Good Read “Electroacoustic Music is Not About Sound” by Eric Chasalow @NewMusicUSA @NewMusicBox

August 1, 2018Mark Mosher (NewEcho)

I recently discovered New Music USA which has a lot of great resources. I’m particularly enjoying the publication NewMusicBox.

NewMusicBox, a multimedia publication from New Music USA, presents artists in their own words and explores the ideas behind a wide scope of adventurous music produced in the United States: concert works, jazz, experimental, contemporary opera, chamber music, and more.

For example – below is a good read by Eric Chasalow.

“Electroacoustic Music is Not About Sound“

Yes, I do mean this title to be provocative, but my intention is to question some of our priorities and assumptions about composing, not to be polemical or suggest some correct way of composing. Rather, I am sharing some thinking that I have found serves my students and me well. The main thing I want to explore is my own attitude about musical time…

There are basic aspects of compositional thinking that seem to have become almost extinct—particularly, but not exclusively, in the realm of electroacoustic music…

But, there is still a lot to be gained by an awareness of and the ability to control pitch, no matter how abstract and seemingly “unpitched” musical materials may be. And the unfolding of structure moment by moment is still what music is about—that is, it is about time. I love inventing sounds as much as anyone, but without attention to time we just have sounds. Sound unfolding in time, on the other hand, produces musical thought.

New materials do demand new approaches, but this does not erase the necessity of paying attention to shaping the narrative…

More articles by Eric are here – https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/author/ericchasalow/
More NewMusicBox articles here – https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/
Take a moment to explore New Music USA here – https://www.newmusicusa.org/.

Enjoy,

Mark Mosher
Synthesist & Multimedia Artist

Artist Site: NewEcho.com
Electronic Music Tech & Production Blog: ModulateThis.com

Video: “Predator” – An Original Ableton Wavetable Preset by Mark Mosher

July 31, 2018July 31, 2018Mark Mosher (NewEcho)

Check out this video of new Ableton Wavetable preset I’m working on from “init”. I call it “Predator”.

FYI – Back in February I contributed 5 original presets to FREE The Round Wavetable Pack by AfroDJMac with sounds by AfroDJMac, Isaac Cotec, Thomas Glendinning, pAtches, Josh Spoon, Mark Towers. Some super cool presets in the pack :^)

For more of my articles on Wavetable visit the category https://modulatethis.com/category/synth-ableton-wavetable/.

Checkout my vimeo channel for more videos like this.

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Mark Mosher
Synthesist & Multimedia Artist

Artist Site: NewEcho.com
Electronic Music Tech & Production Blog: ModulateThis.com

Max 8 and VIZZIE 2 Coming in September 2018 + Dipping My Toe in the VIZZIE pool

July 27, 2018Mark Mosher (NewEcho)

Cycling ’74 Max 8 is coming in September of 2018. Here is a summary of some of what’s coming plus some videos of some of my early VIZZIE work.

Patching Improvements

Groups: The ability to group objects together so they can be easily selected and adjusted as needed.

Pan and Zoom: This lets you move around and focus in on the parts you are working on while also being able to easily jump out to a global view.

Event Probing: Watch events and messages passing through patch cords, giving you an immediate glance at what’s really going on in your patcher.

Patch Cord Insert: You can now shift-drag an object over an existing patch cord to insert that object into the patch cord. You can also shift-drag an object away from a patch cord to remove it. This means the common task of adding or removing an object between two other objects happens in a single step.

Personally, Patch Cord Insert is going to be kind of a game changer for me as it’s going to make patching so much faster.

Watch video “Max 8 First Look: Patching Improvements“.

VIZZIE 2

Eight years ago we introduced Vizzie – a modular and easy way to get started with Jitter visuals in Max. Previously Vizzie processed video pixels on the CPU, resulting in performance problems with large patches. For Max 8, we’ve updated Vizzie to take full advantage of the processing power of your graphics hardware for a big speed boost. In addition to the improved frame rates, Vizzie now easily integrates with 3D graphics and other work that relies on OpenGL in Jitter.

Check out the video “Max 8 First Look: Vizzie 2”

Dipping My Toe in the VIZZIE Pool

I’ve been working with Resolume for years now for real-time visual synthesis with live camera input. I automate Resolume through Ableton Live MIDI clips through virtual MIDI ports. My existing show allows for environmental “chance operations” via live camera and audio input.

I’m putting a new show together at the moment and in want to explore introducing more programmatic and intense aleatoric visual elements to the show. With all the performance improvements in the works, I’ve started Exploring VIZZIE in the current version.

I have used BEAP synthesizer before (see my posts on BEAP) – so jumping into VIZZIE just felt easy and made sense. Here are some very short videos on my Vimeo channel with quick early experiments using only a few modules :^)

After these early experiments I’m really looking forward to VIZZIE 2!

Mappings

Ok, back to what’s new with MAX 8. Mappings.

Inspired by the intuitive MIDI and Key Map function in Ableton Live, the Max 8 Mappings feature allows you to quickly connect your hardware to your patch without any additional programming.

Node for Max

Popular in creative coding and web development communities, Node is a JavaScript framework for software applications. It makes it easy to use web services, whether pulling information from a remote data source or interfacing with a social network. The Node for Max feature lets you do it all from within a Max patcher.

I think the video below will help you wrap your head around this one more if your not familiar with Node.

Max Console

The Max Window is already a popular way to gather information about how your patcher is working. For Max 8 we made a number of improvements to support getting a quick view of just the information you need, when you need it.

Links to More Info

Cycling continues to add info on their web site and videos to their YouTube channel as we get closer to the release of Max 8. Use links below to stay up to date with the news.

“A First Look at Max 8” page https://cycling74.com/products/new-max-version-8
Cycling’74 YouTube Playlist for Max 8

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Mark Mosher
Synthesist & Multimedia Artist

Artist Site: NewEcho.com
Electronic Music Tech & Production Blog: ModulateThis.com

Good Read: Ableton Interview “Jon Hassell: Possible Musics”

July 26, 2018July 26, 2018Mark Mosher (NewEcho)

Ableton just released a fantastic interview with New York trumpeter and composer Jon Hassell.

The interview covers among other things his studies with Stockhausen, his coining of the term “Fourth World”, his early work with Fairlight CMI, work with Bob Moog on a sound sculpture, with lots of inspiring information on his practice and art.

There was this guy named Bob Moog who came around with his new idea of one Volt equals one octave, which became the Moog synthesizer. (We actually collaborated on a sound sculpture later; a tape loop within a box that had a double reflective mirror on the inside, and every time there was a “blip”, a colored light went off. It was like this little fairyland of blips going by and each one had an output to six speakers around the room.)

Check out the article here:
https://www.ableton.com/en/blog/jon-hassell-possible-musics

2018 then seems to be auspicious moment for Jon Hassell to release a new album. Listening To Pictures (Pentimento Volume One) is his first collection of new music for nine years and represents an updated reconfiguration of all the signature elements of Hassell’s magical realists soundworld: the lush chords and fine-grained textures, the oddly intricate rhythm structures that propel forward while revolving around their own axis, and of course, the treated trumpet lines, sounding somewhere between an intimate whisper and a chorus of conch shells.

Listen to his latest album on bandcamp: Listening To Pictures (Pentimento Volume One).

Check out Jon’s bandcamp page here https://jonhassell.bandcamp.com/.

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