Disquiet Junto Project 0413: Objective Thankfulness

[disquiet]

Pretty much every week I prepare this assignment email for sending, I close it with the same sentence: Thank you for your generosity with your time and creativity. Each week I do so, I type it out, from memory, wondering what slight variations might creep in as time proceeds. What hasn’t changed is my thanks to everyone who joins in and spends time as part of the Disquiet Junto. It’s an enormous pleasure to interact with so many people around the world in the exploration of creative constraints as a springboard for creativity and productivity.

Anyhow, this week’s project takes thanks as its topic.

Disquiet Junto Project 0413: Objective Thankfulness
The Assignment: Highlight one piece of musical equipment for which you are particularly grateful.

Step 1: Think about all the tools you use to make music, hardware and soft.

Step 2: Focus on one tool for which you have, of late, been particularly thankful.

Step 3: Record a piece of music highlighting that tool’s employment. When doing so, imagine that the creator(s) of the tool might have the opportunity to hear it.

Step 4: When posting the completed track online, be sure to describe what the tool is, and why you chose to highlight it.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0413” (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 “disquiet0413” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation of 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-0413-objective-thankfulness/

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, December 2, 2019, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, November 28, 2019.

Length: The length is up to you.

Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0413” 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 413th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Objective Thankfulness / The Assignment: Highlight one piece of musical equipment for which you are particularly grateful:

https://disquiet.com/0413/

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-0413-objective-thankfulness/

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

The image associated with this track is by julochka, and is used (image cropped, text added) via Flickr thanks to a Creative Commons license:

https://flic.kr/p/jS32DD

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

[disquiet]

And the project is now live. Thanks, everyone.

[TotalEnergy]

Hi everybody. I work exclusively with a Kontrol midi keyboard. A few months ago I purchased the Native Instruments Session Guitarist/Picked Acoustic package, which contains both strumming patterns and melody guitar in a bunch of different styles. I’ve been writing a lot with it. This song was made using one of the standard strum settings. I added piano, organ and drums.

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend!

[euclidian]

vcv rack open source virtual modular synthesizer .
the creator Andrew Belt has made accessible to all this beautiful software, a true example of musical democracy, was born a wave of creativity
A worldwide thank you to Andrew, to all the plugin developers for this gift.

[bassling]

Barcus Berry 4000: Planar Wave System pickup has been a part of my process for remixing playgrounds since 2012.

While recording Spinks Park in Lismore last week, I used a couple of different piezo elements and pre-amps and the Barcus Berry revealed a lot more detail.

Thanks Barcus Berry, I know you pitch this product for pianos and harps but it helps me find music in everyday locations.

[bjarlstedt]

Recently I got a Magneto in a trade and earlier this year I bought an El Capistan, both from Strymon. I’ve never used any of their gear before I got these and I’m hooked. Thank you, Strymon.

This track is basically just a simple little one voice sequence going into Magneto with a friendly feedback from my guitar looped by El Capistan (plus some other stuff from creators that I also love).

Today I read that my hometown here in Sweden have had five hours of sun this month. This is not a joke. Five hours total.
Five years ago we moved to a house and I just found this little tune in the voice recorder app on my phone. This was one of those early summer days when everything was a joy, the kids was happy jumping on their newly assembled trampoline in our garden. I’m thankful to this voice recorder app on my phone, bringing back nice and sunny memories.

[markrushton]

At the end of 2018, I bought an Empress Reverb box. It was $449. I have used it constantly throughout 2019. I can’t imagine ever getting rid of it.

Why the Empress Reverb? There are no menus. I can’t stand menus. This thing, you just turn a knob and then you turn some other knobs. Then listen. It just makes everything more beautiful. Even something like “reverse”, which I have almost never used in a DAW because it’s so obvious and cheesy, transforms the audio spectacularly with the right combination of the various knobs.

“Process Opaque” is a recent creation, released under my alter ego Ambient Matyk. I don’t know what setting this was. I don’t keep notes.

I’ve been kicking around the idea of buying the Empress Echosystem (also $449) and using the two together. I might wait to buy that in mid-2020. No hurry. I’m having too much fun with the Reverb for now.

[Larry_Frazier]

The instrument I chose as thankful for is my Fender acoustic guitar. Not exactly the most expensive guitar I’ve owned, but I get a lot of enjoyment playing it.
The piece is something I’ve been playing for years and never had a title for. Never recorded it before, it has just been something to play. I recorded with a combination of the guitar’s pickup, an SM57 and an Aston Origin — a mic I really like the sound of, even though it slightly picks up a radio station. (and no, it is not the mic cable or interface. Ugh.) Then a little eq on each track, and Ozone 8 on the master bus.

[PopGoblin]

Again, thank you for a great assignment!

This piece is made on my Mac in Ableton Live, and features heavy use of vocal sample libraries (much more prominent than I usually do). I think all by 8dio. They, thankfully, add life and interest (i think) to much of my stuff.
I added some field recordings - again for interest - and also, made sure to add some very computer-like and electronic sounds (uHE and Arturia) as this, off course, are tools I use every time. Finally the iZotope Ozone which saves me so many time…

[howthenightcame]

I don’t know what setting this was. I don’t keep notes.

I was so happy when I read this.

Gorgeous track, too…

[Paul_Reiners]

The one tool for which I have, of late, been particularly thankful is the clean delay audio effect in Ableton Live. I use it quite extensively for dub mixes. On this track, I used the following clean delay effects:

• Snare: Eighth Note
• Piano: Ping
• Guitar: Pong
• Organ: Longest Ping Pong
• Claude McKay: Dotted Eighth Note

[Paul_Reiners]

https://vimeo.com/376272359

I made a little video to accompany my dub mix of Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die”.

[NorthWoods]

some years back, my good friend Greg gave me this vintage Vega lap steel (shown in the picture). What an instrument! It really opened my mind. Just an incredible range of tones, frequencies, sounds in this thing. I’ve used it both live and for recordings. It’s a bit noisy but I think the key is to just keep playing!

[unden]

The Buchla Easel has been my favourite companion ever since I acquired it five or so years ago. Together with the KOMA BD-101 analogue delay they make a perfect team for travel and minimal live performances. The recent addition of the Buchla AUX card introduces beautiful noise, and allows for further modulations. Recorded with plenty of random voltages and live manual knob tweaking.

[rrizzi]

It’s been a while since I last had the time and opportunity to participate in the Junto. Today I woke up at 4.30AM so I had plenty of time…
As my response to this weeks assignment, I chose to use a recent recording I made while visiting the biennale in Venice a few weeks ago - yes, I was there in the week of the floods - no, I didn’t record any of that.
This recording was done at night at the vaporetto stop at Sant’ Elena - the eastern most island of Venice - there was a really nice squeaky sound from the landing dock rubbing against the poles that caught my attention…
I haven’t done any editing - this is the original recording that I made with my trusty Sony PCM D100. A recorder that I’m particularly thankful for.

[RandomShuffle]

Love these little boxes…

Thanks for:
Elektron, 1010music, BeepStreet “Sunrizer” synth

[tristan_louth_robins]

Totally excellent! Loved that video.

[AYO]

Hi everybody!
For this weeks assignment I choose to use Massive from Native Instruments. This is an instrument I have been using for quite some time and it appears in many of my compositions.
This piece is made with only one massive instrument, using all three oscillators with different wavetables, LFO’s, the stepper and the performer, playing around with feedback, filters and the modulation oscillator, adding an insert sine shaper, reverb and delay.

Wish you all a lovely weekend!

[disquiet]

The playlist is now rolling. There’s already a dozen tracks, so I’m already behind in my listening:

[Ethan_Hein]

This project is about gratitude for your favorite tool, and my favorite tool, as always, is the combination of Ableton Live and my iTunes library. I sliced up Max Roach’s drum solo in “Stompin’ at the Savoy”, recorded with Clifford Brown, and used Ableton Follow Actions to play the segments in a random order. I vocoded that through a gnarly sawtooth wave for a more unearthly flavor. I also accompanied Max with two pad presets on the Surge synth: Computers in Space, and Harmonic Sweep.