Radio Eyeballsun

Episode 9: Azmaveth

2011-03-04T13:42:00.006-05:00

mp3 file: Azmaveth (12.3 MB)
Supercollider file: eyeballsun_110202.rtf (7.2 K)

This idea was kicking around for a long time, but I was never quite happy with the results. The other day I went back and just decided to do it anyway, and now I'm pretty happy with it.

It's a sort of fractal music thing, with the drum hits on the downbeat going into a pair of delays that play back at varying speeds: double rate, normal rate, half rate, one-third rate, zero rate and backwards one-third rate. Some interesting glitches appear at zero rate, which are the cause of the buzzy tones.

This is an sctweet I did over a year ago on the same basic idea:

play{t=Impulse.ar(1/2);d=TIRand;a=Ringz.ar(t,70)-DelayC.ar(LocalIn.ar(2),5,{Slew.ar(d.ar(2,5,t),d.ar(1,3,t)/2)}!2);LocalOut.ar(a);a}

Episode 8: Conviction of Things Not Seen

2009-08-25T11:36:00.003-04:00

MP3 file: Conviction of Things Not Seen (13 MB)
Supercollider file: eyeballsun_090824_1.rtf (4K)

This is the last thing I was working on before my computer died in early 2007. I've got a new computer now, powerful enough to run supercollider at last. I was almost finished back then, so I only did a few tweaks to this before recording it.

"Things Not Seen" has the same kind of setup as "Our Lord Sprang Out," with a simple blip on the downbeat feeding a long chain of rhythmic delays. Where Episode 7 used feedback synthesis (resonators, filters, and ring modulator), Episode 8 uses a looping sample of cabaret music. There's vocals, drums, piano, accordion and wind instruments in there.

Episode 7: Our Lord Sprang Out

2009-01-15T23:34:00.005-05:00

mp3 file: Our Lord Sprang Out (18M)
MacCSound file: eyeballsun_081031_01.csd (21K)

I started this way back in October, and I've been working on it about 15 minutes per week ever since then.

You still can't dance to it.

Episode 6: Wickedness Stops Its Mouth

2008-09-10T11:08:00.005-04:00

mp3 file: Wickedness Stops Its Mouth (17M)
MacCSound file: eyeballsun_080905.csd (8K)

This seems to be turning into an annual podcast. Well, the old computer died and the new computer doesn't run Supercollider. So I'm switching to Csound, a fossil in the evolution of computer music, based on the original Music V program by octogenarian Stanford professor Max Mathews (Max is named after him). It's like writing music in Apple II BASIC, but it works well. I'm using MacCsound, which actually has an easier method of building GUI-based controls than Supercollider. Thanks to MacCsound, this new piece actually has live control.

I came up with a patch that sounded like cicadas. There've been a lot of cicadas out this summer. Unfortunately, when I listened back to it, I discovered that I'd been overloading the CPU, and the tremelo effect I'd heard was the audio cutting out repeatedly as the processor tried to catch up. The recording consisted of a small number of unpleasantly steady tones. So I figured out how to lighten the CPU load and added a tremelo on purpose.

This is an extremely quiet track. The aiff was a little louder, but either the frequency range or the hard stereo separation made for significant loss in the mp3 encoding.

June Jam at The Jaunt

2007-07-06T14:43:00.000-04:00

June 30 2007 Mike Ciul (Captain Mikee) hosted a night of improv music at The Jaunt. Participants were Evan Cairo (synthesizer), Captain Mikee (loops & toys), Charles Cohen (Buchla Music Easel), and George Korein (guitar).

4 Minutes (5.1 M)
Step It Up Duet (17.8 M)
Evan Melody 2 (1.4 M)
Streaming Video: June Jam Vid (3'40")

My Usual Size (drone edit)

2007-02-06T13:52:00.000-05:00

mp3 file: My Usual Size (drone edit) (7.6 M)
Supercollider file: eyeballsun_061024.sc (4K)

Something went wrong when I recorded this version back in October, but I just couldn't give up on it. So I decided to post it at last.

Episode 3: My Usual Size

2006-10-30T17:33:00.000-05:00

mp3 file: My Usual Size (9.8M)
Supercollider file: eyeballsun_061026.sc (6K)

Yes, it's been a long time since the last track and it could be a long time until the next one. But I've finally managed to recreate the Unsound Machine in Supercollider. I got an iMic for my birthday so now I can hook the computer up to my other equipment.

The sc file won't give you the same results as I got this time, since it uses a sample (not included) and connects to some external effects. However, I've abandoned the FeedbackMatrix library for now so you only need the one file.

Episode 2: We Are the Clay

2006-06-05T11:43:00.000-04:00

mp3 file: We Are the Clay (5.4M)

I figured out how to make percussive noises with feedback. The trick is to shut the level of each feedback channel way down whenever it makes a noise, and boost it way up whenever it doesn't. To make a rhythm, I added a delay so the boost waits for a specified time before starting another cycle.

Some notes on running the Supercollider patch: In order to reduce duplication, I've moved some of the code into a class called FeedbackMatrix. To run this episode's patch in Supercollider:

Download FeedbackMatrix.sc and eyeballsun_060603.sc.
Go into your SuperCollider directory, and create a subdirectory under SCClassLibrary. Call it eyeballsunClasses.
Put FeedbackMatrix.sc in eyeballsunClasses.
If Supercollider is running, recompile the libraries.
Open eyeballsun_060603.sc in Supercollider and execute each block in order.

Episode 1: Thy Holy Cities Are A Wilderness

2006-05-18T11:00:00.000-04:00

This track was made entirely in Supercollider. I created a feedback patch and let it run for about 3 minutes with no interference. Then I started reducing levels to make it fade out.

Supercollider file: mhc_060516.sc (6K)
mp3 file: Thy Holy Cities Are a Wilderness (8M)