Disquiet Junto Project 0725: Rack It

The Assignment: Change the “focus” of a track as it plays.

Step 1: There is a concept in photography and filmmaking called “rack focus,” which can be understood as the process of altering depth of field so as to draw attention to one or another element.

Step 2: Record a track in which you apply the concept of “rack focus” to sound.

Approach: You might, for example, take a preexisting track for which you already have the various layers separated, and then at any given moment, put all but one through a low-pass filter. That’s just a suggestion.

Deadline: Monday, November 24, 2025, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.

Details: disquiet.com/0725

Disquiet Junto Project 0725: Rack It

9 Zebralette, OTT, You Wa Shock, Bitwig convolution, Bitwig Limiter, TDR Nova. DAW: Bitwig OSC #191 Zebralette

Spring Goose - The curious zebra

55ish instances of zebralette using Reaper 6.83

OTT, ReaLimit, LoudMax, TSOM's B&S, Supermassive Valhalla, Raum, A1TriggerGate, ReEQ, TDR Kotelnikov, Replika, Reaverb, A1StereoControl

LUFS-I = 11.1

The last 7 minutes are very slow ambient which isn't popular in OSC and of course it's long. Feel free to skip if that's a problem for you, although just to be clear, I love it. 

Thank you Jas (white noise), TSOM (cymbals), Exponent (exophase!) for sound design help.

OSC191 Forgotten Dream (Zebralette 6th)

Entry for One Synth Challenge 191 - U-he Zebralette 2

Made in Reaper using 39 instances of Zebralette 2 for 15 voice-split single layer instruments.
No 3rd party noises of any kind were involved. 
Light clean-up duties were performed at track level by TDR Nova.
A touch of snipping done by GClip and Flux Bittersweet on the drum.
Some delay was provided by HY-Delay 4 
Reverberation courtesy of U-he Protoverb and Valhalla Supermassive, 
with a little help from their friends:  HOFA System Pan, TDR Nova, A1 Stereo Control and JS Mixer.
Somewhat reluctantly living on the master bus are TDR Kotelnikov, A1 Stereo Control, Limiter No6, and Flux Bittersweet.

Looking At You

Progetto per un call for works per flauto e fixed media, abbandonato per difficoltà e dubbi riguardo la partitura del flauto. 
2 contrabassi, tape delay, e flauto (canale destro, tongue ram).


Project for a call for works for flute and fixed media, abandoned due to difficulties and doubts about the flute score. 
2 double basses, tape delay, and flute (right channel, tongue ram).

FIRST-Tongue Ram [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)

A slow, laid-back funk groove with jazzy sax, clavinet, deep fender jazz bass, and abstract synth textures.
Smooth, atmospheric, and slightly cinematic — the kind of track that lives between a modal jam and a chill-out or lounge beat.

Performed by DD - clavinet, electric bass, abstract synth, drum program.
With Miguel Yanover - Tenor saxophone

For this @disquiet challenge:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0720-one-from-two/

Golpe de Suerte - disquiet0720

An electronic sequence created using Pure Data with additional reverb and delay to produce two  levels, one with prominent sharp sounds and the other a fuzzy background with the impression of increased distance.

More on the 725th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Rack It — The Assignment: Change the “focus” of a track as it plays — at https://disquiet.com/0725/.

Sharp and Fuzzy (disquiet0725)

sound art for disquiet0725.

More on the 725th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Rack It — The Assignment: Change the “focus” of a track as it plays — at https://disquiet.com/0725/.

dandelion (disquiet0725)

I was having some fun with the "Booga" plug in from Hainbach and Audio Thing and figured that it would serve as a good vehicle for this week's assignment. I created six rhythmic tracks, which took turns being brought entirely to the forefront. With each such instance I inserted a short line from a film. The result is not quite right, but I ran out of time. But it was a fun project.

More on the 725th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Rack It — The Assignment: Change the “focus” of a track as it plays — at https://disquiet.com/0725/.

disquiet0725

Based on the true story of how I got my first synth, which was a Roland Juno, and my first gig, which was an epic disaster.

This week's Disquiet Junto prompt asked us to imagine the sonic equivalent of "rack focus", a film camera technique in which focus shifts between the foreground and background of a long single shot. For example, there might be a close shot of our brave heroine with the indistinct blob of a highrise behind her, but then her face blurs and the background comes into focus, and we see a dark figure looking down at her from a high window across the street.

This piece started out in a notebook. I drew a stack of three vertical planes, labeled "near", "mid", and "far". I assigned instruments to each of the three planes, with drums in the foreground, synths in the middle distance, and my vocals in the background. A two-stage reverb chain applied to the instruments in each layer simulated the three distances sonically within a shared modeled space. When I wanted to bring the vocals into "focus" for emphasis, I abruptly dropped the gain on the instrument tracks and applied a Haas Effect technique to snap the spoken track to the fore in space. (A 35ms delay between stereo channels does the trick.)

Gear consisted of the Moog Minitaur analog bass synthesizer, TR-08 drum machine, and the pièce de résistance, a Roland JU-06-- the tabletop boutique reissue of my selfsame old Juno synth. 

I had a blast making this piece and I hope you enjoy it.

More on the 725th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Rack It — The Assignment: Change the “focus” of a track as it plays — at https://disquiet.com/0725/.

Back on the Rack (disquiet0725)

This track was created for the disquiet0725 challenge. Production started with locating a bass line I recorded some time ago from the Typhon synth. Tracks were added using the Proclethya VST synthesizer, and a piano loop serves as the sound ramping up, and overtaking the arrangement. The movement over time as well as my predisposition for all things time travel inspired the title.

More on the 725th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Rack It — The Assignment: Change the “focus” of a track as it plays — at https://disquiet.com/0725/.

a time bridge crossed-disquiet0725

Moons of S (Buchla)

:: Live experimental eurorack composition limited to a few modules ::

George Crumb

:: getting close to Buchla territory here with Plaits at least to my ears :: Live take to 2 track, little heavy on the verb ::

Plaits Short Random

My 33 1/3 series book about the Aphex Twin album <i>Selected Ambient Works Volume II</i> was published in 2014. The book was one of the top 5 bestselling titles for the calendar year, and in 2015 was ranked by Pitchfork as one of the "33 best" of the 100-plus books in the 33 1/3 series. It has subsequently been translated into Japanese (2019) and Spanish (2018)

Since 2012 I have moderated the Disquiet Junto group, which began on SoundCloud. More at disquiet.com/junto. 

I've written for Nature, Pitchfork, The Wire, Down Beat, Boing Boing, NewMusicBox, Red Bull Music Academy, Art Practical, the website of The Atlantic, and many other publications. 

I've exhibited sound art at galleries in Los Angeles (Crewest), Manhattan (apex art), and Dubai (DUTAC), and I had a audio-visual installation at the San Jose Museum of Art as part of its 45th anniversary.

And since 1996 I've run the website Disquiet.com about the intersection of sound, art, and technology.

a time bridge crossed-disquiet0725

FrankH

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