Disquiet Junto Project 0523: Chill Communication

[disquiet]

This project marks the 10th anniversary of the Disquiet Junto weekly series. You can read a bit more about the history of the Junto in a post I wrote yesterday at Disquiet.com.

Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, January 10, 2022, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, January 6, 2022.

These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):

Disquiet Junto Project 0523: Chill Communication
The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it.

Welcome to a new year of Disquiet Junto communal music projects – in fact, to the 10th anniversary of the Disquiet Junto. This week’s project is as follows. It’s the same project we’ve begun each year with since the very first Junto project, way back in January 2012. The project is, per tradition, just this one step:

Step 1: Please record the sound of an ice cube rattling in a glass, and make something of it.

Background: Longtime participants in, and observers of, the Disquiet Junto series will recognize this single-sentence assignment — “Please record the sound of an ice cube rattling in a glass, and make something of it” — as the very first Disquiet Junto project, the same one that launched the series back on the first Thursday of January 2012. Revisiting it at the start of each year since has provided a fitting way to begin the new year. By now, it qualifies as a tradition. A weekly project series can come to overemphasize novelty, and it’s helpful to revisit old projects as much as it is to engage with new ones. Also, by its very nature, the Disquiet Junto suggests itself as a fast pace: a four-day production window, a regular if not weekly habit. It can be beneficial to step back and see things from a longer perspective.

Eight Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0523” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your tracks.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0523” (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 tracks. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your tracks.

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

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0523-chill-communication/

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.

Step 8: Also join in the discussion on the Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to marc@disquiet.com for Slack inclusion.

Note: Please post one track for this weekly Junto project. If you choose to post more than one, and do so on SoundCloud, please let me know which you’d like added to the playlist. Thanks.

Additional Details:

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, January 10, 2022, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, January 6, 2022.

Length: The length of your finished track is up to you. It should likely end before the ice melts.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0523” in the title of the tracks, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

Upload: When participating in this project, 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: It is always best to set 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 523rd weekly Disquiet Junto project – Chill Communication (The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it) – at: https://disquiet.com/0523/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0523-chill-communication/

[disquiet]

The project is now live. (And my attempts at automation worked, so it’s been live since shortly after midnight at disquiet.com/0523 and twitter.com/disquiet. I just sent out the email, because Tinyletter doesn’t allow for scheduling publication in advance.)

[DeDe]

Great to get the email when the Thursday sun is still high! I use to get it Friday when I wake up)

Happy 10th anniversary !!!

And wish everybody a great 2022.

Cheers
DD

[rajaTheResidentAlien]

Happy 10 Years Of Uplifting Creativity And Amazing Collaboration!
Wishing Everyone 100s more

[markrushton]

I’ve done every “ice” Junto project, so I have a lot of samples and processed samples to work with.

This year, I loaded a bunch of old files in the iOS app Samplr and smoothed them out with in-app processing that was sent to my sonic Zambonis, an Empress Echoplex chained to an Empress Reverb.

[PopGoblin]

This is my second “chill” project. A great challenge, and a nice way to practice listening.

Here, I’ve recorded 3 icecubes tumbling down in a drinking glass - and then spent a couple of hours mangling, stretching, reverbing, reversing, delaying, eq’ing, deleting, restarting, re-recording, giving-up’ing, and then still posting…

The main star of this sound landscape is, of course, the Michael Norris time-stretch AU’s.

I’m looking forward to yet another year of inspiration, collaborations, and all of the impressive creativity found here on lines…

[Paul_Reiners]

I used the following tracks in order of entrance:

1. ice rattling in glass
2. ice rattling in glass → Drum to Bass Synth Corpus
3. Theremin Whistle MIDI instrument

I shortened my ice rattling recording to a 1 measure loop. I tried to make it sound like a percussion loop as best I could. Then I wrote a melody on top of that.

[Glitcher]

So here’s my second entry for this traditional Junto challenge. 10 years though. Wow! That’s an amazing achievement!

I found my samples of ice in a glass from last year’s Junto. These were loaded into ‘Forester 2022’. A patch for Max msp from Leafcutter John. The sample was then manipulated via mouse input and recorded. This recording was then loaded into Bespoke synth and processed further with Tantra 2 vst. These recordings were then transferred to DAW and united with some drum sounds from last year.
Hope all are well

[samarobryn]

We’ve had a very hot summer so far - made me think about things melting. Which then led to think how it might sound like being in the middle of a giant sheet of ice as it cleaves away into the sea. I decided to recycle a sample I did in 2020 of melting ice in a glass for this one.

Also, happy 10th anniversary Junto!

[DeDe]

My second time doing the ice cubes junto.
Never been happy with the first one, hope this one grows on me.
I used:
-the previous junto0262 plastic ice cubes recording
-some new real ice cubes on wine glasses with pitch shifted delay
-crystal bowls hit with soft mallets (from Soniccouture’s Glassworks
-an Albion Steamband brass pad
-original wav samples by Chris Watson from a bank called “Water & Ice”, samples evocatively called “Under The Ice, “Glass Low” and Ice Shards”

Created at home on the rainy cold morning of Friday January 7th 2022.
Photo by Susan Wilkinson

this has happened before and will happen again / Ecclesiastes 1:9

[Sternklang]

Hello from Norway, I am totally new in this community, so hope I don’t come bursting in. I stumbled over this project last night, and was thrilled by the concept. I set to the task, only to find that I had no Ice in my freezer, so I had to go outside and find some.

I made up all of the beats and most of the tonal stuff from recording Ice in a cocktail glass+ Wine glass treated in all kinds ways in Ableton. I used Ciemno from Felt to add some more stable bass tonality to the tune. Being that I live in Wintercold Norway, I also cheated by recording my footsteps in snow, -8C degrees, looking for some suitable ice to use. The Bassdrum is from setting the glass beck on a wood table. So I guess that’s cheating a bit too. I spent most of this Friday putting things together, just going where the sounds led me. Sounds like 90´s IDM and not that ambient, BUT it was great fun… Might have a second go and see if I can make it more abstract as was my original intention.

Kind regards
Rune Broendbo

https://soundcloud.com/sternklang/all-that-is-soliddisquiet0523

[AlvaroDeCampos]

Happy anniversary, @disquiet, and all of you. This is my first time as part of the ice-in-glass tradition. It’s a pleasure and an honour.

I made several close mic’ed recordings of ice cubes in glasses: with or without liquid, different kinds of glasses, etc. I quite liked the ones where I swirled around the cubes with liquid in a large wine glass, because it gave this nice pitch wobble in the resonant frequency of the glass.
So that recording became the basis of a sketch. I processed it in several ways inside Ableton, using mostly granular samplers, granular delays, and bandpass filters. On top I improvised some melodic/harmonic stuff using MPE synth patches I made. Lately I’ve enjoyed making synth sounds that have a rather ‘organic’ feel (for lack of a better word), sounding almost like acoustic instruments. The expressive capabilities of MPE, and the use of non 12-TET tunings, open up a world of possibilities in that area.

[wasabicube]

All sounds come from a recording of an ice cube being dropped into a pint glass. The recording is then used in multiple instances of the TAL Sampler. Sometimes shortened, stretched, re-pitched or bit-reduced.

[ray_cobley]

[alanholding]

Hello. Here’s my contribution. Congratulations!

I froze some water in a little glass last night in the freezer, waited for it to thaw a little this morning and then recorded me twirling it around and knocking it around and so on into my iPhone. Then loaded the recording into Bitwig and used its Drum Machine and Sampler to edit, change and sequence the sounds to what’s here. Some reverb from Valhalla DSP VintageVerb and compression from u-he Presswerk.

Kind of ended up with a sort of weird ice cube (!) trip hop thing.

[lazenbeeindustries]

I recorded an ice cube, then messed with it in Audacity, time-stretched it, changed the pitch, collaged it, then put it through FL Studio with loops.

[sam41]

Hi – this is only the second time I’ve done one of these, I think also the second time I’ve posted here. Had lots of fun with this, but might have gone a bit off brief.

I started by recording ice in a glass, as did most of you. Neither my ice nor my glasses seemed to be the interesting-sounding kind though, so I got a bit creative. Most of the sounds involve a coffee flask full of ice and water, which is either being swirled around, tapped, bowed, or some combination of those at the same time. Tried a metal bowl too but I’m not sure any of that made the cut.

I chopped up the recordings, processed the good bits in Ableton, and threw them into Kontakt. The pitched sounds were mostly from that process, though there are a couple of layers I made previously, particularly in the bass – everything was a little too wobbly and it needed the reinforcement.

[undermulden]

@disquiet Marc! Congrats on the 10th anniversary! Well done and what a project. I’ve been so happy to be part of the junto. To everyone else; it’s always a pleasure to listen and be in the company of so many talented and creative peers

I recorded the ice cube in a glass. First grasping the top of the glass, focusing on the cube rattle. Then I held the base of the glass to focus on the ringing. I was using a tumbler/wine glass something. I made sure to capture different tempi, single rattles and continous. The sound gradually changed as the cube melted.

I cut out five samples from the recording. I selected them based on before mentioned foci and tempi.
I then mangled the samples using delay, freqshifting, distortion, granular, looping and rerecorded the process using Forrester2022.
I randomly sequenced the new samples in Pigments and created an ever evolving patch, trying to create further chaos and some rhythm.
I then accompanied the patch with a non-icecubed pad (pigments), some UVI drums, and a delayed lo-fi piano. It all might sound a bit wonky as I tried not to quantise stuff. Due to the main patch being all over the place

[Spanneut]

Happy new year to everybody and Congratulations to Marc !

I started with 3 ice cubes in a whisky glass. The sound was processed 3 times on separate added tracks within a Syntrx and Collider effect.

[pidgin]

This is my first Junto entry, excited with how it came out!

I put this together using my Digitakt and Microfreak - I think I ended up using 7 of the 8 tracks on the Digitakt. I didn’t have much of a game plan going into it, just grabbed some samples with my Zoom and went to town.

Digitakt Tracks

1. The first sound heard in this song. A reversed and pitched down snippet of ice hitting the side of a glass. I really loved the bell-like quality that these sounds take on when pitched down, and built the rest of the piece around this particular sample. The thrumming that comes in is just a resonant filter on the Digitakt.

2. A sample of ice cracking as I get it out of my ice cube tray.

3. Another sample of the same, pitched down very far.

4. A slow lead sound, which was just a granular sample of the ice being run through the blender.

5. Very pitched down sample of the ice falling into a cup (this is bell sound repeating throughout)

6. The same sample, but pitched up an octave.

7. A bass sound derived from an electromagnetic recording of the blender’s motor.

Recorded live through Overbridge, just brought the volume up a bit and that’s pretty much it.

EDIT: Here is my Microfreak patch, if anyone is interested. Feel free to use however you like.

board.mfpz