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Sometimes it's a little scarey how time flies: how long I have been making and
trying to learn sound and music techniques using the software Metasynth as one of my main tool boxes? It is definitely over a decade. The old saying the more you learn the less you know, the more you realise you dont know, is completely apt here! There is still so much to explore and hopefully learn and apply. I first purchased Metasynth in its change over from version 3 to 4 in the days of a printed manual and beautiful little book.- I think this was about 2003 or 2004?(actually 17 years ago perhaps.) Looking over my sound, animation and video work so much of it has featured Metasynth and much has also featured the use of Artmatic and some Voyager visual and audio materials. Metasynth instantly appealed to me for its (still 17 years later) novel approaches and flexibility and mostly for its non-hierarchical multi-sensory approach— any modicum or largesse of traditional music skills can be applied but equally any morsels of visual art ,design, and even video editing skills are just as easily and productively used. |
Shed Post Kotolute - this is a simple stringed instrument made from the remains of the previous old farm shed post burnt down in a fire, The instrument can allow any tuning and is bowed with a magnetic pick up attached to the underside of an old clothes iron. The four track digital release on Bandcamp features much processing,resynthesis and arrangement of companion sounds to the Shed Post kotolute thanks to Image , Spectrum and Filter Synth pitch and granular Effects. The playlist is below and the home made instrument was included in this "Multivocal" Exhibition
image: improvised rehearsal , with composer Anthony Lyons, set up on shed bench - prepared sewing machines , two laptops and
Shed Post Kotolute |
Many of the tracks on my Ed Mundio Soundcloud account have been made as weekly practice responding to Naviar Haiku's , Haiku of the week- Often these tracks involve creating a complete soundtrack or short soundscape completely within the various rooms within Metasynth including mixing down in its Montage Room but more often than not I am more eclectic and less disciplined taking sequences from traditional daw output and re-synthesizing, effecting or completely translating in Metasynth and then often back to the traditional daw for further processing and finishing. A favorite technique is re-imagining ‘translating” some sort of organic source ( kotolute, sink-guitar, etc)in Metasynth somewhere in the process. This can also be starting with an interesting visual texture ( such as Rock Sonfication example), conversion of text or scientific data, synthetic or acoustic sound recording and then seeing what I can turn this into or discover at vastly different durations and related or entirely different tonalities.
Standing Still in the Current of Time- Composed and modified as a visual composition using Metasynth-
started with intersecting diagonal patterns using only sounds and instruments constructed in Metasynth.
started with intersecting diagonal patterns using only sounds and instruments constructed in Metasynth.
Forest Rock Sonification- built from the sonification of this close up photo of a rock by a lake.. pure sine wave resynthesis as well as sample instruments made from field recordings..
VIDEO Soundtracks featuring Metasynth composition and constructions.
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In the majority of these videos I am not so much aiming to say or tell anyone anything I think they have to know but more sharing my own pre-occupations, fascinations and confusions and attempting to create an experience for the viewer. Hopefully creating an immersive space in which to, consider, reconsider or discover your own ideas, imaginings and feelings. Metasynth has always had a role in these soundtracks creating anything from imitations of musical sounds and styles to noise and dense atonal drones.
Dreamlake. one of the earliest videos that Im prepared to still show(!) from 2006 features alot of Metasynth visually composed and processed sound- Dreamlake -actually made for Commonwealth Games Art Festival in Bendigo in 2006- the next video clip shows the interactive performance device constructed for this event.. "the midi-vacuum cleaner" This film was featured as a chapter in Andrew Selby's book "Animation in Process" Lawrence and King
The Midi-Vacuum Cleaner First made for live performance version of Dreamlake film in 2006 this is a tiny excerpt from a twenty minute modular semi-improvised noise-film using the midi-vac in 2009. The Magician's Birdcage. 2012- the soundtrack was, from hazy memory, 90% if not all Metasynth but likely some mixing and to and fro between traditional daw and Metasynth. I like the richness of the seemingly organic sounds sculpted in Metasynth without them having to exactly imitate any known actual organic sound source or musical instrument. I can hear some of the Metasynth enabled microtonal and custom scale tonalities and granular effects. The animation was made from the amazing ArtMatic & Voyager programs and used very slow frame rate almost stepped motion which actually helps the other worldly/ altered state sort of impression and in practical terms made the most of the long render times needed ! Similar to the music construction different renders were composited and edited together to form the short video piece. The title was some sort of perhaps corny allusion to the birdcage we all make for our own perception of the world around us.
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Hidden Creatures - Metasynth used to synthesise and effect actual creature and environment sounds to create soundscape for large annual 'audiovisual-ecosystem' festival event from 2008 -2016 See outdoor 2013 version. We Notice Raindrops as they fall- a collaboration with composer Mark Pollard, originated from the sonfication of raindrop patterns- I took a recording of raindrops on a bitumen surface( at the train station early one morning) created the sonogram of a section of this recording and experimented with sections of this at vastly slower speeds that revealed the interesting patterns and even melodic like phrases once mapped to particular custom scales played with the inbuilt Celeste multi-sampler instrument. Mark then took a section of these sound recordings and created a beautiful restful composition out of this raindrop pattern(to which I then edited digital animation and processed photos of raindrops). Algae Data ,was my first foray into a form of sonification , working with a Scientific Researcher looking at the impact of rising ocean temperatures on the reproduction of all important kelp or humble ‘seaweed’. I took a visual image of the graphing of these temperatures and used the image synth, microtonal scales, image filter subtle stereo volume and pitch animation, to visualise this data with sound. I then paired this with animated experiments of Voyagers underwater shaders and set ups.- MORE INFO on Metasynth Sonification process here. Mobile Dimensions- suspended wooden mobiles re-arranged in new dimensions-Metasynth soundtrack. Random Thoughts- improvised drawing loops in realtime. Non realtime soundscape made in Metasynth made in Metasynth using image synth, Celeste, Xylophone sampler sounds, spectrum or granular pad-drone sounds. Blackhole Mandala- Artmatic and other graphics and video programs for visuals. Many Metasynth elements and processing in soundtrack. Morning Light- made for a Naviar Records live stream broadcast- Percussion resynthesized and manipulated to create the whole soundtrack in sync with video edit and in some instances sound edited as video layersbased on live performance recordings of various reclaimed upcycled pipes and bells, car springs, telegraph pole caps and featuring -- sardine cans windchime. Coral Mandala- Percussive sound at the start was made by playing the branches of a dried out old pear tree with superballs on the end of skewers!( with thanks to sound designer Diego Stucco for the inspiration for contact mic recording of trees as percussion instruments). All sounds started off with acoustic sounds recorded outside- old rusty steel oil drums and metal circular saw blades and the cap off an old telegraph pole as gongs and bells- Grain stretching, resonant filtering, image filtering and resynthesis in Metasynth, Main composition originally made in Metasynth, only tiny extra mixing and sounds added in Logic pro BUT then all re edited and structured in video editing program layering and overlaying synched sound visualisations from the original longer piece-"Tree Trunk3 WaterDepthSunlight" Video Clip - custom visualisation edited from sequences made with Artmatic Designer(variants and extensions of Audio modulating iteration patch) |
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