Transdimensional Bypass by ten72

Posted on December 12, 2008 by John CS Keston

Unearthed Music artist ten72 has completed a luscious album of sonic experiments titled Transdimensional Bypass (full length previews). This gapless collection of pieces has astonishing textural depth and sonic complexity; something that I’ve come to expect from ten72’s music, but surprising in this case since every bit of audio on the album was recorded on a mobile phone.

To make this a possibility ten72 has ingeniously used a profusion of processing to metamorphose the lofi, metallic sputterings of his mobile field recordings into an opulent dream scape of illusory audio. A single part of this anthology out of context is not the best way listen, but here’s Folds of Color to give you a tiny taste. The release will be available from Unearthed Music and major online distributors as a high quality download on January 8, 2009.

Folds of Color
from Transdimensional Bypass by ten72

Notes From a Hat in C Minor

Posted on December 10, 2008 by John CS Keston

I created this sequence of randomized notes using Processing.org with the RWMidi library installed. The notes were randomly selected from a C minor scale. I also randomized the occurrence of the notes to eliminate any rhythmic qualities. The velocity was also randomized within a range so there’s absolutely no consistency to the dynamics either. I could go further into Dada territory by using a chromatic scale, or even random frequencies entering into microtonal realms, but this is just an experiment I did to test some of the functionality within the library.

Notes From a Hat

Pulsar Automata in E Minor

Posted on December 9, 2008 by John CS Keston

The cellular automata known as the “Game of Life” originated from work done in 1970 by British mathematician John Horton Conway. Curious about how the game of life sequencer would react to documented patterns, I drew several of them into the sequencer and captured the MIDI output in Ableton Live. In order to use the documented patterns I changed the grid to thirteen by thirteen squares so I could match the patterns exactly. I got some variable musical phrases as a result. A very symmetrical sequence was produced by the pulsar (pictured). Starting the sequencer with the pulsar created a simple, rigid one half bar pattern before all the cells died. Afterward I ran the MIDI into a virtual instrument, looped it, and applied processing to get today’s sound.

Pulsar Automata in E Minor

Three Phase Oscillator

Posted on December 8, 2008 by John CS Keston

Another Processing library that I have looked into is RWMidi Processing which is another relatively simple and easy to use set of MIDI tools. To illustrate how to use the library Wesen, from Ruin & Wesen, produced a screen cast on how to make a “Game of Life” sequencer. I decided to have a look at the sequencer to see if I could route the MIDI from Processing to other applications, like Ableton Live and Reason. I accomplished this using the IAC Driver found in the Audio MIDI Setup utility. I routed the MIDI data to Reason to have a listen to the results, then started manipulating some of the behavior of the sequencer. Later I decided to route the MIDI to Ableton Live. After that, one thing led to another and now I have the building blocks for a new track. Here’s a rendered snippet of the MIDI data that I captured and edited for the piece.

Sine of Life

Sequence of Randomized Pitches and Durations

Posted on December 7, 2008 by John CS Keston

I’ve been researching audio libraries for Processing recently since I will soon be starting the development of a specialized music application for personal use. I considered using MaxMSP, but Processing seems to suit this project a bit better. If you’re not familiar with Processing, it is an IDE designed for designers, artist, musicians, or anyone interested in exploring new ideas. Although it is mostly used for visual projects there are several examples of music software, like Tiction, which I wrote about in an entry titled Sound For Dali’s Melting Clocks. One of the libraries I’m investigating is called jm-Etude. It’s very easy to implement and use, and makes a few of the features in jMusic, a Java music composition project, accessible in Processing. Here’s some audio from a quick sketch designed to create a random sequence of notes. I also randomized the durations from whole notes to sixteenths, excluding tuplets for the time being.