I recorded this arpeggio recently that I created using the Roland MKS-80 and the Bitstream 3X MIDI controller. Every once in a while it’s nice to leave the computer out of the equation and this was one of those times. As I have outlined before, the arpeggiator on the BS3X has a distinct collection of features that allow for an interesting mix of possibilities. For this example I put it into the keyboard mode, disabling the built in melodies in favor of using a keyboard to choose the notes.
Midnight Playground is an interactive, kinetic, installation by Peng Wu, Jack Pavlik, John Keston, and Analaura Juarez. Peng initiated and directed the idea, Jack built the jump rope robot, and Annalaura helped refine the concept and promote the piece. My role was to produce the music and track it to the still images that Peng had selected. I ended up making a one hour video with thirty minutes of the image from the moon followed by a four second transition into another thirty minutes with an image of Mars. To produce the sound I gave Peng a list of audio excerpts that had all been previously posted on AudioCookbook in One Synthesizer Sound Every Day. He picked the two that he thought would work the best and I went back to my original recordings and processed them specifically for the piece by adding some reverb and delay to enhance the spacial properties of the music. The piece will be on display in Gallery 148 at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design through January 29, 2012.
I recorded this all analog synthesizer jam recently while my friend and fellow synthesist Michael Moline, otherwise known as Miditerranean, was visiting. I played an arpeggio on the Roland MKS-80 while Michael made noises on my Pro-One. In addition I played a few notes on the Roland Juno-106 for some additional melodic content.
Call it a bomb whistle or a filter sweep. In any case this descending analog tone is doubled on another layer with a twenty-second delay. Over the top of that I introduced some glitchy analog crackles about a minute into it.
This piece includes two layers of arpeggiated patterns with arbitrarily different tempos and time signatures generating an awkward interrupting atmosphere.
This experiment is called Magnet Head and features a filtered drone combined with percussive, analog spatterings all generated by the Roland MKS-80.
Here’s another microtrack for the dance project I’m working on in collaboration with Annichia Arts. This is a glitchy experiment I produced with the Roland MKS-80 while holding down a dark, dense, jazz chord.
I’m currently preparing a performance for my graduate critique seminar on October 4, 2011. As I have been working on the piece, tentatively titled Forgotten Channels, I have been capturing little chunks of interesting sound. Here’s an example of something I decided to preserve from a recent practice session.
And we’re back… After twenty days of five-minutes-here and one-hour-there since the crash I have managed to recover a significant percentage of the original content of AudioCookbook.org. There are still hundreds of audio files that need to be put back in place, and probably a lot of lost images, but the first ten (of eighty) pages are cloase to 100% recovered. I have also created a new design based on the clean and functional Twenty Eleven WordPress theme. This responsive design looks nicer and will also provide a better user experience on mobile devices.
Although there is lots more to be done, now it is time to get back to the business at hand. Making sounds! At this stage I can’t guarantee daily output, but I intend to work up to it. Here’s a chordal drone that I created recently using my Roland MKS-80. I modulated the filter and the VCO frequency with the LFO set to a sine wave. However, you will not hear the pitch sweeping because the oscillator that is modulated is synched to the unmodulated one.
Sync and Filter Modulated Chordal Drone
You may have noticed a few changes around here. Unfortunately, at the present they are not for the better. The shared hosting service that I use suffered a catastrophic crash that wiped out the servers that hosted AudioCookbook.org and ten other sites that I either produced, maintained, or had a hand in.
This happened sometime during the afternoon on Tuesday, August 30, 2011. Having a busy schedule on that day (and since) I didn’t learn about the crash until midnight. I was up all night for the next three days assessing the situation and attempting recovery procedures. I discovered that the hosting service had no backup available (this is a long story that I won’t get into). So it was up to me to recover whatever possible.
After five years of no trouble from the hosting service I had become somewhat complaisant about daily backups, but I did have some things in order. Current backups of all the databases were available. I also have all of the sounds that I have ever posted here backed up locally. However, it will not be an easy matter to put all the pieces back in place. I have begun the process, but as well as teaching full-time I also just started a graduate program (ironically on the same day of the server crash), so my schedule will only allow me to focus on recovery incrementally.
As a result I have had to temporarily suspend the One Synthesizer Sound Everyday Project. I started posting a hand programmed synthesizer sound on a daily basis on January 5, 2011 and consecutively created two-hundred and thirty-six entries before the crash. I have more than enough material to fill this temporary void, but I am sorry that I won’t be able to get to it immediately. For now have a listen to a live, full-length, Ostracon mix that I finished editing this afternoon.