Mar 16 2008
Pix From Tahoe
Shari and I went to Lake Tahoe recently. I took some pictures:
Archive for March, 2008
Mar 15 2008
Live Looping: Old-School Style
Many years ago, back in the mid 90s, I worked for a local radio station. I did a variety of things but, occasionally, I pulled a weekend shift where I was basically playing pre-recorded shows on open reel tape, or dat. In one of the small production studios they had two Studer 1/4″ 2 track open reel tape machines and, in a fit of creativity spurred by boredom, I hooked them into a ‘Frippertronics’ set-up.
The machine on the left would have a reel of tape on the left spool which would run over it’s heads, then across to the right (take-up) spool of the 2nd machine. The playback of the machine on the right would be fed back into the machine on the left, along with whatever new sound was added, and the whole thing would repeat, and slowly fade out. The speed of the repeats was a function of the tape speed and the distance between the two machines.
Here’s a lame graphic I created to illustrate the process:
Mar 04 2008
On The Porch
I have three new pix taken today in my front yard.
Fresias:
and teeny tiny succulant flowers:
Mar 04 2008
Found Sound Drum Track
I’m working on a documentary about a friend who is an artist. Amongst the many things she does, she’s been given a fellowship at a local art center where they have a rather extensive printmaking studio. She’s been working there for months, making prints from cardboard packaging, paper bags, etc. In the process of filming her there, I noticed that the space had an interesting acoustical environment, and that many of the machines and other equipment could make interesting sounds. I went there a few weeks back and recorded a whole bunch of different sounds, took them home, chopped them into small segments, and created a piece of music from them.
This is just a rough draft, sort of playing with the various elements, just to get a feel for them. This is, by no means, a final product.
Also, it may be helpful to know that, aside from the parsing of the various sounds, and some basic effects like reverb and delay, the original source sounds have been unaltered.
The tune starts with a metal drawer closing. The ‘kick drum’ sound is a silk screen. There are sounds from springs, a metal sink, a drying rack, an ink roller, etc.
Please feel free to let me know what you think!