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

Act I: The Subterranean Chapter

"43684259A+!M"

Synthesist | Electronics

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

The Numbers Stations [industrial techno|noise-glitch|minimal] ~ Gen Thalz

*This is an acousmatic techno track. All sampled sounds is from different mysterious Numbers Stations on radio and internet. Sound collage/concoction into something minimally aggressive-harsh-noisy and glitchy with a feel of lo-fi industrial rustiness and dirtiness.

Bandcamp download: http://genthalz03.bandcamp.com/track/the-numbers-stations

Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/genthalzspace

Credits:
released 24 August 2015

Track: The Numbers Stations
Creator: Gen Thalz
Genre: Electronic
Style: industrial techno, noise, glitch, minimal
Year: 2015
Type: single release

_Special Thanks to:
The Lincolnshire Poacher
The Swedish Rhapsody
UVB-76 (The Buzzer)
Webdriver Torso

Re-sample, mixed, and arrange by Gen Thalz
Produced by Marlon B. Zoleta

*The video clip is from AT&T archives - Telephone Switchboard (Old and New), from the 1920's onward. We just cut and select a few scenes and speed it up a little bit to sync and match the timing of our audio. We immediately like and chose this AT&T video clip for this track because it really (obviously) has the feel and vibes of the sound per se.  We also like the lo-fi look of it and the patching of cables and dialing on those massive machines.

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Gen Thalz ~ catacombs [acousmatic|image to sound}soundscape]

*This is our entry for the Sound Interpretation Dedication to Paris posted on Experimental Music (group). We've never been to Paris that's why we used the medium from where we got some basic info and perceptions about this city, and that is:

- a mini tour guide video on Paris
- two photos of Louvre Pryramid during night and

*We then transformed these video and photos into audio files as our “raw sounds” which is kind a glitchy, harsh and noisy at first. Next, by doing some sonic alchemy and aural sorcery (naks!) ;), we mold these raw sounds into what we feel about this City of Lights - very serene, modern yet classical, seductive and secretive. And like all the cities in the world, we knew Paris also have a dark side, flaws, and haunting memories like the catacombs beneath it. With these mindset, we created this soundscape.

Track: Catacombs
Genre: Electronic
Style: ambient, drone, minimal
Year:2015

*The video is an actual found footage of a man lost in this massive Catacombs of Paris. We manipulate it in some degree just to satisfied our impulsive needs of "What if?".

We hope you enjoy it as we enjoy the process. Thank you... :)

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An Equation [spectrogram/mono channel] ~ Gen Thalz

*Found a simple way to do the Aphex Twin's tricks of embedding an image on spectrogram of an audio. Maybe we're a little too late for this but the process is still fun and interesting, here's our take in mono channel... ;)

Track: An Equation
Genre: Electronic
Style: abstract/noise/minimalism
Year: 2015

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John Cage's 4'33" [cover/remix] ~ Gen Thalz

Live Performance|Electronic Realization

Here's our humble live performance interpretation of John Cage's most important and notorious composition piece he had ever made that literally change our perception of sound, music, noises, silence, and everything in between.

We used a combination of electronic and acoustic instrument here to interpret and remix this great composition as we saw fit. The piece is meant to play in 4 minutes and 33 seconds, hence the title. But as we enjoyed performing and feeling it, we came to what most musicians or bands says when they were so "into" the feel of the music as they were playing or jamming - the "in the zone" or "space out" state, that's why we messed up time, and unintentionally extended it a bit longer. So one can consider this as an extended version.

4'33" is divided into 3 sections/movements, we marked it by flipping the music sheet. All sounds is natural, raw, and incidental. No post-prod, eq, compression, or mastering

You can aslo notice our intense breathing because we are so nervous performing it, afraid of making mistakes and not to deliver it properly. We really hope that we did well.

Setup:

- Tape loop and feedback loop on 4 track Analog tape recorder

- Korg DS-10 digital synthesizer

- Xylophone

- 3 Bond paper as music sheet (if you may)

"There is no such thing as silence. Something is always happening that makes a sound. No one can have an idea once he really starts listening." ~ John Cage [avant-garde artist|chance music pioneer|mushroom collector]

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]

Tape Loop|Skipping CD|Loopception

Aleatoric Music + DIY 3x3 Matrix Mixer & Ring Modulator

Experimenting with tape loop, skipping cd, and loopception (feedback loop within a feedback loop). No synthesizer, drum machine or any acoustic and traditional instrument was used. Recorded straight using an old digicam, eq and volume boost using DAW.

We call it "aleatoric" because of how the nature of the sounds in this experiment was created - by chance.

For example the malfunctioning or skipping sound from the cd player. The discman itself determines when and how it would play those affected area that we burned (you can just scratch or paint it if you like ;D) unless we click "pause" which on the otherhand emits a beeping tones by default that we really like.

The kick drum sound projecting a 4/4 beat. Again, by chance. Purely made out of feedback signal creating a pulsating sound that we harness by accident through random tweaking of the knobs and patching cables to in/out from a loopception consisting of an 6 channel analog mixer, DIY passive 3x3 matrix mixer, and DIY ring modulator.

Lastly, the rest of the sound is from 3 cassette tape loop (23cm long). These 3 cassette tapes have different loop sound - random noises from a radio, i.e. white noise, static, commentators, etc. Done by switching the selector (no timing at all) of the mini-cassette from tape to radio, Am to Fm, and tuning a station simultaneously while in record mode. It is very random what sounds will be recorded to the tape loop. Another thing here is, we played the tape loop on mini-cassette by fading in/out the volume and it decides what part of the loop will be heard. The multitrack tape recorder slowed down its loop via pitch control, while walkman played its tape loop as is.

You can also hear a sampled sound of our voice murmuring "Eight Equals Zero" repeatedly. It was played, sliced, chopped, and resample using a sampler/looper.

Hardware used:

- Mini-Cassette Radio

- Walkman with tape recorder

- Discman

- DIY Passive 3x3 Matrix Mixer

- DIY Ring Modulator

- Sampler/Looper

- 4 Track Tape Recorder

- 6 Channel Analog Mixer

The visual is a combination of datamoshing and video granular synthesis. We say granular because some parts of the video was made from a small very short frame we cut from a videoclip (us walking inside an arcade center) and clone it repeatedly to create a loop almost like a gif. While the datamosh part is done by cutting an equal part of the said videoclip into 2 then mix and render the two again using DAW to create a psychedelic glitch effects.

Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun [Pink Floyd cover]

*please listen with headphones

Our first attempt to do a complete cover song and it's full of pretension, dreams, delusions, and ambition - considering it's from the Floyds'! But hey, we need to get this psychedelic paranoia out of our heads, also this is a personal favorites of us from them and we are deeply moved after hearing the version of this song from the great Mr. Mika Vainio (electronic/noise musician), and our newly found progressive metal band OSI (Office of Strategic Influence). So we dearly hope that we give justice covering this trippy-enigmatic-magical song though the recordings is not on its best quality and vocals is a bad idea haha :)

All sounds was made from analog electronic hardware, except for the "bell" or the sine wave sounds which we done/programmed using a free android app called S.A.M.M.I., there is also some noises that happens during recording and editing which is not intentional but we see it as "happy accident", we like it so we keep it.

- recorded using an old multitrack tape recorder.
- arranged, master, and mixdown using DAW.
- spoken sampled words by Morpheus from The Matrix movie (redpill scene).

And for the visuals, obviously it is composed of several random footage of our gears that we used overlapping each other, combined with a different video feedback loop clip that we shot using an ordinary webcam staring at itself on a pc monitor... No special effects and animation.

Lyrics-

Little by little the night turns around
Counting the leaves which tremble at dawn
Lotuses lean on each other in yearning
Under the eaves the swallow is resting

Set the controls for the heart of the sun.

Over the mountain watching the watcher.
Breaking the darkness, waking the grapevine.
One inch of love is one inch of shadow
Love is the shadow that ripens the wine.

Set the controls for the heart of the sun.
The heart of the sun, the heart of the sun.
The heart of the sun, the heart of the sun.

Morpheus: The matrix is everywhere, its all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. (Neo: What truth?) That you are a slave Neo, like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you can not smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind.

Look/Witness the man who raves at the wall
Making the shape of his questions to Heaven
Whether the sun will fall in the evening
Will he remember the lesson of giving?

Set the controls for the heart of the sun.
Set the controls for the heart of the sun
The heart of the sun, the heart of the sun (several times).

Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes...

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]

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...".

Grid (a digital noise)

*This is our short digital noise improvisation using a generative abstract sound sequencer android app called "KOSM", where what you hear is just a result of chance/chaos and a little experimentation.

- We digitally add ...some delay and reverb effects to give it a bit of flavors.

*The image used is one of our illustrations title "Deus ex Machina" posted last 11.06.2013, we digitally tweak it to make it more abstract parallel to the sounds.

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