Disquiet Junto Project 0602: Choice Words

doodledigital · 2023-07-15T19:12:31.046Z

I’m in the process of migrating from FL Studio to Ableton so have been treating recent Junto challenges as an opportunity to learn more about how to find my way around this particular new set of musical tools. For me, stuff is so much easier to find and implement in Ableton so far, but there’s still a lot to get my head around, it’s a little overwhelming at times for sure.

My word is ‘peripheral’ - the way I set out to explore it was by experimenting with the effect of moving sounds rapidly around the stereo field, thereby decentering them and emphasising the edges of sensory awareness. I wanted to challenge myself to create a sense of odd things happening around the margins. I probably went a bit overboard with LFO modulation and panning, mainly because I am just so overjoyed to have finally discovered how to do this inside a DAW.

Definitely a week that was more focused on technical process than outcome. This was yet another highly inspiring prompt, thank you Marc.

Anatol · 2023-07-15T21:39:47.918Z

I think this track is a failure, maybe not to the assignment, but to my expectations. A random word generator gave me the word „arise“, which I loved. My idea was to get the relaxed mood across of getting up on a lazy Saturday, waking up slowly, getting out of bed and getting started with the day.

The track starts with a dreamy shortwave recording rising in pitch and drenched in reverb, then adds an organ at a slow pace. After a break, things start to get moving, more lines are introduced, finally the drums kick in… but as the track might be something I’d listen to on a Saturday morning, I couldn’t translate the music in my head. It’s just too flat. Still, fun was had

Hugh_Prat · 2023-07-15T23:10:02.248Z

Hey All, I was working on o a track for a beat battle and ending up doing a version of Mungo Jerry’s “In the Summertime”. The theme for the week was California. I thought I needed to add a little more so I made an intro the used the word 'California" as the only lyric. I used the folk song pronunciation of
" Cally Forn Eye A" cause it fit better in the song.

NON_SUBMISSION
Here is the version with the Mungo Jerry song included if anybody wanted to check it out.

SoundCloud - Hear the world’s sounds

Hope all are well. Peace, Hugh

wasabicube · 2023-07-16T10:29:44.455Z

I chose gestalt as my word, the idea of the whole being more than the sum of its parts.

Three Sampleson Meta Pianos playing the same melody, only the first plays the melody over 4 bars, the second plays the same melody but over 3 bars, and the third plays it over 2.5 bars. As the rounds continue, an echo and reverb are brought to bear.

spacelordmother · 2023-07-16T11:11:53.223Z

I have 2 deadlines next week so have been working a lot of extra hours. Resigned myself that I probably wasn’t going to make it this week, but if I did – it would have to be FAST.

This gave me the idea that my word would be “jaunt” – something light and bouncy and upbeat; a break between work sessions. I found a bit of time this warm, rainy morning and got a couple short sequences going along these lines…

I felt tired and not at all looking forward to starting work again soon. I just wanted a bit of peace. Decided to slow everything down, add a field recording of the outside sounds, and plink about a bit on the piano. My word is “respite.”

cjm · 2023-07-16T14:42:26.268Z

I decided on the production process first before choosing my word. I was meditating to some ambient music and had the idea to sing the word, record it and slow it with PaulXStretch which I had been playing around with for another project.

I chose oceanic as my word. I thought 4 syllables would be nice, and after looking through a bunch of words this one stuck with me. I thought it would work quite well with the method I had decided on.

I recorded myself singing ‘oceanic’ over the meditation music for a few minutes. I then rendered 4 selections of slowed and processed audio with PaulXStretch . I layered these in Ableton with just some EQ and volume automation. I think the end result does capture the word!

Jostijn · 2023-07-16T18:23:00.961Z

I let a randomizer decide which word I should use for this assignment, and it chose ‘Toss’. Perfect.

It can mean the tossing of a coin. So, I chose to work with all the 12 available Western notes and gave them a number from 1-12, and then I made a selection of different timings (1-9). With an online randomizer I made a long list with combinations to effectively write the music.

I chose the cello because that’s the instrument I play, but timing wise it was quite difficult to play, so I used the midi function from Musescore to export it in Ableton and used Blisko Cello from Felt Instruments to play it back for me.

kterauch · 2023-07-16T18:46:53.644Z

Hello Junto commmunity! It’s good to be back

I’m intrigued by the word, yuusari 夕さり. It means dusk or twilight but in normal (modern) Japanese you’d say yuugure 夕暮れ or yuugata 夕方. Yuu 夕 means evening. The “sari” part comes from the verb 去る, which means to depart, but in this case insinuates approaching. So it’s the approaching of the evening, the sky and the landscape darkening, and shimmering lights of stars and the city lights starting to appear. I think it’s a very visual and active term.

I used the end-of-school chimes as thematic material and stretched it to activate night mode. Fun assignment. Thank you!

Update: I made a video for this piece! Music only on SoundCloud still here: Stream 夕さり- Yuusari (disquiet0602) by Kei | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

he_nu_ri · 2023-07-16T19:00:36.899Z

I chose the word “bloom” and repurposed a recently completed piece since its underlying concept of blooming flowers seemed like it would work well for this week’s assignment. Used Oxi One hardware sequencer to create a semi-generative melody in Ableton Live using the U-he Hive 2 plugin. An additional track was added using Slate+Ash Landforms. The original “Drift and Bloom” video can be seen here if anyone is interested Drift and Bloom - YouTube

orbit_f · 2023-07-16T21:14:01.749Z

“Chiaroscuro”, italian for “light-dark” […] is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition.

I chose the word chiaroscuro as I find this contrast appropriate to my mood of this period of my life.

For this patch I recorded bass into Morphagene and then effected it with a bit of Mimeophon. Then I added a lead line made with ARP2600 clone into Norns Pedalboard with Phaser and Resonator, then plugged into a preamp and then to QPAS for further effects.
The bass plays harmonics A-D-A (7-7-5 frets) and G-D-G (5-5-3 frets).
I used G double harmonic scale (G-Ab-B-C-D-Eb-F#) for the lead voice.

A simple patch

Morphagene → Mimeophon → Out 2
Wogglebug Int Clock out → Mimeophon Clock In
Maths Ch. 4 (Cycle) → Morphagene R in (Pmin option on)

Arp out (osc1 and osc2 square out +filter+ar) → Norns Pedalboard (Phaser + Resonator) → preamp → QPAS smile out → Out 1
Preamp → mult → QPAS, Maths Ch. 1 In
Maths Ch. 1 out → QPAS Freq 1 in
Maths Inv out → QPAS Q In

blisterpop · 2023-07-16T22:22:24.536Z

I really liked that lead sound @orbit_f !

Jazzaria · 2023-07-16T23:20:18.018Z

Wriggle, squiggle - perhaps giggle. Wiggle, jiggle - down a big hill. Many a worm has many times squirmed, a term to confirms a firm worm that affirms.

Featuring bodhran, Irish flute and whistle, bouzouki, concertina, harp, fiddle, bagpipes, and acoustic guitar.

Process - I went to a random word website and hit refresh until one resonated a bit. That one was “wriggle”, which summoned a 3/4 meandering chromatic motif.

For instrumentation I went entirely with (sampled/virtual) Irish/celtic, resulting in a sort of wriggly jig feel I think.

SamPlair · 2023-07-17T01:44:33.320Z

Long story short my word was ‘unsettling’.

I’ve been listening to Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s work lately. The opening title track for White Lotus first caught my attention with his crazy use of voice, chopped up and pitch shifted, not burying it under effects, trying to pass, instead leaning into the imperfection of granular Also reminded me of hours spent with the Casio SK1 and its sample button. I’m a big fan of horror and his soundtrack for The Smile took those concept in a frightening direction. Highly recommended.

I was thinking about how important a soundtrack is in supporting a mood particularly in tension and tried to recreate that feeling incorporating a last breath.

I’m pretty happy with the jump scare about a minute in and hope the breathing doesn’t come across like a bad telephone call your babysitter got on halloween.

The process here patch wise was to use the Music Thing for atmospheric surprises (like the Maritime church bell, I think), and a bunch of breathing files from yours truly. I used The O_c Calculate for random CV into the Carpeggio with a Brains Super Saw algo into Black Hole. The O_c was also tracking Parameter 1 and 2 of the Black Hole. Rings was in there somewhere but couldn’t ever get it to sound creepy….too nice. Morphagene mutated the breathing, still trying to figure out that beast and modulated all over the place thanks to pachinko.

Minimal processing with Ableton, just compression and lots of edits.

See attached.

0602patch1920×1440 340 KB

unsettleton1920×849 167 KB

orbit_f · 2023-07-17T06:27:56.807Z

@blisterpop thanks a lot! It’s a really simple patch, it’s just two square OSC into a LP filter and a VCA controlled by AR envelope and midi keyboard, sent into a resonator and phaser and QPAS smile filter. It had some nasty sweet spots that were even distorted, but I opted to edit them out of the final track.

vgmrmojo · 2023-07-17T11:50:45.067Z

disquiet0602
Preferred Words
• Key: F# minor BPM: 95 Time signature: 4/4 DAW: Reaper
• Instruments: Synths, Guitar, Bass
• Plug-ins: Playbox, Kontour, Massive
• IDEA: Make a piece of music that strives to express a specific word.
• PROCESS: Chose the word linear with a random word generator. Played the F# minor scale one note at a time in order going up the scale from i to VII.
• RESULT: A linear progression up the F# minor scale one note at a time ( all notes the same length) with 4 different sounds

doodledigital · 2023-07-17T12:15:35.819Z

this has really soothed me, what a wonderful distillation of the word you chose

spacelordmother · 2023-07-17T12:22:55.822Z

Thank you, I am so glad!

SamPlair · 2023-07-17T12:34:08.631Z

@Jazzaria - are these all virtual instruments? You recorded this in a couple of days? Madman. Impressive to say the least.

@orbit_f - do you mean an Arp 2600? Can’t place that lead sound at all. I guess you completely transformed it, nice work. Sounds like some kind of moroccan distortion jazz. Cool.

@kterauch - Wow this one unexpectedly picked up in such a great way! I love the word choice and was just getting lulled into the dusk when I found myself in the middle of downtown with a second wind. Over too soon but that’s what kept me coming back for multiple listens. Those chord changes….just once!???!

@Jostijn - what a process. Very unsettling sounding to me, have to remember this approach to scoring. The plug in sounds incredible, wish I could have heard you take a crack at playing it live. I’m all for those amazing failures which can be so great sometimes.

@Hugh_Prat - ha I’ll never get over that name. Fantastic wobbly beat for summertime California, get me some hydraulics. Feels like it was just getting started - a la Dilla.

@Anatol - I like how this progressively picks up and even sounds like an alarm going off towards the end. It got me out of bed and had some coffee ready.

@Noimspartacus - great wobbly track that sounds like a moist dub, I’m getting a contact high.

@Glitcher - you’re making me rethink the bit crush just when I wrote it off as too recognizable. I need more stereo like this in my mixes.

I really look forward to these projects every week, thanks for the inspiration and community.

orbit_f · 2023-07-17T14:09:20.307Z

It’s a Behringer Blue Marvin.
You can see the patch as it was when I recorded the lead

IMG_20230717_1604301920×1440 275 KB

Aethyr · 2023-07-17T16:20:18.026Z

hello.

this was a frustrating one. i had some vague ideas but nothing substantial enough to put into action. eventually i settled on using some of the composition aid plugins i have; initially i wanted to use mixed in key’s captain plugins epic, which had recently updated, but there’s some issue with the authorisation and i can’t get it to work.

i ended up using another suite of plugins from the same creator, pilot, to generate a melody, bass, and arp. i started with the melody, had the bass come in after 8 bars, and the arp come in after another 8.

in terms of instruments, i wanted to use uvi’s augmented piano which i had bought recently. i used this for the melody but abandoned my original idea of using it for all the parts. for the bass i had a really hard time settling on something, i knew i wanted to use arturia’s analog lab v but choosing what to use was harder than it should have been, however i eventually settled on something that fit.

the arp was using another instance of uvi’s falcon (which i’d also used for the augmented piano), and i ended up going through a bunch of different settings before i settled on one. i had to do this quickly as i hadn’t even started until monday afternoon.

i added some randomness to each part using bitwig’s note effects, and added some processing to each as well. i ran the whole thing through my standard mastering chain.

i eventually got captain plugins to work (well, sort of; i found the correct registration code but the plugin kept locking up) but i was already exasperated and fed up so i decided not to add any more elements, even though a drum part might have been good.

overall i’m quite pleased with it, certainly happier than i was with last week’s project. there are still a few elements that are a bit harsh or discordant but i’ve had enough of working on it so they’re just going to have to remain.

my word is ‘experiment’ because that’s how i approached making this piece. art, as usual, from nightcafe studio.