Distortion Study 17 September 2020

Here's a piece made with miRack software on the iPad.  miRack is the version of VCV Rack made for the iPad, and it has a number of wonderful modules in it.  In this piece, I'm using three distortion modules, which do very different things.  First is the Audible Instruments Resonator, which is a physical modelling module, designed to place sounds inside various stimulated resonating objects.  Second is an emulator of the old Serge Wavefolder from Lindenberg Research. And finally is a very nice realization of a very versatile Filter from Squinky Labs.  A sample of William Burroughs reading from Junky is played through the patch - first just the Resonator, then the Resonator through the Wavefolder, then the Resonator and the Wavefolder through the Filter.  Accompanying this is a little microtonal melody made by a couple of out of phase counters triggering off steps in the Squonk, which is Antonio Tuzzi's realization of the Serge Touch Keyboard Sequencer.  Later the Squonk also changes pitches on the Resonator, which makes the modified voice sound positively recitative like, to my ears.  Made on the iPad with headphones while lying in bed in the middle of the night.  I probably should be sleeping instead. If you look carefully at all the knobs, you can see how various controls are turned at various times, making the changes in the sounds you hear. 

Now and Xen podcasts - #21 featuring WB!

About a year ago, Stephan Weigel and friends, at the microtonal podcast "Now and Xen" interviewed me for their show.  I just discovered the podcast today on YouTube, and found that the interview with me actually was posted on-line almost a year ago!  I'd been so busy last year, I didn't notice.  Oops!  However, I found it today - they're now up to episode 44, and the cast list of who they've been interviewing is stellar.  I highly recommend the podcast - looks like there's more info up there than you can shake an enharmonic tetrachord at!

https://nowandxen.libsyn.com/

And here's the link to Episode 21, which features the interview with me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsgluVweghw

It's a longish interview (about 75 minutes), but if you want to find out some things about my composing methods and motivations, it's quite good.  You might enjoy it.  I did.

Once upon a midnight dreary.....

I'd never played with Henry Lowengard's wonderful AUMI app all that much, and one late night I felt it was time to learn about it.  It's wonderful.  I quickly set up 2 iPads (iPad 4 and iPad Pro) and my iPhone 6, all controlling electric piano sounds, microtonally tuned, in Thumbjam, then set them on my desk and played.  (The computer in the background is rendering a video for a class, having nothing to do with the project.)  I told Catherine to have a look, and she liked the lighting, and the movement of my hands, and made a 39 second video of my improvising.  We both liked the video so much that she put it on her Facebook page, and I put it on my Youtube site and one my website (www.warrenburt.com).   We both hope you like the video as well.

July Soundbytes and the ACMC2020 Conference

Over the winter "break" (which wasn't really a break, of course), the July issue of Soundbytes came out, and I have three reviews in that, and in early July, the Australasian Computer Music Association held its annual conference in Canberra this year, organized by the wonderful Charles Martin and Ben Swift, among many others.  Due to Covid19, the conference was entirely on line, and this actually worked kind of well.  You can see the entire conference at ACMC2020.com, and I'll give links to my paper and piece down below.

First to Soundbytes.  I reviewed three things.  First up was a wonderful new sound design software from UVI, called Drone.  As the name says, it's oriented towards extended sounds, but it's really incredibly useful and beautifully designed. https://soundbytesmag.net/review-drone-from-uvi/.

Then there's Wiggle, which is a small, modest soft synth from Beijing Second Sense Audio.  Small and modest it might be, but it's incredibly powerful and versatile.  I had a ball using it! https://soundbytesmag.net/review-wiggle-from-beijing-second-sense-audio-technology/

Finally, Eventide continues to release patches from it's repertoire as iPad apps, and this one, called Crystals, goes beyond a simple effects into serious sound modification territory.  https://soundbytesmag.net/music-for-tablets-crystals-from-eventide/.

All three are worthy of your consideration.

NOW, on to ACMC2020.com.  Like I said, it was a lot of fun, some very good pieces and papers.  I did a paper on my new piece "Darshan with a Pelican (Multiplicities)" which you can find here.  My talk begins at 31:09, and goes for about 13 minutes.  And a two channel version of the piece (it's intended for at least 8 channel diffusion, but we'll live with two channels over YouTube for the moment) is here.  It starts at 27:38 and goes for about 21 minutes.

I hope you enjoy the papers and presentations at the online ACMC2020. I found it quite fun to be there remotely, together.

And now, a NEW PIECE, free until September 1st

Just finished my latest piece - an hour-long instrumental-and-choral-samples, microtonal, structured, improvised, algorithmic, piece.  It's called "The Search for Mistletoe Mine," and you can download it from this website until Sept 1 for free.  The mp3 and the program notes are both there.  Hope you enjoy it!  The current isolation seems to be encouraging me and my friends to make longer works.  Here's my contribution to that.

https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/uNcbV2o3Cg

Hope you like it!