DIY Semi-Modular Analog Synthesizer (testing)

D I R T Y
L O - F I
D I Y

*Patching, tweaking, and harnessing some interesting sounds here (at least for me) for a demo. Twas very addictive. Audio/Video was captured using a crappy digicam. Speaker use is a cheap PC subwoofer, also there is a feedback loop/loopception on 6 channel analog mixer for additional textures and noise. 

//Looking forward to expand it and build more or another. :)

MODULES:

VCO - 2x (Atari Junk Console)
ADSR (Envelope Generator)
VCF
LFO - 2x (Triangle & Square)
Ring Modulator
3x3 Passive Matrix Mixer
RC-LPF
White Noise Generator (not use in the video)
VCA (under construction)
10 Step Sequencer (on breadboard, will solder soon)

Thanks for watching! d[0-0]b

"Our entire biological system, the brain and the Earth itself, work on the same frequencies." ~ Nikola Tesla

*Now i know why a system like this gets bigger and bigger in a basement or in a bed room like an organic matter, because right now i'm very lustful to get more "ins-outs" to insert and knobs to twiddle or is it just the fume from soldering that i became addicted to? Either way it is...

"[cos] It's not enough.
I need more.
Nothing seems to satisfy.
I said
I don't want it.
I just need it.
To breathe, To feel, to know I'm alive.

Finger deep within the borderline.
Show me that you love me and that we belong together.
Relax, turn around and take my hand.

Knuckle deep inside the borderline.
This may hurt a little but it's something you'll get used to.
Relax. Slip away.

I'll keep digging
Till I feel something.

Elbow deep inside the borderline.
Show me that you love me and that we belong together.
Shoulder deep within the borderline.
Relax. Turn around and take my hand." ~ STINKFIST [TOOL]

Thanks for watching! d()_()b

Music Review: Routines, Rituals, & Repetitions EP

EP ALBUM: ROUTINES, RITUALS, & REPETITIONS

http://genthalz03.bandcamp.com/album/routines-rituals-repetitions

ROUTINES, RITUALS, & REPETITIONS
by Gen Thalz d[0-0]b

5 track EP (Extended-Paranoia) from the lost subterranean chapter of pure mundane day to day routines, rituals, and repetitions which was converted into voltages and feedback; sequenced and loop into sounds...

Genre: Electronic
Style: Techno, Experimental, Ritual, Noise, Acid, Glitch, Drone, minimal
Year: 2016

released January 9, 2016

Created, Mixed, and Arranged by Gen Thalz
Produced by Marlon B. Zoleta
Album Cover by Gen Thalz

Ex-nihilo Studio

© all rights reserved

d[-_]b

Lowercase Music/Sound Art

This surprise us, our track Maxwell's Demon was featured in this Youtube blog (above). d[-_]b

To the team of This Exists Youtube channel, thank you for recognizing our humble and not so accurate (work) contribution to the Lowercase genre. Keep existing! :)

below is our track: Maxwell's Demon

Feedback Loop [short story]

“FEEDBACK LOOP”

[short story] by Gen Thalz

Aux Send Line/In

4 Tape Cue EQ

3.5mm mono LPF 95%

*Alaala

“Hon, honey! Nakikinig ka ba? Kanina pa ko nagkukwento di ka man lang kumikibo.”, sita ng misis sa kanyang mister na nagmamaneho sa highway. “Ha? Eh, sori. Parang nangyari na ‘to?”, nagulat at nagtatakang tugon ng mister. “Talagang nangyari na ‘to dahil araw-araw tayo dumadaan dito! Pinagsasabi mo…”, imbyernang sagot ni misis. “Hindi pramis.”, sagot ulit ni mister, di na kumibo ang babae tumanaw na lang sa daan at sandali silang nanahimik.

Maya-maya. “Hon, ano ba nangyayari sayo? Kanina pa kita pinagmamasdan parang di ka mapakali, wala ka sa sarili baka mabangga tayo niyan. Gusto mo ako na magmaneho?”, usisa ni misis. “Ha? Hindi, ano. Parang bigla lang sumama pakiramdam ko, para kong lalagnatin”, paliwanag ni mister sabay himas sa batok. Nagalala naman bigla si misis at agad nitong hinipo ang noo at leeg ng mister kung mainit ba, “Wala ka naman lagnat, ano gusto mo hon? Tubig?”. “Ok lang ako hon, don’t worry. Parang may naalala lang ako na di ko alam kung ano…”, “Ha?”, “Pakiramdam ko may dapat akong gawin at baguhin pero di ko maisip kung ano ba yun, alam mo yung ganung pakiramdam?”.

Lalung nagalala ang misis, “May problema ba hon? Sabihin mo sakin, sa work ba? Baka stress ka… May nagawa ba ko? Anong gusto mong gawin ko hon?”, malambing na pagtatanong nito. “Hindi hon wala, bigla ko lang naramdaman ngayon ‘to. Siguro dahil ‘to sa panaginip ko kagabi na may tinutuklas daw ako kasi gusto ko daw mabago sitwasyon ko doon sa panaginip, tapos ang lungkot-lungkot ng pakiramdam…”, salaysay ng mister. “Bakit hon ano daw yung sitwasyon mo?”, “Hindi daw maayos eh, magulo.”, “Eh ano naman daw yung tinutuklas mo?”. Bago makasagot ang mister ay hui na ang lahat, hindi na niya nagawang makakabig pakaliwa at tuluyan silang bumangga sa trak na nasa harapan nila, hindi kumagat ang preno. Napasigaw na lang ang misis, “HOOOOOOOON!!!”

*Panaginip

Saktong 3:30 ng hapon, uwian na. Agad na nagsitayuan ang mga estudyante nang marinig ang “Class dismiss” sa kanilang maestra. “Ano Ter sama ka ba?”, “Kayo na lang tol, next time na lang ako…”, matamlay na sagot nito. “Sige tol, ‘kaw bahala… Oy, tara na! Intay!”.

Hapong-hapo na naglakad pauwi magisa ang trese anyos na si Dexter. Mabigat na may halong lumbay ang kanyang pakiramdam na hindi naman niya maintindihan kung bakit. Tahimik siyang naglalakad, nakayuko, deretso, walang lingon-lingon hangang sa makabanga ang isang mama. “Sori po.”, malumay niyang pasintabi habang nakayuko pa din at tutuloy sa paglakad nang bigla siyang hinawakan ng mama sa balikat. Nagkatinginan sila, bahagyang nagulat si Dexter na parang kinikilala ang mama. Ngumiti ang mama at nagsabi, “Mangarap ka, habang maaga pa isipin mo na kung ano ang gusto mo.”, saka ito umalis. Sandaling natulala si Dexter, nawirduhan, “Pamilyar sakin ang mga matang iyon, saan ko ba siya nakita?!”.

“Sabi ko na e! Hindi ako maaaring magkamali! Siya nga ‘yung mamang lagi kong napapanaginipan na umiiyak!", bulong niya sa sarili. "Mama hintay!”, hinabol ni Dexter ang mama subalit bigla naman itong nawala nang di niya naapuhap kung saan ito dumaan o nagpunta.

*Ang Nakaraan…

“Out of Body, Try Number 23. This time magagawa ko na ‘to, hindi pwedeng hindi! Focus. Focus. Focus… ”, bubulong-bulong na kinukumbinsi ng lalaki ang sarili habang inaayos ang manipis na kutson sa sahig. Matapos nun, pinatay niya ang ilaw at sinindihan isa-isa ang siyam na kandila at ilang pirasong insenso. Bahagyang nagliwanag sa silid at unti-unting nangamoy bulaklak ang paligid.

Isang malamyos, banayad, at atmospheric na musika ang tumugtog nang magsalang ng plaka sa kanyang 2^nd hand vinyl record player ang lalaki. Lumagok siya sa isang basong tubig, humiga at saka pumikit. Pinapakiramdaman ang paghinga na para bang may ritmo itong sinusundan hanggang sa siya ay makaramdam ng kakaibang vibration mula sa kanyang balakang.

6.     

6.          6. Sa isang tahimik na lugar humiga, ituon ang atensyon sa pag inhale-exhale.

7.       7. I-visualize mabuti ang taon at kung saan.

8.       8. Concentrate, ‘wag matakot.

Sa makailang beses na niyang sinusubukan ito, ay gamay na niya ang mga dapat gawin sa 17 out of body guidelines na kanyang sinulat at idinikit sa pader upang hindi niya ito malimutan.

6EQUJ5 [Aleatoric Noise|Ambient Drone|Live Sampling] ~ Gen Thalz

Warning: Some sound/s in this audio-video presentation may not be suitable or good for your ears. Listener discretion is advised.

Track: 6EQUJ5
Genre: Electronic
Style: aleatoric, noise, drone
Video Style: dark, glitch, psychedelic

Part 2 of our exploration combining tape loop, skipping cd, and loopception which results to a more atmospheric and sound textural way. The setup is just the same with the first one, we just reassemble the wires and didn't use the DIY Ring Modulator.

Most of the sound here is from skipping cd recorded randomly to a tape loop (23cm long) on a walkman tape recorder then resampled it with a sampler/looper to make it more interesting, atleast for us.

While the feedback from a loopcetion is droning effortlessly, we also resampled some sound it produced and mix it together with the others to make some sound layering.

The voice who looks angry talking in the background is an unknown evangelist preaching about God, obviously that we encounter after a several AM station tuning on a mini-cassette radio, we just need a steady spoken words here to jam with, and he did not disappoint us haha! It is also interesting to note how by chance his radio program ended in-sync with our recording ending.

All sounds is recorded using an analog 4 track tape recorder.

Mixdown using DAW.

Hardware:

- Discman

- Walkman with Tape Recorder

- Mini-Cassette Radio

- Sampler/Looper

- DIY Passive 3x3 Matrix Mixer

- 6 Channel Analog Mixer

The video is a footage of the equipment we used shot using a digicam. We processed those clips to synthesized it and to match the textural sound of the audio. As usual for us, it is very organic how it came out.

"The Cosmic Giggle is... A randomly roving zone of synchronicity and statistical anomaly. Should you be caught up in it. It will turn reality on its head. It is objective and subjective. Simultaneously 'really there' and yet somehow sustained by imagination and expectation..." ~ Terence Mckenna [shaman/ethnobotanist/psychonaut]

Prepared Bass Guitar + DIY Ebow & DIY Video Mixer

Bass Solo Mutilation|Sound Doodle|Tabletop ~ Gen Thalz

Warning: this audio-video presentation may cause irritation, distress, or even nausea to others. Viewer discretion is advised.

We do love bass. And this is a sound exploration/exploitation with our beloved bass guitar, the first music instrument that we ever touch. Though we didn't master any known scales and bass techniques, we deeply hope that in this performance we slapped, hits, tapped, and slides too many-many-many notes as possible, overload it with chord progressions and finally harness different sounds unknown or taboo in bass playing.

All sounds was done and imporvised through/from our old rusty, mistune, loosen strings bass guitar running through a several effects and DIY ebow.  Prepared with mostly found objects as follows...

- 1 fancy chopstick
- 1 nail polish bottle
- 1 nail cutter
- 1 tape measure
- 1 stainless cup
- 1 tweezer
- 2 wrench (small and medium size)

Influenced and inspired by John Cage and Hauschka prepared piano, Keith Rowe prepared guitar, and Machinefabriek drum solo.

Video is the actual footage of us doing the improvisation/sound doodling mix with feeds from a videoke mic. Synthesized and mixup using a DIY analog video mixer project of us. This video mixer is based on Karl Klomp's "Dirty Video Mixer", we circuit bent it by adding one more pot to make it more tweakable or should we say, we just love turning more knobs and connceting wires. ;)

"Boredom as the catalyst of creativity and inventions." ~ Mark Applebaum [music composer|theorist|professor]

Noise Music|Feedback Loop|Sound Sculpture

Strange Noise in the Sky ~ Gen Thalz

*All parts of this audio-video experiment was created out of feedback signals recorded live.

-The sound is a sculpted feedback signals coming from all the hardware stated below looping and controlling each other, the mixer and the effects pedal is solely the one acting as oscillator or sound/tone generator. There is no external sound sources, all is coming from within the hardware natural hiss, hum, buzz etc. noises.  And by patching cables
and arranging every equipment in different ways, the possibilities are endless, almost like a semi-modular synthesizer.
We try to be gentle with outmost care as possible twiddling and manipulating the knob because just a slight of a turn can
change the form, tone, timbre, volume and pitch of the frequencies.

Hardware:

1.Analog Mixer
2.Mini Synth Delay Effects
3.Chorus Stompbox
4.Vibrato Stompbox
5.DIY Feedback Looper


-The visuals is also a feedback signals coming from a camera staring at its-self or by its own monitor creating loop
and a slight delay on its output. The results is very generative and may vary using different types of camera and t.v.,
the equipment we used is stated below. By pointing the camera at different angles and zooming it in or out, it can creates
a vast variety of organic-geometrical-fractal shapes, designs, and patterns as if one is on a wonderland trance-like altered-state visions. We put together here some of the videoclips that we created.

Equipment:

1.SLR Camera
2.CRT TV
3.LCD TV


"Sometimes it was enough to barely touch one of the recording or playback potentiometers to develop a sound. It was in this way, i think, that i discovered the pleasure of a work made with the tips of the toes or rather the fingers, and above all in looking for a certain kind of sound." ~ Eliane Radigue [electronic music composer]

i18n [organic/sound texture/breakbeat]

*please use headphones

This is just another sound design/music concrete experiment that leads into a beat oriented atmospheric way.

Most of the processed found sound here is a sound of birds chirping and rooster cocking nearby that we accidentally captured while recording a sample intended only to pickup the gentle ambient sounds of the morning on a rooftop drinking coffee and turn it into something harsh, dirty, and gritty.

The visual is an actual steady footage of the recordings on the rooftop that undergo through a over-acting processing until the video turns into white, we really want it to be minimal. The grainy, sand, dusty figure that coming to and fro throughout the video is actually our shadow - as we move around the place or pressing the "record" button. As someone see or notice this is really not meant to be sync with the audio.

And the verse at the near end of the video is from our poem/song title "Through the Broken Glass".

"The silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun. ... It doesn't really mean anything. I just liked the sound of it" ~ Morton Subotnick [electronic music composer]



　 

Maxwell's Demon [Lowercase Music/Field Recording/Drone]

*Please use headphones

This is our attempt to explore the extreme ambient minimalism of Lowercase (music/sound). Lowercase music is a very quiet usually unheard sounds amplify to the extreme level, popularized by Steve Roden (sound/visual artist) where he records the sound of himself handling paper in different ways.

The sample sound we used here is a recording of generative sounds we capture inside one of the car of MRT we ride from Santolan to Cubao station , at exactly 1 O'clock pm. Although these sounds is not literally "lowercase" or unheard but due to the fact that people who rides MRT either listening to mp3s, playing games, reading text/ebook, voice/video call, or simply talking, the noises we collected were ignored - in a broader sense they were unheard consciously.

We processed those sounds to create - that for us a hellish soundscape reflecting the daily basis suffering of MRT commuters. The result is very organic, and the agony of pain on this track is the chattering of people inside the train heavily slowdown.

*For the visuals, basically it was a simple program we coded using Notepad, then exaggerate the code several times, processed the different results, and arrange it manually according to the sounds in a hope to sync them.

As they all says, "this sounds or music does not need a passive ears, but rather requires an active ears...".

Codon (microsound/granular synthesis) ~ Gen Thalz

*Please use headphones

“Beneath the level of the note lies the realm of sound particles. Each particle is a pinpoint of sound.” ~ Curtis Roads (electroacoustic composer/computer programmer)
 

The idea is to apply the method of granular synthesis but we didn’t use any granulator or software synthesis available today. What we do is like a sonic pointillism, we grab a small pieces of sounds (about 3 to 30 milliseconds) out of our chosen sample sounds then clone or combine those sound particles repeatedly to achieve a desire sounds by doing some time and pitch shifting.

Then just like music concrete, we arrange those sounds rhythmically and randomly, time/pitch shift several of it again, and apply some delay and reverb into some of it.

The process is very tedious but overwhelmingly satisfying if you’re into sound designs.

Ingredients:

-          Sound Particles

1.Short porn video clip converted to mp3

2.Recorded sound under the bed at exactly 3am

3.Toy keyboard circuitbent sound

For the visuals, we cut a small part (about 27x15 in dimensions) out of our “Bits and Glitches 3” illustration then tweak it, rotate, rescale, and animate it. The result is very organic and mystic.

The Invisible Web

 

Live Analog Electronic Set

 

Demo

 

*Recorded using a Sony Digicam

Between Zero and One (analogue session)

New Track (demo)

Live Electronic Set

an improvisation that turns into something...

Metadata (bytebeat, post digital, 8 bit/chiptune)

Music, Codes, and Video by Gen Thalz

Further down the hole of glitch, sound art, and minimal electronic music.

a sound/music from binary world.

Audio-Visual is purely made from esoteric programming language, random coding, and algorithm.

*No traditional music instruments, notes, scales, special effects, cut and paste, sound generator, circuit bending, editing, animation, paint etc. were used in the making of this music video.

Fact: We really don't know what we're doing here or how does it works, what we created here is just a result of observation, trial and error, and basic knowledge of the commands/arithmetics/characters for the program to function.

The code we used is one liner only.

axr9 M d9r10+&9*d3r&x60^9~~%3r|6 

Everything is Sound (bmp version)

          *bmp's realization of our experimental sound art (same title, see the video to hear it)

Everything is Sound (digital radiophonic, glitch, databending)

Music, video, and lyrics by Gen Thalz

THE ALCHEMY OF SOUNDS:

I think sometimes the role of a person who makes music is to take these everyday noises that are ugly and make them beautiful, and by this they doing magic ~ Bjork (singer-songwriter)

*No well-known musical instruments were used in the making of this music or sounds. No notes, notation, complex scale, or any simple chords. All sounds were made of random noises we collected, recorded and mutated, except for the human voice.

Ingredients:

1. Personal sound of morning piss on a Pik-Nik (original) can.
2. Wine Glass harping.
3. Crumpled newspaper.
4. Rubber band, plucked.
5. Stapler, pressed several times.
6. Comb scraping with hairpin.
7. Shake water jug.

We call the technique used in this music or sound as “Digital Radiophonic” or “Databending”. It is a digital version of the original techniques such as Radiophonic and Music Concrete were composers use magnetic tape, morphophone and other recording devices available at that time to record and manipulate raw sounds from anything they could find on their surroundings or "found sound" like frying pan, spoon and fork etc. They manipulate these recorded sounds by changing its speed or tempo, altering the pitch, distort it, reversed, apply effects like echo, delay, flanger and so on to create new weird, strange, out of this world sound.

One of the key figure in radiophonic is Delia Derbyshire (musician, composer of electronic music, and music concrete), they call her “The Sculptress of Sound. Best known for her electronic realization of Doctor Who theme music (BBC science fiction television, 1960's).

The only difference between Digital Radiophonic and the original Radiophonic itself is the device use. Here we only used computer, music editor software, and a ordinary microphone use for chatting but the process is much like the original radiophonic, only we manipulate sounds as wave form on the music editor software and we want to be minimal in a sense, and to be sound more like glitch music similar to the works of Alva Noto, Ryoji Ikeda, Pan Sonic, and Kabutogani. 

However glitch music is primarily made of computer or any machine sound errors. So what we basically do here is creating a glitch sound using radiophonic/music concrete technique and databend digitally.

It’s not complex or technical and not so simple as well, but more detailed (fussy) and time consuming, so you would put a lot of effort just to create a 1 minute or 3 minutes music piece out of the abstract sounds you may find wherever they came from.

Digitally it’s not that easy, what more for the original radiophonic and music concrete were they cut and paste magnetic tape manually to produce unconventional sounds? But it’s really worth the journey, especially if you’re into experimental music or sound art.

Music concrete, radiophonic, glitch music, and digital radiophonic is a new look or another way of composing presented by means of non-traditional way of making music. Collecting any form of noises or sounds then turning it - the abstract, errors, and chaos of sounds into order. As Pierre Henry (pioneer of the musique concrète genre of electronic music.) states:

“Musique concrète, in my opinion … led to a manner of composing, indeed, a new mental framework of composing".