through the use of a phonograph, the first crude reproductions of arbitrary sound were able to be made – but not without intrinsic antique glitch.  you certainly couldn’t take one out into the field back then (lest you be attacked by ticked off natives).  well allot has changed both politically and scientifically across the planet that has in part led to us having much more feasible options when it comes to fulfilling our phonography festishes:

enter the samson zoom h2 – my personal choice for making timeless phonographs in a seemingly modern era.  after all a sound artists needs a good field recorder to record sonic fields with!

weighing in at over just a few ounces, this little fellow has treated me well in dozens of recording applications from acting as a soundcard/studio ASIO option on my laptop to an incognito bootlegging device.  it’s got a cool option that allows you to plug in a 3rd party stereo 1/8″ external mic (and will power it to boot), and also has a line in feature if you ever want to record yourself during a live performance or to get those magic one take wonder recordings alone in the studio.

it’s got 4 built in condenser mics that work to pick up slight sounds with pretty good accuracy – the noise floor is average but for the price (around $170)  you can’t really go wrong.  it does the whole lot of mp3 formats as well as up to 96/24 .wav format.  it takes SD cards (up to 16 gig i think), and you can use the usb transfer to pass files back and forth (sometimes i use the SD card to store a backup of core live performance audio project files).

my only rants for this device are few compared to the pluses.  for one, it has a usb 1.0 chip inside so transfering larger files can take eons – though i just use a separate USB 2.0 SD card reader (got one for $5 on ebay) to speed the process up.  the only other drawback i’ve noticed is that when recording uber loud sound sources, such as a drum kit, pass train at close range, or metal clashes real close by the device – the mics can clip out.  and the built in compressor/limiter doesn’t seem to do anything to fix the issue (which is why i believe the problem is with the mics themselves).   however i’ve always just covered the thing with some cloth until the problem went away (in the case of recording drums), or just moved the device away from the sound source.  the mics have never seemed to clip when recording love performances though which is a big plus.

so all in all it might not be the most top level consumer sound recording device on the planet but it’s served me better than a donkey in the sonic desert thus far.  if you’re looking for the next step up, i’d recommend an edirol r-09.   but after all, nobody (or thing) will ever be perfect – though imperfections in gear(and human nature) can provide some of the most unexpected inspiring results!

extra! extra!  read all about it!  mad bedroom scientists are inventing new ways of allowing you to control ableton etc. with your mobile device!

so far there are many apps that can do this that are available either for free or for little scrilla at the iStore.  i won’t go into exhaustive detail on how each of these programs work (partly because I don’t yet even have an iTouch to experiment with; though you better believe i’m running out to get one when I get my next pay check!   i simply hope to raise awareness that this can be done and also give a few starting points for you, the community, to run with.  hopefully in time our experiments on this will generate enough comments posted back here allowing me to be able to publish an exhaustive tutorial.

in the mean time, here are a list of a few links to sites with information on several programs.  a few of these apps work well in tandem with bridge type programs such as max/mSP or osculator to convert the incoming osc signals that these programs emmit to midi allowing full control of ableton, reason, resolume or whichever program you use.

these two are not free (but still super cheap and available at itunes store):

touchoSC – all the info is available at their site. seems pretty easy and well documented…

oscemote – use in tandem with max/msp or osculator to convert the incoming signal to midi

more beta, yet possibly better apps which require you to “jailbreak” your iphone/itouch; this process allows you to unlock your idevice so you can put unofficial or beta 3rd party apps on there:

mrmr (pronounced murmer) – this one looks pretty awesome; multiple controller pages; etc.  watch the demo video at this site for a good visualization of how it works.

akaRemote – this one looks like the least robust but certainly it could offer something still.

okay so now we all have the firepower to control the world!  for any brave souls willing to try some of these out, please put your thoughts and notes on how to make this work here in the comments section so we can hopefully create a more in depth tutorial in the future.

also, browse you tube for the myriad of videos pertaining to these programs.

while desperately trying to avoid doing any, uh, real work today i shipwrecked across a fun little space oddity in the vast soup that is google video. this scientiferific video demonstrates the power of a single sign wave resonating particles of salt into complex geometric shapes (aka cymatics):

cymatics demonstration

and if you’re bored like me, here is a link to some rather interesting pertinent information.

a good friend of mine, david last (sorry this is not a michael jackson tribute article), obviously has way too much time on his hands. but honestly this kind of boredom doesn’t mean humans have to fight it out with vegetables to achieve higher levels intelligence. rather, we can use their bio feedback signals (what little there is) – to generate sounds, midi signals, and hopefully music! So the experiment is as follows:

“The goal of the experiment was to find out if it is possible to allow a plant to unconsciously structure a piece of music (or at the very least, to use the biological flux of electrical signals from a house plant in order to determine a musical structure, in collaboration with a human.”

Follow this cross-post link to get the whole scoop and to hear a quirky result of this mad scientistry!

take luke fishbeck of the lucky dragon’s and his innovative live performance setup. he’s created several simple analog instruments that, when touched together by several people (also touching each other – hopefully provocatively) they complete a circuit that causes the signal to be sent to his laptop effecting a wild and wacky assortment of max/msp/reaktor sound generators. follow this link to Fader for a facetious video demonstration.

regardless it’s always refreshing to experience electronic musicians seeking ways of bringing the communal aspect back into the live performance – perhaps visceral community is a relative tie to early human musical gatherings? oog?

Random fact: It is stated that one earth-day rotation equals 24 octaves below 194.18HZ – give or take, this is the key of ‘G’. So with that fact in mind one could equally deduce that any aspect of observable surrounding can be translated/quantized into some viable music source. In my opinion physics and science, though rather useful as a practicality of thought, don’t make much for potent inspiration when composing palpable tracks for the public.

However an on going schtick of mine to exploit contact microphones, (aka “Piezo transducers” or more commonly “drum triggers”) on everyday objects seems to constantly present rather interesting results bringing physics into a more visceral form of real music.

These nifty yet cute (and similarly cute in price) sonic-microscopes can turn just about any resonating object into an instrument. For example, if you attach them to a music box, rattling machine, or percussive object(i.e. trash can, jar, car, table top, wooden box) you can easily amplify the micro-textures of any touched/struck object into something more monolithic (run through the right mutli-band effects of course). They also don’t require any phantom power which makes them super ideal for use in a live setting.

These little devices have also been used to create interactive sound installations: native San Fransisco artist Bill Fontana uses hi-fi contact mics on bridges and in large structures such as London’s Big Ben to re-contextualize the movement of humans and time in public spaces. These sounds are then radio wired to museums miles away and amplified via multi-surround systems. The phonograffiti experiment is another example of taking contact mics and using them to drive a live set. The mics are placed directly on a canvas that is then painting by the public allowing everyday people to help create the music via paint brushes.

So for around $10 each at musicians friend (search for the pulse TK-5 acoustic trigger; my personal pick) or any other viable gear source, these mics are a simple yet yummy way to turn the ordinary world into an extraordinary symphony. Kids, do try this at home!

P.S. for some immediate examples of what can be captured using these mics, use the freesound project search engine; search for “contact-mic”

i’m not sure how many times I heard my mother tell me growing up – “don’t play with that – eat that!”.  probably half a zillion times. well apparently eating vegetables isn’t the only healthy thing you can do with them. this japanese man has created many amazing fruit flutes:

awesome music with wegitables!

\trans-MOG-ruh-fy\, transitive verb:
To change into a different shape or to transform, often with bizarre or humorous effect.

One night while under the influence of boredom, I spent an eternity tweaking a percussive track in Ableton that was coming together as solidly as ice cream on a hot summer’s day. I ran the sample through one effect after another trying to breathe new life into it but to no avail. Alas after running the track through a multi-band compressor the thought occurred: what if I take the beat, split it into 4 bands, and run each band through various effects at the same time? Enter: your very own transmogrification station…

Ableton live 6 + comes with several sweet “Audio Effect Rack” presets. Under the “Mastering & Helper” category is one titled: “General Multiband”. Just drop this ready-made rack anywhere onto your track, open it up, and start dragging choice effects in anywhere after the “EQ three” effect (obviously this is the one that works to isolate the frequency bands):

Voila! The possibilities are up to your imagination. I tend to run the “Lo” band through a bit reducer or distortion; the “LowMid” band through phasers, filter delay, auto filter, or slight reverb; and the “HiMid/Hi ” bands seem to sound good through just about any assortment of effects. Plus I’ve found that this technique works well for mangling just about any type of sound that needs new textural life (ambient, drones, beats, vocals, field recordings, etc.).

The only real drawback is it’s potential to turn into a CPU hog from extravagant simultaneous plugin use. A quick tip for dealing with this is: once you’ve achieved the sound you want, mix that sample down to it’s own separate track then save your multi-band effect masher to it’s own preset for later reuse.

So in all, this technique may or may not be as sweet for your dry samples as Ben & Jerry’s on a hot summer day, but at least it can help give old boring sounds a second lease on life!

P.S. here is a link to an Ableton 6 .als file that contains examples of this tutorial

for some stretch of time, i’ve always had this crazy idea of creating a monolithic sound diary (done and done).   it would span years of production as i would add ten-second clips here, one-minute of work there; every day slaving bit by bit – building up some zeitgeist stretch of a song until finally, after 100s of years of labor, i would unveil it as this overly bloated, narcissistic rant!

Yet for some odd reason at the outset of creating this 24 hour plus life’s work I actually began to think I had a truly original thought. Until of course recently when I ran across another artist who’s already done this:

enter the “9 beet Sstretch“. as stated best from the site itself:

“The 9 Beet Stretch is Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th symphony stretched to 24 hours, with no pitch distortions. Executed in various versions with either the Snd or the Common Lisp Music software, both made by Bill Schottstaedt. “

when jumping in at a random point in the song for the first time, i was surprised at how pretty and easy to swallow to this constantly streaming experiment is! shadowing contemporaries such as tim hecker, fennesz, and other granular-o-holic producers, the 9 beet stretch is a glorious expanse of endless morphing ambience. ebbing and flowing inside a grandiose concept, it transcends simple genres into the realm of sound art.  i highly recommend giving it a go with a cup of tea… but not while driving!

anybody who is into alternative forms of art, experimental sound design and the internet should check out this subversive mozilla firefox plugin called lily. the previous link says it all. the myriad demo videos of what this little program is capable of are awesome. it really exemplifies that all forms of information can be translated into limitless artistic life forms.

in a nutshell lily contains a semi cryptic but uber fun “max/msp” style interface that allows you to, with enough patient tinkering, build interactive interfaces or programs that turn the web/browser into a sound generating environment. in other words you could turn all the html data on a web page into midi signals (or osc) that could be in turn routed internally to control any knob in ableton live, reaktor, or any other sound program that accepts midi control.

the future was yesterday?