So the attached clip from my most recent Brixton Radio/Twitch show features an aspect that I'm working on quite heavily at the moment.
I am experimenting with and practising the techniques involved to allow me to in some way play with a physical object or medium, for example by hitting/tapping/banging/scraping etc.
Whilst all the sound will still be generated electronically, the idea of a more physical interaction with the instrument gives lots of possibilities - especially for live performance. A little while back I did an early experiment in this area that I called the Magic Table. This was a table that I could drop things on or tap to trigger sounds from my modular synth.
So this video is primarily using this technique. For those interested, the important modules involved are as follows:
Mutable Instruments Ears
This is the vital part. It includes a contact microphone on the module itself (and in this video I'm tapping that microphone) and it also includes a pre-amp with a significant amount of gain sufficient to take the low level signal from an external contact (or regular) microphone up to modular levels.
It can also generate gates and envelopes which can both be used to trigger and vary other signals in the modular.
Music Thing Modular Turing Machine
This patch also uses a Turing Machine module, which generates random voltages. Here I'm using it for pitch and I have patched it to trigger whenever a gate comes in from the Ears module (in other words I will get a new pitch whenever there is a strong tap or hit on the contact mic).
2HP Quantiser
I'm then running the random pitch voltage from Turing Machine into a tiny 2HP quantiser, to restrict the pitches generated to notes in an actual scale.
Mutable Instruments Rings
Then the pitch (in scale) from the quantiser goes into Mutable Instruments Rings which is a physical modelling synth which excels at bells, plucks and string like sounds. Perfect for creating an atmospheric soundscape.
This all goes through a load of reverb to add atmosphere and space and is then combined with percussion and other elements from the modular synth to create the sounds in this video.
Drink Cam Evolution?
There is loads more potential for this kind of setup - this is just a starting point. I plan to experiment with attaching a contact mic to physical objects and to have Ears trigger all sorts of other things and events within the modular patch.
The idea is a semi generative patch with a lot of complexity and variety happening, but all played through a single physical object that I would be able to tap, hit, scrape etc.
I'm hoping this will make a very interesting aspect to my live show and I already have a specific object in mind that will also play on the recent focus in the chat banter in my Twitch channel about drinks! (yes the drink cam could be evolving!)
Watch this space and thanks for reading the output of modular obsessed brain!
Have a great day Hive!
Check out my original electronic music via:
https://linktr.ee/tdctunes
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I love that you take it all beyond just programming something up and it's much more organic. I know some people consider electronic music to be 'soulless', but you prove otherwise.
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Thanks Steve! Yeah it's a lot about experimenting - seeing a) what's possible and b) what actually works well and perhaps even c) what makes good music :)
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Some people push the boundaries of what is considered to be music. I was just reminded of this thing that I saw Bjork use. Even though it's all digital it seems organic.
Aha - love it! I need to up my game. Though I do have something of a different nature in mind involving a large copper tea pot!
I’ve been exploring modular synths of the software variety and hope one day to write about it here a lot more because it’s fascinating, super interesting and I feel you learn a lot about music from these machines. So in a way you put your soul into them to create organic performances.
Oh that's cool that you are working on modular stuff in software. Will be interested in your posts about it - feel free to tag me!
Shall do!
!PIZZA
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It is working really nice. I watched in the video that you were continually touching some wires. Had it to do something with the change in music?
So in this video I'm actually tapping the contact microphone on the Ears module. It's the one on the right in the picture above where I show the modules close up. The contact microphone is the gold concentric lines.
For my next real live show I plan to use an external contact microphone attached to a physical object. But it's exactly the same principal.
And I can then use the generated signals to affect the music in all sorts of ways (in this case it's triggering a lot of the sounds and also triggering the change in pitch/note)
I see. Good Luck for your next session 👍
Thank you!
Most welcome
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