Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541592
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 75 percussion, and I have always dreamed of the sound props I find somehow becoming virtualised, so that anyone can 'play' them. My new modus operandi is to record enough additional material to essentially make a virtual instrument which can be played via MIDI. The Exquisite Corpus - The added recordings involve capturing 'consistent variety,' that is, multiples of velocity levels and takes for 'round robin' access. Once they are edited and key- mapped, they become a 'virtual' brake drum and by recording 32-bit float at 192kHz with the ultrasonic Sanken CUX-100K mics, the virtual instrument can coherently function pitched down three octaves. Referring back to concatenative synthesis, creating sound libraries as audio 'data sets' is essentially creating a corpus. So, these new key-mapped sample sets alone enable a frictionless paradigm to shift for creative use. But the potential of a corpus is in how it is used. As I build the corpus, it can of course, be played directly by a human with a MIDI keyboard or drum pad. But it's not a musical context that excites me; It's a combination of human and algorithmic performance that I am developing. Performative Sequencing - For example, if you record a cicada in high resolution and slow it down, you can analyse and extract the timing and frequency of its tymbal mechanism. Each shrill chirp at real speed is a train of pulses, which naturally vary; each chirp is unique and the amount of chirping is temperature and environment dependent. With my new methodology, I can now make a cicada play the brake drum. Another example: When I recorded a big library of wood sound effects, I kept noticing that when I threw a plank of wood onto concrete, how exquisite the timing of the impacts was. The fast sequence of impacts or pulses is created by gravity and movement, angle and force. But when considered in their own right, some are as beautiful as the timing of a Joe Morello drum fill. Another example: I shoot time lapses (visual and sound), and the way the light drains from the sky as day turns to dusk and then to night, has always captivated me at a deep level. I've captured these time lapses many, many Recording during 2013 Artists Residency in Shodoshima, Japan.