Drones is the next piece in the Strands series. These audiovisual compositions illustrate the interpretation of animated, generative, graphic scores written in JavaScript. Drones is made up of animated Bezier curves. Interpretation of this piece is more abstract than the others. I interpret the motion of the curves as layered, morphing drones. This piece might elicit entirely different results from one performance to the next.

I performed the piece using the Organelle M, Bass Station II, a kalimba, and a harmonica. I played, live looped, and processed the instruments in one take through the Organelle M running Orac 2. Orac is a virtual modular system built with Pure Data and designed by Mark Harris. Using Orac I am able to run live looping, several signal processors, and sample playback all at once. Here’s a sketch that illustrates how I configured Orac for this performance:

To record the kalimba and harmonica I used the internal mic on the Organelle M. Then I flipped a switch on the back of the Organelle M to capture the Bass Station II with the direct inputs. Although the internal mic is not spectacular, it is pretty good. I ended up pressing the kalimba to the body of the Organelle M to get a hotter signal as I recorded it.

Another excellent feature in Orac is MIDI Learn. In the photo above the Bass Station II and the Korg NanoKONTROL are both powered by the Organelle. The Nano allows me to manipulate the processing, adjust the send level, mix the chains, and anything else I want to control. This was a perfect portable setup for traveling to the ISSTA conference.