jambient Software
jambient Reaktor Ensembles
jambientSoftware at cogeco.ca
The computer music I have been working on involves realtime, non-metric, audio collage.
I play samples using Visual Basic applications and Native Instrument’s Reaktor instruments I have programmed. These are written to allow selection and processing of samples on the fly, so I can drop samples into my jam, slowly evolving soundscapes by adding sounds that resonate with the mix. Listening leads to sounding. (The ironic catalyst for making my own software has been that commercial/shareware programs that come close to what I want (e.g., Live, Acid, FruityLoops) build in the idea of stretching or looping samples to rhythmic grids, enforcing an idea of music; or they build in the idea that you select samples in advance of playing your virtual instruments.) The aim is to free sounds from the rythmic grid, having them supply their own rhythmic complexity; and have the evolution of content be part of the piece. I called this idea jambient, to give the piece of software for doing it a catchy name. Didn’t catch.
The samples are from a very large library I have put together, mostly odds and ends dredged from the internet--sound effects, answering machines, animal recordings from science sites, other audio detritus, loops from movies, etc. Incidental background sounds become music.
The output of my samplers is passed through various VST effects processors, some that I’ve programmed. At present I am controlling my software rig with an external midi controller, which lets me manipulate more parameters at once, and get a bit more body into the music.
In live collaborative stage performances I used tradional and home built acoustic/hybrid instruments as sound sources and process them; it is too difficult in this situation to hear your own sample playing while listening to everybody else. In live collaborative radio performances I play samples and also process MP3s.
License: Creative Commons: Attribution-Sharealike
This is a set of live improvised pieces inspired by recurring dreamt soundscapes. Mostly were done late at night after waking from dreams, first piecing together samples to capture the dream and learn how they play together, then taking that as the basis for performance. All of these pieces uses my Reaktor fx unit jambientSpectralMorphatorium, which breaks up input into frequency spectra and assigns a delay and pan to each section of the spectrum; patterns of spectrum breakup, delay and pan dynamically morph in an evolving pattern controlled through a gestural user interface. This fx unit gives dynamic and ‘temporal’ spatialization, to capture the dream sound. It’s then sent through a reverb. Other spatial effects are used in the pieces. Space is part of the music.
Listen in stereo.
Night Train: Trains, horses, whales, telephone signals and answering machines, harmonicas, other sound effects, congress in company with tabla, sarod and sitar samples, in a night-time spectralized acoustic dream space. (Second take)
DropFall: Dropping water, marbles, and metal circulate in a dream. (This is two takes spliced together; lots of resonators and circular panners in this one.)
Animachine Machines that sound like animals and animals that sound like machines resonate. Cicadas, frogs, bats become central. (Third take.)