Composed and mixed by me in the box using Logic Pro X. Mastered by Thaddeus Moore at Liquid Mastering.
Stream on your favorite streaming service.
Purchase Cybernetic Classic on Bandcamp.
Cybernetic Classic
Category Archives: Music
Sub-Kick Mic
I had some leftover parts and speakers from sound art projects, so I decided to make a sub-kick mic.
I used a 6.5″ driver, a XLR Male end, a few feet of audio cable, and I custom build a mic clip for the mic using a 3/8″ to 5/8″ mic screw adapter, scrap wood, and some scrap metal.
Solder the XLR pin 2 to positive terminal (+) and pin 3 to the negative terminal (-). Cut off the ground (other posts state one could solder this to the speaker). I used spade speaker connectors so I could reuse the speaker for another project if I needed to.
For the stand, I had old rack ears that I screwed into a 2×4 that the magnet of the speaker clings to and the simple ledge helps brace the speaker. For the mic clip, I screwed in a 3/8″ to 5/8″ mic screw adapter. If necessary, one can add screws to further assist the magnetic hold onto the clip (see image below).
That’s it! No need to add a -20dB pad. You can use line input if necessary or pad it up on the mic preamp. I tested using my DIY Lola Mic Pre from Hairball Audio. Audio recordings are forthcoming…
Random Playback Vol. 1: Rhythmcremental
Are streaming services ready for dynamic random-order concept albums?
Random Playback is a music album that explores using dynamically looped playback to generate a unique listening experience for your own device (and which never ends). The album leverages streaming technology to randomly playback material endlessly and aims to simultaneously test the boundaries of streaming services’ “gapless playback“ feature. Just hit shuffle, repeat, and play.*
Listen on Spotify.
Listen on Amazon Music.
Listen on Apple.
*phone apps for Amazon Music and Apple services are the most seamless for shuffle playback.
UPDATE 9/21/21: While Spotify is seamless on chronological, non-shuffle playback, Spotify seems to falter if randomizing playback (confirmed by other users). Amazon Music Unlimited, however, seems to handle randomization playback well, nearly seamless (from the phone app). Apple Music also has seamless shuffle playback from the phone app. That said, any browser playback has terrible audio drops between songs on shuffle mode for all services.
The source material was generated and recorded with permission from playing an iOS clicker game, Rhythmcremental, created by Batta (Simon Hutchinson and Paul Turowski). Huge shout out to Simon and Paul. And do check out their game. It’s addictive.
Sunken Shoreline
Sunken Shoreline (2016, released 2021) captures a 2014 performance of climate-related tweets from around the world in realtime (#climatechange, #tarsands, #environment, fracking, #sustainable, among others), the year before the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) formed a “Charter for Sound” to emphasize sound as a critical signifier in environmental health. Mapping characteristics of these tweets to sonic parameters, users from around the world sound out a call for our climate. Here, an array of audio processing submerges these sonic voices under a technological deluge that suggests an Atlantian future should we choose to ignore the calls to action.
Sunken Shoreline was a winner in the International Coastal Futures Ecoacoustic Music Competition held by the Coastal Futures Conservatory at the University of Virginia in partnership with EcoSono not-for-profit.
The competition awarded nine prizes in the areas of field recording, live performance, and sonification, and the competition “aims to discover and recognize new music and sound art focused on the theme of coastal futures.” Sunken Shoreline was one of two awarded in the Sonification category. Winners of the competition were from Norway/UK, Australia, Canada, Portugal, South Korea, and the US.
Listen on Spotify (URL)
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Monster Rotations
Much of the album sound design was made using Symbolic Sound Kyma.
Purchase Monster Rotations on Bandcamp.
Stream on Spotify.
Relay of Memory
The sonic impact of radio on the Americana landscape is profound. Fireside chats, Radio theatre, Payola, DJs, drive-ins, elevator Musak, waiting room noise––the vast consumerism and reach of radio continues to this day. Yet, what happens when we smash two artists (Kenny G and Nickelback) together into one spectral stretched fantasy using the transmission medium that gave life to their careers? Are we doomed to phase out our history with background noise? Or are we undulating with the beat of cultural reclamation and signification? Sending us adrift inside the electrical coils of the radio, Lying in Fireflies Besides Brown Curls and other original compositions attempt to recount a personal connection to memory, lust, and the power of radio to receive a new transmission.
Relay of Memory was exhibited at the Edith Langley Barrett Art Gallery, Utica, NY. The exhibition was supported by funds from the Oregon Arts Commission.
#Ferguson on UVA Percussion Ensemble CD released on Innova
UVA Percussion Ensemble, Speed of Sound (UVA Music @100)
https://www.innova.mu/albums/uva-percussion-ensemble/speed-sound
Speed of Sound celebrates both the Centennial of the McIntire Department of Music at the University of Virginia (UVA) and the Bicentennial of the entire institution. I-Jen Fang, the Director of the UVA Percussion Ensemble, curated this album, showcasing UVA composers and performers. These include faculty, as well as alumni, graduate and undergraduate students, with all of the music created between 2014 and 2017.
Informatics
Purchase Informatics EP on Bandcamp.
Software 1.17
Purchase Software 1.17 EP on Bandcamp.
Currents (Ravello Records)
Currents investigates the overlaps and gaps between noise and pattern; acoustic and electronic timbre; and live and fixed elements. Currents sounds out the intersections of our current electronic state while referencing its history. The piece was written for Tesla: Light, Sound, Color, a full stage production exploring the life and work of Serbian-American inventor, Nikola Tesla. Currents references Thomas Edison’s inefficient and noisy direct current (DC) electric motor and imagines the brilliant showmanship of Tesla and his revolutionary alternating current (AC) technology.