Last week I attended a great FTM workshop at Bek in Bergen, Norway. Many thanks to Diemo Schwartz, who led expertly.  FTM and Co is a set of extensions for MAX MSP, released free through a LGPL licence. It’s a set of objects and externals that handle data management wth matrices, with the Gabor externals handling audio for granular synthesis and spectral analysis / re-synthesis. The sound quality is excellent compared to MSP, for reasons to do with timing which i don’t quite understand.

I’ve looked at FTM before but frankly couldn’t make head nor tales of it. Diemo very calmly and clearly took us through the syntax, structure and applications. He demonstrated his stunning cataRT synthesis software, created with FTM and Gabor. I highly recommend you check this out – its simple to use and incredibly powerful. Oh yes, and you can use it without having to do any programming!

Take a look at the videos of the workshop.

I’m recently completed a great pilot project with the choreographer Katie Green and her Greenbean Dance company. I experimented with my new live setup in rehearsals to create the basis for the sound track, which I later refined in the studio. The piece was shown at the Heads Up series at Dancebase as part of the Edinburgh Festival.

I really enjoyed taking my inspiration from the physicality and interactions of the dancers movements to create a soundtrack which hopefully gave the dancers some support and space.

I’ll be working with Katie to produce a full show soundtrack next year.

Thanks to robin foster who made me a vst plug-in from my granular Rogs~ max msp patch.

i’ve just been on a great workshop with sound recordist Chris Watson. A group of about twenty people from a wide spread of backgrounds, spent time with chris alongside the banks of the river thames. we explored the different sound habitats, natural and man made, whilst chris shared his enthusiasm and experience with us. We then spent an afternoon at the Museum of Garden History listening to recordings and to chris talk about his approach to recording and sound.

the only downside to the workshop is in the wallet dept, as i can’t help myself buying some better recording kit. i’ve decided its time to upgrade from my edirol r-1, which has been on the blink recently. a few people were recommending the fostex fr2 LE and i was wondering if anyone has any experience of using it ?

everyone was drooling over chris’s nagra aries p-II+ recorder ………. just waiting for that windfall

i’m also looking at getting a good pair of stereo omnis. a few people recommended microphone madness for good but cheap mics, made with the same capsules as sennheiser.

big thanks to chris watson and chris potts

Things are pretty busy here at the moment with some great projects

‘Caught Up Soundtrack’

I’m pleased to say we’ll be writing music for choreographer Katie Green’s new work ‘Caught Up’ which will be performed at  Dance Base in Edinburgh 22nd August.

Nanoplex at EXPO Brighton

Just getting new work ready for the Nanoplex at EXPO, Brighton. We’re working on a 5.1 remix of Flotel’s soundtrack for Vent’s ‘Still Life’.

Summer Sundae

Our line-up for our marquee at the Summer Sundae Weekender is shaping up – watch out for an announcement soon………

I had the great pleasure to be asked to nominate two people for the BBC’s Urban bursary scheme.

I’ve nominated two talented musicians who been working hard to move forward in music.

MVP - who’s doing great things with grime and hip hop

Jahmarnyah who’s working his magic in the world of reggae

good luck guys – you both deserve to receive the award

I finally have my midi control surface up and running – BIG thanks to my studio partner Stu Smith (ASMO) for finishing off a project i started long ago and ran out of steam with.       Its based on a Doepfer pocket Electronic board and housed in an old cutlery case. I sourced the knobs over a long period of ebay scouring. I am working towards having a tactile interface for the software instruments running on my laptop. i find that working with a control surface allows me to work far more intuitively as i get to know the instrument physically. its also kind of an antidote to spending painstaking hours programming on the computer. I’m using it to work  on a live incarnation of our Threep project .  

I’ve just completed making this merztin instrument, designed by John Richards. I’ll be performing with Merzbow and the Dirty Electronic orchestra in Leicester and Birmingham.    

I’ve just returned from a week at Steim taking a Supercollider course with Jeff Carey . Its music software which allows you to explore digital synthesis and sound processing using code. i can see its potential for exploring Curtis Roads inspired microsound and stochastic music techniques. i am going to have to force myself to spend some time regularly to learn how to program with it.   

i’m just working, with my studio partner stu, on the soundtrack and sound-design for the zombie gore-fest film Zombie Undead. Lots of feedback sounds and great gore recorded from fruit, veg and yogurt. i’ve been having pretty wild dreams last couple of nights though…….

ZombieUndead

This is some of the outstanding music I’ve been listening to recently

Stockhausen Kontakte
Curtis Roads’ Point Line Cloud
Ryoji Ikeda Dataplex
Alva Noto Transrapid, Transspray and Transvision’
Sawako Hum

I’ve just finished reading a collection of writings of Stockhausen. His depth of knowledge is astounding and is reflected in the fact that the music still sounds stunning 40 odd years on. I am interested in studying his work more closely. It’d be good to listen to his work alongside a written score as a way of learning some tools for analysing others work.

Its going to be a steep learning curve with MAX MSP, i’m very quickly learning that there is a long way to go before realising my ideas. I need to learn how to approaching solving problems by programming. Ho Hum.