Month: May 2022

I decided to keep it in the realm of Radio, i used a normal FM/AM radio and an SDR radio for reels in the morphagene, there i changed the pitch, speed , resampled, modulated and granulated.

And then just layered it with recordings from the Serge in LCC, did minimal processing. Most of the effects are from the mixer in school, just some phaser and the hall and chorus.

I recorded the radio as an improvisation, the recordings were made when it was raining, which means that radio reception is worse and there is more noise. I decided to keep this because its a nice example of how the environment can dictate the piece

Just did some compression and gain staging in Ableton.

Nothing too conceptual with this piece, is more to accompany the essay

SDR radio:

For my essay im writing bout my experiences with radio.

So I dug a bit deeper in ways I experiment with this medium.

An artist a really like ‘Scanner’ he’s work used to be inspired by this use of radio recordings. He used a device called a scanner, where he could tune into peoples privates conversations.

There is an interesting interview in a chapter in ocean of sound by David Toop. 

• https://ubu.com/sound/scanner.html

So I did some research to see if I should get a scanner. So nowadays people don’t really use landline telephones, there is less information to access, and a lot of stuff is encrypted, so it’s harder to access. And  with a scanner you can only listen in a certain proximity. 

So I found this device called an SDR radio. 

The one I got in particular works with a software. It comes with an antenna bla bla

It’s taking a while to reach since it ships from the US.

This device allows you to access all sort of radio frequencies from all parts of the world. 

This device can even be used to hack into peoples electric garage door. 

You can even hear astronauts communication in real time. 

I got it so I can sample it ands it for my creative composition

But I would also like to find a way to perform live with this device.

Im also trying to build a simple DIY radio I got from amazon for 5 pounds, the problem is that it doesn’t come with a manual and there is not much information in the internet about it, so that is taking a bit more time than excepted.

When I first booted my RTL-SDR, I started by listening to FM and AM radio, since it’s the easiest to set up. The software that is recommended when using and SDR in macOS is CubicSDR. This software it’s quite intuitive. You can type in the frequency that you want to listen, depending on the type of frequency you’re accessing, the bandwidth has to be adjusting accordingly. Then you get a waterfall diagram updated in realtime so its easy to know what frequency are stronger.

When starting you realise that the antenna position is very important for the result you want. 

Radio scanning in Mexico City

Ive done some research of people using radio scanners in Mexico City and I’ve found pages where you can find loads of frequencies, from railways communications to McDonalds, Six Flags and Taxis. Its quite a long list and it keeps getting updated constantly.

http://www.oocities.org/xe1rcf/freq2.html

My grandfather had an interest in radio. When he passed away my grandmother gave me all of his audio equipment. A microphone, 4 channel mixer, radio and a cassette recorder.

It seemed that he had an interest in recording the news onto cassettes, as I found lots of  recordings of political discussions and random news on some of his old tapes. I still have these recordings. When he lived he never discussed this interest with me, I spoke with my dad about this and he mentioned me that this was one of his hobbies. I find it fascinating that we share this in common, as if in a way we both managed to see this potential radio has. And im being able to express it and articulate for both of us.

As my next electronics project ill be building a DIY radio, I already bought it, but it came without instructions. So im waiting until summer when i have some free time, and ill be doing this. After this I found a cheap way of building an electromagnetic mic. To get deeper into other forms of radio frequencies and crazy sounds

Gallery 46

In January, I did my first live performance at Gallery 46. For this performance, I did it as a live improvisation by using a radio, distortion pedal, and a sampler. this was an interesting experience and made me realise the possibilities of synchronicities through using a radio.

The most memorable moment of the performance to me was during the first five mins. I just turned the radio on and I hear a voice saying: “Hello everyone. Thanks for tuning into my first show. I hope everyone has a good time.” This was obviously a complete coincidence and it was personally enriching since this was literally my first performance in front of a live audience.

Rave

My next set took place at an underground party in North London. This performance was a bit disappointing for myself. There were several technical issues. The clock was failing and there was no radio reception. It was however, a great learning experience and it taught me that the club environment is not the ideal space for full improvisation to take place. People expect to be entertained and engaged with a dynamic sound.

See You When I See You

During the months of February, I was helping Travis out with some sound design and mixing for his show, See You When I See You. This was particularly interesting because I was working with actual musicians and physical instruments such as a flute, guitar, vocals, etc. This is something I’ve never really done before. It was also interesting because I did the show on quadrophonic sound. This was my first experience doing this in a live environment. It was a challenging experience but definitely turned out well and was fun.

Spake Easy

This was a short 20 minute performance organised by CSM where I performed through improvisation with my radio and sampler. Though not too exciting, it was a great experience for me and it was nice to have visuals in the back playing which provided my performance with depth. I was trying to synchronise them to the sound – to the point where the audience thought the visuals were interacting with the music, but it was not planned – just that it synchronised well.

Photography lcc dj set

For a recent BA Photography exhibition in Peckham, I did a short DJ set alongside iñaki. Nothing too crazy, but it was fun to match the music to the vibe. Some ambient-techno stuff.

LCF MA Show

As part of London Fashion Week, the LCF MA Graduates showcased their collections. I collaborated with some other sound arts students to create a soundtrack for the fashion show. I used three tracks of mine, an IDM song, and two techno tracks.

NHS advert

I collaborated with an LCC animation student to make an NHS ad for breast cancer awareness.

Film

I collabed with two film students to score their short films. For one of them, I collaborated with the director to make a composition. for the other one, I collaborated with iñaki through field recordings, foley, mixing, sound design and editing. it was quite demanding and took a long time

9 April:

Loop Cafe Broad Ln, London N15 4QT

My goal was to only use the Digitakt for this set. So I was limited to only using 8 audio tracks.

I wanted this set to be more fluid and melodic than my usual sets, just to try something different. Since the set was early and in a cafe I felt that doing a house/minimal techno set would work well.

I had to arrange the set beforehand and also do the mix inside the sampler. It was pretty hard to mix a whole set, when you only have 2 filters per track, so the main focus was on getting the gain-staging really well. It was a good exercise.

I recorded the audio with a field recorder and the video with a camcorder.

I also helped out making the music for a documentary on brigthon skate collective

Upcoming stuff

Im doing a gig at IKLEKTIK in a couple weeks, im planning on using more of the radio, and do some broken beat stuff on top

Im also doing a 4 hour mix for the upcoming Black Show, its an art exhibition/ fashion show hosted by LCF. Since its so much work im planing on collaborating with some other friends to get it done quicker.

I recently started volunteering at Cafe OTO as a assistant to the audio engineer, Cafe OTO has been my favourite venue since I arrived to London so its an absolute pleasure to be working there.

I went to the screening for the film ‘sisters with transistors’.

It was a great introspective film showing us some of the female artist working working with synthesisers in the 60s and 70s.

Eliane Radigue is my personal favourite, ever since I listened to ‘Islas resonates’ I fell in love with her work. Extremely minimal but always evolving. 

When I went home I felt inspired and I decided to record some stuff. 

Saturday 30 April in went to the soundcamp event.

I signed up for the pinhole photography building thing.

I didn’t really know what to expect

I enjoyed a lot the pinhole photography It was so interesting to understand better how photos work. It’s really different hearing about how it works, then being the one doing it.

My first attempt failed, because the pinhole didn’t let enough light in, so on the second try I left the shutter open for about 20 seconds and I got a really interesting result from it. On the 3rd try I left it even for longer, and I got a photo that you could start to decipher what it is. It was a great experiment I a am interested in doing lots more of these in the future. Its the most analog you can get, since you are working directly with the medium, with light. No mechanics or anything.

After this we did a foxhole radio.

These were used during second world war by the soldiers, it is a really easy way to listen to radio frequencies. It was interesting since I learned some stuff about how radios work and about the ionosphere. 

I couldn’t get any sound out of my radio, because we had some issues with the speakers, but I managed to listen to other people radio, and it was great. We did it at sunset, then when the ionosphere is the strongest, when it gets the most amount of energy from the sun.

It was a fun expense and I want to explore more building radios.

Ive really enjoyed using the serge in school for the past couple weeks. Ive used lots the Doepfer case, but I find it very limiting. The serge is really fun, comes with lots of limitations as well, but I feel like it wants you to be more creative with these limitations. I find myself patching in ways I would never do. Just put any input and output and see if it changes the sound. First couple times I was just doing blip bluppy Buchla stuff, but the more I used it the more intrigued I was by the drones it can create. It can make some textures that would take me a lot longer in any other synth. An it so easy to also play it like an instrument, its quite intuitive after a couple tries. The other cool thing is that I can take the output of the serge and plug it into the Doepfer case, so I can modulate it a filter it even further. Ive done some recordings with this setup. And I’m planning on chopping these recordings onto one shots and throw them onto my Digitakt. And for my next performance use the serge samples as my starting point. 

I got a dictaphone sanyo talk book vas

Since my drum machine doesn’t support long samples well and there is no way of warping, I wanted something that would allow me to do this, in a cheap and effective way. 

The purpose of it is not to have a full track, but to have drones, ambiences and field recordings for live performance, so process them on the computer and then record them onto casstte. Nothing with drums or rythym that needs to be on quantised because syncing it with the sampler would be impossible. 

So I can have long recordings and play them and process them while performing, or have tape loops. I want to get away from using a computer live. 

I think its a great tool, but when using lots of hardware plus computer it doesn’t work, it too many things to keep controlled, and I feel like the state of mind of making music on hardware doesn’t go to well with the computer. The times I’ve done it I feel like Im fighting with the sound instead of gently guiding it. Its a bit stressful. So the dictaphone can liberate me from that while still having the sounds from the computer, in lofi quality.

In the future I could have a couple of these and with a cheap behringer mixer play around with them and send them to effects. 

Im thinking of using the dictaphone closesy wuith morphagene as well.

Ive had some expiernce using cassettes in the past. I had one in mexico but it broke recently.

I used to use it to send drums and pads to it, record it really hot, then send it to my guitar amp, and record it with a mic.It was really fun, it was some of my first expiernces processing and recording sound with hardware. 

 This was when I was 16 and went through my boards of Canada phase.

Really cool artist using radios in live performance.

I like how he’s using the guitar as a mic, and the part where Mr. Brighstide comes in the radio while he’s playing with the fan. Good stuff!!

I like that is mentioned at the end, the radio can be a chameleon, depending on where he improvises the radio takes on the language and the culture of that place

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfBlSMHQEDKBMpDtRcw33Kq4UzYb6fuv0

This is a list of videos that have inspired me in the last 6 months.

Conversation between David Toop and Lawrence English.

Lawrence started by talking about short-wave radio and electromagnetic mics and how these can another form of field recording and listening to our environment. Short-wave radio gives you a wide access to all sort of frequencies, but it allows you to narrow down the frequency to receive specific information. He compares this to the practice of deep listening.

“Field recordings can be sound photographies”

During their conversation there many mentions on how technology helps us understand our environment in new ways, it allows us access information that we didn’t had previous access. An example given by David was he mentioned how elephants communicate through infrasound, and how we managed to understand it with sound visualizers.