Micah Frank

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.

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.