Category: studio journal

So, to cut to the chase, there’s a big whopping error in the middle of this video. Actually, earlier than the middle. At 1:32 (the full length is 4:37), I connect a cable, and then proceed, over the following minute and a half, to 3:10, to first recognize something is off, and to then sort it out. I had the whole thing plotted, but it had been a long day and I was pretty tired, and I messed it up when I started recording. Still, that minute and a half sounds fine, and even as I was sleuthing what was wrong, I was thinking, “This actually sounds fine, so long as I can fix it soon.” As further evidence I was a bit rushed, the Buddha Machine that is the source of the sound is entirely off-screen. It’s the Chan Fang model, which is all samples of a performance on a qin, an ancient Chinese zither.

Three days/patches ago I mentioned parenthetically, of the big module in the lower left: “Of course, there’s a lot going on inside the ER-301 that’s not viewable.” If you watch that module from 1:32 to 3:10, you’ll get a sense of what moving around its interface is like.

Let’s break the recording down. There are four channels in the mixer, from left to right: one/lavender, two/black, three/yellow, and four/white. They are all variations on the incoming Buddha Machine loop.

Lavender is just the sound of the Buddha Machine loop, unaltered (putting aside the extent to which slight changes in the gain on the initial input do have an influence on the sound). Black and yellow are processed by the ER-301. Both are variations on bands of the incoming audio split off from the overall audio spectrum. Black is on a short delay, so it echoes a bit of the main signal (listen at 1:04 to how it repeats what just preceded it, as if a full register lower).

Yellow is the problematic channel. It is on a two-second loop that is constantly writing over itself when triggered. The signal that triggers the loop is itself fairly long, so the yellow signal doesn’t change that much. The problem was, it’s set in the ER-301 to be triggered by the gate on the top row, and I had it set on the second row. Eventually I figure this out, which is why at 3:10 I change the location of that cable, and at 3:16 the looping kicks in.

As for white, the fourth and final channel in the mixer, it is another band of the audio spectrum, sent through a granular synthesizer. And that covers it.

For further patch-documentation purposes, here’s a straight-on shot of the synthesizer:

Video originally posted at youtube.com/disquiet. There’s also a (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MIM4mCYe17nERi9xeEWAD2w) of the Buddha Machine Variations.

One loop, three strands, many rhythms. A single loop comes out of the second-generation Buddha Machine. It’s split into two. One cable goes straight into the mixer. That’s what’s heard when the first pot is turned up. The second cable goes into a filter bank, two cables from which go into the ER-301. Each carries a different band of the audio spectrum of the source loop. Each of those goes through a different delay in the ER-301, and then the volume of each of those fluctuates (using the ER-301’s Linear Unipolar VCA unit) due to waves coming from the Batumi. The ADDAC mixer has three options for each channel: solo, off, and mute. At the end, each of the three mixer channels is turned off one at a time.

For further patch-documentation purposes, here’s a straight-on shot of the synthesizer:

Video originally posted at youtube.com/disquiet. There’s also a (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MIM4mCYe17nERi9xeEWAD2w) of the Buddha Machine Variations.

This reworking of a Buddha Machine loop is based on small, slowly accruing sub-loops (subsets of the source audio), much as was yesterday’s. There are some differences. The samples going into the buffers are more likely to cancel out the audio that preceded them, rather than build to an orchestral density (the change suits the source loop, from the fifth-generation Buddha Machine, which has a genteel, chamber-music quality). The sub-loops also each fade in and out, rather than cutting at the seam of each new sample. (Also, yesterday’s experiment used a different generation of Buddha Machine.)

When the video starts, all that’s heard is the loop itself, a combination of stately, simple piano and strings. At 26 seconds or so, a new element enters, not fully heard until about 38 seconds: it’s the source audio sliced and reworked courtesy of the Muxlicer. What’s going on is that as the audio comes through, there are eight potential ways we’ll hear it. Half of those are the audio, with the relative volume adjusted a bit (note the red faders above each of the eight jacks). Two are bands of audio extracted from the spectrum, courtesy of the FXDf module. And two are the left and right channels of the source audio going through a granular synthesizer. The pace of that Muxlicer is set by the pulse going through the lavender patch cable. The resulting Muxlicer activity goes into the first channel of the mixer (white cable).

At 1:13, a new element enters, the buffer looping. This is all happening in the ER-301 module (the Feedback Looper unit). What happens is that the source audio is being fed into a five-second loop, which itself is overwritten with small bits based on the pace set by a square wave from the Batumi (this goes into mixer channel two, yellow cable) . At 1:36, a second buffer loop enters, this one on a six-second loop (mixer channel three, blue cable). Eventually, around 3:18, the Muxlicer is turned down fully, so we only hear the contrasting buffered loops, until it all fades out.

For further patch-documentation purposes, here’s a straight-on shot of the synthesizer:

Video originally posted at youtube.com/disquiet. There’s also a (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MIM4mCYe17nERi9xeEWAD2w) of the Buddha Machine Variations.

A lot of these Buddha Machine Variations have been static/semi-generative things that just proceed under their own power. This is, I think, only the second where I intrude and do something to initiate changes.

The source audio is a loop of a Philip Glass choral piece emanating from the edition of the Buddha Machine created by FM3 to commemorate the minimalist composer’s 80th birthday.

The first time through, the loop is heard on its own. The second time through, beginning at about 30 seconds in, what’s heard is two treatments of the loop together, along with the original loop. You see me, during the pause, turn up two of the pots on the mixer, and turn down slightly the one that had been playing. The simpler of these two treatments is simply a narrow band of the audio, extracted from the spectrum.

The other treatment is a little more complex. It’s the Muxlicer (black module with eight vertical sliders in the upper right) clicking through at a steady pace. The module has eight output stages. There’s a main line, and then you can slot in alternates for any of the eight stages. When it’s first heard here, two are playing additional bands of the audio spectrum, which is why those moments stand out.

If you keep an eye on the horizontal lights across the Muxlicer, you can see a little red one pop on to show which channel is playing. The pace at which the lights change is steady. What is random is the sequence, as regulated by a sine wave (from the Dixie II module). It was interesting trying to find a pace that contributes the desired amount of randomness, when I was preparing the patch.

That’s the second time through. The third time through, again during the pause (at 60 seconds), I turn down the original line entirely, leaving just the two treatments that appeared in the previous round. The step-by-step pace is more prominent as a result.

Then I do two more things: I plug first one and then, at about 1:37, a second cable into the ER-301. That’s the large module with two screens in the lower left. What’s happening in the ER-301 is that the full audio of the original loop is, itself, being cut up and looped. There are two channels out of the ER-301 (this is using the Feedback Looper module). One is recording a four-second loop over and over, and the other a two-second loop. The recording of the loops isn’t in sync with the playing, so the snatches overlap haphazardly, piling overtones. If you were to watch the segments accrue, it’s a little bit like a fast motion audio version of posters being layered on the wall of a construction site.

For further patch-documentation purposes, here’s a straight-on shot of the synthesizer:

Video originally posted at youtube.com/disquiet. There’s also a (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MIM4mCYe17nERi9xeEWAD2w) of the Buddha Machine Variations.