[microsound] Electroacoustic techniques

[Trond Lossius]

On Feb 23, 2010, at 10:22 PM, David Powers wrote:

> --I can
> produce basic sounds but I'm not fully sure how to create a workflow
> and actually compose with it. Creating instruments that respond to
> MIDI does look somewhat promising, and I suppose I could go as far as
> creating an instrument for each electronic sound I wish to create, and
> simply trigger as needed.


Hi,

I would personally question this approach as compared to processing audio directly.

I think it is pretty interesting to compare the recording Brian Eno did with his brother Roger to the two collaborations with Harold Budd for Ambient #2 and The Pearl. Quoting the cover notes for "Hans Friedrich Micheelson Performed by Roger Eno and produced by Brian Eno: 18 Keyboard studies"

http://www.enoshop.co.uk/search.asp?category=CD&Page=3&Items=4#

<quote>

We recorded Roger’s performances on a Yamaha Disklavier grand piano. This is a piano which also produces a midi record of the performance. Midi is the language of electronic musical instruments, and can be used to trigger synthesizers -- creating a facsimile of the performance but using different sounds. This allowed me to blend (or even completely replace) the original piano sounds with specially-constructed new timbres.

By this technique I hoped to rethink the piano as a multi-timbral instrument - to make a sort of hybrid between a grand piano and a church organ. - Brian Eno

</quote>

On paper this seems interesting, but I find the sounding results far less intriguing than the Harold Budd collaborations (or the earlier Voices record for that sake).

The Disklavier approach is mainly a question of doubling voices using MIDI, with much the same approach to orchestration as discussed by Rimsky-Korakov in his book on orchestration: What happens if you double bassoon and oboe in octaves, what do doubling of flute and violins  sounds like, etc. Combined with e.g. Max, Pd or DAW/sequencer programs the MIDI signals could have be processed further (transpositions, delays), but it doesn't change that fact that we are talking pretty minimal control rate data flow here. The problem IMHO when listening to the Hans Friedrich Micheelson record is that they do not manage to produce interesting enough sounds on this record, compared to how I'm spoiled by other Eno records.

On The Pearl and Plataux of Mirrors Eno rather set up various audio processing processes, and AFAIK Harold Budd responded to them through improvisations. It's also pretty obvious that further processing was done once the recordings were captured to tape (e.g. reverse reverb). The processes in them semlves might have been fairly simple; combining reverb, delays, limiters, compressors, etc., but they were done in a very delicate, subtle and precise way. To me this seems a much more rich, productive and contemporary approach to orchestrating sound using electronics than the Disclavier approach.


Best,
Trond