#8

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!

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#9

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)

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#10

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.

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#11

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!

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#12

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!

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#13

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#14

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 :open_mouth:

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

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#15

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 :joy:

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#16

Hey All, I recently joined the 21st century and switched from a flip to a smartphone, mainly for the damn texting everyone does but also to take pictures and video of my crime scenes. So I went with calling that phone from a wireless landline and going through my Zoom G3 stompbox,interface and walking out of the house a ways. Some decay but mostly it was the stompbox but then I went in and added a boatload of ableton fx’s that I never use to amp up the decay. I think this is a great assignment for learning to mangle audio in a specific way. I think it sounds like what a bluetooth decay would actually sound like.

Peace, Hugh

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#17

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

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#18

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.

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#19

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

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#20

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

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#21

The playlist is now rolling:

#22

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!

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#23

Song created on iOS using Addictive Synth and Enso loopers. I played the song from my phone over a bluetooth speaker in the back of the house and then walked until I could hear it breaking up. Recorded on a DR-40 field recorder in the backyard for more ambience (and wind apparently).

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#24

Took a field recording of some birds and a small synth piece. Looked up some glitch routines with bluetooth and found the water bucket trick.

I had a phone I could lose (older one) so put the recording into the phone, ziplock bagged it, and got one or two good intermittent glitches out of the recording (fun to find!) looped them and then put together into this small piece. If you’ve been following these as a story, this track is the morning following the evening’s activity of the last five or six Junto prompts.

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#25

Thanks for posting this - The Conversation is the coolest film on recording gear ever made. What a great interview.

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#26

Blue tooth speaker restricted by:

  • metal box
  • hand
  • distance

Synth: Ripplemaker

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#27

Awesome video!! Love when you put it in the can! That’s truly playful and cool, man.

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