Strategic Game

Gahlord · 2021-07-13T13:36:23.086Z

~~ym4r-hy5c~~
~~3gpw-ernw~~
~~sza4-elga~~
~~7xah-gjh3~~
~~s29q-3er7~~
~~y7hv-wvl2~~
dkfc-udq4
vc9j-3kas
d7wm-ctmh
s5h9-x2k5
sreu-ec6f

Also: noise bloggers, antifascist tweeters, journalists, abolitionists, and general people of good cheer feel free to hmu for a code if these run out.

This project is based around some of the strategy concepts of John Boyd, whose work I have been involved in for many years in a different capacity. I go into some of the conceptual details on the Strategic Game page on my site. But here on Lines I’ll nerd out with my compatriot nerds.

Process notes
This is a collection of 588 36 second segments from about 6 hours of modular & electric bass that I performed live on air at WRUV 90.1FM Burlington around 2014 or so. The live electronics performance was part of my Bleep Boop Beep radio show (the other part being what eventually became the sporadic “…and electronics” podcast).

The modular performances were focused on using live audio and sampled audio as a control mechanism for the modular. So pitch following (RS-35 and Pulp Logic Entrypoint) and envelope following controlling a variety of parameters within the patch itself.

I learned a ton about preparing a signal for pitch following, bass instruments are especially tricky for this due to the slow wave. On the other hand, feeding a low bass frequency square into a clock divider is more rewarding for rhythmic stuff. I also learned a ton about forming things with CV delay and envelope triggers etc. This may be difficult to hear in Strategic Game as presented because of all the short bits and the scrambled nature of it. But if you listen to enough of the segments you’ll likely hear some things repeating in different voices and textures and this is usually occurring as a result of an audio sample driving different patches during different episodes of live performance etc.

I’ve been sitting on this project for years because I knew I wanted to slice up everything, re-sort it, and release it as a gigantic jumble of sounds. But I was too lazy to sit down and manually do all that work. Then I asked here and @AkiraRabelais mentioned their Argeïphontes Lyre and it was perfect. Additionally, since streaming services won’t let you release material that doesn’t average out to at least a minute in length I used AL to create 3 minute versions of each of the 36s fragments and also used it to generate titles for the streaming version that comply with streaming services’ restrictions on artistic expression in titles (namely that an artist cannot have two songs of the same title). And then I used AL to create 588 individual covers for the streaming edition as well. As you can tell, I’ve come to very much enjoy AL.

I hope you enjoy this project, the Bandcamp version opens up on Aug 3, the streaming version starts releasing a handful of tracks every day beginning Aug 1 (a few are out now I think, as part of my test to see if I could even get streaming services to accept it).

AkiraRabelais · 2021-07-13T16:10:40.347Z

Excellent Sir, excellent!
Panda Beagle

Zeke_B · 2021-07-13T16:48:31.240Z

Gahlord:

ym4r-hy5c

I used this code—thanks for providing them and congrats on the release!

I’m super curious to listen to this as I recently picked up an RS-35 in the hope of exploring something similar (though my idea certainly isn’t as developed as yours).

Ben · 2021-07-13T16:48:46.291Z

Thanks for the codes, grabbed 3gpw-ernw - looking forward to listening to the whole album on shuffle in August; I’ve really enjoyed New Function since I bought it on Bandcamp Friday awhile back.

AlessandroBonino · 2021-07-13T19:05:22.072Z

Gahlord:

sza4-elga

I used this one, thanks! It looks REALLY interesting! Looking forward to listening to all of it (and learn a lot).

GrrrOwl · 2021-07-13T23:14:11.907Z

Gahlord:

7xah-gjh3

Just claimed this code. Thanks for sharing !

Claude · 2021-07-14T11:24:38.737Z

s29q-3er7 used over here, thanks for sharing!

fourhoarder · 2021-07-14T16:54:47.465Z

thank you, i used y7hv-wvl2. really love the bare-drive-as-purchase idea, although I probably will not purchase it.

tekzon · 2021-07-20T12:04:26.503Z

Hey!
Does the numeric album (just bought it) will also have 588 segments as on the hd?
Thanks