2010: 48 TRX / 52 WKS

There. I’ve said it. I’ve even written it down. And when I’ve finished this blog post, I’ll tweet about it to 400 people. There’s clearly only one reason for such behaviour. By telling the world, the pressure I place upon myself to deliver is increased and hopefully even more focus is brought to this ludicrous plan.

OK, by James Fahy’s standards, 48 tracks isn’t even vaguely prolific. It’d probably take ambienteer a couple of months but it will represent more than three times my total output this year. So how on earth do I expect to achieve this? Well, there is some method in my madness.

My aim is to produce four albums, each containing 12 tracks. These will be released under the following artist / project names and two of them are collaborative, so the work will be shared:

Kieron James
Half-BIT
Blue Omen
Somió

The first will be an instrumental album entitled Four and at least one element – however filtered, glitched and twisted – from each track will make its presence felt in its counterpart on each of the other three albums. Some of these tracks may share more than one sound or idea from the original. They may even extend to full-blown remixes, but because these musical projects are so different, I imagine the foundation track will bring very little to bear on its sibling.

I’ve talked in broad terms about the project with Shadi, my collaborator in Blue Omen, but I haven’t had the opportunity to discuss this with Fernando Fonseca, the other half of Half-BIT as he’s taking a well-earned rest and I really don’t want to disturb him. I’m just hoping that Fernando is as “up for this” as he has been with our other work together. If he isn’t, I’ll need to find another collaborator, because the idea is really starting to resonate with me!

Posted by Kieron James on Thursday, December 31, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Filed under Brain Dumping, Featured, Music · Tagged with Blue Omen, Fernando Fonseca, Half Bit, James Fahy, Shadi Azadi, SOMIO

Little Boots “Earthquake” The Half-BIT RMX

Little Boots / Half-BIT "Earthquake" RMX

I’m not going to add too much content to my own blog, since it’s being covered in detail over at Half-BIT.com, but I will take a moment just to add a brief description of what Fernando and I are working on.

It started with a tweet from @AudioPornTwitz about a Little Boots remix contest. The Earthquake stems were posted online so I DM’d Fernando to see if he was interested in having a play with them for our follow up to Separate.

Earthquake – GAP RMX by Half-BIT

Posted by Kieron James on Monday, November 2, 2009 at 10:12 am
Filed under Brain Dumping, Featured, Music · Tagged with Audio Damage, Automaton, BigSeq2, cubase, Earthquake, Fernando Fonseca, Half Bit, Little Boots, MAX/MSP, mixdown, RMX, subboombass

Netaudio EXPANDING 09 – Collaborate in Half-BIT’s Debut

Anybody remember Cosecha? And the fun we had pulling together PS011, recently released by the outstanding PublicSpaces netlabel?

Well, Mr Fonseca and I require your help again. Our newly formed collaboration, Half-BIT will be providing an art sound installation at Netaudio’s EXPANDING 09 Festival on 14 November in Barcelona.

Half-BIT is all about collaboration. It’s our raison d’être. It’s how the whole project was kicked off. And we want it to be global. Our first track started life as a wonderful IDM piece from Alka’s Dog Lost in the Woods album. It was remixed by Fernando Fonseca, then remixed again by me. None of us have actually met. Alka is based in New Jersey, Fernando kicks around Barcelona and I inhabit the far less urban-cool, though equally chic Cheshire, UK.

What we need from you

Just like Cosecha, Fernando has asked me to seek parameters to create a new source file for him to glitch the hell out of for a sound installation on 14 November (when I’ll be tucked up in front of Faithless at Manchester’s Warehouse Project). And we need YOU to help with those parameters.

This time, I intend to use two of my favourite VSTs: Ohm Force’s Symptohm and BigSeq2 from Audio Damage. I’ll request some parameter values to create the sound (e.g. send me a number between 1 and 5000) and you’ll tweet back with your number. Just like Cosecha, I’m not going to disclose which values are being requested, but unlike Cosecha, I anticipate far fewer requests being made of the contributors. (Promise!)

Once I’ve handed our sound over to Fernando, he’s going to work even more collaborative magic to create a very special piece for Barcelona.

Play your part by adding a comment below with your Twitter username, or tweet us up with #halfbitbarcelona in your tweet.

We’ll keep you informed of progress via our favourite collaborative social networking wonder-drug: Twitter.

The Contributors

The following people / organisations have volunteered to respond to data requests.

@_alka
@BlueEydGlambert
@dust_bunnies
@fbish
@groovecriminals
@heuristicmusic
@HipGnosis23
@leeconnolly
@LucidAcid
@madebyrobot
@publicspaceslab
@pure_tone
@retorta
@ronsens

Sound 1 – Ohm Force Symptohm Output [30/10/2009]

Thank you to all the contributors for providing numbers today. Below you’ll find a SoundCloud player which previews the three bar loop your numbers have generated. Don’t get too excited just yet. There’s a second stage to the process where we mash this up using Audio Damage’s BigSeq2.

The table below illustrates how the sound was generated from the numbers supplied:

Parameter	Request	Received	Contributor
Note	1-12	5	@alka
Note	1-12	5	@BlueEydGlambert
Note	1-12	12	@dust_bunnies
Note	1-12	3	@fbish
Repeat (0) Reverse (1)	0-1	1	@groovecriminals
Tempo	110-180	123	@heuristicmusic
Beats	2, 4, 8 or 16	8	@HipGnosis13
Loop Length	1-4	3	@leeconnolly
Symptohm Sample	1-123	72	@LucidAcid
Slide Time	1-4000	1	@madebyrobot
Morphing	1-6	3	@PublicSpacesLab
VCA	-30 – +4	-7	@pure_tone
VCF Cutoff	60-8000	4358	@retorta
Voice Filter Type	1-3	2	@ronsens

None of the contributors was aware of the parameter for which they were submitting a value. The request simply read (for example), “Please send me a number between 1 and 4000 (inclusive). Thanks.”

Phase 1

Here’s how the loop was generated:

The first four contributors provided the notes for the loop. I preselected C major scale and with 12 notes in an octave we have a pattern of E, E, C, D.

Parameter 5 governs whether the pattern should then repeat or reverse (0 for repeat, 1 for reverse). So the second four notes are D, C, E, E.

Parameter 6 establishes the tempo of the loop: 123bpm. Parameter 7 sets the note length: 2 being a minim, 4 a crotchet, 8 a quaver and 16 a semiquaver. The loop length was established as 3 bars by Lee Connolly. The sample preset from Symptohm is 72 (literally counting through the sample files in the Symptohm library!) and the remaining four parameters establish the filters applied.

Loop 1 – Symptohm

Symptohm (Half-BIT #Netaudio) by Half-BIT

More to come! Stage 2 will be the mash up and sequencing in Audio Damage’s BigSeq2.

Phase 2

Here’s how the loop was generated:

Phase 2 of our Netaudio project applied a VST plugin named BigSeq2 from Audio Damage to the source file above. Once again, the values were requested without conveying to the contributors which parameters they governed. The table below illustrates how the values were applied:

Parameter	Request	Received	Contributor
Preset	1-40	25	@alka
VCA Step Size	4, 8, 16 or 32	4	@BlueEydGlambert
VCA Gate	1-100	43	@dust_bunnies
VCA Decay	1-70	36	@fbish
Filter Type	1-6	5	@groovecriminals
Filter Frequency	40-2000	1688	@HipGnosis13
Filter Resonance	0-100	76	@HipGnosis13
Delay Time	1-8	8	@leeconnolly
Delay Feedback	0-100	37	@LucidAcid
Delay Send	1-100	40	@madebyrobot
Bit Rate	1-100	89	@PublicSpacesLab
Bit Depth	8-24	19	@pure_tone
Distort Fuzz	0-20	15	@retorta
Distort Warp	0-20	17	@ronsens

Loop 2 – Symptohm plus BigSeq2

Symptohm BigSeq2 by Half-BIT

Thank you to all the contributors. That’s my bit done. Now it’s over to you, F.

Posted by Kieron James on Friday, October 23, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Filed under Brain Dumping, Featured, Music · Tagged with Alka, Audio Damage, Barcelona, BigSeq2, Expanding, Fernando Fonseca, Half Bit, Netaudio, ohm force, Symptohm, Twitter

Alka “Separate” The Half-BIT RMX

OK, off we go again!

I finally completed my own remix of Alka’s Separate, when a few days ago I was sent a link by Fernando Fonseca to have a listen to what he was up to with his remix and to offer an opinion as to whether it needed vocals.

I am really impressed by what he’s put together.

Long and short of it is that we got talking about whether I’d be interested in mixing his remix. Fool that I am, I agreed!

Last night, I loaded the stems into Cubase and started to have a play around. I’ve worked on a supplementary bass part and I’m uploading a quick burst here, just a flavour of what I’ve got – it’s just a few bars of percs and bass, but gives a hint of where I want to take this.

Rather than the “drop” you’ll hear after the short soloed percussive break, it’ll almost certainly lift here (more drums!), but I do love the sub at this point.

As always, I’m uploading a tiny snippet to kick off the post. I really like looking back and listening to how the tracks evolve, so these are always great to hear once the finished piece has been mastered.

Mastered version

Separate – STRBX RMX by Half-BIT

Mastered by Pure Tone

Update: 20/10/2009

Should really listen to this again with fresh ears tomorrow before uploading, particularly as I did most of the mixing on the train. But what the heck! Let’s pop this version on the website now and if I need to remix or tinker in any other way, I can always come back to it over the next few days.