Micah Frank

Ableton recently came to my studio and I showed off...

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 23:25:00 -0400

Ableton recently came to my studio and I showed off Puremagnetik’s Retro Synths. The video is on their home page this month along with an update for Retro Synths.

Samples: 64BitBreakfast: Kyma, RME, Bias Peak & OSX having domestic issues

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:41:37 -0400

WinkSound Short About Puremagnetik

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:03:00 -0400

In the Studio with WinkSound

Free Samples : Digital Blasphemy (The Sound of Wrongness)

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:42:00 -0400

What happens when you do everything wrong? Digital Blasphemy contains excerpts from an afternoon jam I had in Kyma. Raw and unedited, do what you like with it. Mistreated waveshapers, hyper-resonating pulses, harshly modulating synthetic spectrums run through overdriven compression, non-harmonic ring-modulated frequency controllers…. the list goes on. If it’s wrong, I think I did it.

I personally find it very useful to cut up some bits to make a glitchy (think Alva Noto) kit. Enjoy!

Sound Design (not music) for http://www.hendricksgin.comProduced...

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:10:58 -0400

Sound Design (not music) for http://www.hendricksgin.com
Produced at Nise Music, Brooklyn NYC

New Kamoni Site Now on Bandcamp

Tue, 18 May 2010 01:27:00 -0400

Kamoni BandCamp Page: http://kamoni.bandcamp.com/

Sound Design for Stoli ElitProduced at Nise Music, Brooklyn

Thu, 13 May 2010 15:53:00 -0400

Sound Design for Stoli Elit
Produced at Nise Music, Brooklyn

Tectonic Now on SoundCloud

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:58:00 -0400

I am posting a daily audio blog for Tectonic with high quality, freely downloadable excerpts from the ‘daily earthquake’. Here are a few from this past week.

M 5.2, Kermadec Islands region - Thursday, April 15, 2010 13:40:59 UTC by DailyEarthquake

M 5.3, Kepulauan Talaud, Indonesia - Saturday, April 17, 2010 06:57:25 UTC by DailyEarthquake

M 3.0, Baja California, Mexico - Monday, April 19, 2010 at 10:30:39 UTC by DailyEarthquake

M 4.5, Pakistan - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 07:40:47 UTC by DailyEarthquake

M 3.0, Southern California - Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 11:01:06 UTC by DailyEarthquake

Adapting Tectonic to 'Organic' Synthesis Designs

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:06:00 -0400

Tectonic’s Max output is now interfacing directly with a Kyma system. This has enabled me to realize the project’s full potential through various types of synthesis created organically, through the the many parameters being passed to Kyma. The initial planning of the port basically took place in this sketch.

Programming this “flowchart” in Kyma is taking place slowly day-by-day. However, most of the synthesis channels are completed. So what’s happening here?

When Max picks up a new earthquake it sends the data to Kyma generating a new synthetic spectrum. From there, based on a parameter (like latitude) the spectrum gets resynthesized through 1 of four methods - granular resynthesis, waveshaping, subtractive or physical modeling.

As in the original prototype, longitude controls the output of the speaker array. It will automatically spatialize the longitudinal coordinates across multiple speakers. Basically, this means that Tectonic is no longer limited to one speaker per zone. Instead, the reading can register at any point in a 360-degree radius.

Kamoni: Various Live Performance Recordings

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:31:00 -0400

I have dug up some past live performances and bounced out excerpts that are freely available for download on SoundCloud. Everything is played in real time on a DrumKat or Roland SPD-20 hooked up to Ableton Live. See http://youtube.com/kamoni for a visual explanation. They are not mixed or mastered, rather raw real-time bits of performances from various places I have played over the past 5 years. Enjoy!

Live performance of “Ocelot” from Warper party - NYC by micahfrank

Live performance ‘Viviparous’ - Earthdance Tampa, Florida by micahfrank

Live performance ‘Margauy’ @ Q Club - Birmingham UK by micahfrank

Live performance of “Echidna” from Phuq Radio show. by micahfrank

Finally finished the prototype for Tectonic after 2 months of...

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:38:00 -0500

Finally finished the prototype for Tectonic after 2 months of work. Tectonic is a system I’ve been developing to create realtime synthesis based on data from seismic activity. It will ultimately be a complete install with a projector and over 12 speakers (see models below). This is the first working prototype I have set up in the studio.

I’ve already begun making new implementations and alterations. It’s quite amazing how flexible the system actually is - and a very powerful content generator. The other day I created an entire live performance powered by the barrage of seismic activity in Chile. It really is endless…

About Tectonic

Tectonic is a sound sculpture created in real time by earthquakes as they occur across the globe. A tightly integrated system between Max/MSP, Google Earth and Ableton Live processes a stream of real-time data that is translated into synthesis and sample playback parameters.

When an earthquake occurs, seismic data is relayed to the system, sound is produced and Google Earth immediately flies to the coordinates of the latest earthquake giving us a visual representation of the newest developments. As multiple earthquakes occur daily, the sculpture builds, enmeshing itself in a complex soundscape of textures and tones - every second, different from the last and never repeating the same stage twice.

Various install options for Tectonic

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:40:00 -0500

Various install options for Tectonic

For the Able10 anniversary, I made a Live Pack that expands on...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:07:00 -0500

For the Able10 anniversary, I made a Live Pack that expands on some of the kits, grooves and Live Racks in my scrapyard of sounds. I built the song ‘Metropolis’ around the sounds and called in Atarah Valentine to lay down the vocals. The Live Pack is filled with very expressive kits that you can download for free here: http://www.ableton.com/able10-artist-packs

Original music for Olay “Bank”produced at Music for...

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:50:00 -0400

Original music for Olay “Bank”
produced at Music for Picture, NYC

Some excerpts from Kamoni’s live set using Ableton Live and a...

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:36:00 -0400

Some excerpts from Kamoni’s live set using Ableton Live and a DrumKat. Includes some more jungle, dubstep, dnb improvised freestylin’.

Kamoni on Phuq Radio

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:45:00 -0400

Kamoni on Phuq Radio

Biography

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:03:00 -0400

Photo by Rachel Papo

One of New York’s most prolific young sound programmers, Micah Frank can be found performing live with some of NYC’s hottest avant-garde acts or behind the music on your TV set during commercial breaks. His work encompasses everything from live electronics to sonification art and sound design for the world’s leading music manufacturers.

As Kamoni (www.kamoni.net), his solo assemblage of jungle beats, cerebral sounds, and chopped up samples has received an international audience as he implements a unique, dynamic use of percussion hardware controllers, synthesizers and software. He currently performs and co-produces with NYC based artist Atarah Valentine. In recent years he has performed throughout The US, Canada and Europe.

Micah is the lead developer at Puremagnetik (www.puremagnetik.com), a boutique sound design company he founded in 2006. He has contributed to numerous factory sound libraries including Native Instruments FM8, KORE and Ableton’s Operator, Sampler and Drum Machines. Micah’s work has been featured in Electronic Musician, Sound on Sound, XLR8R, Remix, Recording, Computer Music, Knowledge, Keys and numerous other publications.

Here’s an interview with Loopmasters from a few months back....

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:11:00 -0400

Here’s an interview with Loopmasters from a few months back. Discussing Puremagnetik stuff and sound design.

Click Here & go there

Computer Music “Eye on the Industry” Read it here

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:10:00 -0400

Computer Music “Eye on the Industry”

Read it here

In the 2nd half of 2008, I took various old drum machines and an...

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:50:00 -0500

In the 2nd half of 2008, I took various old drum machines and an mpc with me wherever I traveled. In passing time I documented the machines in various locations and created this collage of sounds from each machine.