Number stations, making their appearance in the post-war radio landscape, were shortwave radio stations of streams of symbols, mysterious to their listeners and apparently code. Here, the idea of lost and indecipherable broadcasts inspires a wonderfully-varied collection of reflective artists, in a free, Creative-Commons licensed compilation by PublicSpaces Lab. That Barcelona-based netlabel has been reliably curating some of the smartest, most forward-thinking music collections around. This time, the artists are impressive not only in their output but in their range of backgrounds and extra-musical sources of inspiration.

[PS025] Various Artists – Number Stations part II by PublicSpacesLab

The set, curated by Made by Robot (whose own, mechanical track lives up to the artist’s name), begins with an amiable and catchy vocal tune but then covers a wide gamut of constructed frequencies. Kieron James’ Preska Zero Zero helps the compilation hits its stride with grooving repetition of numbers. ambienteer and (monome creator) Tehn sit comfortably back to back with cool-but-cosy layers of samples, stretched and pitched like tents. % and ro have gently-swinging, sparse takes on the theme. Marcus Fischer, Dionysiac, Weather Balloons, and Swaying Smoke really sound like strange, intercepted transmissions. Grooveshysta’s cinematic montage of scenes and beats sets up the otherworldwly conclusion. Concrete Sound System (Primus Luta, appearing Saturday at our own Handmade Music) launches the whole list into outer space with a dense, alien-sounding raucous wall of sound.

So many compilations release artists but tell you nothing about them; here, PSL has produced a thoughtful PDF insert that reveals a lot about the artists and their approaches to production. It’s not so much a matter of recording on tool XX as it is beginning to understand what happened that made the sounds you hear happen. For me, at least, it gave me a different appreciation of what I got from my ears, like adding an additional dimension.

We definitely need a new genre name, as I don’t hear leftfield often, ambient doesn’t really describe everything here, and IDM is … well, just sort of over. Smart electronica? Or just … music? I’m open to suggestions.

Head to the blog post to download the compilation as an MP3 or FLAC. (See tips on how to listen to lossless FLAC from earlier today) The files are hosted by The Internet Archive thanks to their free license.

[PS025] VA – Number Stations part II

And check out part 1 of this series, featuring many of the same artists – and some other surprises.

[PS015] VA – Number Stations by PublicSpacesLab

[PS015] VA – Number Stations

(Note the low number of PSL releases – they are thoughtful about what they put out, rather than dumping too much stuff.)

Greensboro, NC-based art music band Invisible are indiscriminate about technology – in a good way. Plastic cups, keyboards, typewriters, machines controlled by robotics, if it’s in the trash or at a thrift store, it has a place in the band. Sequences are executed in physical, radial player instruments, without a controlling computer anywhere in site. As voicemail tapes get sampled and typewriters tap lines of absurdist lyrics as each typed letter plays a piano note, something magical happens. Perhaps it’s that, novelty aside, somehow these sound-making objects come together for a reason – the machines assemble in the way the band does. And then a chair is a marimba.

The Rhythm 1001 takes “tangible” to a whole new level — everything sequenced is mechanical, triggering found objects. The video above features the sequencer at Charlottesville, Virginia’s Second Street Gallery. (Gents, if you ever visit Brooklyn…) Thanks to Evan Hill for the tip.

Is it “Digital Music”? I think it is very deeply so, perhaps because the objects get treated as discrete musical events (read: percussion).

Incidentally, guys, I agree with a lot of things you’re saying about the use of computers for music, but HAL here tell me he won’t let me fr

Transmission ends.

Nick Maxwell of the excellent Nick’s Tutorials Ableton Live production site shares some free explorations with us, complete with downloads you can reverse-engineer the instruments and play with the topics the video cover. You can also use these in your own work, royalty-free.

I really like some of the work here, from a kitchen knife to a found sound bass. Here’s Nick:

“Icy Shimmer” Effect

In this video, I use a few field recordings of a kitchen knife being unsheathed as well as a door closing as the layers for the eventual sound effect.  Basic things like reversing the waveforms, filtering , panning, and retuning are employed.  I also go beyond that into some more interesting stuff like using a grain delay, simple delay, and an autofilter to create a little effects section to further realize the sound.

Download

Two Drums Created From Samples

In this video I use field recordings to create a kick drum as well as a snappy percussion sound. Some of the techniques include pitch and filter enveloping, working with non-zero crossings to create an interesting attack for your drum, layering samples, and more.

Download

“Jungle-Bass” (2 Parts)

In this video I use field recordings to create a bass patch that might be used in a Jungle or Drum’n'Bass production. I go over some basic intermodulation between LFO’s, describe the Saturator effect’s controls, use the morph parameter to create an interesting filter curve, and more. Additionally, I show two effects that were released with Live 8: The Limiter and the Frequency Shifter.

Download

The UK electronic music scene lost its pioneer Tristram Cary this week, so it’s the perfect time to look back again at the marvels of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Low-budget but long-running Doctor Who is unlikely to be remembered for breaking new ground in, say, fancy props, sets, or visual effects (though they did plenty with what they had). But when it comes to sound and music, the BBC’s DIY approach to sound, ranging from Who to "serious" classical music (even my composition teacher Thea Musgrave worked there) remains significant today.

The BBC is again offering a look inside the storied workshop, now at its 50th birthday. (As their designs stand the test of five decades, I think perhaps electronic sound isn’t just about novelty after all.)

And one of their best finds? A lampshade.

Four sound effects that made TV history [ BBC News Magazine; happily this video works worldwide]

Thanks to Andy Tekkaz for the tip.

Yes, the green lampshade pictured above was Delia Derbyshire’s favorite toy to sample, a reminder that sometimes the non-electrified object is an electronic composer’s best friend. Other gems: the room for the largest synth the BBC ever owned, ominously titled "The Delaware" like some kind of WWII aircraft carrier, which wouldn’t fit through the door. Or room #12, in which the Doctor Who theme was born. Or what must be the world’s oddest home-built mixer, encased in plexiglass. Or, below, the suitcase synth the Workshop custom-built. (Note the prominence of EMS VCS3 synths, designed by Tristram Cary.) Updated: Okay, I was confused as well by the terminology "custom-built" in regards to the synth (evidently a Synthi-A), but then again, given the relationship between EMS and BBC, it’s possible the Radiophonic Workshop was the initial customer. Anyone have any idea?

Host and Radiophonic vet Dick Mills also settles any lingering controversy about how you make a Dalek voice: it’s what (I think) is a VCS3, a ring modulator tuned to 30 Hz, and a little bass attenuation (Dick corrects his colleague on that). If that doesn’t sound like a Dalek, you’re probably not shouting enough.

Digging through recent entries on Troels’ blog is definitely a source of weekend inspiration. I’m fond of found samples, but I tend to record sound making things around the house up close with a mobile recorder for a more intimate sound. Troels drags them over to a concert hall and uses the natural reverb to turn a candle light holder and Coke bottle into something that sounds like massive, tribal percussion. To keep himself disciplined, he limited himself to objects in a random photo. Here’s what it sounds like:

To add to the ambience, he uses the Timefreezer plug-in ($99 for Mac, Windows, Mac Intel, the lot). As the name implies, it “freezes” samples of sound as an effect or instrument. I’ve done some similar things as DIY patches, but it sounds like they’ve done a nice job of implementation.

This approach to sampling percussion with natural reverb, and making an art of the samples, is part of why they pay Troels the big bucks. Be sure to hear his percussion demo for more of the sounds. Little wonder that he blogs the meditation on autism that’s been making the YouTube rounds: sampling sounds requires an almost extrasensory focus on the world around us that we spend most of our time shutting out.

So there you have some fiddling with household objects. What about this “future of adaptive music” business?

Our own W. Brent Latta covered this in some detail in a 2006 interview:

CDM Interview: Tomb Raider: Legend Composer Troels Brun Folmann on Adaptive “Micro-Scoring”

Troels follows up on that topic in a new interview with Game Soundtracks, as reproduced in total on his blog. He has this to say about “micro-scoring” — and notes the use of sliced samples, manipulated live:

So a part of my Ph.D. studies in game music related to developing new methodologies for advanced types of application of music in the game. One of my main focal points was – and still is – the development of something I call: “Micro-scoring”. Micro-scoring is essentially about breaking the score into a variety of small components that are assembled in real-time according to player action and/or interaction. The micro-scores are made in such a way that they adapt to player action or interaction. You have to imagine that there are thousands of things going on in the game environment — the idea behind micro-scoring is to support the major elements in the environment. An example can be a 3-second score for breaking pillars or falling stones, which is scored in the same key as the main ambient background score. We also have more detailed types of micro-scores which are based on slices samples like REX and other sliced sample formats. This allows us to fully adjust pitch- and timing based on player interaction with the game. An example of this is adjusting beat to footsteps and increasing tempo when she starts running. A good example of micro-scoring application relates to chopping up a score in multiple components. So essentially composing a score in 15 different steps and cutting each step up, so it can seemingly integrate into any of the other 15 steps. The system then blends the steps in real-time and you have a much more varied and versatile score – made from micro-scores. This allows you to adjust mood in music with using basic cross-fades, but actually have adaptive types of compositions. Needless to say it’s a fairly complicated effort.

Game scores had at one time been more interactive than they are now, because for at least a period around the early 1990s, PC games used MIDI scores instead of more-rigid audio. Scores are making progress back towards interactivity at those levels and beyond, aided by more powerful game systems that start to resemble the computers we use for live music production. Troels also speaks to where this future is going (and there have been some interesting developments since October 2006 when we spoke to him last):

It depends on whether studios are willing to commit to investing properly into game music. The commitment involves a variety of factors, including prioritizing audio in the production planning and a willingness to invest properly in the scoring. I doubt we will see a huge leap within the next ten years, but we will see more adaptive types of music based on principles similar to the micro-scoring methodology I described. We will also see some real-time DX/VST-based FX plugins like the integration of Waves plugins in Halo 3.

We will not see true adaptive music, since the next-next generation consoles won’t have the processing power to play a 50 GB orchestral sample library playing in real-time with 5 high-end convolution reverbs and an advanced AI that translate player action into music.

We will see more ties between motion picture, television and games – and most likely a larger degree of score usage between the media. But we also see a billion mediocre game scores and they will retain game music in a space it doesn’t need to be. Bleep, Bleep. Blob.

So, there you go — to any of you who are skeptical as far as quality, most game composers are, too! (They’re the ones, after all, most invested in seeing their field progress, while having to wrangle with mediocrity in their area, tight budgets, and tight deadlines.)

I am curious, though, about those 50 GB orchestral samples. Given that adaptive music in games could extend to all kinds of game play that doesn’t need massive orchestras in the background, let alone other venues for adaptive music beyond gaming (from live performance to installation), I’m more optimistic. This year, we’ll see Spore from EA powered by a sound engine built in Pure Data, and I expect other games from developers big to indie. The sound of 8-bit is making a comeback, as well, which will hardly tax game consoles.

With composers like Troels around, that may be a 20 MB sample of a Mexican Coke bottle that sounds better than the 50 GB orchestra, anyway. Troels, give us a ring if you decide to release your Things On My Coffee Table Sample Collection.

(No need to adjust your set: that opening is silent, as I expect the Rothera Research Station is sometimes.)

It’s all another reminder that musical ideas are all around you, wherever you may be — and sometimes it’s very good to get away from the computer screen.

Also, to those of you constantly complaining about the weather in Berlin – considered Antarctica?