Beautiful sense of deepness. Your ‘little blips and blorps’ sound like microbiotic life… Amazing!

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Composite and unexpected, you know the value of silence. Your piece is a wonderful answer to the assignment. Cheers.

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Having never been to this region or the River, I decided to use a water based sound material for an imagined tribute. First, I created a crude tracing of the Rivers outline, then folded and traced again. Where the points crossed over was where an event would create a gradual change in the sound piece. I rotated the tracing and overlaid it on graph paper to create a plot. The length was determined by each square on the grid given as 30 second periods. Ironically, when I looked up the length of the River it was 295km in length (in Britannica). My plots originally indicated 270 seconds so I have made the piece approximately 295 seconds representing a second per km (see below). I used a Hydrophone recording from around 2016 (Chicago) and manipulated this using granular synthesis. By using the plots I manipulated the density of the grain in real-time as a loose guide. Overall this gives a broadband range sound which is added to a synth patch that was also manipulated in a similar fashion based on the graph plot. The two were then composited to give a what I hope is a feeling of travel underwater.

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This track was made using a combination of visual synthesis and process composition.

I took the map of Bern and cut-away everything but the river itself. Then I used dRAW optical synthesiser, by @riccardomarogna, to create an instrument that ‘plays’ the sound of the river’s course. The sound evolves as the synthesiser LFO scans along sections of the river to use as its sound source.

The melody of the track is procedural with A (for Aare) as zero. Each subsequent note is calculated using numbers from the coordinates of the river’s source (Unteraar Glacier) and mouth (below Koblenz) as intervals. Therefore we have two distinct melodies, one for the source, and one for the mouth. I used probability features within Ableton to create constant movement between ‘source’ and ‘mouth’ melodies, like the flow of the water.

The rhythm of the track is similarity procedural, with the spacing of the kick / bass drum calculated from 0:00 using intervals from source and mouth coordinates to calculate beats from origin. The rhythm also uses randomised automation to flow between the source and mouth.

The aesthetic is overwhelmingly dark, despite the classic picture of the Aare as a scenic visitor attraction. This just happened, but made me also consider the icy black water at night or the experience of those 20-30 people who will drown in it each year.

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This is my first posting at Disquiet Junto. I started just by examining the maps, letting them speak to me in form and in image. I lived in Europe along a river, so it certainly informed my day-dreaming. I then let the images become movements on the keyboard which was loaded with symphonic ensembles. Then the harp, which I used to play, many years ago became my forward motion. Choral music, also a big part of my past, carries us from past to present. This was as much a journey backwards as forwards. Using maps one and two, and traveling from south to north. The river is represented by the repeated harp and celeste, the spirit of the river by the voices, the etherial quality of the arterial by bells and woodwinds. This was largely an emotive exploration of old and new (jazz chords at the end, map 1 and map 2) connected via the river.

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Imagine eight voices independently pacing up and down the banks of river Aare. Starting at different times and locations, they moderately change auditory attributes due to their whereabouts and encounters with each other. Even though the voices follow the course of the river they respond to the bends differently with each one following their own rules. The piece consists of automated software as well as improvised hardware generated movements.

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Quite late and short (mostly because of missing time), here is my contribution. I put a keyboard map as layer over the picture and used it as the key range. As the flow direction of the river should be South to North, I also started with the keys at the bottom going to top. So pitch goes from low to high and then back to low. Done entirely in Ableton Live with built-in orchestral samples and Pianoteq.

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Disquiet0445
Aare Accolade
• Key: A minor BPM: 100 Time signature: 4/4 DAW: Reaper
• Instruments:
• Plug-ins: Iannix https://www.iannix.org/en/whatisiannix/
• Used Iannix to draw on top of map #3
• Rerouted the midi output from Iannix into Reaper for processing
• Mixed and Mastered

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I did 3 tracks, one per map, with 3 different instruments, that somehow for me alluded to the 3 different time periods represented in the maps (viola for the first, violin for the second, beats in ableton for the third). Then I played them separately in sonic pi, trying to slice them into bits and recorded them into 3 new tracks. I mixed them back in audition and edited the result, modifying volume, pan and effects for variety, and tried to thin it out, since the mix initially sounded awfully crowded. I am not sure I am happy with the results, because I realize now that I would like it even more thin and streamlined, and not so busy, but I tried several things that were new for me and it seems like a good place to start. It was fun!

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I prepared an image to import into Metasynth by tracing over one of the Google maps. I painted the river with yellow (stereo center) and I painted the pinned locations in red (stereo right) or green (stereo left) depending on the pin colors on the map. This was rendered in Metasynth using a vocal multisample in a microtonal scale. Three versions were made: an A version (as is), an R version (flipped left-to-right), and an E version (flipped top-to-bottom).

Over a looping sample of river noise (I believe it’s the Elbe river in Dresden) that is playing an AAS Chromophone drum via WIDI audio2midi, the A section is played twice, then the R section, and finally the E section.

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Hey all, I dig these notation assignments but I lack the discipline and music knowledge to get too invovled but this was the most sexual notation picture yet. I was reminded of the diagrams of the sexual organs. It could be going in or out or in and out. This is a different mix than earlier and a lot more bassy plus more turbulent and relentless.

Also did a remix of some junto tracks with a much more subtle use of the crossfader. Thanks to Homeontheland,Suss Musik and Chalkwalk for making their tracks available.

Hope all are well. Peace, Hugh

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Thanks for your words!

Iannix is a graphical open-source sequencer where you can create sequences using lines and cursors. I used it to trace some of the lines of the map, marked the map with triggers and then looped some of the cursors so that it becomes a self-perpetuating machine.

The cool thing with Iannix is that you can determine both the speeds and the behaviour of the cursors. So you can create variations in the sound from setting different speeds and behaviours :slight_smile:

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Diving in right now, pun intended!

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River Dance Remix: just like the junction of the Aare with the Rhein… Sounds mighty.

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This looks and sounds amazing!! Will you give me permission to save this image and possibly use it for the Musikfestival (in a newsletter or on social media)? If so, how can I attribute you? “Junto member RandomShuffle”? Thanks!

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Ah, just saw your Name on Soundcloud and realized we’d been in touch last year!

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Really dig that remix!

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Are those guitar like sounds in your River dance remix the descending arpeggiated Karplus strong line from my track down pitched? If so I am amazed at how different they sound! I’ll definitely experiment along those lines in future!

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Hey C, Yes they are .I pitched it down 24 unwarped so it is slower as well as lower. Glad you dig it. I really liked your track and the field recording idea behind it. Peace, Hugh

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Yes, surely you can use the photo and the track for your festival! You can attribute me as Marc Eisenschink, track produced under my alias RandomShuffle. Okay?

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