Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Creative Computing IIIB – Major Project – Semester 2, 2008

The performance interface...

ELP-V-Q/Q/Q--Breaker is the culmination of three years dedication to learning the finer points of electronic music making. It is a merging of my pre-2006 aesthetic background and that of my accelerating interest in code based sound/music programming. There are elements of controlled random functionality, sporadic real-time sample cutting and reconfiguration, ambient synthesiser harmony derived from real time key tracking of an acoustic instrument, and heavy rock guitar playing. Musical genres explored in the piece range from experimental electro acoustic to progressive rock to dance and heavy metal. It gets a little chaotic when these are all present at the same time – in a good way.

There was a lot of programming time involved with creating such a piece, as I kept vying for greater control over certain parameters and the overall structural development. A considerable amount of time was spent determining the most suitable environment to capture a recording of the piece. As the code increased, and pressure on my struggling G4 became too great, it was no longer possible to perform in the home studio. An attempt to capture the work in EMU’s studio 1 failed due to Pro-Tools’ system-hogging behavior corrupting the environment and crashing the computer at 70% completion.
The solution: Audio Lab and two computers – one for recording and one for SC.

Enjoy!

Click here to link to online folder containing the SC code, all documentation, and an MP3 file of the performance.


Reference:

Haines, Christian. “Creative Computing IIIB – Major Project – Semester 2, 2008.” Project undertaken at the Electronic Music Unit, Elder Conservatorium, University of Adelaide, 1st of October to the 20th November 2008.

3 Comments:

At 2:23 PM, Blogger John said...

So are you saying notes do matter now? Traitor.

I must say though I'm impressed - I like those low analogue-like synth sounds and the stereo imaging too. The whole dance-rock section provides a good contrast. By the way, nice harmonic at 4.05 :-) That main section would also be good with a straight-ahead guitar melody ala Satch, although the solo you've put in kind of fulfils that desire in other ways.

The drum fills, particularly near the end are great, because of their slight unpredictability. I think you could develop this into a modern or should I say neo-psychadelic jam track :-)

Right - time for me to get my guitar and start playing again.

 
At 10:39 AM, Blogger weimer said...

Hey mate,
great work - really enjoying this track.

 
At 9:02 AM, Blogger David J Dowling said...

Glad y'all like it. It's interesting working with break beats. In hindsight I think they tend to stand up more on their own. I had to reign the cutting in at the beginning of the heavy section as it was detracting from the impact of the rhythmic combination of guitar/bass/drums. It also made it difficult to play to as it throws your sense of timing out the window, and you have to trust your internal metronome and just play through until the machine stabilises. BBCut et al are a spectacularly clever set of classes to work with, but nevertheless I feel the novelty is wearing off and I'll resume my work on G-MOOM shortly...

 

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