That’s beautiful art all by itself.

For those who enjoyed last weeks Junto, here are the full live sets of the performances that we used in the challenge…

4 Likes

https://soundcloud.com/user-207632080/disquiet0339-rude-mechanical

I took this somewhat literally as rude mechanics, which led me to Tom and Ray Magliozzi from Car Talk. I thought it might be very rude of them to interrupt an otherwise peaceful song, along with some industrial machine noise. The interrupted song angle didnt work as well as i had hoped, so this is what i ended up with. I hope you enjoy it… and thanks for listening.

6 Likes

The playlist is now live:

https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0339

2 Likes

https://soundcloud.com/jamesbritt/james-britt-mood-rechanical-disquiet0339

Mood: Rechanical

My plan was to create something rhythmic, with a decent mechanical feel, and somehow disrupt it. To that end I used a mixture of off-kiltered measures.

Specifically, I made this in Renoise and started with 32-line patterns, which gave 8 beats per pattern. But few of the patterns stayed at 32 lines. Most of them were changed to smaller values (20, 27, etc.), giving abrupt (i.e. rude) transitions.

I constructed some clanky percussion from filter sounds of prepared guitar and recorded a series of bass riffs against that. From those riffs I extracted whatever seemed catchy but machine-like. I then sampled that original percussion and used different looped sections during the song, to further push the mechanical feel, At different times the loops are placed out-of-beat.

There’s also some guitar sample from some other 118bpm project, and some sounds made in Renoise using the Dexed VST.

4 Likes

Thanks for watching. I worried it was too cheeky and might make someone blush.

For some reason I did this…

https://soundcloud.com/tuonela-1/rude-danube-disquiet0339

Rude Danube [disquiet0339]

Stretching the idea of “rude” to include what we are doing to our home planet, this is a version of the Blue Danube, taken from a crackly LP recording of an old Swiss music box (mechanical music) in the famous Bornand Collection, which has had various rude things done to it (using effects and vst plugins in Audacity) to paint a sonic image of what is now the most polluted waterway in Europe.

7 Likes

https://soundcloud.com/janglesoul/janglesoul-disquiet0339

Hi there!
Rude mechanicals sort of implies someone lousy at their craft, so I find it fitting for my entry.

I started out searching for rude sounds. My bicycle-brake makes a really screachy sound that shatters the peace anywhere. I sampled that with my iphone, transferred it to the Op-1 (that I just got!). The opening low bass sound in my track is the bike-brake pitched down.

Today while visiting some relatives I found a boxing bag hanging. It made a really annoying sound when you swung it in motion. So I sampled that as well as me hitting the bag - to get some percussive elements.

The intention was to put it all together in OP1, but I didn’t manage. So I recorded some OP-1 clips onto to my SP-404sx sampler. I beefed up the Boxingbag-hit with the Subsonic fx to get more kick. The whole track was put together just through resampling. I had forgotten about the limited polophony so some loops switched off etc.

All done fast, with little love - don’t waste too much time listening!

Thanks/C

4 Likes

norns and the ER-301 are the only sound source . Norns foulplay provides a rhythm track as well as a rhythmic kalimba and a slowed mellotron sample… sometimes. the ER-301 brings in a sample of a factory in action. A copy of the norns output is fed through my eurorack for processing. The processing chain is/was ER-301 -> Rings -> 3 Sisters -> Lofi Junky -> Erbe Verb -> Please Exist 2

Headphones are probably a good idea. The output of Erbe Verb feeds into two w// creating… idk… some sort of stereo craziness :grin:

https://soundcloud.com/namesishard/w-norns-2-disquiet0339

the factory samples are from freesound user klankbeeld.

11 Likes

VCV Rack is my latest obsession. It’s free, it’s open source, it’s versatile – and it’s generally amazing. So most of the piece was made with a semi-generative patch.

“Caudal” is a module from the “Vult” series ([https://modlfo.github.io/VultModules/caudal/]). It’s a “a chaotic source that is based on the model of a multi-segment pendulum” – I thought it fits the mechanical properties part of the assignment.

The two instances of Caudal with 12 outputs do a lot in this patch: They drive the levels of the sound sources (Sampler, Plaits, Fundamental VCO, Bitstream Resonator), modify its effects sections and the effects themselves, the Parameter EQ and some filters - and they even modifies themselves.

To cover the the “rude” aspect, I added waveshapers (plus an instance of Trash 2 afterwards) to get some grit into the piece.

The patch ran for some minutes, afterwards added a vocal sample with Vocoder, Fuzz, and Reverb.

https://soundcloud.com/analoc/caudal-disquiet0339

6 Likes

The 0-Coast and Mother-32 run off a sequence on the SQ-1. The Korg is seemingly rude as a repeater (however randomized), the Make Noise as an introvert, the Moog as an extrovert. The Moog keeps up debates purposefully with the Make Noise patch: speaking over, chopping up, syncopating without a plan, cultivating a cloud of noise, enunciating with some delay, interrupting in and out of some etiquette. Rude mechanicals, friendly machines.

8 Likes

https://soundcloud.com/roooopee/mechaniac-disquiet0339

My framework for this imaginary genre was too create a sound that was textured with mechanical feeling sounds: a clangy hi hat patch, ambient factory sounds run through a sampler can be heard at times. I wanted to avoid too much melody.

In terms of rudeness, I felt that was somewhat taken care of by the atonal nature of the piece, rude on the ears, perhaps. I layered in some dialog over the top for added rudeness. In this case, allusions to rude violence

7 Likes

https://soundcloud.com/ohm-research/kiln-disquiet-0339

Clay: E352, Mangrove
Knead: E355, Ornament & Crime Quadraturia, Dixie II+, R-120
Fire: 3 Sisters, Disting, RT60

4 Likes

https://soundcloud.com/vgmrmojo/mechanically-inclined-disquiet0339
All sounds are from freesound.org and are in the public domain with a CC license of 0

S: Whirligig2.wav by Puniho | License: Attribution
S: Ribbon Machine by Xulie | License: Creative Commons 0
S: 17.wav by DemonicElectronic | License: Creative Commons 0
S: laser cutter.wav by aerror | License: Creative Commons 0
S: Wind-up Crank by RICHERlandTV | License: Creative Commons 0
S: Fridge.wav by dsound1977 | License: Creative Commons 0
S: Lawn Mower PB by petebuchwald | License: Creative Commons 0
S: Drill bits falling 02.wav by dersinnsspace | License: Creative Commons 0

7 Likes

https://soundcloud.com/yobink/sonations-part-3

A cautionary tale wherein nature (portrayed here by the clarinet) occasionally sings out over the din of the rude mechanicals only to ultimately be mechanized itself.

Clarinet, samples and Cocoquantus

6 Likes

https://soundcloud.com/primitive-acoustics-797358345/disquiet0339-rude-mechanicals

This piece includes a background drone created by a single guitar note processed with a Count to Five effects pedal. Additionally I included in separate tracks; typewriter key strikes from my Underwood, sounds from saw blades and bobby pins mounted to my electric Kalimba as well as tape delay swells from an Echo Park delay pedal feeding into an Avalanche Run delay-reverb pedal. The “rudeness” is exhibited by all of the various mechanical sounds falling over themselves shamelessly vying for your attention.

This combination of sounds had me imagining a future-past business office tucked away in the corner of an industrial manufacturing plant. The industrial floor sounds are seeping into and mingling with the clerical routine of a harried office worker scrambling to fill the daily orders.

8 Likes

It was during a midsummer night’s heat wave in 2018 when the Singularity finally happened. The robots celebrated by dancing all night long, aware that the coming days and weeks and months would be challenging for robots and humans alike. Thus was born the genre “rude mechanicals,” the preferred dance music of the robots.

Despite the association with Midsummer Night’s Dream (the rude mechanicals are the (human) laborers who perform the play-within-a-play in Midsummer Night’s Dream), the phrase “rude mechanicals” makes me think of mechanical robots doing things humans might consider impolite. “Be polite around human beings” is not one of Asimov’s laws. Don’t be surprised if you hear some robot farts while listening to this music.

Created in Ableton Live over a period of two days using Live and Z3TA+ patches and effects. I chose sounds that hint at mechanical equipment being played at a dance tempo. Although there are a few scattered chords, there is no melody and the piece is predominantly percussive.

The cover art is an adaptation of a piece of robot art I created a couple of years ago called Being Alive.

6 Likes

I decided to go with “what if rudeboys, but all mechanical”.

https://soundcloud.com/otolythe/robot-rudeboys-disquiet0339

My ideal was to use just mechanical sounds (tugboats, metal fences, gates squeaking) to compose a little rocksteady. Didn’t have time to do the ideal, so settled for same sounds more or less positioned, over a basic rocksteady beat. Some tracks then drenched in reverb… I for one welcome our dancehall overlords.

ps - yeah, that’s one of the old murals from the Western Front (sadly now closed after a very long run…)

5 Likes

This is my first contribution to the Junto so I hope I’ve got things right!

I went for a noisy, probabilistic clanking effort. Quite different to anything I’d normally create so in spite of its very definite weirdness I’m quite pleased with it!

Here it is, full notes in the Soundcloud link.

Great stuff so far from everyone, and what an inspiring idea!

Thanks,

Pete

8 Likes

Made it with 8 hours left…Cheers!

Machine Ugly(disquiet0339)

Not sure this was going to happen, not sure it should have…but here it is. I had a few different thoughts on Rude Mechanicals as a genre, something mechanical but mixed with rude boy reggae taste, something automated and dirty or maybe just a club for unresponsive and narcissistic devices and machines. I went with the latter. I had so many fortuitous samples to record after reading the prompt. Just stepping out to the back yard within minutes, yielded many insistent mechanical sounds. Training semi trucks(!?), woodworking neighbors and the usual assortment of cars and planes. Work place noise is always readily available, motors, fans, server rooms and lab equipment. And so I began collecting samples all around. AudioShare is my preferred iOS recording software, so all the samples started there and were trimmed if needed before being sent to other apps. I had a try with Samplr and liked some sounds but not the overall feel, so the good bits were sent to Cubasis. Two instances of truck training, server rack fans, elevator moans, torch clicks, scanner racking, router and air brakes were all assembled into a working piece. Which I didn’t really like. I left it thinking this week wasn’t happening, but gave another listen at lunch Monday. Wholesale deletes, destruction and rearranging and it started to make sense. The bass of the truck launch stayed, but new patterns were formed around it and unused samples were brought in. Then while making a mixdown something went painfully wrong. The mix bloomed with a loud and unexpected feedback/noise loop that I haven’t been able to recreate, but that DID mix down. It was so good at lower levels that it was brought alongside the regular mix and automated for varying intensity. The effects include Replicant, Duplicat, Discord4, Kosmonaut, RoomVerb and some stereo width adjustments. It still lacked a little something, so a simple Kauldron bass line was added for mood. So many parts I’m sure I missed something, but you get the idea. Hope it works.

Normal WAV - meh


Noisey fun WAV - Holy Feedback Batman!!

6 Likes