber ambient" (two very opposite musical styles!)

I had two different ideas on how to approach this, so I ended up combining them.
1) Make a gabber banger and then process it into ambient music (via time-stretching, pitch-shifting, adding reverb, delay, etc)
2) Make an ambient track with a relentless gabber kick, but keep the kick muffled/gentle/and distant

Here's the gabber banger I threw together:
https://soundcloud.com/triermusic/gabber-sample

The first idea first appears in the track, the second idea is the B section, and then the first idea briefly appears again to bring it home.

The first sound you here is my gabber banger run through Michael Norris' Spectral Dronemaker.

That is supplemented by the sound of the sound of the gabber banger slowed to a third of its original speed (with the pitch changing as well), and using Klevgrand's Gaffel to split it up into four frequency bands, and then applying different panning and processing to each band. There are a lot of frequency sweeps and echos going on. 

I did some arranging of this part - occasionally a higher-pitched version of the first sound will fade in and out, panning from L to R.

The B section is just a gabber kick run through three different fx chains:
1) First, the kick(!) is run into Norris' Spectral DroneMaker and then Ableton's Resonator
2) Second, the kick is run into Ableton's Resonator and then Spectral DroneMaker (see what I did there?)
3) Third, at the end of the B section, the kick goes into Ableton's Spectral Resonator and makes little wind chime noises.

Then the processed gabber banger from the first section shows up for a brief reprise.

The name is an anagram for "gabber ambient."  The timbre of beanbags seemed fairly appropriate.

* * * * *
More on this 556th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Gabber Ambient (The Assignment: Field-test a hybrid genre) — at: https://disquiet.com/0556/

Thanks to Sevenism for having proposed this project.

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0556-gabber-ambient/

Image by BranMoviC, used thanks to a Creative Commons license:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BranMoviC_Hakken.gif#mw-jump-to-license

Beanbag Timbre (disquiet0556)

This week's Disquiet Junto assignment was to make something using samples of birds and rain and using the Samplebrain software. I used field recordings from my visits to Delaware and made connections using the "brain" of a certain iconic breakbeat. I hit record and then improvised by adjusting the Samplebrain parameters. 

I did a tiny bit of editing (and a LOT of audio processing) in Ableton afterward.

* * * * * *
More on this 561st weekly Disquiet Junto project — Samplelicker (The Assignment: Rework environmental sound recordings with Aphex Twin’s new software) — at: https://disquiet.com/0561/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0561-samplelicker/

Bample Strains (disquiet0561)

This week's prompt was to use a rhythmic field recording as the foundation for a new track.

This recording of a downspout in Helsinki was pretty steady at 130 bpm, so I tried to mix it up a little bit by switching up the rhythms to twice as fast, half speed, triplets, and phasing.

At first I tried to use these rhythmic elements at the end of every 4 measures, like a drummer would, but it felt very predictable and not very interesting. 

So, I instead calculated the Golden Mean (and subsections) to decide when the changes would happen. That was a thousand times more interesting, and felt like a much more creative drummer!

After that I added some processing, splitting it up into 4 bands using Klevgrand's Gaffel, and I applied slightly different processing to each section, including a bit of distortion of the mid/"snare" frequency band, and adding some lumbering bass tone to the low "kick" frequency band.

I made some noisy fills via Ableton's Beat Repeat and dropped those in at choice times, and I ended up the track with a VERY pitch-shifted version of the field recording to sound like a timpani over a sped up version of the track played backwards.

* * * * * *
More on this 581st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Helsinki Downspout (The Assignment: Use a rhythmic field recording as the foundation for a new track), at: https://disquiet.com/0581/

Thanks to Scott Fletcher for having provided the original material. It is used thanks to a Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0). Original track at: https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/helsinki-downspout/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0581-helsinki-downspout/

Kristiansand Soffit (disquiet0581)

This week's #disquietjunto prompt was to create a new subgenre of techno! I knew I wanted to do "symmetrical techno" pretty much right away. 

I was inspired by the Threechords' Hammerhead Rhythm Station software, which I would mess around with back in the oughts. Not only was it hours of fun, but it was also pretty easy to get a little weird: in particular, reversing the drum samples: I always enjoyed reversing a kick sample against a regular kick sample and and hearing the reversed version "whoosh" into the traditional kick sound.

I took this as the basic principle of "symmetrical techno" and tried to expand it into a framework for a whole track (or genre!). All of the rhythms and pitches flip at some point, but each instrument has its own point(s) of symmetry, usually within each section of the song.

Sometimes I created symmetry by literally reversing a recording, sometimes I made a series of pitches appear in reverse order (aka retrograde).

Also, the overall form is symmetrical: ABCDCBA

Writing under the framework of "whatever you create will then be followed by a flipped version" was a really interesting way to write! Some interesting rhythms emerged, like a snare pattern that isn't quite what you would expect. And the hi-hat pattern is a series of 5 8th notes that interlock with the rest of the drum kit in interesting ways.


* * * * *
More on this 582nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, X Techno (The Assignment: Make a new subgenre), at: https://disquiet.com/0582/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0582-x-techno/

technoonhcet (disquiet0582)

This week's #disquietjunto prompt was to record the second third of an asynchronous trio.

I fired up a random number generator on Friday, and the number it returned was 1, so I downloaded Andreas Kitzmann's beautiful and atmospheric track (https://soundcloud.com/andreas-kitzmann-27370936/disquiet0591)

I listened to it on Friday and could immediately imagine some accordion or similar reedy tones playing over it.

I wasn't able to get to work on it until Monday, so I settled for using my melodica (surely my neighbors won't mind), which I think worked pretty well. 

The first two phrases the melodica plays are melodies I heard in my head while listening to Andreas' track, and the rest imitate phrases from the source track (though sometimes repeating them starting on a different pitch for a little flavor).

Happy Andreas shared his creativity, and I look forward to hearing what part might come next!

* * * * *
More on this 592nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Better Than One (The Assignment: Record the second third of an asynchronous trio), at: https://disquiet.com/0592/

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-0592-better-than-one/

Two Of Three (disquiet0592)

I stayed up a little late than I meant to, but here's a quick write up - this week's prompt was to add the third part of a trio.

I can not find the creator of the track I downloaded! Sorry.

Anyway, the source material was a short guitar improv over processed sounds, so I added some organ improv to go along with it.

I tried to go for the vibe of a trippy 70's jam session...

* * * * *
More on this 593rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, The Charm (The Assignment: Complete an asynchronous trio begun by two other musicians), at: https://disquiet.com/0593/

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-0593-the-charm/

Samsara Jam Session (#disquiet0593)

This week's prompt was to choose six brief segments of sound that I recently recorded and then to arrange them, semi-randomly, in descending order of volume.

I am teaching at a summer music camp in New Hampshire, so of course I have been recording lots of sounds! I pulled 5  off of my recorder and used one sound back from my home in Connecticut.

I assigned them numerical values and then rolled an online 6-sided die to arrange what sounds would be louder, quietest, and in the middle. The results were, in descending order of loudness:
1) A recording of rain falling on the other side of a door
2) Some weird AM radio static playing from the speaker of a small bus
3) The alarm of a truck backing up
4) The sound of me walking in my apartment and opening the window to record some birds
5) 4th of July fireworks
6)Some crickets by a pond

I quickly adjusted the volume of each track to put them in order. 
Then, I added a small amount of volume automation via sidechaining so that track 2's volume dipped down when track 1's volume peaked, track 3's volume dipped when track 2's volume peaked, etc. 

Next, I added a little panning to make space for everything.

I tried a LITTLE bit of EQ, but found myself running into the interesting problem of things with less high frequencies "feeling" quieter. So, I was pretty minimalist with the EQ.

After that I added a small amount of FX for some ear candy, including making a delay for the AM radio static, panning the crickets from left to right, and adding some flanger and granular delay to certain points in the rain recording.

There's a lot of percussive sounds in here, which makes it sound pretty dense, but hopefully it will stand on its own as a listening experience!

Soundscrape (disquiet0601)

This week's prompt was to compose music that listens to itself.

So glad you asked! I have been wanting to make a project like this for years as part of my interest in structured improvisation.

I'd still like to do something clever with MAX/MASP and MIDI, but for now I kept myself quite busy with using audio processing in Ableton Live.

Basically, I tried to construct effects chains that would grab short snippets of audio (from a piano improv and also from each other!), process them, and and repeat them much later in the piece (via gates, envelope followers, or LFOs mapped to the inputs of delays and pitch-shifters). I altered the musical material using pitch-shifters (Cableguys, Ableton's Shifter) or delays with very short settings to make percussive sounds.

I also really tried to prioritize changing pitches, with the idea that altering the source tonal material would be a fun nod to classical music's idea of theme and development.

Then I loosely grouped them into things that generated low pitches, medium pitches, and high pitches.

I had a *lot* of material at the end, so I ended up cutting out a few tracks completely. 

Beyond that, my editing was minimal. I managed to volume spikes, and I also cut out some parts of the piano improv, because the generative devices were making their own musical material!

I'm happy with this one - I think it could be done at about 2 minutes and 40 seconds, but I figure this is a good audience for a slightly longer version of the piece.

* * * * * *
More on this 611th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Music That Listens to Itself (The Assignment: Record a piece of music that repurposes itself as it proceeds), at: https://disquiet.com/0611/

Some of the music resulting from this project may be included in a September 29, 2023, event at the Berkeley Alembic in Berkeley, California: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/expanded-listening-music-that-listens-to-itself-tickets-712124101357

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-0611-music-that-listens-to-itself/

Soliaudium (disquiet0611)

This week's Disquiet Junto prompt was "Take one held tone and make it dance slowly."

I thought this would be challenging, but really it all came together very quickly!

I thought about what dancing means (motion?) and tried to imagine ways a long held tone could "move" slowly. 

I came up with three main ways:
0:00 - 0:53 - a slowly moving bandpass filter followed by Abletons' stock Echo plug-in (the resonance of the filter immediately introduces an overtone that is not the held note, but hey don't blame me I didn't invent physics)
0:54 - 1:18 - Using a vibrato plug-in at about 50% wet/dry to slowly move the tone and town by cents
1:19 - 2:33 - Using tremolo to add a lot of motion - the tone is doubled, panned L and R, and tremolo'd at different rates to make it dance across the stereo field (the slowness of the dancing is debatable here, but the intent is there!)
2:34 - 2:58 - This is the opening phrase of the piece, but accompanied by an echo blast from the tremolo'd section that fades out

All in all, a ton of fun! I never in a million years would have tried something like, so this was a great experiment.

* * * * * *
More on this 631st weekly Disquiet Junto project, In a Silent Waveform — The Assignment: Take one held tone and make it dance slowly — at: https://disquiet.com/0631/

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-0631-in-a-silent-waveform/

"Take one held tone and make it dance slowly." (Disquiet0631)

This week's #disquietjunto prompt was complete a trio begun by two other musicians.

I used a random number generator to choose from last week's duos at random, and I ended up with Right to Drum https://soundcloud.com/33per/right-to-drum-with-mikey_a by @33per and @mikey_a

I listened to it a few times and started hearing a low-pitched melody, like something played by a euphonium or trombone. Unfortunately my brass instruments are not with me (fortunately, perhaps, in my neighbors' opinions). So, I decided to try recording a melodica melody. 

I just got a dictaphone, and I want to experiment with recording things on the dictaphone and then pitching them down, so I recorded at double-speed and then altered it in Ableton Live.

The result actually clashed with Mikey_A's chord voicings, so I ended up just time-stretching everything but using the melodica's pitch.

The melodica sounded a little harsh (free reed instruments can have a lot of odd overtones, I read somewhere), so I used a saturator to try to even things out. It seemed crazy to add a saturator to something recorded on a dictaphone, but it worked, and I think the end result maybe sounds closer to a synthesizer.

I did some basic audio sculpting, like sidechain compression so all of the instruments made room for each other, and adding a slow filter sweep to the synths to give them some more movement. The track also starts in mono then quickly adjusts to stereo, then goes back to mono.

All in all, a fun project!  Thanks to eeper and mikey_a for sharing their creativity and music!!!

* * * * *
More on the 638th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Center (3 of 3) — The Assignment: Complete a trio begun by two other musicians — at https://disquiet.com/0638/

Center To Sing (disquiet0638)

This week's #disquietjunto prompt was to create some music "in which you try to unring a bell."

In practice, I recorded the sound of a gong from our school’s band room (it’s like a bell but BIGGER). Then I tried to create the little snippets of sound that would fly around as the bell rang and which our hard-working theoretical performer would eventually have to reassemble.

Disassembling the bell’s tone into fragments was fun and challenging. I loaded the bell into Anemond’s Factoid to break it up into pieces based on frequency ranges, which got me lots of little snippets (including the drone tones you hear now and then). I also loaded it into Synplant, which generated tons of weird synthetic bells that led me down various rabbit holes of sound design and thoroughly distracted me from this project. I also put the bell sample into Ableton’s Simpler, sliced it into snippets based on transients, and then used the Arpeggiator plug-in to play the snippets randomly.

Isolating and organizing all these fragments and new samples into a track was pretty challenging! Eventually, I outlined the structure of the track, which helped me find my way.

1) Bell tone
2) Bits and pieces dance around the stereo field and an attempt is made to reassemble them
3) The bell is rung again, but this time it sounds slightly different
4) Part of the tone breaks off into a drone while a few snippets flit around
Once again, the bell is reassembled, with a big reverse sound leading into…
5) A big, new bell sound (created by layering pitch-shifted iterations of the original sample)

More on the 682nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Unring a Bell — The Assignment: What if you could? — at https://disquiet.com/0682/

You Wouldn't Unring A Bell (disquiet0682)

This week's #disquietjunto prompt was to put a song into 5/4.  I was just noodling around and found some fun reharmonizations for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  I outline a bassline and played the right hand chords in a rhythm that splits the 5/4 measure in two (half note tied to an eighth note followed by another half note tied to an eighth note), so the right hand melody arguably still feels like it's in a very slow 4/4.

More on the 694th weekly Disquiet Junto project, 5/4ify — The Assignment: Add a beat to a pre-existing piece of music — at https://disquiet.com/0694/

twinkle twinkle twinkle twinkle twinkle (disquiet0694)

As the old saying goes, "it's Monday, May 19, 2025, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) somewhere!"  I downloaded "naphthous merenge" by dandante (https://soundcloud.com/dandante/naphthous-meringue-disquiet0697?in=disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0697) and added a new part to it. I figured the original part felt like it had a lot of high and mid-range, so I added a bass part. I improvised a bass synth accompaniment, then nudged it forward a few milliseconds so it would feel more coordinated with the solo and less reactive. 
Then, I noticed the violin part had some buffer/stutter effects, so I added that to my accompaniment as well. I listened to the violin track and switched the stutter effect "on" for the bass track when I heard it in the violin track. This felt like a nice call and response, and I think it's a cool effect to hear it echoing panned extreme left and then extreme right.

The end result is roughly 177 bpm, if anybody wants to add to this!

* * * * *
More on the 698th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Second Third — The Assignment: Record the second third of a trio — at https://disquiet.com/0698/

chopitch (quiet0698)

An experiment with Ableton effects racks; I used EQ to split the source audio into three "channels" (low, mid, hi) and applied different processing to each one.  So the processing you hear depends on where the voice goes in terms of pitch (frequency).  

Next step is to add structure and use it in conjunction with a specifically composed piece for (speaking?) voice.

Source audio from http://mp3-songs.pk/ -- I have no idea who the original singer is.  If you find her, let her know about this (she'll probably hate it but whatevs). 

My Jolly Sailor Bold, stochastic fx remix

This week's #disquietjunto prompt was to compose 8-bit music inspired by a Cory Arcangel / Super Mario video.

Ambient chiptune happens to be a genre I like and want to hear more of!  So, I wrote a peaceful track at 80 bpm. Tools I used were Brian Funk's Coin Op and Super 8 sound packs, and AudioThing's Minibit.

I got a peaceful sound by using a lot of reverbs - AudioThing's miniVerb and Soundtoys' Space Blender.

* * * * * *
More on the 704th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Right on Cumulus — The Assignment: Compose 8-bit music inspired by a Cory Arcangel / Super Mario video — at https://disquiet.com/0704/

Oops! All Clouds (disquiet0704)

This week's #disquietjunto prompt was to make a track using your bathroom (or someone else's).  I'm teaching at a music camp and happened to have just taught my students a unit on reverb. I wrote a short accordion melody and recorded it in my bathroom, which gave me flashbacks to late 90's home-recording techniques ("record your vocals in the bathroom, it has natural reverb and will sound professional.")

Then - this is the fun part - I bounced the whole track, sped it up 4x so the pitch was 4x higher. I reamped and rerecorded it in an (unoccupied) dorm bathroom, then slowed down the new recording by 4, and voila - this dreamy, liminal soundscape emerged.

You can still hear the original accordion melody, very slightly, and the original transition effects (created by recording the creaky bathroom door).

* * * * * 
More on the 706th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Tile One On — The Assignment: Make the most of your bathroom — at https://disquiet.com/0706/

Lento One (Disquiet0706)

This week's prompt was, "Do something with layers of the sound of your voice."

I wrote a quick poem, recorded four instances of myself reading the poem, then time stretched it significantly in Reaper. I thought the result would stretch out the vowels and create harmony, but really it just created an (interesting but vowel-less) wash.

Still, time was of the essence, so I pressed forward. I used SPEAR to analyze the pitches in the wash, and recorded them as a sequence of very atonal chords.

Then, I added a loose piano melody, trying to follow the outline of the weird chords. I took a tip from Music for Airports and recorded the piano at double speed and then slowed it down.

Then, I mixed it! I left the original Reaper stretched sounds in the left channel and the chords in the right channel. I added a little simulated tape pitch-drift to the piano.

Not quit what I had in mind, but a good exercise (especially in using SPEAR)!

* * * * *
More on the 708th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Vocal Chords — The Assignment: Do something with layers of the sound of your voice. — at https://disquiet.com/0708/

Vokal Shops (disquiet0708)

This week's Disquiet Junto prompt was to create music based on any  barcode.

I used the barcode from a bottle of banana-flavored Soylent, which was my breakfast throughout the month of August (long story):
1 0 0 2 8 9 7 0 1 2

 I took inspiration from the “will it riff” videos by treating the bar code as notes, but I don’t really play much guitar or use tab, so instead I treated the numbers as whole steps away from a given note (middle C, to make it easier) (so I guess I treated it as guitar tab if your guitar had only one string and that string was tuned to middle C).

So, I took the first digit, 1, to mean one half step away from C, giving me C#/Db. I took 0 to mean back to C, etc. (for the 20th-century music theory fans, basically set theory with very long sets)

This gave me the pitch sequence Db C C D Ab A G C Db D, which, broken down into three- or four-note segments, provides the opening bassline.

Then I tried a variation on my approach, deciding that this time the numbers would give me half steps down from C, which provides the first melody: B C C Bb E Eb F C B Bb

I really like working with atonal lines like this and trying to make them feel catchy and accessible. It’s easier with music that permits lots of repetition (because repetition legitimizes! repetition legitimizes! repetition legitimizes!)

For the beat, I tried to create something that was a cross between Daisuke Tanabe’s “for the twin” and Copycatt’s “Dunque”.  I think I tend towards boombap beats, so I have a ways to go towards developing my Tanabe-inspired glitch palette.

For the other aspects of production, the bassline is a lot of Beatsurfing’s Random (which I rarely get a chance to use) doubled with a normal bass and a very quiet wah-wah bass guitar. The synth lead is note from Arturia’s Pigments fed into Sonic Bloom’s Synplant for glitchy variations. I have an envelope follower on the snare triggering Synplant’s “overall weirdness” parameter, so the synth sound has a little flutter of weirdness every time the snare hits.
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More on the 712th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Zebra Code — The Assignment: What rhythm do you hear in a bar code? — at https://disquiet.com/0712/

BANANA SOYLENT (disquiet0712)

This week's Disquiet Junto was: "You’re now recording music under the name Dense Fog Advisory. Record a new track, appropriate to your name."

I immediately imagined a very low sound, dropping in pitch (probably evoking a foghorn) accompanied by a tinkly arpeggio. I knew I wanted the overall sound to blurry and foggy with wobbly synths, white noise, and shifting arpeggios.

The low horn melody came next, and then the piece structured itself into a straightforward ABA, except the tinkly arpeggio changes meter in every new section.

Not bad for a couple of days!  I think I might like to tweak this and release it at some point.

Envoys Dig Fedoras disquiet0716

This week's #disquietjunto prompt was to record something that could have been made by an ancestor and then add something modern to it.

Apparently, one of my great-great-uncles said the only cure for his asthma was to get away from our Midwestern family farm and head out towards the dry climes of the American west...where he had a grand old time playing piano in saloons and other similar places. As a fellow asthmatic who wanted to spread his wings and who has spent many happy nights playing in bars and clubs, his story resonates with me!

I found an upright piano tucked away at my workplace and banged out some oom-pah chords and melodies. The first take, I kept it fairly straightforward, and then I tried a different take with more adventurous chords, rhythms, and melodies. In my DAW, I added some RC-20 to get that beat-up old record sound, and I also tried to add some reverb as a little homage to The Caretaker (whose album "Everywhere at the end of time" also deals with old timey music and memories).

Then, I considered what I had access to now that my ancestor would not have, and I figured drum machines would have blown his mind. So, I got to try out BabyAudio's Tekno by making a lighter beat in the beginning of the track and then a heavier beat at the end.

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More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/.

Way Out West (disquiet0717)

This week's #disquietjunto prompt was, "Do that thing you’ve been meaning to do."  I have been meaning to learn how to program my Teenage Engineering Pocket Operators for years and years and have never quiet gotten the hang out of it. After this project, I still don't quite have the hang of it :D  But I did manage to cook up the drumbeat which you hear throughout the song.
Other synth sounds come courtesy of Baby Audio's sale on BA-1 packs.

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More on the 724th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Work It — The Assignment: The year’s almost over. Do that thing you’ve been meaning to do — at https://disquiet.com/0724/.

Clunk Operator (disquiet0724)

This week's Disquiet Junto prompt was "Make some music using only the online Omnichord as your sound source."  I was vaguely but intimately aware of what an Omnichord was.  I noodled around with https://onlineomnichord.com/ and thought it was neat that typing letters played chords, and then I began experimenting with turning sentences into chord progressions.
I wrote a short poem that tried to be a concise poem and also an interesting sequence of chords. I found myself trying to repeat words and/or segments of letters, which is an interesting way to write.
I recorded the output (putting my phone next to my laptop speaker) and then added some piano accompaniment. I thought about creating a lead sheet for myself of the chords I used, but decided not to .... which may not have been a great decision :D  Finding a melody by ear was tough!
I started out trying to map the chord changes and the piano part to a strict pulse, but decided that having them both somewhat freely was more interesting. Sometimes the piano leads and the chords follow, and sometimes the chords lead.
Disquiet Juntos during the holiday season are a great opportunity to use plug-ins purchase on Black Friday, so I used Nudistort on the piano, and Aberrent DSP's Cataclysm and Lair on the pads.

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More on the 726th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Chord of Omnis — The Assignment: Make music with a browser-based Omnichord as your sole sound source — at https://disquiet.com/0726/.


Nordic Ohm (disquiet0726)

This week's #disquietjunto prompt was to pick 2 cards from Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies and use the results to inform what you create.  I am working on some chiptune-adjacent tracks, so I took the most minimal of those ideas - a short drum loop - and decided to expand it using the oblique strategies. Good idea, right?
Amusingly, the cards I got absolutely wanted to go in the other direction: "Is it done?" and "Resist change." Go figure!
I decided the song would be a short drum loop, happy to chug along, periodically disturbed by other song elements (pesky melodies! loitering chord changes!) that tried to intrude, and the drum loop would try to shake them off (resist change!)
This encouraged me to get more glitchy and effects-driven than I usually am.
I like the result! I think I will come back to this and try to make the effects a little more extreme and representative of the idea.

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More on the 727th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Polar Strategies — The Assignment: Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Oblique Strategies card deck — at https://disquiet.com/0727/.


Gravity Wants You Back (disquiet0727)

This piece is a spiritual heir to the previous Disquiet assignment. In making that piece, I spent a lot of time trying unsuccessfully to eliminate background noise and also exploring overlapping (but not synchronized) rhythms.

In this piece, I embraced background noise and used it to create a tonal context for my field recordings of rhythms.

In isolating and looping small snippets of sound, subtle changes in the overtones became apparent, and this became as much a character of each loop as the rhythm.  Maybe the next step is to figure out the pitches of the background noise and use them to generate a harmonic system.

Most of the loops are from a short "field" recording session around the house. You'll hear various appliances and one of my cats eating breakfast.  I pulled in one sound from a previous field recording session for the Cities and Memory project (https://soundcloud.com/triermusic/cities-and-memory-the-sound-of-a-city-gone-stir-crazy): the sound of a boisterous teenage girl telling her friends, dismissively, about a boy who had wronged her.

I had a plan to generate pitches using the ratios of loop lengths, but I think capitalizing on the pitches inherent in the background sounds worked great.  Most of the sounds are as-is; the "organ" sound comes from throwing a loop into Ableton's Simpler. 

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More on this 220th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Make overtly rhythmic music from short loops of overtly arrhythmic source audio, following instructions from Dennis DeSantis”) at:

http://disquiet.com/0220/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Arrite (disquiet0220-rhythmicarrhythmic)

This week's assignment was to make something as unlike yourself as you can.

After some rumination ("Is music I don't like necessarily unlike me?") I decided to make the kind of electronic music I generally turn off as fast as I can - the kind that has one good-sounding loop that is played OVER and OVER again accompanied by a generic boombap beat.

I play piano, but I wanted to play piano like someone who didn't know how to play piano. So, I used the Random MIDI VST in Ableton to "play" some piano whose pitches were not related to the keys I was pressing. Then, I found some bits that sounded good and pieced them together in a melody.

Then I added a boomBAP. Ok, that was easy. Then I added some bass, but, still pretending to not know how to play an instrument, I drew it into the piano roll and tried to keep it simple.

At this point I felt like I was making a Ninja Tune track (or, specifically, a spiritual heir to Four Tet's "No More Mosquitos"), so I engaged in some contemporary crate-digging, aka freesound.org. I found a nice processed sample of some Central European(?) violin playing, some kids chattering that I turned into a chant, and some wackadoodle scratching vinyl that you'll hear on the bridge. I've never used freesound this much before, so it was really fun to find cool sounds and layer them into my track!

Other techie stuff - all the bass sounds and the first electronic freak-out sound are u-he's Tyrell N6, which I'm beginning to think is pretty nifty.

Violin sample from wjoojoo - https://freesound.org/people/wjoojoo/sounds/417667/
People talking - https://freesound.org/people/ZyryTSounds/sounds/222993/
Vinyl scratching - https://freesound.org/people/Ryding/sounds/412536/

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More on this 375th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Despite Yourself / The Assignment: Make a piece of music that sounds as unlike you as you can accomplish — at:

https://disquiet.com/0375/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0375-despite-yourself/

Me Repellent (disquiet0375)

This week's Disquiet Junto assignment was to post something you've been "woodshedding." I haven't been working on my own stuff much, but my time just freed up so I thought I'd dust off and try to finish this piece based on Schoenberg's approach to hexachords later in his life (long story short, he loosened his rules for 12-tone serialism).

I wrote a pretty six-note riff and then ran it through the ol' tone-row matrix to get its inversions, retrogrades, etc. From there I tried to find hexachords that went together to sound melodic, harmonious, and unified. Finding interesting melodies and harmonies was fairly easy, but it was very hard to find transitions that "felt" right. Maybe after I work with this a bit longer.

Photo by David Meurin

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More on this 435th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Disquiet Junto Project 0435: Woodshed Report — The Assignment: Share something you’ve been working on (and respond to what others post) — at:

https://disquiet.com/0435/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/ 1

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0435-woodshed-report/

Hexachord Etude 1 (disquiet0435)

Composer and producer who puts together noise and pretty sounds. Hear my releases on Bandcamp: https://natetrier.bandcamp.com/

Nate Trier

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