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WeeklyBeats.com / Music / fc's music / Like an Actress

Like an Actress

By fc on November 23, 2014 12:14 pm

Phwoahhh…

What a gnarly week this beat has been! First it took me ages to find a voice sample I liked, then I did about three hours patching in Open Music only to break it and have to start again, then I couldn't get MIDI exporting to work, so I had to export as XML, pipe it into Sibelius and then export the MIDI from Sibelius.

Voice slices from Susan Sontag "Side A" on Ubu Sound: http://www.ubu.com/sound/sontag.html

Cut up in Ableton.

Rhythms generated using random processes in Open Music:

Screen Shot 2014-11-23 at 10.33.28 PM by vince-giles, on Flickr

Synthesis is just under 8000 oscillators and is a rendering of a sonification of mass to charge ratios of silver (and some other things) from a mass spectrometry machine at a chemistry lab, where I am a composer-in-residence. It is the first such sonification that I've done, and I can tell you, it wasn't easy!

Screen Shot 2014-11-22 at 12.52.38 PM by vince-giles, on Flickr

Sonogram:

amazing by vince-giles, on Flickr

Weeklybeat user Faux Foe and I did a bit of a collab using the chemistry sonification this week for her Weeklybeat, go check it out!

Audio works licensed by author under:
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November 24, 2014 2:03 am

Jim Wood

Fascinating, and a good use of the periodic table.  Since when do chem labs have a composer-in-residence?

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November 24, 2014 2:05 am

fc

Jim Wood wrote:

Fascinating, and a good use of the periodic table.  Since when do chem labs have a composer-in-residence?


Not the periodic table! This is actual laboratory data from a mass spectrometry machine, that ionises and then measures mass to charge (and absolute and relative intensity of charge) from the gas phase.

Indeed, since when? I'm sincerely hoping my work there leads to future post-doctorate research/work in a similar place.

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November 24, 2014 2:11 am

Jim Wood

vinpous wrote:
Jim Wood wrote:

Fascinating, and a good use of the periodic table.  Since when do chem labs have a composer-in-residence?


Not the periodic table! This is actual laboratory data from a mass spectrometry machine, that ionises and then measures mass to charge (and absolute and relative intensity of charge) from the gas phase.

Even more impressive.

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November 27, 2014 4:02 am

rdomain

Sounds so small for 8000 oscillators!   All sine tones yeah?

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December 2, 2014 10:46 am

Perplex On

i can't help but being fascinated by your approaches. Stunning!

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December 3, 2014 2:33 am

fc

rdomain wrote:

Sounds so small for 8000 oscillators!   All sine tones yeah?


All sine tones indeed!
The interesting thins is (and the reason it sounds so small) is that there are many, many frequencies where there might be six or seven or more oscillators in one hertz range. Say, 240.00, 240.01, 240.08, 240.14, etc. Each with an individual amplitude, which might be 0.01 or 0.00 or 0.99, so there is a huge range of complex waves generated by cancellation in such close proximity.

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December 3, 2014 2:36 am

fc

Perplex On wrote:

i can't help but being fascinated by your approaches. Stunning!


Thanks heaps.

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