Disquiet Junto (sound art / tape music / fixed media)

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Image associated with this project from the notes that accompany the album Complexification (Entr’acte), by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer, and on which project is based.

More on Complexification:

http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/

Disquiet Junto Project 0188: Complex Complex

technoclasm

My first disquiet contribution!  (Finally!)  This is a recording of my kid saying, "I hope you're enjoying yourself!"  But I reread the instructions and saw my sample probably shouldn't be too long, so I limited myself to just the phoneme of "self"...which sounds more and more like "tao" on repeated listens, thus the title of the piece.

When planning this piece, I knew I wanted something that would give some "tonal" variety by altering the pitch, so I used a frequency shifter and at one point used the transpose knob to change the pitch of the sample.  I also knew I wanted to set up an irregular "landscape," so I used follow actions in Ableton to alternate between the audio clip and a dummy clip to trigger the sound unpredictably; then I used a long to delay to guarantee we would hear these sounds "into the future."

I limited myself to stock Ableton plugins.

Order of effects was pretty much:
1) Short delay (104 ms)
2) Gate (to give the delay a shorter, abrupt stop)
3) Long delay
4) Randomized, automated frequency shifter
5) Changing the "pitch" of the sample up and down
6) Reversing the sample
7) Long delay
8) Three channels of filter delay
9) Grain delay (for a little flavor, not sure it made a huge impact)
10) Vocoder set to "pitch tracking"
11) Vocoder set to "noise"

More on this 182nd Disquiet Junto project (“Do a rendition of Ethan Hein’s laptop orchestra score by yourself”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/06/25/disquiet0182-divergeconverge/

The piece is based on Ethan Hein’s score, more on which here:

http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/brahmss-third-racket/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

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

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

The Tao of Yourself (disquiet0182-divergeconverge)

My second Disquiet Junto submission and already I'm breaking the rules.  I misread the assignment and made my own field recordings one minute after midnight on July 3rd and July 4th. After staying up past my bedtime two nights in a row, I figured I might as well do something with them.

5 recordings of more or less a minute each were pitch-shifted up and down to be a minute exactly, then layered.  Some of them were rearranged a bit for aesthetic impact, but otherwise they are intact and as-is with no further processing.

In the spirit of the assignment, I ran all the tracks through an Ableton Effect Rack on the master channel that split up the frequency spectrum into 8 bands, and each band gets its own section of the stereo field.  My hope was to let some sounds move through the stereo field on their own, but nothing had quite the range of frequencies to do that, so I made a sample with a bigger pitch range specifically to move through the stereo field (which you'll hear at the beginning of the piece).

I'm going to make this Effect Rack available on my website soon - it was a fun experiment and is an interesting way to mix (especially when working with "sound art").

* * * * *

More on this 183rd Disquiet Junto project (“Insert something that plays across the stereo spectrum in an after-dark field recording”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/07/02/disquiet0183-stereomidnight/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

More on the One Minute Past Midnight series at:

http://oneminutepastmidnight.com/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

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

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Photo associated with this project by Blake Danger Bentley used thanks to a Creative Commons license:

https://flic.kr/p/5A9Hrv

Three Fourths of July (Disquiet0183 - Stereomidnight)

Well, I never thought the disquiet junto would lead me to writing endotonal piano instead of sound art, but here we are.  I wrote a one-measure melody and expanded it using rotational arrays into a four-measure melody and an eight-measure melody.  I tried to make these three melodies outline a ii-V-I chord progression.

From there I wanted to put the melodies into Ableton Live and scramble them by using the legato function to let me trigger one in the middle of when another one is playing and then let them resume where they left off, but apparently legato doesn't work like that.

So, Plan B: I sliced each melody into one-beat slices, and then x+1 beat slices (1 beat, 2 beats, 3 beats), and then x-1 slices (just the 4th beat, just the 3rd+4th beat, just the 2nd+3rd+4th beat).  

Then I played with Ableton's follow actions to make the clips jump around randomly.

The statisticians among you may realize that this method meant I was more likely to get a snippet of the 8-measure phrase simply because there were more of those. You are correct.

Oh well - it is what it is.  I ended up with a melody that repeated itself a lot but every repetition was rhythmically displaced. Cool.

From there I decided my second "layer" as required by the assignment would be the left-hand chords that establish a harmonic context for our melody.  I ended up highlighting the appearance of each set of bars (1, 4, 8) with a different color highlighter to help me get a sense of structure.  Each set of bars also has its own accompanying rhythmic signature, kinda.

I tried to make the entrance of the "pink" phrase be a different chord every time.  In retrospect, it may have been a neat trick to use the same chord every time that then goes in a different direction.  I tried some other methods to add unity; the progression IV-bVII-I appears a lot; the accompaniment changes in rhythm from half notes to quarter notes, to eighth notes.

More on this 184th Disquiet Junto project (“Explore the relationship between segments that consist of 1 bar, 8 bars, and 4 bars”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/07/09/disquiet0184-setsofbars/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

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

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Image associated with this post by Vladimer Shioshvili and used thanks to a Creative Commons license:

https://flic.kr/p/dEE5RJ

Any Any Any (disquiet0184-setsofbars)

For 13 years we had a dog that was in all likelihood a lab/german shepherd mix. She was very smart and had incredible energy. In other words, she was quite a handful,  and she was very good at finding trouble. 

This track portrays a memory of one of her escapes - one of us left the door open and she snuck out when we weren't looking.  I called her name, couldn't find her in the apartment, then opened the door...to see her about 50 yards away, bemusing a maintenance worker who was on a *huge* riding lawnmower, trying to cut the grass in our development's courtyard.  She was jumping up and down excitedly in front of the mower, like puppies do when they want to play, making it absolutely impossible for him to do his job.  I can't remember if he was laughing or annoyed. I went over and grabbed her by the collar and dragged her back into the house, where she looked sorry - but not too sorry.  Typical.

Most of the sounds in this track are exactly what they portray - it starts with the sound of the dog breathing during one of her power naps, followed by the sound of her nails on the linoleum.  I was able to find real door squeaks and lawnmower sounds from my personal library, though they were recording at different times and places than the ones in this memory.

I organized the track using my usual "golden mean" method, in which I decide how long I want the track to be (just over a minute) and then find "phi" for the whole track, then the "phi" of the section I just created, then the "phi" of that section, so on and so on.

This dog was with me for the very first days of my "adult" life - getting married, becoming a father, making a home, making a life, all that. It was nice to try to memorialize her this way.

* * * * * * * * * * *
More on this 185th Disquiet Junto project (“Summon up a memory, and then summarize it in sound”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/07/16/disquiet0185-memorymusic/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

This project was proposed by Robert Thomas, more from whom at:

http://dizzybanjo.com/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

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

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

In Ginseng Memorium (disquiet0185-memorymusic)

My take on Disquiet assignment #disquiet0186-myname.  I determined the pitches using SPEAR, and then played a very free interpretation of my name, trying to use a piano to catch all the nuances (not so easy!).  The next task was to "tweak" the instrumental portrayal of my own name, and I decided to do it tonally. I tried a few different accompaniments, and ended up being inspired by the interval canons Bartok uses in his Mikrokosmos.

An unmetered canon is an interesting idea and warrants further investigation...

* * * * * *
More on this 186th Disquiet Junto project (“Explore the sonic contours of a word you’ve spelled out loud frequently: your name”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/07/23/disquiet0186-myname/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

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

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/


n a t e ... t r  ... i e r (disquiet0186-myname)

for me complexity is a conceptual endeavour, it's more about the process than the outcome. at the moment, i see complexity as an integration of disparate elements: subjective-objective, creative-analytical, individual-communal, present-past etc. i'm aware that every piece of music i do follows on from another, they are related to each other in some (small?) way. working intuitively allows this to come out i think, but in addition i always combine conscious conceptual elements from previous efforts - my hope is that my soundcloud timeline provides a natural progression track to track. 

i've been working a lot with samples on my last few tracks, so i didn't add anything else. i just went through and isolated small sounds i liked then stretched them and blended in over the course of track (like in sleeping church) but here i was more interested in getting a balance between texture and frequency. i've been working with dronefx on my mixcloud pieces so i used that to generate some note progressions and changed the pitch of the low end sounds. i wanted to make an ambient piece that gradually develops with more texture (again like in all my recent pieces) and i used the concepts of the last two disquiet projects to complement this: i recorded the piece to tape as in summer:impermanence (& fortuitously coz it was the same decrepit old tape a little snippet of that track comes through right at the start!) then i faded between the tape version into the 'clean' version as the track progresses (like in last weeks project).

i wanted the finished piece to sound completely different to the source but still retain something of the spirit of it. i tested this by fading in and out my favourite section of the original  right at the end and i think it works pretty well.
₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

Disquiet Junto Project 0188: Complex Complex
Take a provided track and make it more complex.

This project was proposed by Guy Birkin and Jay Bodley (aka Sun Hammer). It extends the thinking that went into their album Complexification, released by the record label Entr’acte. (http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/)

These are the steps for this project:

Step 1: Pick one of the two tracks at the following URL: https://goo.gl/tN4Oit.

Step 2: Modify that one track in any way, using as much or little of it as you like, to make a new piece that sounds “more complex” than the original. You may add other sounds. (Note: You are free to use any definition or measure of “complexity.” You should be sure to describe your process and how it “increases” the complexity of the original track.)

Background: The album Complexification by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer “explores musical complexity through a collaborative process based on a set of rules.” Those rules involved the two musicians swapping successive copies of a track in order to make it progressively more “complex.” For their purposes, they defined “complexity” as follows: “In this project, complexity is understood in terms of the quantity and variety of musical elements or patterns. The result is two parallel threads of music, each representing a progression of increasing complexity.”

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

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

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/


hidden complex (summer mix) (disquiet0188)

This weeks task was to take a track and make it more complex...

Complexity can be approached from various angles, I myself, not being a virtuoso musician, use blunt tactics. 
Previewing the material, I chose to sample (Complexification0010SH by Sun Hammer), The original material was sliced into sections and played back via pads in Ableton, triggering, bouncing and combining the material. After creating a rough sequence of events and patterns by hand and unquantized, I then added some sound design elements to add depth and texture to the sound.  Chains of effects where layered to try and add width.  I'm relying on a mixture of delays and edits to create transitions between the past and I just tried to make an interesting sound collage.

Oh yeah, and it was fun!

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

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

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Image associated with this project from the notes that accompany the album Complexification (Entr’acte), by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer, and on which project is based.

More on Complexification:

http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/


Consumer Complex  - Disquiet0188 - Complexcomplex

Lately, I've been enjoying taking a single sample of something and building a whole new track around it. 

I did that mostly with this, a short sample from the 2nd mp3 and then used a bunch of PD samples from freesound along with some VST instruments in Ableton Live - throwing everything but the kitchen sink.. and yet somehow it still sounds unfinished. Will revisit this track in the future.

Started and completed in one session in about 2 hours.

***

Disquiet Junto Project 0188: Complex Complex
Take a provided track and make it more complex.

This project was proposed by Guy Birkin and Jay Bodley (aka Sun Hammer). It extends the thinking that went into their album Complexification, released by the record label Entr’acte. (There’s more background on album below the project description.)

These are the steps for this project:

Step 1: Pick one of the two tracks at the following URL: https://goo.gl/tN4Oit.

Step 2: Modify that one track in any way, using as much or little of it as you like, to make a new piece that sounds “more complex” than the original. You may add other sounds. (Note: You are free to use any definition or measure of “complexity.” You should be sure to describe your process and how it “increases” the complexity of the original track.)

Step 3: Upload your completed track to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.

Step 4: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Deadline: This assignment was made in the afternoon, California time, on Thursday, August 6, 2015, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, August 10, 2015.

Background: The album Complexification by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer “explores musical complexity through a collaborative process based on a set of rules.” Those rules involved the two musicians swapping successive copies of a track in order to make it progressively more “complex.” For their purposes, they defined “complexity” as follows: “In this project, complexity is understood in terms of the quantity and variety of musical elements or patterns. The result is two parallel threads of music, each representing a progression of increasing complexity.”

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:
http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:
http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:
http://disquiet.com/forums/

More on Complexification:
http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/

Lee Rosevere - Test Pattern [disquiet0188-complexcomplex]

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

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

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Image associated with this project from the notes that accompany the album Complexification (Entr’acte), by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer, and on which project is based.

More on Complexification:

http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/

i took the original sample and copied it 8 times as different layers which I then placed into garageband, with each layer being placed slightly to the left of the previous one. this created a complexity in the different spacing of notes and sounds.
I then deleted the beginning 20 secs of the second track (and deleted an extra 20 secs from each of the following tracks so that they all came in slowly to add complexity over an expanded period. i then added 1 effect to each of the layers
layer 1 no effects
layer 2 pitch shift down 
layer 3 slow panning tremolo
layer 4 vocal transformer (pitch down and fierce degradation)
layer 5 pitch shift down
layer 6 vocal trans. (pitch -15 slight degradation)
layer 7 delay (fast sweep)
layer 8 pitch shift down (-12) + 6 second reverb.


Strudel (disquiet 0188 - Complexcomplex)

**Production Notes**

I had an idea for this Disquiet Junto. It involved shifting the tempo while moving the starting point of samples. This would have been a nice and proper approach for the assignment… but honestly, I wanted to make just music. So I threw it overboard after an hour. 

This is the path I went: 

Extracted some loops from the material (lovely stuff!). Slowed it down a little.

Additional drums came from Analog Rytm, the bass pad(2Slow from #Biologiks soundset) from Analog Keys. 

Recorded some piano lines.

To get more complexity, I added Beat Repeats from Ableton throughout the whole track. Towards the end the track adds feedback and noise from a shortwave radio, which are probably the most complex systems I know in music. 

Layout and mixing was done the next day in 6 hours. Boy, that was fun! 

* * * 


**Disquiet Junto Project 0188: Complex Complex**

Take a provided track and make it more complex.

This project was proposed by Guy Birkin and Jay Bodley (aka Sun Hammer). It extends the thinking that went into their album Complexification, released by the record label Entr’acte. (There’s more background on album below the project description.)

These are the steps for this project:

Step 1: Pick one of the two tracks at the following URL: https://goo.gl/tN4Oit.

Step 2: Modify that one track in any way, using as much or little of it as you like, to make a new piece that sounds “more complex” than the original. You may add other sounds. (Note: You are free to use any definition or measure of “complexity.” You should be sure to describe your process and how it “increases” the complexity of the original track.)

Step 3: Upload your completed track to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.

Step 4: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Deadline: This assignment was made in the afternoon, California time, on Thursday, August 6, 2015, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, August 10, 2015.

Background: The album Complexification by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer “explores musical complexity through a collaborative process based on a set of rules.” Those rules involved the two musicians swapping successive copies of a track in order to make it progressively more “complex.” For their purposes, they defined “complexity” as follows: “In this project, complexity is understood in terms of the quantity and variety of musical elements or patterns. The result is two parallel threads of music, each representing a progression of increasing complexity.”

Length: The length of your finished work is up to you.

(…) 

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

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

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Image associated with this project from the notes that accompany the album Complexification (Entr’acte), by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer, and on which project is based.

More on Complexification:

http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/

Angel [disquiet0188-complexcomplex]

Disquiet Junto Project 0188: Complex Complex
Take a provided track and make it more complex.

I used the track Complexification0010SH.

My goal was to add complexity while preserving the clarity of the original track. 

I began by adding 2 subtle tracks under the original opening. One is a time stretched version of the original with a stretch factor of 1. It adds a bit of pitched noise. The other is Spectral Filterbank which adds a slight repeating pitch. Both tracks are derived from and follow the sounds of the original track. They add a new bit of complexity to the original.

For the second section, starting at about 2:15, I added a new track based on the quieter section of the original. I repeated and reversed it creating a bilateral arc. I copied this and time stretched it with a stretch factor of 1. Underneath this I added a long, soft drone from Freesound (DerwentSharpe, Ambient » minor - 3b.wav). All this is under the original track. The new layered sounds add to the complexity of the original.

I overlapped the sounds from the last minute of the original track to create a drive to the final segment. The repeated beat pattern returns at about 3:15, increases and reaches a climax at 4:10. The piece ends with the sound of the original track. 

Edited in Audacity. 

The image associated with this track is by Thomas Boulvin

This project was proposed by Guy Birkin and Jay Bodley (aka Sun Hammer). It extends the thinking that went into their album Complexification, released by the record label Entr’acte. (There’s more background on album below the project description.)

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:
http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

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


Complex Complex [disquiet0188-complexcomplex]

I took an 11-second snippet of the original track as my core sample.  I wanted to bring out the tonal aspect, so I did some pitch-shifting in Ableton Live to make four versions of the sample - original pitch, pitch- and time-stretched down a fourth, a fifth, and an octave.  I used follow actions to make the clips semi-randomly move downward then back up.  When the clip decided to repeat itself for the last time, the track ended.

However, the chords were hard to hear, so I duplicated the track and then added a Resonator in Ableton Live tuned to match the pitch-shifted chords and a couple of delays to make the chords stick around longer.

Then I took the core sample again and sliced it up into at least 22 micro-samples, each of which repeated or went on to the next sample at their own discretion.  This created "areas" of repeating samples that serve as a kind of form.

This is maybe the most IDM I've ever gotten.

* * * * * 

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

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

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Image associated with this project from the notes that accompany the album Complexification (Entr’acte), by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer, and on which project is based.

More on Complexification:

http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/

Parallel Asynchronous Phase Rates (disquiet0188-complexcomplex)

 I used Reichatron to superpose 4 Complexification010SH at slightly different and varying speed, which makes it more complex for me. THen I ran the result at twice the speed: not to complexify but to keep it under 3 minutes ;-)

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

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

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Image associated with this project from the notes that accompany the album Complexification (Entr’acte), by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer, and on which project is based.

More on Complexification:

http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/



CoaT - Reichification (disquiet0188 - Complexcomplex)

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

Parallel Asynchronous Phase Rates (disquiet0188-complexcomplex)

Nate Trier