Archive for the ‘electronic’ Category

The 11th Blue Moon

Friday, May 17th, 2013

XL245

The 11th Blue Moon

Poem

  • Blue Moon
  • by Richard Leach
    and recited / sung (in 12 edo / JI) by Christiane Offenbar
    and 11 edo vocoder / 11 edo synthesis by Chris Vaisvil

  • Not the one that appears every two or three years -
    the one that appears once in forty-four years.

    Not the one that is full for a single night -
    the one that is full every night it is in the sky.

    Not the one on which to see a man or a rabbit -
    the one on which there are branches and leaves in silhouette.

    Not the one that is drowned out by a glowing city -
    the one that is as bright above a city as it is where the sky is darkest.

    Not the one by which you might read a newspaper headline -
    the one by which you can read what had been invisible.

    Not the one whose name is part of a figure of speech -
    the one that asks us to say something new.

    Not the one that rhymes with hue and shoe and June and spoon -
    the one that rhymes with night and weight and hold and hope.

    Blue Moon, Blue Moon, Blue Moon
    And hope Blue Moon, Blue Moon, Blue Moon

  • The Broken Cathedral of Christchurch

    Monday, May 13th, 2013

    The Broken Cathedral of Christchurch is an ambient poly-tuning piece using 11, 12, and 19 notes to the octave. The instruments used are a Korg MS2000 synthesizer, 19 edo electric guitar (several tracks), and 5 string bass – all with liberal application of effects, mixing, and mastering. The piece is dedicated to the Anglican cathedral of Christchurch New Zealand which will be brought down and rebuilt due to extensive earthquake damage.

    This is a repost because the original post was damaged.

    I Love You, Cyanobacteria

    Friday, May 3rd, 2013

    Cyanobacterium-inline.svg

    I Love You, Cyanobacteria is a electropop song in 11 edo that acknowledges our debt to cyanobacteria. This is a multi-track recording of my Korg MS2000 with a 12 note user tuning – I doubled Bb and B to get 11 edo which increments about 9 cents extra per note to reach the octave. The drums were run off of the arpeggiator but as you can hear everything else was played. My voice is vocoded.

    Under the Ice of Europa

    Friday, April 26th, 2013

    Europa-moon

    Under the Ice of Europa is an ambient piece for only the most dedicated. It has a run time of 42 minutes and should be listened to at a very loud volume to get the full effect. The initial sound sources were 5 instances of EFM Synthia 2 (EMI Synthi emulator) 1 instance of Altair 4 and 1 instance of Albino. There was a lot of work done in the sound design of synthi patches and arpeggiation was applied to all tracks. Then, yes I ran it through PES, but not with default settings. I used three instances, two of which were through the harmonic filter with 21 harmonics at a just fifth and the three outputs mixed together. Its a pretty complex mixture that is constantly changing. However, I realize 42 minutes of anything is a difficult hand, so my hat is off to you if you decide to try it and actually make it all the way through.

    Grasping Clouds

    Friday, April 12th, 2013

    CIMG0104-s

    Grasping Clouds is an ambient piece for electric 15 edo guitar and a slew of effects – some of which add a touch of 12 edo to the mix.

    Keyboard Slope +35

    Sunday, March 31st, 2013

    Korg_MS2000 (truth in advertizing, that is NOT my set up.
    The picture is from Wikipedia commons.)

    Keyboard Slope +35 is a short piece in an unknown tuning (I don’t have time to do the obvious comparing to a known set of tunings this evening.). Consider it a proof of concept of using the MS2000 virtual patch to set a non-12 equal “slope” to the keyboard => the basic idea was found when answering a question about microtuning mu MS2000. Please excuse the pops – my synth is getting pretty old (+11 years) and has a forming bad solder joint at one of the outputs. I start off with a chromatic C-C’ in case someone with good pitch perception can identify the tuning. I do play with parameters as I go along.

    The basic idea => Route [KBD TRACK] to [PITCH] in the VIRTUAL PATCH and set the intensity of the modulation to +35. The keyboard now plays in a non-12 tuning.

    Modern Art

    Friday, March 8th, 2013

    IMG_0183

    Modern Art is an ambient composition using Kontakt and Garritan world instruments and Z3TA+ 2.1 all in 20 edo.

    Walking the Airlock

    Wednesday, March 6th, 2013

    Voskhod2 Alexey Leonov performing the first EVA.

    Walking the Airlock is a poly-tuned piece using predominately 16 and 32 edo (notes per octave) with some unavoidable 12 equal and free-pitch material. The synths used are albino, zeta+ 2.1, kontakt, session drummer 3, and izotope stutter edit. Some effects and post editing were applied. The piece was performed on an M-Audio 88es and Korg nano-kontrol 1. Recorded in Sonar X1 with its native midi arpeggiator added to the session 3 drummer track. As for the picture – per Wikipedia

    – NASA planners invented the term extra-vehicular activity in the early 1960s for the Apollo program to land men on the Moon, because the astronauts would leave the spacecraft to collect lunar material samples and deploy scientific experiments. To support this, and other Apollo objectives, the Gemini program was spun off to develop the capability for astronauts to work outside a two-man Earth orbiting spacecraft. However, the Soviet Union was fiercely competitive in holding the early lead it had gained in manned spaceflight, so the Soviet Communist Party, led by Nikita Khrushchev, ordered the hasty conversion of its single-pilot Vostok capsule into a two- or three-person craft named Voskhod, in order to compete with Gemini and Apollo. The Soviets were able to launch two Voskhod capsules before the first manned Gemini was launched.

    The Soviets’ avionics technology was not as advanced as that of the United States, so the Voskhod cabin could not have been left depressurized by an open hatch; otherwise the air-cooled electronics would have overheated. Therefore a spacewalking cosmonaut would have to enter and exit the spacecraft through an airlock.

    Nucleophilic Attack

    Friday, March 1st, 2013

    Nucleophilic_Attack_by_DonyaQuick Art – Nucleophilic Attack by Donya Quick (click picture for more art)

    Nucleophilic Attack is a dark ambient piece in 10 edo.

    Nucleophilic Attack 2 features guitar virtuoso Zach Curley on lead 20 note per octave microtonal guitar.

    Within the Springs of Your Bed (15 edo guitar solo with effects)

    Wednesday, December 19th, 2012

    BedSpring

    Within the Springs of Your Bed is an improvisation for solo 15 EDO electric guitar using a whammy pedal to add additional pitch content. In a strict sense it a dually tuned piece with 12 edo on top of 15 edo.