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
Thank you to all the contributors. That’s my bit done. Now it’s over to you, F.
I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am to be working on another piece with Shadi! :-] I was thrilled with her selection of Forough Farrokhzad’s poetry for The Wind Will Take Us and even more delighted with her outstanding vocal performance.
This is VERY early in its development. Shadi hasn’t even heard it as I upload this, but I’ll drop her a DM on Twitter in a moment and keep my fingers crossed. Right now (as usual) there’s no thought been given to arrangement or mixing. This is simply a preview of some of the instruments and the overall theme of the track. Brain dumping indeed.
Update: [25/11/2009]
Took on board Fernando’s comments below and added a filter and sequence to the opening bass line to give it a little more groove. Responding to Doyle by lifting the vocals and EQ-ing some of the instruments to give them more room. Also glitched up the percussion track and generally remixed (levels / EQ / some compression on one of the other bass lines).
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Update: [24/11/2009]
Now mixed with vocals (thank you Shadi!!!). MP3 below is not mastered. Any feedback very gratefully received. Would love to hear from you so post a comment below. Do it!
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Update: [27/09/2009 Arrangement 1]
I’ve added drums, worked on a couple of extra layers and put together the first arrangement. It’s a preliminary mix and in terms of levels / EQ, I’m going to leave it pretty much as is until the raw vocals are back. I want to hand over to Shadi now for her input.
Shadi: Keep in mind that the mix / arrangement is still very fluid and can be amended in way you like.
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Update: [18/09/2009]
Not a huge amount been modified since Wednesday’s update and since I’ve been full of a cold, I suspect the mix might be very weird. Feels like my head is stuffed with cotton wool!
I was inclined to agree with Fernando’s comments about the piano, so for now, I’ve deleted it. Sounded a bit Happy Mondays to me and changed the feel quite a lot.
Still just a collection of ideas and with the Great North Run on Sunday, I don’t think I’ll be moving this one on much until next week now. (Sorry Shadi!)
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Update: [16/09/2009]
I’ve lifted the tempo by 6bpm to help this one groove, but it still isn’t gelling for me (yet). I’ve got confidence in the track and I’m sure it’ll pull together, but right now, it’s just not happening. Being full of a cold and having had a couple of very intense days at work, guess I can’t really expect to be in the most creative of moods. Probably best to leave it for now.
As per previous posts, should point out that this is still not an arrangement. Just some of the possible themes for the final piece. Zero attention has been given to the mix (levels or EQ).
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Update: [13/09/2009]
Uploading a couple of additional parts, though must stress that this is NOT an arrangement at all. The piano is unlikely to kick this track off (but who knows!) and some of the synth sounds still need lots of work (EQ too). What’s more, this is a VERY rough mix. Levels are all over the place. Drums are toppy (but expect to hear another drum part too, this is mainly percussion for texture). Definitely needs a lot more sub/bottom end and bigger drums. I can hear the SBB sequencer drifting slightly out of time too. Loads to fix!
The feel of the piece has changed quite a lot over the weekend. It feels much brighter and lighter now. I’m not sure that’s entirely the direction I had planned, but I do kind of like it. Let’s see where it takes me next!
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First Upload: [11/09/2009]
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I guess it was the sun, sea and sand of a beautiful Spanish island which inspired me to try and turn a fabulous IDM track from Alka into a clubby groove, but that was my intention with this treatment of “Separate”.
With that in mind, I decided to name it the Jandía Mix after the small resort at the southern tip of Fuerte Ventura, where I was staying 10 days ago when this was put together.
Update: 7th October 2009
The shrill flute towards the end of this track and its incongruity with the rest of the piece has been niggling me since August. I love what Tone had done with the mastering and apart from that, was pretty happy with the track. Last week I could take no more so I opened up Cubase and played around with some different instruments. The flute has now gone and been replaced with a filter-tweaked lead synth patch from Ohm Force’s Symptohm, run through Audio Damage BigSeq2 with a little DaTube FX. Once done, I handed it back to Tone and he’s re-mastered compressing the track slightly to highlight some of the detail.
Separate (Jandía Mix) by kieronjames
And here’s a link to the original track by Alka on Last.fm.
Note re first three comments below:
I did have an earlier problem with the lead synth at 3:28. There was pretty heavy modulation on the original track which (to my ears at least) bent it out of tune – not on the original, but on the remix – so I sought comments from a few trusted Twitter folks. Responses from @digitaldoyle, @digitube and @UBLF are shown below.
I tried tweaking the EQ at 3:28 as suggested but was convinced that the part was still out of tune, rather than just a harmonics issue so I ran the audio file through Cubase Pitch Correct to see how far it was “drifting”. After adjusting and readjusting for about an hour, I ended up deleting that part and writing three new lead synth lines. I’ve also done more work on the arrangement and mix and as ever, I’d love your feedback.
San Feliz (track #2 of the Somió release, “Deva”) is now complete, barring levels, volume rides, a little compression and limiting here and there, the swells are not too swell and mastering. OK, so not finished at all really.
My goal with this piece was to create something very lazy and sunny. As I mentioned in another post, “San Feliz” was inspired by long summer days reading Murakami in the garden in Spain. With that in mind, I started by writing an eight bar turnaround with some bluesy chords and just let that roll.
It’s a pretty conventional piece and will probably be the most accessible / least experimental on the album. But there’s always room for one composition like that and – to me at least – it conveys all the memories from last summer, an easy couple of weeks and a genuine “time out” from the day-do-day.
I may also reduce the overall length or add a bridge. It’s a touch repetitive, but then again, I kind of like the way it just drifts along, in keeping with the pace of those afternoons and the feel of Murakami’s writing (can’t remember which book it was, but probably Dance Dance Dance).
I think I’ll leave this for a few days and turn my attention to something much more experimental: Cosecha.
Update: 06/06/09
Final version uploaded. Re-arranged, new instrumentation (Spanish guitar and some pads), remixed and mastered.
Thrilled to say that this track has been selected for PublicSpaces PS010 compilation.
Stream MP3:
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Download MP3:
Been playing around with Ohm Force’s Symptohm again this evening and I thought I’d upload this as a brain dump file. I often make the mistake of overwriting stuff I’d like to keep, so before I do just that, I’m uploading the Cubase .cpr along with an MP3 mixdown.
It’s only a few bars (and even those have been extended, just to make it worthwhile clicking play on the flash player below).
Want to see how this sounds in the morning.
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Download Cubase File – Feel free to plunder and play
To all intents and purposes, this track is now finished. As ever, I may return to mix with fresh ears in a couple of days and once I’ve had a chance to run it through the car stereo test. So far, I’ve monitored on my god awful computer speakers, a pair of Beyerdynamic DT-100s, some Sennheisers and my UltimateEars earbuds. Seems OK(ish) on those.
It’s been quite a weird journey this one. It started out with a “lost chord” – the second prominent chord on the AtmoEPiano (Green Oak Crystal VST plugin). I was fiddling around on the piano and really liked that chord.
Started to build an ambient piece, but upping the tempo to 165bpm against the lazy lead chords caught my attention. The addition of dialogue from American Graffiti came right at the end. I’m still not sure if I like it or if the track should remain instrumental.
What do you think?
Stream Original:
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Stream Mastered by Pure_Tone:
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Download: Good Time – 320 MP3
Made quite a lot of progress on the drum n bass track I’ve been working on recently. Significant breakthrough on the bass line with the inclusion of Ohm Force Symptohm (which I bought on Friday and love!).
Still a little way from finished and certainly pre-mix but would love any feedback on how this is coming along. (I’ve been arranging this using a pair of earbuds tonight, so there’s a very good chance the levels will be all over the place. I’ll take a listen in the morning and apologise now if that’s the case!)
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