/339 - Sounds and Connections

Although it’s now apparent that the axoloti module needs some rework to make everything fit, I was able to get it finished to a point where it works to pass midi, and act as a usb host and a device simultaneously. This is really cool! Was using the qunexus to play a sample chromatically, while norns running Kria was triggering and pitching 4 others. This isn’t all that musical, but it’s the record of playing and tweaking and trying and listening for quite awhile so I might as well post it. Regardless, those doumbeks sound cool.

/302 - Communication

Got a nice little 3d printed ring to close up the sides on my Norns shield so I had a go at Awake sequencing Timber. I’m pretty sure that the only thing better than norns is 2 norns.

/289 - Floaty

It’s been great getting all of these projects off my list, but I haven’t sat down at the desk in what feels like forever. I’ve been playing LOTS of guitar — I am pretty obsessed with the jazzmaster — but that’s just been guitar > amp. Tonight I set up compass as a longform delay by reducing the loop lengths and setting a low overdub amount. That way everything kept looping and slowing fading as new layers were built on top. All running into the Wedge, of course. (maybe a little too much) It was fun and I will definitely be exploring this further.

/287 - Inching Towards Mobility

Took my mobile mess out to the table this afternoon for testing. Still working on the Axoloti patch (and it appears that my damaged oled screen might finally be giving out, making it very hard to troubleshoot the patch) but things worked well running the jazzmaster into the mini > norns (mlr) > axo synth and reverb > portable speakers. Tons of variables so it definitely needs more use, but once I started playing it was a lot of fun.

The video is a synth drone with guitar loops playing from mlr, and live guitar over the top with bonus bird sounds. It was a beautiful day so the windows were open and the chickadees were really enjoying themselves at the feeders. Wasn’t planning on recording so it was done with the iphone mic. Sounds pretty decent, considering.

/266 - Saturdaze

TL: Emi coloring her heart out on the amazing drawing sent to us by our dear friend Kara.

TR: Installed B-B-B-B-Beat and it was full of glitchy bugs, until I found out that it was all intentional. haha

BL: We ordered lunch from our favorite The Red Fern and took it to Cobb’s Hill Park. These two set up nearby and proceeded to make some very interesting drones as a small group of people watched. We took a walk around the reservoir and they were gone by the time we got back, but it was SO COOL to randomly run into experimental music in the wild.

BR: There’s never a bad time for some Don’t Break The Ice.

/259 - Saturdaze

A very busy and tiring day. We did a lot of work around the house and in the yard. Totally wiped out, but feel very good about the state of things.

Here’s a recording of my first test using the 4 channel setup on the H4N to get environmental sounds to go with the line out from my mixer. Piano improv into norns running Barcode. I think it turned out pretty well.

/258 - Scenes From A Day

1&2: Ash discovered some Monarch caterpillars on the milkweed plants next to our house. The first thing Emily wanted to do when she got up (at 6am) this morning was go check on them. I was barely able to convince her that they probably wanted to sleep in. When we finally did go out she made sure all were accounted for and then pulled up her chair to make sure “they were staying safe.”

3: Had a lovely time with my guitar and norns on the porch after dinner. Stayed out as long as I could, but eventually the mosquitos won. Tried out 4 channel recording for the first time — using the line ins from norns and the built-in mics to capture all the environment sounds. Haven’t had a chance to listen yet, so hopefully things turned out ok.

4: Macrame! Very simple design, but decided not to go way overboard (at first) for once. Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that I can nurse this spider plant back to health.

/221 - Quence

Wonderful little surprise tonight in finding this script I somehow missed. I watched about a minute of the demo and glanced at the docs and just went for it, recording straight to disc inside norns. It amazes me the instruments this community creates and then gives away for all to share.

/216 - Daddy Daughter Day

Had a fun day with Emi today. She wanted me to draw stories on her magna doodle as she told them — one about a family of ducks wearing necklaces and one about an alligator who slipped on a banana peel on his way to a family picnic. We also made lots of patterns/shapes/stacks/arrangements of bananagram tiles, the last one reminding me of ORCA. This evening I tried out a new norns script called Grd, and although I don’t feel like I did very much to make it happen, the sounds coming out were quite lovely.

/211 - Sundaze

Granular loops, straight from the couch. Battery powered devices are wonderful. The weekend went by really fast!

/165 - Multi Multi

Typically a looper/slicer, MLR also makes a wonderful (6 tap) delay…

/124 - Royal

Evening loops with baritone guitar and cranes recorded onto the Webcor and then digitized. This reel to reel could definitely use a cleanup/grease/deox but it plays amazingly well for a 60+ year old machine that spent its last 5 or so years in a garage.

/076 - Communication

I’ve had an old M-Audio Uno midi interface for ages and it’s always worked great. Last week, a light bulb went on in my head that I could get another and use them together to get usb hosts (computer, ipad, norns) to talk midi to each other. It is extra wiring (there are a few specific solutions out there for this) but it works! Had a lot of fun with this tonight and am pretty excited that these things are now able to pass signals back and forth.

/067 - Code

Decided to finally try coding in lua for norns. The norns studies breaks it down in a way that’s (mostly) easy to digest, but as a non-coder there’s so much that goes over my head. It also doesn’t help that I’m a sloppy typer. Still — it worked! Going to try to keep slogging through to see if things start to click — it’s encouraging to read that others have had the same experience and ended up being able to build their own scripts. My previous attempts at learning to code haven’t gone far, but maybe this is the time?

/060 - Music Box

A little nighttime music box piece featuring Strum and Digitone. Pitched down and time-stretched. *yawns*

/055 - Awake (at 4AM)

For no good reason other than I woke up. My daily morning ritual is to make coffee and then sit on the couch and drink it in the quiet dark until I’m ready/have to go do something else. Today after my period of silence I decided to grab diy norns and fiddle (on the couch, in the dark, with the default norns script Awake, haha) around. I ended up recording a little music box un-lullaby to start the day.

/053 - Quick Norns

I have been meaning to 1. make an enclosure for the diy norns, and 2. use the cnc machine more. Well, tonight was the night. I designed these plates very quickly so to have something protecting it, but I still plan on making something more finished at some point. I also need to get some proper standoffs as I had to tetris together what I had to make it work. I made a bottom plate too, but the standoff screws I have aren’t long enough. Oh well.

I forgot how hypnotizing it is to watch the machine cut…

/044 - Mondaze

Pictures from my usual Monday morning visit to the park.

Evening sounds from Continua and Phyllis.

/042 - Aperture

My wife’s (photographer) old camera is back from the dead, and since she has a new one that means I get to adopt it. It has been a long time since I’ve shot anything digital besides my phone. Low depth of field forever! (Also fisheye)

Morning sounds: Continua > Phyllis. Continua’s modulation options are wonderful for pseudo generative melodies and slowly evolving textures. Besides being a great filter, Phyllis also has probably the prettiest noise source I’ve ever heard. Felt like I was at the beach on the moon.

/035 - Otis

Family came over to visit today so we didn’t venture too far. It snowed a bunch so that was nice. I’m hoping it sticks around. The world always feels quieter under snow.

Had an early morning play with Audio Damage Quanta using the recording of the singing ice for granular processing, layered with sine waves. Running into Otis on norns for lfo-triggered sampling/delay/looping.