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.
Forgotten Channels Study
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.
Ostracon at Honey
