March 11

Sonification of Earthquakes off the Coast of Honshu, Japan - Friday March 11, 2011

Earthquakes off the east coast of Honshu, Japan - Friday March 11, 2011 by Micah Frank

Sonification of the incredible seismic activity off the coast of Honshu, Japan - Friday March 11th.

This is only a selection of 20 or so individual readings. At the time of this recording, earthquakes are ongoing as there have been almost 40 readings in the past 8 hours.

UPDATE: As more readings come in that result in interesting generations I will post throughout the day on SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/micahfrank

Tectonic is a realtime seismic analysis and sound synthesis system. Sound is created in realtime by earthquakes as they occur across the globe. A tightly integrated system between Max/MSP, Google Earth and Symbolic Sound’s Kyma processes earthquake data that is translated into sound synthesis parameters. A USGS XML feed is parsed into numerous fields including magnitude, elevation, time of day and geographical coordinates. These data are mapped to synthetic spectrums and processed by granular, aggregate and subtractive synthesis.

Learn more about Tectonic at http://micahfrank.com/tagged/tectonic

 28  This post is tagged with: earthquake  generative  japan  kyma  sonification  synthesis  tectonic  tsunami  sounddesign  
March 2

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.

 3  This post is tagged with: tectonic  sound-design  generative  reactive  ableton  google-earth  sound-art  sound-installation  
November 22

I was sending sysex data to my Machinedrum the other day when suddenly it began blurting out the most digitally obscene sounds I have ever heard from it! I was a little offended and you might be too once you hear them. This is the stuff I love – when a piece of gear generates sounds that it could never create under its normal operating mode. I took some time today to program a drum kit and then some Live Racks that cycle through various samples repeatedly while simultaneously jumping between sample offsets every 10ms or so creating interesting transients. Here’s a quick mp3 demo and a download link for the Live Pack. Enjoy! This pack is now available as a free Puremagnetik download here.

I was sending sysex data to my Machinedrum the other day when suddenly it began blurting out the most digitally obscene sounds I have ever heard from it! I was a little offended and you might be too once you hear them. This is the stuff I love – when a piece of gear generates sounds that it could never create under its normal operating mode.

I took some time today to program a drum kit and then some Live Racks that cycle through various samples repeatedly while simultaneously jumping between sample offsets every 10ms or so creating interesting transients. Here’s a quick mp3 demo and a download link for the Live Pack. Enjoy!

This pack is now available as a free Puremagnetik download here.

 3  This post is tagged with: ableton-live  downloads  elelectronic-music  generative  idm  live-pack  samples  glitch  machinedrum  monomachine  
September 28

“Sixteen” is a sequence generated by a few simple equations within Native Instruments’ KSP processor for the Kontakt sampler. Utilizing 113 different samples, mapped across the keyboard, the sequence explores the number 16 as both a common musical value (the 16th note) and a point of reference for measuring voice allocation. Once the sequence is triggered, a loop is initiated. Different note values are selected at random while note velocities are selected from an array of 16 possibilities. The outcome of the velocity value is then divided by 16. That quotient is the number of 16th notes until the next note is triggered. It is a simple equation that naturally invokes complex syncopation and musical patterns within the given sample set. Here is one example outcome. Sixteen by micahfrank

“Sixteen” is a sequence generated by a few simple equations within Native Instruments’ KSP processor for the Kontakt sampler. Utilizing 113 different samples, mapped across the keyboard, the sequence explores the number 16 as both a common musical value (the 16th note) and a point of reference for measuring voice allocation. Once the sequence is triggered, a loop is initiated. Different note values are selected at random while note velocities are selected from an array of 16 possibilities. The outcome of the velocity value is then divided by 16. That quotient is the number of 16th notes until the next note is triggered. It is a simple equation that naturally invokes complex syncopation and musical patterns within the given sample set. Here is one example outcome. Sixteen by micahfrank

 0  This post is tagged with: sound-design  generative  kontakt  ksp  experimental