I had a little play around in Reaktor last week, after a long break. A post on the forum set me off, a guy called Ned Rush asking about how to get reverb feeding back into itself.
My idea was an instrument which makes sound by listening to the unplugged inputs of the computer’s soundcard (just listening to very, very quiet hiss), then feeds that back on itself; it also listens to the loudness of its output, turning the feedback down if it’s getting too loud, and up if it’s dying away altogether. I dropped a couple of filters into the loop too, to colour the sound.
What’s nice about the idea is that it’s negative feedback:
Output too loud? Turn it down. Output too quiet? Turn it up.
Which controls positive feedback:
Apply reverb to input. Send some of the output back to the input.
What I didn’t quite expect was how beautiful it would sound:
It’s a little loud at the beginning, but after a quick tweak of its sensitivity to loud signals, it began to produce a rolling flow of gorgeous harmonics, which even managed to sound musical every so often.
So when there’s another window of sound design opportunity, I think I’ll have another play with it.
So tourists are drinking wine from baby bottles now, and Hooters has arrived in the UK. Meanwhile, we’re drinking less tea and more italo-american style coffee, its bitter shots sweetened with steamed milk, sugar and syrup.
I think there are some dots to join here: are all the sweet, fatty things we love so much (chocolate, ice cream, Starbucks Caramelattes) actually replacements for titty milk?
So anyway, I’m walking down the passage that runs through Allders, connecting George Street to North End. A primitive retail intestine, splattered with symbiont bacterial concession stalls that facilitate the absorption of cash into Allders’ corporate self. Continue Reading »
When, like me, you become old, and can look back on a life of material success and disease-free, fertile, extreme promiscuity, your thoughts will turn naturally to recording the narrative of your life to illuminate the lives of your many descendants. Perhaps you’ll begin by looking through the beautiful, grinning faces in your photograph albums, developing a list of your most memorable and fecund lovers, and setting to the research of the throbbing web of sexual liaison from which you yourself condensed, and into which your mighty seed was sown. Continue Reading »