public 0.2

An ambient piece, performed in the fountain at Oregon Park in Portland, OR

A synth designed in the supercollider programming language, running on an asus eeepc, controlled by a korg nanokontrol, playing through a set of boomtube battery powered speakers, recorded on a zoom h2 recorder.

The fountain is a ring of concrete, where the synth resonated against the walls.

• play
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• min volume
• max volume

posted by idiopath (7 comments total)

I feel like there is a lot of potential with a sort of found sound field recordings music thing, except with synths and such instead of folk instruments. I love the effect of the people in the background along with the deep synth at the beginning.
posted by Corduroy at 11:02 PM on May 16, 2010

Thanks. Now that you mention it, it is similar to folk music in that the goal of this project is to be seen and heard in a public place and have the act of making music become part of a social world. I plan to do more of these, and perhaps find a way to integrate the sonic environment into the sound.
posted by idiopath at 11:11 PM on May 16, 2010

I always admire anyone who uses found sound. it takes real skill to add that, I think. Very nice indeed
posted by Jonesisdying at 12:37 PM on May 17, 2010

So are you defining "found sound" as the inclusion of the sound in the environment where I perform?
posted by idiopath at 12:44 PM on May 17, 2010

Good point! I guess it's really 'ambient'. But you found it there, so that makes it 'found' too. Whatever, it adds grit and I really like it. What kind of mic are you using?
posted by Jonesisdying at 12:27 AM on May 18, 2010

I meant that as a legitimate question - I am not sure how I would use the words ambient vs. found vs. environmental etc. so when I would use each term is an open question for me.

I use the internal mics on the zoom h2. Even the synth is recorded only via the mics (though getting a clean digital recording would have been easy and was quite tempting).
posted by idiopath at 5:41 AM on May 18, 2010

Thinking about this now, I guess a true definition (and I've had to go back to references on 'Found Art' here!) is the deliberate inclusion of sounds recorded for the purpose and re-used by means of 'dislocating procedures' to create something new (which is actually what I do a lot); whereas your music uses ambient (ie background or atmospheric) sound to add texture to the experience.
Either way I admire your inclusion of it. Well done for resisting the temptation to go 'clean'.
posted by Jonesisdying at 6:55 AM on May 18, 2010