[Recording] Mutatorator

Just finished a new piece which I have uploaded to my website called "Mutatorator".

It's basically an experiment in using Pd for realtime processing of sound. It's an amalgam of 11 very short  pieces made using the patch to process a classical guitar. 

It uses a looping samplers and weirdly configured random delay lines and even a bit of Karplus Strong magic. 

Go on, have a listen, you know you want to.

[Recording] Millipede

Just uploaded a new track to my site called Millipede. This was made for Classwar Karaoke survey 0014. CK is a quarterly digest of experimental music run by Anthony from Vultures Quartet and friends of his.

It's a really interesting project and more than worth checking out and keeping an eye on.

The track is another using an actual rhythm (!) along with some glassy sounding algorithmically tuned synths and random delays. I don't know what is going on with this current obsession with using rhythm in Pd, but it's a lot of fun. 

[News] Gigs, Recordings, Java

The next Miller Test gig will be at 229 - a club on Great Portland Street - 229 - we'll be on at 8.30pm and we'll be "showcasing" our new backing singers and some songs you haven't heard before. Emma and Ida are great singers and we've been working on harmonies for them, in fact we're doing more this afternoon in  the luxurious environs of The Premises.

I've submitted a track for the forthcoming Classwar Karaoke compilation - a kind of weird, glassy, algorithmic, downtempo electronic thing. So, all three Vultures will be on it as solo artists (Astrometria - ie me, Will Connor and murmurists - Anthony). As I mentioned before there will be some famous names on this one including Fred Frith.

Seth and I have done some more work on the video looping project, well actually, to be fair Seth has digitised a load of old video material ready for looping. I am still trying to work out exactly how to display it and use OpenCV to control the program or patch I write for it. I'm going to forge ahead using Pd/GEM but I also had a look at using Java. I programmed Java professionally for a few years and one of the things I used was QuickTime for Java. Having not used it for a while I was a little saddened to see that it has been deprecated. In fact Apple did that in 2009 - shows it has been a while since I looked at that API!

I had a look at Java Media Framework but I just don't think it will cut the mustard for what I am trying to do which is a shame. I have seen a similar application to the one I am trying to write built with Max/MSP/Jitter - but I can't afford Max so that's a no go. I just need to work out how to display and manipulate several videos with audio in Pd/GEM I think. I could try Processing but the overhead is immense compared to Pd so that choice is a no brainer.

Some people I have mentioned this to have asked why I don't program this thing in Flash - the simple answer is twofold: I can't afford the development tools and more importantly Flash is the only thing that makes my computer so hot that the fans in it are running so quickly it sounds like it might take off... remember the sound of the nine (?) fans in the old G5 Mac Pro things when you booted into single user mode? Very similar... 

[Mixing] Compilations

Vultures Quartet were asked to contribute a track to this compilation (sorry you need to be logged into Facebook to see this). 

I mixed a track from our last recording session in February for this.

We'll also be on the forthcoming Classwar Karaoke compilation due for release later this month, I think.  CK is run by, amongst others, Anthony Donovan from Vultures Quartet. 

The track is from the same recording session.

This should be an interesting compilation and apparently it will include a track by Fred Frith - so definitely worth a listen.

[Live] The Miller Test at Cargo

We're playing at Cargo on Friday 13th May. I don't think we'll be listed as it's a last minute booking (obviously).  We're on at 7.45pm.

We'll be playing a new song amongst the other stuff too.

If you come to see us it's a fiver to get in - the usual price is £20 so if you like the place you can get in for £5 and stay all night. Just think of all the extra beer you can afford...

[Mixing] Mid / Side EQ

This is a really interesting technique that seems to be really useful when trying to master bad mixes where you don't have access to the original mix or project. As ever this one was discovered on a weekly trawl of GearSlutz where I regularly seem to find new (to me) and interesting (to me) ideas and ways of working.

The way I use it is to use two copies of the stereo file in a DAW on separate tracks, then use MSED as an insert switched to "encode" with the "side" muted then a linear phase EQ then another inserted MSED instance switched to "decode" with "side" muted. I do the same on the copy of the stereo track with "mid" muted.

I tried this out on a really old (1998) live recording of a band I was in where we have an old tape recording from the desk in the venue. Like a lot of recordings from then (who knows what happens now, it costs so much to get a recording from the desk nowadays) the mix is pretty extreme - loads of bottom end on the bass but no mids, very trebly hard panned guitars, not a lot of drums (it was a loud drummer so not much needed to go through the PA in such a small venue) and a fairly decent vocal sound.

I am definitely not a mastering engineer but this is a really interesting method of splitting the signal into the mono only and stereo only elements and bringing the bottom end into line and balancing the stereo more than you might think possible - just by using EQ and panning on each of the two copies of the original stereo track. It's fascinating to use.

There's much more helpful info here: http://www.about-audio-mastering-software.com/mid-side-eq.html

If you've got dodgy old tapes this could help - the people I was in the aforementioned band with seem to have dug a lot up recently...

[Recordings] New Audio Online

I've uploaded a few new things to my website - at the bottom of the audio page as usual.

There are a couple of no input mixing tracks. Everyone who comes round here seems to be fascinated by this method of making sound and I have to admit I am not entirely sure why or how it works but it's very powerful and expressive. I do wonder how long the mixer will last, but considering it is about 40 years old anyway I suspect it won't be long.

I finally uploaded a track based on the Karplus Strong algorithm which also makes use of some drum synthesis which sounds like the most basic sounds one can achieve with a Roland TR808 which I made mainly using [noise~], [adsr~], [osc~] and [lores~] objects - basically kick, snare and hi hat sounds (sort of).  It's a bit of fun. I also recently made a recording with Seth using a heavily modified version of this patch - more on this soon - it needs some heavy editing and mixing but uses the patch in a more interesting way.

Another new one is Yuri which is created using a fairly complicated Pd patch. It has no "user" controls at all, it just uses various ways of creating random numbers to control the subpatches and how and when they fade in and out. I also used the bowed string and marimba from the PeRColate library (contrary to the Wikipedia article PeRColate has been ported to Pd).  I need to make it more interesting.

The above patch was inspired by listening to the music on PatchWerk Radio which is great. On a Mac I needed to download the ogg stream and play it in VLC.