Disquiet Junto Project 0378: Blue(tooth) Haze

[disquiet]

Disquiet Junto Project 0378: Blue(tooth) Haze
The Assignment: Experiment with the sonic qualities of a failing signal.

Step 1: Find some sort of Bluetooth-enabled audio connection that is available to you. It might be headphones or microphone or other devices. The important thing is that audio can be sent to one device from another device by Bluetooth.

Step 2: Experiment with a sound sent via Bluetooth using the connection decided upon in Step 1. Work to find situations in which Bluetooth begins to fail, where the sonic signature of that signal failure becomes apparent. This will likely be due to distance, but you may find other creative approaches to achieve the distortion.

Step 3: Use the situation(s) located in Step 2 as the basis for an original piece of music, stressing an audio signal and then recording the way that signal distorts due to the failure of Bluetooth.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0378” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your track.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0378” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation a project playlist.

Step 3: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.

Step 4: Post your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0378-blue-tooth-haze/

Step 5: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #disquietjunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.

Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Additional Details:

Deadline: This project’s deadline is Monday, April 1, 2019, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted in the afternoon, California time, on Thursday, March 28, 2019.

Length: The length is up to you. Short is good.

Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0378” in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

Upload: When participating in this project, post one finished track with the project tag, and be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.

Download: Consider setting your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).

For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:

More on this 378th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Disquiet Junto Project 0378: Blue(tooth) Haze / The Assignment: Experiment with the sonic qualities of a failing signal — at:

https://disquiet.com/0378/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0378-blue-tooth-haze/

There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

Image associated with this project adapted (cropped, colors changed, text added, cut’n’paste) thanks to a Creative Commons license from a photo credited to Russell Davies:

https://flic.kr/p/2aKR98

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

[disquiet]

The project is now live.

[DeDe]

Damn.
I never used Bluetooth. Ever.
I don’t believe in wireless audio. I believe in cables, copper stuff, solid conductors.
Yes I’m that old school. And paranoid (how can you be sure that the audio being sent is the actual audio being received? Huh?
Gimme a cable.
Bad for me. Miss this junto…

[disquiet]

Yeah, I’m not a big fan of Bluetooth. That’s why we’re exploring its failings.

[DeDe]

Nothing fails like a bad ol’cable !!

Imagine a no-input-mixer made out of Bluetooth connexions…

[howthenightcame]

Mr. Medieval here has never used Bluetooth. Gonna give it a go…

[EPTC]

Gorgeous idea on this one - I’m immediately psyched! I’m going to consider the instructions are for Blutooth (or any other degradable wireless signal) I understand the concept here.

Might have a Blutooth something around the house, too, will go hunting. But I definitely have some wireless RCA transmitter/receivers from Radio Shack that send a signal on the same principle - maybe even less successfully! These ones: https://www.amazon.com/2-4-GHZ-WIRELESS-SIGNAL-SENDER/dp/B000H50P9Y — Might see how well they work sent from home to across the street at a neighbor’s house, or so. Or even farther.

No pun implied - But I’m amped for this one!

[EPTC]

Just realized I also have a cheap Bluetooth speaker somewhere. I’m thinking I can send to the speaker through my computer and mic the output. Will be fun to compose something and then degrade it.

For those above (@howthenightcame, @ZeroMeaning, and @DeDe) if you’re posting right now on a laptop or a phone you should have a Blutooth transmitter right there. Mention if so (phone, tablet, or computer) and I can try to find a good receiver that you might be able to transmit to — very easy if you have another device (e.g. both a phone and a tablet, or a laptop)

[disquiet]

I’d say if you can’t wrangle a Bluetooth device (and I envy and admire you who go without), you might try another sort of signal failure in its place. Junto rules are often stretched and interpreted.

[EPTC]

Thanks much. I think the idea is really awesome, just seeing what can’t be controlled (or what can be creatively made) through unintended signal distortion and drop-off. I’m going to give my best attempt at Blue(tooth) but it might be Wireless GHZ(tooth) haze for me!

[brook]

Same boat - the only bluetooth audio thingy I have - that I know of - is a phone<>car connection. That has never glitched.
I tried to do something like this project with a bluetooth speaker (that I no longer have) in Iceland during a storm - I have no idea whether that’s a legit bluetooth destroyer, but it was basically on or off: either the signal was there and sounded normal (or as normal as bluetooth audio ever sounds), or it just wasn’t there. Couldn’t get it to break up or glitch.
So I’ll just be listening - it will be interesting to see how the bluetooth-enabled here manage to mangle the signal!

[euclidian]

[Hypoid]

Cheers everyone!

Blauglichtu (disquiet0378)

Not many bluetooth devices in my life, so the choice was easy. Set up the bluetooth soundbar in front of a mic and start playing a synth on the iPad while moving further away from said soundbar. Oh wait, instruments don’t play through bluetooth. Okay plan B. Dig through the Audioshare folder for samples, music, noodling and various field recordings. Now find the distance sweet spot for connectivity (other end of the house), and start dancing, walking, blocking and driving everyone insane with noise. Take one eight minute recording into Cubasis, find the interesting bits and make them more unbearable with effects. A little eq on the 1st track, Shimmerfx verb on the 2nd, mild case of Replicant2 on the 3rd, stereo width on the 4th and an undulating send to a Leslie cabinet. A really quick and dirty submission. No, really really dirty. Like if you suffered from a form of audio epilepsy and listened to this, your lawyers would get you everything I own. And my family.
Preemptive apologies to any listeners

Thanks Marc for the quick and fun prompt, just what I needed after a somewhat disastrous day :-/

[Hypoid]

When I saw Marc’s signal loss tweet, the first thing that came to mind was all my bad cables, mics and plugs. Absolute signal degradation nirvana

[disquiet]

I think it sounds like what a bluetooth decay would actually sound like.

This reminds me of how in The Conversation, Walter Murch wasn’t sure what the decay of digital audio recordings sounded like, so he made it up:

I thought, "It’s slightly logical that Harry Caul would have a digital setup of some kind. In fact, the only way he would be able to do what he does—remove an overlay of drums and reveal a voice behind—is by some kind of digital subtraction. Along that line I thought, “If he’s recording and the signal goes off, it would be interesting if, when it went off, the digital algorithm that underlays it is revealed.” Instead of the signal just getting weaker or instead of it getting staticy, it could somehow begin to break down into its digital elements. I found a synthesizer and sent the voices through it. I processed them—the control track—with square waves and various other things to get what was an approximate indication, to me anyway, of a digital signal. The motive was everything that I’ve just been talking about. The means was sending the voice through an Arp synthesizer, a fairly state-of-the-art analog synthesizer for 1973.

That’s from an interview of friend of mine did with him. Full text here:

http://www2.york.psu.edu/~jmj3/murchfq.htm

[howthenightcame]

So, I managed to get things set up pretty easily: laptop playing .wav file >> android phone as speaker >> old iPhone as recorder >> back into Ableton for volume, EQ, etc. Unfortunately, I think that the software I was using (SoundWire) was running over Wi-Fi rather than BlueTooth. Well, just when I wanted my Wi-Fi to misbehave … it was running smoother than ever!! So, I simultaneously played three HD YouTube videos on my laptop, and (I think) that got me the breakdown I wanted. The original track is a guitar improvisation I made last week using @ithkaa’s beautiful “Ultomaton” software. In the above (edited) track, we get a crackle around 10s and then contact is lost around 26s. Apologies in advance for the poor sound quality.

[sevenism]

i got a splashproof argos bluetooth speaker that turned out to be ‘unsuitable for bathroom use’ i ignored that so the bluetooth doesnt work anymore.

it does make a nice high pitched whine and crackled when paired to my phone. i play these unadorned at the start then tried to make something more musical as it progresses

processed only in audacity

[RandomShuffle]

Have the luck to stay these days at „rewire“ in Den Haag(www.rewirefestival.nl/).
Recorded my track in the morning at the hotel, streamed the basic track from my phone to my little bluetooth speakers, than i walked outside the room till the connecting failed, recorded the speakers in the room only with iPad micros.
Than i worked it out in cubasis.
Have fun
Grüße aus Den Haag

[disquiet]

The playlist is now rolling:

[PopGoblin]

Again - great fun! Thank you for these challenges!

“elec trek” is a piece for computer, glitchy beats and bluetooth loudspeaker - moving out of range….

I hooked up a fairly ok bluetooth speaker, and send a small beat + pads from Ableton out through this speaker, and wandered around my studio to find dead-spots, dragging along a microphone equipped phone (SM88).

I tried to combine some of the “best” bad connections with the original material, adding “ethereals” from NI Reaktor and Eventide.

Happy weekend, all!