If you want to see what all of this ruckus is about, visit the Video page linked above. The video is the end product. This audio is simply a stepping stone for getting there.
The sound was a means to an end for generating the video. If you watch the video, I would suggest watching the piece with the sound muted. The goal of the Disquiet Juno this week was to create a combination which is less than the constituent parts. We were instructed to utilize portions of the first ten tracks on Lee Rosevere's sublimely beautiful release entitled "5 Minute Meditations" and to combine them to create a single five minute piece which was "something even more ethereal, more ambient, more artfully threadbare."
I was immediately interested in not doing anything to the source material except use it to create a video synthesis feedback system. I did this by taking the full ten tracks and putting them on my Thonk/Music Thing Radio Music module. I then utilized multiple random generators to scan through the folder with the samples, pitching them up and down, and staggering their start and reset points. As the results were very mid-range and treble heavy, I needed to get some bass frequencies in play so I parallel processed the audio through my Make Noise QMMG in low-pass mode. From their I ran the results through my Modcan Dual Delay, and then that whole chain was piped into my LZX Sensory Translator. I took the resultant 5 bands of EQ impulses from the ST and they drove all of the synthesis patterns in this piece. Finally, I recorded a pass in mono and then layered a reversed copy of that track in the opposite stereo channel.
This process was incredibly labor intensive as I'd tried two previous methods using just the source material to drive the video synthesis, but the frequency content was too quiet and too narrow of a range to get good results. By manipulating and massaging the material radically, I was able to get something happening in the visual realm. But, I don't love how my processed sounds feel compared to the original. Hence my suggestion to watch with the sound muted. Just know it was Lee's sounds which created everything at play in my piece.
More on this 301st weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Artfully reduce an album to something less than itself”) at:
disquiet.com/0301/
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
disquiet.com/junto/
Subscribe to project announcements here:
tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0301-parts-sum/
There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
Image associated with this project is the cover of the Lee Rosevere album 5 Minute Meditations, which was the source audio. The music and image are used thanks to a Creative Commons license:
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
More from Lee Rosevere, who is based in Vancouver, BC, at
twitter.com/LeeRosevere
freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/
happypuppyrecords.ca