Derek Holzer-ExperiMontag set-11.03.13(edit)
Solo performance for self-made analog synthesizer, speaker box, found objects and room @ ExperiMontag (Madame Claude), Berlin, 11 MAR 2013. Edited and mixed to be played at maximum volume.
Maulex [DK] turntables, textures
Jelena Glazova [LV] voices, drones
Derek Holzer [USA/DE] modulars, rooms
Mon, 11.03.13 21:00
Madame Claude Berlin, Lübbener Straße 19, 10997 Berlin, Germany
An evening of experimental instruments and deep sound textures at one of Berlin’s best-known nights for adventurous music.
-=Maulex=-
René Middelhede is a graduate student at DIEM (Danish Institute for Electro-Acoustic Music) and is working with drone and abstract textural music under the artist name Maulex.
It’s not music that flows rapidly from room to room, rather it moves slowly across the room and fills it with microscopic nuances that constantly change color.
The concert is based on an alternative use of the turntable as a medium. It is developed into an instrument by which complex textures and repetitive rhythms can be generated.
www.phloq.dk | www.soundcloud.com/maulex
-=Jelena Glazova=-
Sound artist/visual artist and poet based in Riga, Latvia. Working in interdisciplinary areas of contemporary art, combining in her works image, poetic text, experimental sound and installation.
Experimental music activity field – noise/drone, usually constructed from processed vocals.
www.jelena-glazova.com | jelenaglazova.bandcamp.com
Jelena will perform with the visuals by Latvian video artist Zane Raudina.
-=Derek Holzer=-
Solo performance for self-made analog synthesizer, speaker box, found objects and room.
Derek Holzer (1972) is an American sound artist based in Berlin DE, whose current interests include DIY analog electronics, sound art, field recording and the meeting points of electroacoustic, noise, improv and extreme music. He has played live experimental sound, as well as taught workshops in noise art technology, across Europe, North America, Brazil and New Zealand.
[Image: Triadex Muse block diagram]
I will be giving a 2-3 day, hands-on workshop on building semi-autonomous, autopoetic sound circuits (likely based on simple CMOS/shift-register constructions) as part of the upcoming Migrating Art Academies event at the Weissensee Art Academy Berlin.
The theme of this event, curated by my friend Mindaugas Gapsevicius among others, is Aesthetic – Responsibility – Drones, and it will take place 2-7th of May 2013, at the Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz, Weissensee Art Academy Berlin. The public events are free, however participants will be selected from an open call. Invited participants will be granted travel/accommodation costs.
Students and artists from the Nordic/Baltic region are especially encouraged to apply… (you know who you are!). The registration form is here, and the deadline is March 31st.
(Bread-burning synth photo by Terje Toomistu)
I will be playing a live improvisation for DIY analog modular synthesizer next Friday at O’Tannenbaum, along with bareth/stadler (Florinn Bareth–e-violin, Max Stadler–electronics) and Nicolas Humbert.
Info
Several years ago, I largely abandoned the digital sound world to spend time building a modular analog synthesizer which reinterprets and hybridizes the forms and functions of the legendary Serge and Buchla systems from the 1960s and 70s. During my improvisational performances, I summon the chaotic, generative powers of this machine to explore the physical affects of volume, frequency and complexity within a given space. For fans of Maryanne Amacher, Bernard Parmegiani, Eliane Radigue and Slayer.
Friday 18 Jan 2013, 21:0
O’Tannenbaum
Sonnenallee 27
Berlin 12047
Germany
TONEWHEELS HURDY-GURDY
(VIELLE A ROUE OPTOÉLECTRONIQUE)
DEREK HOLZER for ACCES(S) FESTIVAL
PAU FRANCE, OCT 2012
TONEWHEELS is an experiment in converting graphical imagery to sound, inspired by some of the pioneering 20th Century electronic music inventions, such as the Light-Tone Organ (Edwin Emil Welte, 1936 Germany), the ANS Synthesizer (Evgeny Murzin, 1958 USSR), and the Oramics system (Daphne Oram, 1959 UK). Transparent tonewheels with repeating patterns are spun over light-sensitive electronic circuitry similar to that used in 16 & 35mm motion picture projectors to produce sound.
The TONEWHEELS Hurdy-Gurdy presented at Acces(s) is not an “interactive” artwork in the common sense. While it does not reward the impatient museum visitor with flashing lights and noises at the simple touch of the button, it does invite participation in the process of technological music creation. Although it first appears to be a very traditional instrument known to many folk-music cultures, it functions in a very different way which can only be discovered by playing it.
The artist would like to thank Tobias Traub of Oroborus Customs e.K. and Carlo Crovato for their invaluable assistance in creating this instrument. Circuits designed by Jessica Rylan and Eric Archer are also used within the system.
More information on the TONEWHEELS project can be found at http://umatic.nl/tonewheels.html
INSTRUCTIONS
This instrument functions by turning light into sound. The audience is invited to experiment with it, provided that they read the following instructions and handle the instrument carefully.
—GETTING STARTED
1) Pick the instrument up by the strap and put it around your neck. You will hold the instrument as seen in the painting shown below, “Jeune fille à la vielle”, by Jules Richomme (1882). Please handle the instrument by the edges. Do not handle the triangular area in the middle, this area is very delicate!
2) Activate the power switch and adjust the volume knob at LOCATION A.
3) Using your the fingers of your left hand, locate the pressure-sensors at LOCATION B. When you press these, you will see different lights turn on at the center of the instrument.
4) With your right hand, turn the crank at LOCATION C. This will spin a wheel printed with transparent patterns. These patterns break up the light which falls on several light sensors, creating the basic tone of the instrument.
5) The sound of the instrument passes through a filter which can change its tone. The controls for the filter are marked in green at LOCATION D. The switch controls whether low, middle or high frequencies are passed through the filter. The controls marked “LFO” can be used to modulate the filter, while the controls marked “FIL” are used to affect the frequency and resonance of the filter.
6) There is also a distortion effect, marked in red at LOCATION E. The distortion only works when the large button has been clicked, and the red light is on. The four controls marked “DIS” control different aspects of the distortion.
7) When you are finished, please gently set the instrument down flat on the table and turn the power off.
—TIPS
1) The speed of the wheel affects the basic frequency of the sound
2) The filter and distortion shape that sound, but can also produce sounds of their own.
3) A good place to start is with the distortion off and all the controls set to the middle position.
4) There are some control settings which may not produce any sound at all!
“Jeune fille à la vielle”, by Jules Richomme (1882)
TONEWHEELS HURDY-GURDY(VIELLE A ROUE OPTOÉLECTRONIQUE) from macumbista on Vimeo.
FREIZEIT MACHT FREI
This hurdy-gurdy project might be the most complicated thing I have ever tried to build, involving quite a bit more technical research and development by myself and several others than I expected at first. All in all, we took about two months to build something that really needed a year to do right. Live and learn, unfortunately in that order. So when it was all over, and I finally had my first free day in ages, I took a little walk in les Pyrénées with Vincent Meyer…
“Catjar in the Rye” (or “Betty”, as she is know to her friends) is an experimental sound instrument built for Swedish composer Andreas Catjar. It combines a chaotic Benjolin synthesizer, extreme fuzz distortion unit, a speaker/contact-mic feedback system and “circuit-bending”-style body contacts into one rugged flightcase. The Benjolin features several modifications, including patchable routing banana jacks, LED lights for the three stages of its analog shift register and an external audio input. I hope to post some sounds and video later on, when Andreas has time to make them.
My thanks go out to Rob Hordijk, who designed the Benjolin circuit, and to Pete Edwards/Casper Electronics for his help in working out the modifications. You can read a few of my thoughts on using analog shift registers for chaotic sound synthesis in this post.
This instrument really represents exactly what I would like to be doing more of these days: customized design and construction of personal sound instruments based on circuits freely available within the DIY electronics community. Please get in touch if you have a project in mind!
“Catjar in the Rye” was commissioned to appear in the Institutet/Markus Öhrn/Nya Rampen theater production “We love Africa and Africa loves us”. The premier takes place on October 5, 2012 at Ballhaus Ost Berlin.
http://institutet.eu/productions/we-love-africa-and-africa-loves-us/
Now Playing
aluk todolo–occult rock[2012 ajna offensive]
Derek Holzer-Studio Improv 30 Apr 2012 from macumbista on Vimeo.
Getting the computer out of my live sound was the best thing that ever happened to me. When I work with the modular synthesizer, I feel like I have a piece of clay in my hands which I can squeeze in any direction I choose. This short improvisation was made during filming of the documentary “Learning to Listen”, on sound artists in several European cities by London College of Communication students Dann Linn, Marianna Sangita and Andi Spowart.
Soundbox at Norberg Fest, photo by possan
Norberg Report
I’m just back from my Swedish gig, where I spent the weekend gazing longingly at leggy blonds and red farmhouses, slapping mosquitoes, sipping expensive beers and teaching 25 people to build small noise-boxes in the summer sun. Concert went great, with a huge Function One sound system in the gigantic, resonant Mimer mine-shaft hall for that all-over body bass-massage kind of feeling. One of the best parts was that, some weeks ago, I dreamt that two friends from Estonia came to the festival with me. When I wrote them about it, they replied, “Roadtrip sounds like a great idea! See you soon!” So they did.
Big thanks to Sol Andersson and Johannes Ahlberg for the invitation and John Anker Corneliussen for the sound! Also managed to catch a few great sets, most notably by Carl Michael von Hauswolff and the lovely drone duo Kyrkan. Just as awesome, and tasty to boot, was James Brewster‘s Electro-acoustic cafe–a mic’ed up espresso stand with the option for extra delay or wah on your foamed milk.
Interior of the Mimer photos by possan, Derek Holzer live set at Norberg Fest by Rotwang @ 99musik.se
Another great thing was the wide range of folks who dropped by to build these little Neanderthal instuments–people who by and large would never show up at an “experimental noise” gig suddenly discovered the insane, child-like pleasure of making their own noise. A selection of these good people can be seen above. Thony Ekström has posted a 28 minute video of the workshop presentation here. I like the part where the orchestra warms up in the beginning…
Norberg Neanderthal photos by Björn Eriksson and Rotwang @ 99musik.se (last). Tack!!!
Electronics Work
I spent quite a bit of July working on this chopper with a student named Alvaro Ayuso. He didn’t quite finish it… a problem if you’re a young Spanish dude with too many friends around I suppose. Synth building is a solitary pursuit. So consider this a work in progress. Good going so far, amigo, now let’s bring it on home!
Tech details: line input, mic input, 2 x line outputs, dual VCA, 2 x VCO, dual VC Slope, Utility LFO, DC Mixer, Steiner VC Filter, Wave Multiplier. All PCBs by Ken Stone/CGS.
And finally… here’s a Serge Power Supply Unit I built for my friend Richard Scott:
Yeah, I guess it’s been a busy month…
Now Playing
old man gloom–no[2012 hydra head]
om–advaitic songs[2012 drag city]
swans–live at berghain[04 aug 2012 berlin](looking forward!)
Been locked in the studio for days now, but the fruits of my labor will be heard soon…
UPCOMING
25-29 April: TONEWHEELS @ Radio Sonores, Guimaraes PT
16-20 May: Machine Deva @ Marfa Film Festival, Marfa TX USA
26-28 July: Solo Performance + SoundBoxes Workshop @ Norberg Festival, Norberg SE
Starting next month, I will also be taking orders for customized tabletop noise makers, drone machines and sound boxes. Please contact me if interested.
cryptography (study I) from macumbista on Vimeo.
I took a quick break from some soundtracking work to build and document this little box over the weekend. I have been interested in examining the use of simple analog implementations of pseudo-random number generators, akin to those used in encryption algorithms, for the chaotic production of sound patterns. One of the simplest pseudo-random number generators is a three-stage shift register with a non-linear feedback loop, such as that found in Rob Hordijk’s “Benjolin” instrument design.
Rungler schematic courtesy of Rob Hordijk, redrawn by Casper Electronics
The most interesting part of the Benjolin is a circuit Hordijk calls a “rungler” (the rest of the Benjolin being two simple oscillators and a resonant filter). It is made up of a shift register in the middle (U4, a 4021B integrated circuit), an XOR (eXclusive OR) logic gate created by one transistor and an op-amp on the left, and finally a rudimentary Digital-to-Analog converter built around another op-amp on the right. Note the feedback from the last stage of the shift register to one input of the XOR, or what could be called the “poor man’s ring modulator”. The other XOR input comes from one of the two oscillators (P1).
Hordijk writes:
The purpose of the rungler is to create short stepped patterns of variable length and speed. […] It needs two frequency sources to work and basically creates a complex interference pattern that can be fed back into the frequency parameters of the driving oscillators to create an unlimited amount of havoc.
The rungler is basically a CMOS shift register clocked by one oscillator and receiving its data input from the other oscillator. The output bits of the shift register are used as […] a 3 bit code that is fed into a 3 bit DA converter. This DA eight level output voltage is fed back to the oscillator frequency control inputs. The output of the DA is the ‘rungler CV signal'[…]
When the rungler signal is fed back to the frequency parameters of the oscillators it will change the triangle waveforms and pulse widths of the oscillator outputs[…]
The rungler will try to find a balanced state. In this way it behaves according to principle from Chaos Theory. There seems to be an unlimited amount of possible balanced states and when a balanced state is just slightly disturbed it can be noted that it takes a little time to find the next balanced state, with noticeable bifurcations, etc.
Now, a shift register itself is a quite simple idea; one has several stages, and information (an analog voltage in some cases, or a binary state in others) gets passed from one stage to the next every time the shift register gets a clock signal. Passing the last stage of the shift register back to the first results in a loop, however any sort of transformation done to the last stage before it gets sent back to the first (an XOR “ring modulation” in the Benjolin’s case) means that each iteration of the loop changes. This satisfies the basic requirements of chaotic syntheses: that there is feedback, that there is nonlinearity and that there is sensitivity to initial conditions. (see Slater, Dan, “Chaotic Sound Synthesis”, Computer Music Journal 22.2 19 September 1998, pp 12-19.)
Not surprisingly, analog shift registers such as the one produced by Serge Tcherepnin were often referred to as “arabesque generators”, as in this image from Synapse Magazine September/October 1976. However, we could also refer to this structure as a Lindenmayer, or L-system. An L-system is essentially a grammatical system which rewrites itself for every new iteration according to a system of rules.
Here is Lindenmayer’s original L-system for modeling the growth of algae:
variables : A B
constants : none
start : A
rules : (A → AB), (B → A)
which produces:
n = 0 : A
n = 1 : AB
n = 2 : ABA
n = 3 : ABAAB
n = 4 : ABAABABA
n = 5 : ABAABABAABAAB
n = 6 : ABAABABAABAABABAABABA
n = 7 : ABAABABAABAABABAABABAABAABABAABAAB
(Source: Wikipedia)
In Non-Standard Sound Synthesis with L-Systems, Stelios Manousakis refers to non-propagative L-systems as being similar to cellular automata algorithms in that the data produced doesn’t branch out and expand endlessly, but rather is used as rules for determining the output of each cell. In our 3 stage shift register example, the non-linear feedback applied to the last stage before it returns to the first would be the new “grammatical rule” applied to the next iteration.
Now, another term we could use to describe a chaotically-produced series of binary numbers with a high sensitivity to the initial conditions (or “seed”) of the process which creates them is a Pseudo-Random Number Generator (also know as a Deterministic Random Bit Generator). And many implementations of a PRNG use what are called Linear Feedback Shift Registers to create those bits, which are the basic building blocks of many sorts of encryption processes.
Our 3-bit Benjolin is a far cry from the 128- and 256-bit encryption algorithms commonly used for digital security today (to say nothing of the “uncrackable” 1024-bit scheme used by the RSA algorithm), and probably bears a closer resemblance to the “shuffle” feature on my ITunes, which “randomly” seems to play back the same 220 songs out of the 22,000 in my MP3 collection. Or, as quantum mechanics pioneer John von Neumann joked, “Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin.” For the purpose of creating generative sound compositions in realtime, however, these pseudo-random bits appear to provide an interesting and “musical” balance between randomness and structure.
Other circuits or projects involving the potentially chaotic use of shift registers and/or pseudo-random number generators include the CGS 34 ASR (which is of course influenced by the original Serge ASR), the CGS 31 Digital Noise, the random voltage generator from the Buchla 208 “Music Easel” and the mighty Klee Sequencer.
As a footnote, I have to add that the man who first uttered the name “L-system” to me is the same man whose film is now sitting on my desktop, waiting to be scored. So with this musing on the cyclical nature of the universe, I bid you farewell for now.
Now Playing
drudkh–eternal turn of the wheel[2012 season of mist]
earth–angels of darkness demons of light II[2012 southern lord]
keith fullerton whitman–generators[2012 editions mego]
mirroring–foreign body[2012 kranky]
oren ambarchi–audience of one[2012 touch]
Sometimes when I think back, all my workshops seem to go by this fast…
The participants in Zagreb were great, super-motivated and highly imaginative. Each and every one of them made some incredibly special and unique SoundBox during the two days we had together, and even played them too… We also squeezed in an early morning trip to the local flea market to put the shop back into workshop. Big thanks to Deborah Hustic for organization and hospitality! Was also great to see some old friends around town, such as Ivan “Kliff” Marusic and Borut Savski.
I think my favorite SoundBox from this workshop was this one, crafted from the end of a trashed accordion:
Evi also posted two videos, here and here.
Like the previous Neanderthal Electronics presentation, back when Ptarmigan was still located in Helsinki, this one was a complete success. Thanks to Raivo Kelomees and John Fail for organizing the workshop and presentation, respectively. Any account of my Estonian trip would be woefully incomplete without mentioning Timo Toots and Marika Agu and their Sunday-afternoon tour of the Architectural Wonders of Tartu. Aitäh!
Derek Holzer vs Jelena Glazova live @Taka 16.03.12 pt3 by macumbista
Live set @ Taka, Riga, March 16th, 2012. Derek Holzer: analog synthesizer, soundbox, found objects. Jelena Glazova: voice, laptop.
Parts 1 and 2 plus some studio sessions can be found at Holzer vs Glazova.
Thanks to Sandis Baumanis [ULVE Agency] for organization and photos, Jēkabs Nīmanis for recording, Edgars Rubenis for the mixer and Olesja for the lovely smile.
Unfortunately, the only souvenir that RISEBA, the school I was teaching at, left me was a headache. Typical Latvian new-capitalist neoliberals, they seemed to delight in playing ridiculous games over even the smallest amount of money, making them little better than con-artists. The result: I worked twice as many hours this workshop as last year, for the same amount of pay. Count your fingers after you shake hands with people like these…
People like these business-school asswipes make me sicker than ever of this constant freelancing life. I have been actively searching for more constant employment teaching at an art, music or design school lately. If any of my dear readers have tips, I would gladly hear them. In some ways, I am beyond caring where such a job might be at this point…
On the other hand, spring has arrived in Berlin and I have very little travel coming up. While that may make the coming months a bit lean and hungry, I hope to use the time to catch up on projects I have promised people, including two cassette releases and a film soundtrack, as well as building some new soundbox-type instruments for sale. Wish me luck!
Derek Holzer (USA 1972) is an audiovisual artist, researcher, lecturer, and electronic instrument creator based in Stockholm. He has performed live, taught workshops and created scores of unique instruments and installations since 2002 across Europe, North and South America, and New Zealand. He is currently a PhD researcher in Media & Interaction Design at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, focusing on historically informed audiovisual synthesis.
CONTACT: macumbista AT THE DOMAIN gmail.com
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