Disquiet – Page 462 – Listening to culture. Playing with audio. Sounding out technology. Composing in code.

Gallery: Grid Refinement

Brian Crabtree's iterations

February 14, 2021February 15, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

This gorgeous, shimmering image is a photo by Brian Crabtree (aka tehn) of work being done for a revised version of the Grid, a musical instrument synonymous with his company, Monome. It’s reproduced here from his blog, [nnnnnnnn.co](https://nnnnnnnn.co/log/210127-loop.html), with his permission. More on the Grid itself at [monome.org](https://monome.org/docs/grid/).

He explained in correspondence: “it’s fundamentally a manufacturing optimization though that means it’s also 100% (literally every part) redesigned,” and “it’ll allow us to build them easier, have them be more robust and efficient, and pass on some price savings.”

*Originally published in the February 1, 2021, edition of the This Week in Sound email newsletter ([tinyletter.com/disquiet](https://tinyletter.com/disquiet)).*

twitter.com/disquiet: captions, envelopes, dentists

From the past week

February 13, 2021January 18, 2022 / By Marc Weidenbaum

I do this manually each week, collating the tweets I made at [twitter.com/disquiet](https://twitter.com/disquiet/) (which I think of as my public notebook) that I want to keep track of. For the most part, this means ones I initiated, not ones in which I directly responded to someone. I sometimes tweak them a bit here. Some tweets pop up on Disquiet.com sooner than I get around to collating them, so I leave them out of the weekly round-up. It’s usually personally informative to revisit the previous week of thinking out loud, especially these days, when a week can feel both like a year and like nothing whatsoever has happened or changed.

▰ Protip: When garbage trucks noisily come by in the morning, just pretend you’ve taken shelter from violent robots patrolling the streets

▰ Spoken: “pièce de résistance”

Automatic caption: “P.S. dude assistance”

(Admittedly, Brian Cox’s accent can be a bit strong when he wants it to be)

▰ Got the new Mick Herron novel, *Slough House*, today, the day of its release. The first of the three novels I’m currently most looking forward to this year, the others being the end of The Expanse trilogy of trilogies (*Leviathan Falls*, from the duo who write under the name James S.A. Corey) and the final Jade trilogy book (*Jade Legacy*, from Fonda Lee).

▰ I stand with Soseki.

▰ Maybe it’s me, but this seems like a trick question

▰ Current sounds, 7:40am: chirruping of birds celebrating the sun that just rose over nearby buildings, laptop fan whirring under pressure of several dozen open tabs, rattle of skateboarder enjoying a street devoid of traffic, occasional creak from house as it warms

▰ Today’s guitar class homework

▰ I know I’m at home on the web when I go to a message board I participate on regularly and see a new thread titled “Envelope Problems.”

▰ Went to the dentist, one admirably steeped in pandemic precaution.

1. Yes, there was an instrumental version of a Steely Dan song playing upon arrival.

2. Yes, the increased presence of whirring HEPA filters made me drowsy.

3. And yes, if my parents are reading: no cavities.

Dustmotes Ambient

A palindrome with a light pulse

February 12, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Dustmotes is a musician whose new releases always have me expecting slow broken beats, ones where the particulate from which he takes his name is as much a part of the sound as are elements that would be more commonly experienced as music (that is: “music”). He works at the atmospheric reaches of instrumental hip-hop (check out this [live performance](https://soundcloud.com/dustmotes/live-octatrack-digitakt-beat-111217) from a few years back).

This is different. “Ambient 12022021,” the title taking its name from the recent palindrome date, has a beat, certainly, a slim pulse click that slowly surfaces as the midway point of the four-minute track approaches, but mostly the piece is layers and layers of drones, some deep and husky, and others like shimmery echoes. It’s as if he’s skimmed the aura of his more metrically inclined work. Drift off with this one.

Originally posted at [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRGMUmwLLiM). More from Dustmotes (aka London-based Paul Croker) at [twitter.com/dustmotes](https://twitter.com/dustmotes).

Disquiet Junto Project 0476: IAH Forecast

The Assignment: Here's your next single's cover. Now record it.

February 11, 2021February 13, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, February 15, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, February 11, 2021.

Tracks will be added to [the playlist](https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0476) for the duration of the project.

These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):

Disquiet Junto Project 0476: IAH Forecast

The Assignment: Here’s your next single’s cover. Now record it.

Step 1: This is the cover of your next single:

Step 2: Now record your single.

Note: The photo was shot in Houston, Texas, by Robert Boyd and is used with his permission.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0476” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your tracks.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0476” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation of a project playlist.

Step 3: Upload your tracks. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your tracks.

Step 4: Post your tracks in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

[https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0476-iah-forecast/](https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0476-iah-forecast/)

Step 5: Annotate your tracks with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #disquietjunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.

Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Additional Details:

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, February 15, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, February 11, 2021.

Length: The length is up to you. However you picture it.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0476” in the title of the tracks, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

Upload: When participating in this project, be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.

Download: It is always best to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).

For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:

More on this 476th weekly Disquiet Junto project — IAH Forecast (The Assignment: Here’s your next single’s cover. Now record it.) — at:

https://disquiet.com/0476/

The image that is the source of this project is by Robert Boyd ([www.thegreatgodpanisdead.com](http://www.thegreatgodpanisdead.com/)) and has been used with his permission.

Sound Ledger¹ (Text-to-Speech, Cyberpunk 2077, Machine Learning)

Audio culture by the numbers

February 10, 2021March 2, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

5: The estimated value, in billions of dollars, of the text-to-speech (TTS) market by 2026

800: Roughly the number of audio files overhauled in the troubled game Cyberpunk 2077 by an 11GB user mod

13,000: Roughly the number of piece of (Western) classical music processed by an machine-learning AI at EPFL’s Digital and Cognitive Musicology Lab to discern patterns in the music’s development

▰ ▰ ▰

¹Footnotes: TTS: [prnewswire.com](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/text-to-speech-market-worth-5-0-billion-by-2026–exclusive-report-by-marketsandmarkets-301216956.html). 2077: [dsogaming.com](https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/this-11gb-mod-for-cyberpunk-2077-overhauls-800-audio-files/). EPFL: [epfl.ch](https://actu.epfl.ch/news/machine-learning-helps-retrace-evolution-of-clas-2/).

*Originally published in the February 8, 2021, edition of the This Week in Sound email newsletter ([tinyletter.com/disquiet](https://tinyletter.com/disquiet)).*