. Also used the Magic program to get some sound activated graphic response.
Thursday, April 04, 2024
Sound Experiments 6 (2020)
Monday, April 01, 2024
Orbital Drum???
I just watched an old episode of "Nasa's Unexplained Files". There was a story about an astronaut orbiting Earth solo in his space capsule. Out of a relative calm, the astronaut heard loud banging on his vehicle! The striking of the capsule's metallic surface from some unknown source went on for a small amount of time and severely frightened the astronaut who called out for a reply to whatever was responsible for this racket. Seems pretty incredible but the astronaut was convinced that he had some manner of lifeform shadowing his mission and as a consequence, messing with his head, Big Time! Eventually, the outer hull racket abated and no answers were to be had of who this potential intruder was, but, HOW CREEPY!!!! Was the space capsule being used as an Experimental Musical Instrument? An Orbital Drum, if you will? We can only speculate....
Here is a VideoGPT AI retelling of the situation in its own analysis! Enjoy.
Friday, March 29, 2024
Underground Dwelling Lute Lizards
I was in a weird frame of mind recently and wanted to try out the VideoGPT app to see what outlandish results I could get from using a text to video generating application. What better topic than the conspiracy theory regarding a hidden race of cave dwelling lizards? People have been reporting disturbing sightings of bipedal lizards, equal in size or taller than the average man's height. There also is speculation that these odd beasts inhabit remote caves and otherwise lightly travelled areas.
Going with this knowledge in hand, I hallucinated a scenario where a cave explorer happens upon a race of underground cavern dwelling lizard men that embody a lute playing orchestra. Very random story kernel, I know, but watch the results and see. The thing is that these appear to be lizards that are more in favor of strumming mandolins and guitars. Go figure....AI!
Sunday, March 03, 2024
Aquatic Firecracker!
Check out this craziness. According to recent Internet story, a half inch long fish can generate some amazingly loud racket.
Quoting here a few lines from the story:
"Danionella cerebrum, a species of fish discovered only about three years ago, are tiny translucent fish that live in shallow streams in Myanmar. They are no more than 12 millimeters long and have a "unique sound-generating" organ that can make noises of more than 140 decibels, an international research team said in a news release Tuesday.
"To make noise, the fish hits the drumming cartilage against its swim bladder, a gas-filled cavity or organ that is predominantly used to control buoyancy, the study says. The movement produces a rapid pulse in high and low frequencies.
"This apparatus accelerates the drumming cartilage with a force of over 2,000g and shoots it against the swim bladder to produce a rapid, loud pulse," Britz said. "These pulses are strung together to produce calls with either bilaterally alternating or unilateral muscle contractions.
“We assume that the competition between the males in this visually restrictive environment contributed to the development of the special mechanism for acoustic communication,” Britz said."
Wow! That is crazy. The incredible things that Science is discovering on a daily basis. Amazing.
Get a sample of the noisy fish at the link below.
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
Sounds Of Our Celestial Cousins
Planets in our immediate celestial neighborhood generate sound. How? According to my research, and, I quote this Internet search result:
The planetary sounds we hear, are wavelike vibrations of air molecules occurring within the range of frequencies to which our ears are sensitive, according to the BBC. However, it's possible to process any other kind of wave or oscillation electronically, scaling it to audible frequencies and then converting it into a sound wave.
So, venture to the link below to access these "other worldly" sounds, now!
Saturday, June 19, 2021
Sound Experiments 5 (2019)
Exploring effects pedals and older instruments I own. The journey continues. The Lost Chord is no where in sight. Onward in pursuit. I play the Alesis Air Synth and the Humtap music app among other instruments. The Alesis Air Synth played like a Theremin. There were a lot of presets to choose from to reproduce synthesizer like effects or to be able to manipulate various sound effects. A very cool instrument.
Friday, June 11, 2021
SOUND EXPERIMENTS 10 (2021)
It has been a couple of years of neglect toward this blog again but I will try to resume some semblance of normal activity. I am sharing the 10th version of "Sound Experiments". The 6, 7, 8 and 9 will be uploaded soon.
In this episode, I look at and play some of my musical devices including Bleep Labs' Pico Paso pocket noise synth, the Realistic Electronic Reverb unit made way back in the day, the PAIA Gnome Analog Synth box, and the Yamaha RY9 "Big Jam" and its guitar synthesizer emulation. The Electronic Reverb and the Big Jam were recently sold through ebay. I hope that these effects are heavily utilized and get a proper second life!
Thanks!
Monday, January 13, 2020
Gil Melle Soundtrack - "A Cold Night's Death", 1973
Gil Melle was an interesting musician. I am familiar with him primarily through his soundtrack work which utilized electronic compositions. Melle scored the soundtrack for the science fiction film, "The Andromeda Strain " (1971). This is a very curious composition. In order to achieve what eventually appeared on screen, Melle created and built many of the synthesizer devices. Wow.
"A Cold Night's Death"follows along this path but the structure and feel of the music is more in alignment with the characters' disjointed and fractured mental states. Whereas the "Andromeda Strain" score followed a more structured course, this score is discordant and harrowing. Checkout "World War III" (1982) and "Kolchak: The Night Stalker"(1974) TV series theme music for more of Melles' electronic compositional treats.
Melles was also very active in the world of jazz composition and recordings. Look for him on Spotify.
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Color Organ (2019)
An attempt to approximate a color organ: visuals/lights are activated/animated by an audio source.
Saturday, December 07, 2019
Sound Experiments 4 (2019) - Overindulgence is kept to a minimum. I promise.
Riffs, fragments and noise. A collection of old and new instruments and FX pedals are tried out and aurally regurgitated. You will hear a Mellotron tone recreated on a guitar through the Electro Harmonix Mel 9 pedal, the Dave Smith Adrenalinn pedal makes an appearance, Suzuki's Omnichord is put into play. You Rock's MIDI guitar checks in too. Som many great effects and instruments are out there.
Wednesday, November 06, 2019
Realistic/Radio Shack Electronic Wind Chimes (2019)
This was certainly an oddity!! Wind chimes constructed of plastic equipped with a contact sensor that would enable the onboard "chime" sounds. All powered by six AA batteries. Well, the chimes are more an electronic approximation of acoustic wind chimes and their timbre doesn't alter much so I don't think this item ever really took off and replaced the real thing. Not the most attractive appearance either and it is a bit unwieldy, weight wise. Realistic/Radio Shack marketed this product but I have not been able to pinpoint exactly when or for how long. Nice try.
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
HALLOWEEN NIGHTMARE (2019) - HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Michael Myers getting some jam time in before the usual routine. Happy Halloween!
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Groovy Acoustic Guitar (2019)
My son's fancy, painted and art infused guitar. His friends took the time to draw on it, apply stickers and add a ceramic sculpture to it. Very colorful and nicely done!
Thursday, September 19, 2019
Sound Experiments 3 (2019)
Sound Experiments 3 (2019)
Saturday, August 17, 2019
A Royal Affair Concert Event (2019)
Two of the latter day descendants of progressive rock royalty, Carl Palmer's ELP Legacy and Yes, perform at A Royal Affair. Other acts on this bill included the John (Moody Blues) Lodge Band and Asia. This event was held in Saratoga, California at the Mountain Winery concert venue. Lovely afternoon concert.
Sunday, August 04, 2019
Roger Dean Was At "A Royal Affair"!
Friday, June 28, 2019
Sound Experiments 2 (2019)
Another selection of my noise making sessions using a bevy of personally owned and rented guitar FX pedals, cheap synthesizers, video FX methods and riff pilfering. My apologies to Gary Numan: "Cars" for treated guitar.
Other likely suspects used in this collection include the Stylophone Gen X-1, Korg Kaossilator, Electro Harmonix RTG, the EH micro synthesizer for guitar, and the circuit bent deluxe video distorter.
Hope you like some of this!
Monday, June 17, 2019
Sound Experiments 1 (2018)
I am compiling a video catalog of my musical instrument and effects collection. Enjoy the junk!