First week went by, everything looked very promising. I didn’t get around to book studio time until the second week. I spent all of my time remembering the proper connections, cables, and settings and got around to record a guitar player / singer from the music pathway.

The editing sessions on the “Bombat” track, I did most of in the computer rooms. At first I started doing the tempo mapping without having read the pdf help file posted by Gareth. I got to bar 33 and couldn’t remember if it was that one that had the meter change to 7/8 or if it was bar 34… I tried to figure it out and it sounded to me like it was in fact bar 34. I checked the pdf file and saw it was bar 33, so I carried on with the session. I don’t think it would have made much difference since both bars are mainly ‘glitchy’ sounds without a specific groove to them.

I look forward to see what the next step is and what we’ll do with the files we have ‘chopped up’

The following summarizes the work done for Task 1 including a graphic score, a few additional graphics to indicate certain settings on different software and a set of instructions for preparation and performance of my part of the piece.

General Aspects:

For this piece I worked in a group with my fellow classmates Michael Sands, Justinas Ramanauskas & Simon Scott. The piece starts with an introduction based mainly on Ixi Quarks, and then evolves into a group of noise-sounds achieved through the use of coded synthesizers on SuperCollider. We attempt to establish some communication between the different elements of the piece that have similar qualities and where sounds behave in a similar way. The piece is comprised of three sections, an introduction marked by an environment sound and a mild chatter in the background, the middle section that builds up using steady pulses and mouse-controlled pitches, and the ending characterized by a low frequency rumbling. The movement from one section to the next is marked by a audio cue audible to every member of the group to indicate the transition to the next part. These cues also indicate the audience that something is about to happen.

Graphic Score:

Preparing and Performing my Part:

For preparation and performance of my part of the piece, I came up with the following set of instruction in recipe form:

Ingredients:
On Ixi Quarks: 1 sample of voice recorded saying “è nel momento in cui dubiti di volare che perdi per sempre la facoltà di farlo” ( see sound file “e nel momento.aif” )
On SuperCollider: Open the file “Laptop Piece.rtf” and evaluate entire code in large parenthesis above the dotted line
Pre-performance Preparation:
-    Open the recorded sample “e nel momento.aif” onto the BufferPool and click “View” to see the wave sample.
-    Open SoundScratcher and load sample from BufferPool into it and setup settings to match image “SS Settings” as shown on the following image

-    Open GrainBox, load sample from BufferPool into it, and setup settings to match attached image “GB Presets.png” as shown on the following image

Performance

Part 1 – Ixi quarks
After Mike has introduced his ambience noises in the background:
•    Begin chatter by starting the GrainBox. Begin to improvise moving the Orange Boxes.
•    Sporadically play the unaltered sample from the BufferPool
•    Start the “Worm” in the SoundScratcher
Continue this process and cue Part 2 going on SC, to the file “Laptop Piece.rtf” and evaluate “~sig.play”. Fade out Part I.

Part 2 – SuperCollider (See “Task1.rtf”)
After evaluating “~sig.play”
•    After aprox. 10 seconds, evaluate “~sig2.play” with the Mouse a few centimetres from the left of the screen creating a phasing between the two pulses
•    Improvise with the Mouse by moving it from left to right and back for aprox. 20 seconds
•    Evaluate “~sig3.play” and continue with previous step

Continue this process until Mike cues glissando, evaluate “~sig.stop”, “~sig2.stop” and “~sig3.stop” and move onto to Part 3
Part 3 – Super Collider (Rumbling)
•    Evaluate “n”followed by  “Pdef”, and “~sig4.play” above dotted line
•    On glissando cue, evaluate “n.stop” and “Pdef” below dotted line and fade chords out slowly.

Task1.rtf:

(
s.boot;
p= ProxySpace.push;
~sig = { Pulse.ar ([2,2], mul:0.2) };
~sig.fadeTime = 3;
~sig2 = { Pulse.ar ([36.midicps,36.midicps]*~mo, mul:0.2) };
~sig2.fadeTime = 3;
~mo = { MouseX.kr (0.0 , 1.0) };
~sig2.fadeTime = 4;
~sig3 = { SinOsc.ar ([84.midicps,1041],mul:1*~mo2) };
~sig3.fadeTime = 6;
~mo2 = {MouseX.kr (0.1 , 0.2) };
~mo3 = { MouseX.kr (0.0 , 1.0) };
~sig4 = { Impulse.ar ([02,05],mul:0.8) };
)
——————————————————–
// PART 2
~sig.play
~sig2.play
~sig3.play

// On Cue
~sig.stop (5)
~sig2.stop (5)
~sig3.stop (3)

// On Cue

n= Pdef( \rumble, Pbind(\dur,Pseq([2,1,1/2],inf),          \midinote,Pseq([[20,22],[15,17],[21,18]],inf),\amp, 0.5) ).play

Pdef( \chillido, Pbind(\dur,Pseq([2,1,1/2],inf),          \midinote,Pseq([[20,22],[15,17],[108]],inf)) ).play

~sig4.play
—————————————————————–
n.stop
~sig4.stop(5)

//FADE OUT

I’ve been working very hard at everything that will be due soon. Especially in laptop musicianship, building up the portfolio of assigments, scoring up the recorded pieces and finalizing last minute details.

Shortly enough I expect to post up summaries for pieces 1 & 2 that I hope will include a thorough analisis of the work done from me and from the group to make them happen, accompanied by a finalized graphic score and maybe the audio files to be able to fully appreciate them.

For now… I’ll keep working at it.

Rich

We met yesterday to record our final versions of the pieces and they turned out very nice. After carefully thinking about strategies to record involving everything from a single mic in the middle of the speakers all the way to separate recordings of each part.

Te ideas were all good but we were deciding between better quality vs. better group communication (which was very important due to all the cues). The best idea was used which was using two hard disk mp3 recordings (one for each pair of band members). The mics picked up a stereo recording of the two laptops assigned to each recorder and we were then able to mix 4 channels, controlling levels, while still be able to perform in a live setting

.

The Dice idea was brought up by Simon, and it evolved during group talks to being an element of surprise to involve the audience in our piece. It hasn’t formally been included in our piece, but it’s still very much alive. The way it works is before the piece, we have someone from the audience roll the dice, and depending on the results, the piece would slightly change. To achieve this without complete chaos we decided to have an improvisational section in which the members of the group would improvise making physical sounds with objects or our voices as opposed to with the computers while a background steadily plays. The dice will determine one of six possible sounds that the group would have to improvise with.

We came un with 6 ideas for sounds including, rattling keys, booing, hissing, scrunching paper, laughing, and counting out loud. The idea of the score was to simply turn in a Die cube with specifications, but that would have made the rest of what was going on difficult to show. So I came up with the following draft of a score that can show what the piece might look like on paper. After de Dice section there would be some things going on for the ending but since I am not too clear yet on the times, I left as a work in progress.

Interesting group meeting today looking to solve some communication issues in our piece bringing some new thinking into it. Bringing the best of two worlds in computer samples and thinking about live performance.. the ideas are fresh and new to be included into the laptop piece.

We came up with good ways to bring a random element into the piece as well as something other than computers that should fit in nicely. We’re starting to think about performance elements such as audience involvement and trying to get in their feet.

It all sounds a bit mysterious because I’m waiting for us to rehearse it some more and don’t want to spoil anything just yet. I’ll be dealing in later posts with scoring issues.

The piece should be completed in time by this week, giving us week 10 & 11 to score them up and record them.

I’ve finally solved some feedback issues with the effects on ixi by controlling inbus and outbus. Overall I must conclude it’s very intuitive in the end to work with it… Looking forward to seeing how the last few weeks will come about.

I wanted to bring a swing feel by giving that sense of swingin’ eighth notes (quavers) and take the role of bass player in the group. This is the Pbind using the Prand for low notes from F dorian with note durations of 1/4 (4 per second)

Pdef(\cuatro, Pbind(\dur,Pseq([1/4],inf),\midinote, Prand([41,44,48,41,44,48,50,51,53,29,36,32,29,36,32],inf)))

By adding to the duration a value of 1/6 and having it constantly switching from 1/4 to 1/6, it gives to feel of a walking bass

Pdef(\cuatro, Pbind(\dur,Pseq([1/4,1/6],inf),\midinote, Prand([41,44,48,41,44,48,50,51,53,29,36,32,29,36,32],inf)))