New Music / Clorinde / The Creative Listener (2009)

Some new music I'd like to share here on fotosis by Clorinde, the brothers Simone and Andrea Salvatici. Their sound is electro-acoustic with electronic textures. Here is the info from my other blog,

"Been holding onto this album for a couple of weeks anxious to get the word out. The multi-instrumental performers Simone and Andrea Salvatici have always been generous in providing me insight into their work and their personal trials in pursuing a passion that can be a heartbreaking process. Music making is inspired, often the battle for survival, a battle of time and constraint. What I found in The Creative Listener were 11 emotive and powerful hymms of triumph and truth.

You feel the frustration and the beauty that encapsulates a year's worth of work, the magic of fantasy and the melancholy of reality. It's instrumental folklore that evokes a gritty and sensational voyage. The result as a listener is exalting and pure. The challenge of being "The Creative Listener" is the seduction, you delve further into their universe and immerse yourself in the highs and lows of this two man orchestra; a bond that is something akin to soul searching, a journey we all need from time to time."

LISTEN / PURCHASE THE ALBUM HERE.

Here is one of their older works in audio/visual form,


- C

Music / Saw Theremin Composition

The saw theremin still remains one of our most asked about instruments.

Musician & Sound designer Alexandre Baranger hails from Lyon, France and so kindly created this composition for me with my baby, the very first theremin that I've ever made. Alex's inventive combination of the theremin sound, the jazz vibe and the experimental thumpin' pace creates a truly unique and engaging track. This instrument now resides permanently in his studio, I am glad it is in good hands.



-C

Music: Cheveu / Punk, Rock & Electro

Just saw these guys again, would love to get our instruments into their hands.



I wrote a bit about them and some other events I've attended since Spring on my other blog here.

-C

'Advanced Beauty' Video Sound Sculptures & Processing & Etc.

This summer has been filled with travel and relocation for both John & I, and living and working apart resulted in the recent absence from the blog. But, rest assured we are still very much here and looking forward to returning back to instrument making.

In the meantime, I am updating my music blog over the next weeks, you can find my latest post and future ones here. Related, I have also been looking into audio/visual projects and have two in particular that I would like to mention.

The first project is the Advanced Beauty series of videos using Processing and inspired by the condition synesthesia. This is a condition where people perceive music through colours according to the tonal qualities of music. I've always been fascinated by this phenomenon and this project is aesthetically beautiful, as it is musically entrancing. You can view the first 6 parts out of 18 here at the Color + Design Blog. (Source)

The other audio/visual project that impressed me recently was the Glastonbury 2008 Pi Installation. This project allowed people to not only interact and play sounds with motion, but it also fully utilised the body as an instrument, syncing quite brilliantly both the audio and visual elements of the participants' movements and collaborations. You have to see it to get what I mean.

Glastonbury 2008 - Pi Interactive Installation from evan on Vimeo.

It truly feels like a fully thought out and cohesive art installation that I would love to know more about and try firsthand. Detailed info about the project can be found at memo.tv. Great, great job! (Source)

- C

'25 Great Music-Making Tips From Musicians' via Music Thing

Some Good advice. Thanks to John for the link.

1. Like Kraftwerk, have a non-music day every week or so (Anonymous computer musician)

2. If things go wrong, just maintain that you were playing jazz (Max/MSP enthusiast)

3. Play less (Guitarist, and lots of other people)

4. When learning to play a piece of music, play it first so slowly that you don't get a single note wrong. Then slowly increase the speed. Then, play louder than normal at the proper speed and you'll play more confidently (A bass player and a synth tweaker)

5. When editing, don't cut the breath off before someone starts talking or singing (Guitarist)

6. Finish the first draft (Bass plyer)

7. It's essential to begin every recording by asking 'Are we Recording?' (Guitarist - is that you, Peter?)

8. Before you start for the day, go for a long walk (Computer musician)

9. Listen. Listen very carefully. No. REALLY listen. (A guitarist, although 115 people used the word 'listen' in their tips)

10. Wear earplugs (Drummer)

11. Hit it hard, ye massive ponce (Drummer)

12. Grab some string and bend it. If it doesn't sound right move up a fret and try again. (Guitarist)

13. Start now, don't wait (Keyboard player)

14. Get into the groove / Boy, you've got to prove / Your love to me (Guitarist)

15. Retune your guitar, so you don't know the notes, then try making music with only your ears as guides (Keyboard player)

16. Tune your guitar, play in time (Guitarist)

17. Do it in triplets! (Programmer)

18. Make, go sleep and check again tomorrow... (Synth tweaker)

19. You may think you're playing your instrument, but what you're really playing is the audience (Studio engineer)

20. Keep your cigarette lighter away from my drummer - He'll set fire to anything that burns (Nord Modular enthusiast)

21. Do something every day. Even if all you do is make a beat or write some lyrics or a bassline or whatever, do something. Even if you just have a few minutes a day to spare, the material you have quickly builds up (Field recordist)

22. "Play more things that make me dance around and less things that make me sit and look miserable in a plastic chair" - Brian Eno (Guitarist)

23. Learning any instrument is about scales. Scales. Scales. Scales. The trick is to make learning the scales interesting. Which is hard. And I've never done it. Which is a shame (Studio engineer)

24. Never listen to the same loop for longer than 10 minutes (Beat maker)

25. Write as many songs as you can and pick the best (Guitarist)

(Source)

- C

Happy Holidays / Download Fotosis EP

* The new link to our EP is here.

About two weeks ago we embarked on a little project to remix a track by another group. It was to be a fun project for Christmas that would be released on the web etc. etc.

Anyway we started messing around with this track and after a few hours of cutting and pasting and applying effects in Audacity it was decided that we take a break and since we had all or our gear set up it might be fun to jam a little and record the results.

Well two days later we had 28 minutes (10 short tracks) of music that we were very happy with. An entire EP comprised of sounds created using a collection of household objects a bank of guitar effects pedals and our very own home made instruments. I suppose the resulting collection of tracks could be described as a blend of ambient electronica, dronescape experimentalism and randomized improvisation.

We do not claim to be professional musicians in any shape manner or form but we were extremely surprised with the results. One visiting friend who was the first person aside from ourselves to listen to the EP described it as "Dark" as if it didn't fit our personalities:-)

Well the track we were supposed to be remixing was sort of forgotten and buried under the responsibilities of everyday life coupled with a heavy dose of procrastination and was eventually returned to only for us to find that our dark electro souls didn't really lend themselves to Christmas songs and so we failed in our mission to create the next Xmas number one:-) But we did end up with a collection of really interesting little tracks as a byproduct.

Below you will find two links, one where you can listen to our tracks and the other where you can download a zip file that contains all the tracks and a text file relating to the methods and equipment used to create our music.

You can download and listen to the tracks here or get the entire EP zip file here (In.solit.us the site we use to host our files is a bit weird you have to scroll down to get to the button that lets you grab the track, its below the stupid banner ad).

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year,
John & Connie

Custom Order: Bar Set, Cardboard Keyboard and Cardboard Amp / Part Two...

This is the second post concerning the bar set order, we decided to throw in some little extras, a cardboard keyboard and a cardboard amp.

The keyboard is a simple enough affair as it is based on a simple circuit that involves a 555 timer chip to produce a square wave. The casing was created by laminating lots of layers of cardboard together using glue and wood screws. In the video below we are playing the keyboard into the ring modulator of one of our earlier instruments, Fotosis No. 003. The resulting sound is the effect of the square wave noise section from Fotosis No.003 being fed into the carrier input of the units ring mod. and keyboard on the main input.



The amplifier is actually three amps and three speakers in one box. The amps are LM386 chips providing 2.5 Watts each. This set up allows us to play three separate devices into the amp where each device will have its own input, volume control, amp and speaker.

Part one of this post can be viewed here.

- J

Custom Order: Recycled Portable Theremin

Another artist and musician ordered a portable theremin a couple of weeks ago. I just recently made this one that allowed for an interchangeable aerial which means you can connect the clip to a spoon or a guitar, or say, a drum set while you're touring with your band (right leftoverking?). This handmade theremin would be similar to that one. LOK and I agreed on using a recycled theme and he wanted something durable, which is the idea - portability, ease of storage and tough.


The case is made out of recycled wood, newspaper, cracker packaging and bits of steel & aluminum and has 2 vintage knobs. John made the crocodile clip. It's a unique little instrument that I hope the new owner will enjoy experimenting with.




- C

My previous posts on theremins:
Portable Theremin
Saw Theremin

Retro / 1950s Tube Drum Machine

I like this.

"The Wurlitzer SideMan was arguably the world's first drum machine. It depends on whether you count the Chamberlin Rhythmate, which was introduced some years earlier, but featured tape loops instead of electronically generated drum sounds."



Source

- C

Interview Max Farnea / Creator of The Sound Destruction Unit

I've been admiring Max's work since (again, I know I am obsessed with them!) CDM posted about this incredible modular synth from their flickr pool back in August. Here is the "The Sound Destruction Unit" if you haven't seen it in action.



I have just conducted an interview with not only Max the creator, but also Audrey his wife and fellow artist. These two co-exist with music making, circuit bending, robots, recycled art, dancing, photography and japan. Amazing. It's an interesting and long read, it's in full over on my mog.

Here's more,

"MAX: since I was younger, in the early 80s, electronic music, video games and home computing were my first interests and I lived electronics and computer technology always with a creative point of view. I went deeper in my hobbies studying for some years electronic engineering and taking piano lessons for seven years. Thanks to my studies in electronics I went addicted to robotics and I built a mini-robot for a couple of national competitions."

"AUDREY : my interest in making art with recycled stuff has started when I was watching Max making his electronic experiments and all the junk or surplus material he left on the table. Since now I like finding shapes like faces or body parts in every plastic or metallic piece I take in my hands. After I find such shapes, assembling them is really a natural process. It’s funny when you image me into skip diving in Verona, really funny indeed, but it’s incredible how many unused things can be found simply at home. One of the most beautiful aspect of this kind of art is giving a second life to things...Watching max working on his instruments I’ve found a lot of ideas to make my robots more alive and interactive with little lights and circuits."

"MAX : More than half of my retro and vintage stuff was mine when I was child or teenager. Other hardware comes from friends or eBay bids. The line in balancing the old and new when I’m making a new instrument is always different and is traced putting the old stuff in a modern context, and if needed ignoring also the original rules on which it was based on."

I am really impressed with these two. Everything they make is done in their spare time, and not for profit (though they are both planning to sell work in the future). I wish them the best and hope that they find more avenues to show off their talent.

For more about Max and Audrey. My mog interview.

- C

Rising Rents Give Rise to Shrinking Audio Studios via Wired

Wired's media/tech section has an interesting story on how recording studios are getting smaller thanks to improved technology and the high cost of space. Although I doubt John and I will ever have the need for an E-Trap (well, who knows) or can afford the services of the Walters-Storyk Design Group, I think the idea and acceptance of this new model can only be encouraging for those of us already used to restrictions and working with them. Our 'studio' sits on my bar!

"Tiny little studios like this one are popping up all over the world, thanks to new technology and ever-increasing rents in cultural capitals like New York, London and Tokyo. As digital equipment becomes more compact, studios can fit into ever-smaller locations."

"To compete with bigger studios, Garcia and his partner, Eric Offin, had to shoehorn two mixing rooms, a voice-over/foley room and a machine closet packed with digital-processing equipment into the conference-room-sized apartment. They even found space for a marble-tiled bathroom and a kitchen-cum-screening room equipped with both a Sub-Zero fridge and a giant flat-panel monitor."

Or, you can build this impressive DIY pro-audio studio by CayoCosta. I wish!

Link

- C

Thank You / CubikMusik Music Blog

A fellow music blogger I met over at mog has generously written up a post about fotosis on his site cubikmusik. It's a great write up and a wonderful thing to read first thing in the morning, especially with a warm cup of Lyons ;-)


Very kind of you Cubik, 'go raibh maith agat'.

Link

- C

Pure Data: Build Your Own Virtual Synth

I'm probably way behind the curve with this as this software has been around for years but I've only just started playing around with it the last few weeks and am feeling very proud of my first creation (synth / multi effects processor). The software is called Pure Data, there is a wikipedia site here which will tell you all the background you need to know regarding it.

It is free to download from the Pure Data site and is supported on Windows, Linux, Mac some OS's I've never heard of and there's even a version that works on PDA's.

Pd is described as "a real-time graphical programming environment for audio, video, and graphical processing".


Unless you are fairly computer literate or a programmer don't expect to get much out of it straight away. The best approach is to download a few simple patches created by others and play around with them for a while to get a feel for the GUI and then explore the examples that can be found in the help browser. Start by building an oscillator [osc~] then adding volume control [*~] and reverb using the freeverb [freeverb~] object. Using pd you can build virtually any sound or effect you can imagine there is even a [moog~] object that emulates a Moog resonance filter.

Pd can also be controlled using external midi devices and firmware can be downloaded which allows you to control pure data with the arduino micro-controller board so potentially you could build a reconfigurable personalized music machine with your computer creating the sounds.

The latest version called pd - extended 0.40.2 contains many of the extensions you need to make the patches sometimes called abstraction that you find mentioned on the web work.

There is also a very good forum called pure data hurleur, this community shares and develops objects and extensions for pd and offers advice and feedback to people getting started.

It is possible to play an instrument through your diy virtual effects processor using the adc object [adc~] if you have a line in on your computer or if you have one of those audio to USB converter thingys.

Cycling 74 the creators of Max/MSP which is a more evolved and expensive version of pure data have a free tool called Soundflower that allows you to connect audio packages together (Like jack but easier to use) so for example you could use Soundflower to record pd using Audacity.


Here you will find a cute little synth to play around with just download and install pd and open the file.

I haven't recorded anything yet but as soon as I do ill post it on this site.

Now if someone could just tell me how to emulate distortion of fuzz that would be great.

-J

Deviant Synth: For all your Synth Oddities

Again something from the musicthing blog. A new synth orientated site that purports to only post about totally out their electronic oddities. Their manifesto states no "links to fansites for Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulze, Can, Tangerine Dream, Ultravox, Gay Fairy Twinkle, or any other hideous 70s or 80s funny-haircut nostalgia keyboard act.... All tech must be ODD".

The site is called Deviant Synth and I will be checking it often thats for sure. The site creator says they are looking for contributors and anyone interested with a wordpress account can add content to the site.

-J

Yuri Landman: Experimental Luthier

I came across Yuri Landman several months ago while doing some online research into alternative guitar construction. At the time I thought information on Yuri was limited to a wiki entry on him as I somehow missed his official website hypercustom. So I was thrilled today to find a link on the musicthing blog to a pitchfork article all about this very interesting artist. The article describes the reasoning behind many of his guitars features and the logic he has applied to his instruments tuning and the materials he likes to use.

He has recently been creating unique guitars for a number of bands including one of my all time favorite groups Sonic Youth.

His guitars look amazing, I cant wait to hear the sounds these wonderful instruments produce. I love to read about other people exploring new possibilities in the realm of electro acoustic music as it makes me feel more positive about my own experiments in this area.

-J

Jeff Gburek - Musician

I recently had the good fortune of meeting Jeff Gburek an American experimental noise artist who currently resides in Berlin.

Jeff is primarily a guitarist although his techniques would seem quite unorthodox to many. Usually his guitar is laid flat on a table and plucked, played, interfered with using objects like metal files a cello bow and a whole range of different bits and pieces. He also utilizes a laptop during his performances for the live synthesis of electronic sounds the playback of pre-recorded samples and to effect the signal coming from his guitar.

We just saw him perform a piece called Myopia by Djamla Primordial Science that combines experimental movement theatre and live electro acoustic music here in Lyon. We came away from the show feeling eager to discuss what we had just seen. I love it when I'm challenged by by a piece of art or a performance and this certainly did just that.

He is currently touring France and a few other places presenting this and other works with Ephia who performs the bodily elements of the shows. A list of tour dates can be found here.


Samples of Jeff's guitar orientated music can be downloaded from the futurevessel site and you can listen to his computer compositions on his myspace. He also has several CD's coming out soon filled with track which I suppose would be classed as IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) so keep your eyes open.


He gave me some of his back catalog to listen to and I have been doing just that for the last few days. Here is a link to download one of the tracks I was given. Its is a composition comprised of recordings of radio broadcasts collected over several years and is part of a four disk set called Radio Wide World 1994 - 2004. The sound samples were collected using a shortwave radio and include recordings of Number Stations, background noise and random broadcasts that have been arranges to form complex soundscapes.



Below is a shorter but in no way less interesting piece uploaded for your enjoyment. Download here.

"Free Beer, Free Speech, Free Jazz" / IXI Software

Read on the always excellent CDM, I bookmarked the ixi software page for John and I to discuss tonight and hopefully explore soon. ixi is an experimental project with digital music instruments. The visual interface being essential to the music creation, enhancing the process.

Peter Kirn says it best,
"There have always been echoes of that in instrument design: buxom, carved women on viola da gambas, the way a piano keyboard reflects a system of tuning and pitch relations, and fantastical landscapes painted on virginals and other instruments. But I suspect we’ve only begun to see how this area could be blown up with digital instruments."

Here's more info from the ixi about pages to give you a better idea of what they are doing,


"ixi audio is an experimental project concerned with the creation of digital musical instruments and environments for generative music. We are interested in the computer as a workshop for building non-conventional tools for musicians..."

"We acknowledge the constraints that software puts on the musician, the limits that the tool sets for the creative process and we therefore promote and try to disseminate technologies that open up the limits of software (or define new boundaries). We think it should be the artist that defines the scope of his or her instrument (and therefore music), not a commercial software company."

Their free programs are available for download on their website. Check it out!

ixi software page

- C

(photo from Create Digital Music)

Downloads: Where to find all of our sound clips

I thought it would be a good idea to do a short post showing anyone interested where our sound clips can be downloaded. I use an upload service called in.solit.us from which we usually embed mp3's but if you want to download the files feel free to do so they can be found here. We release everything we do under the creative commons 3.0 license so you can remix, reuse and redistribute the files with our blessing.

-J

Handmade Electric Guitar

Just finished building and setting up this electric guitar. The body is a solid block of Indian Teak which was once part of a DIY boat project that was abandoned in the 60's, the wood had been sitting in a shed in Ireland until my dad rescued it and I then took it to my workshop in France. We found the sheet of aluminum that is the rear cover outside our flat late one night on the way home from the brasserie. The neck was an Ebay find, all the other little bit and pieces were scavenged from here and there.

The really interesting thing about this project is that I made the pickups from scratch. The bobbins were hand carved from the same wood as the body and wound with the same type of wire originally used by Fender. Each of the two scatter wound single coil pickups have six high quality AlNiCo magnets in them and the wire was wound to 5.5k on the bridge pickup and 6.7k on the neck pickup resulting in a very warm and powerful vintage sound that distorts extremely cleanly.

I really enjoyed making this instrument and will be very sad to see it go.



You can see a slide show of the instrument at various stages of construction if you follow this link.

This instrument is going up for sale tomorrow evening (my time France) on Ebay, if anyone is interested in buying it before then, contact me.

-J

Experimenting with Binaural Beats / Does It Work?

First off, I want to thank everyone who has linked to us over the last few weeks. Don't be surprised if I make a visit because I am collecting screenshots for our personal photo archive of sites that discover or feature something we've made. I really enjoy it as our readership is getting more international by the day and we are discovering some great sites in the process. Really, thanks.

So tonight we decided to experiment with binaural beats. I realise that the company i-doser has gotten lots of publicity the last few months but the findings of this scientific discovery has been around since 1839.

Here's the basics:

"Binaural beats or binaural tones are auditory processing artifacts, that is apparent sounds, the perception of which arises in the brain independent of physical stimuli. This effect was discovered in 1839 by Heinrich Wilhelm Dove.

In nature, two sounds that are similar but slightly shifted in frequency will beat to produce two new frequencies which are the sum and the difference of the original two sounds. For example, a 400 Hz tone and a 410 Hz tone will form a ~405 Hz tone pulsating 10 times per second.

The brain produces a similar phenomenon internally, resulting in low-frequency pulsations in the loudness of a perceived sound when two tones at slightly different frequencies are presented separately, one to each of a subject's ears, using stereo headphones. A beating tone will be perceived, as if the two tones mixed naturally, out of the brain. The frequency of the tones must be below about 1,000 to 1,500 hertz for the beating to be heard. The difference between the two frequencies must be small (below about 30 Hz) for the effect to occur; otherwise the two tones will be heard separately and no beat will be perceived.

Interest in binaural beats can be classified into two categories. First, they are of interest to neurophysiologists investigating the sense of hearing. Second, some protoscientists believe that binaural beats may influence the brain in more subtle ways through the entrainment of brainwaves and can be used to produce relaxation and other health benefits." - Wiki

It all sounds a little heavy and new age but being sensitive to motion, light and sound I was really interested in trying this, as was John.

We decided to stop whatever we were doing and try 'one dose'. The lights were dimmed and we each put on our respective headphones. The track was 30 minutes long. I was sure that both of us would have a different experience - I believed John would enjoy the experience more readily but wouldn't have the same lasting effect as on myself. In fact I was sure he would go to bed while I stayed up all night with untapped energy. The conclusion was, I was right. The length also had us on different sides. He felt the 'song' lasted ten minutes, I felt like it was timeless with several conscious wake-ups although I woke up right before the file ended, knowing it was about to end.

This kind of experiment is surely based on your own desire to see it through. We both had no psychedelic notions but we were certainly open to discovering the sounds that would be presented to us and how that would effect us. This element is the most natural for people like us, we both are enormously sensitive to noise and stimuli around us in everyday life.

The after effect was in one word euphoric. We discussed our experience and concluded that indeed something happened and that the sound sample had some great variations. All in all, this is something I think we both want to explore because the sounds we heard tonight were actually very well orchestrated and layered, well thought out. In hindsight, it really wasn't far off from our usual experimentation with music but I wish I could go to sleep!

Links:

Binaural Beat Brain Wave Experimenter's Lab
Binaural Beats via Wiki

- C