jahr null aufnahmen

daniel karlsson

composer/improviser
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[Monday August 29 2011 04:16]: Me and Maria got a super for cheap deal on some Stanton Final Scratch timecode vinyl a couple of days ago. From what I can understand this was hip a few years ago and subsequently the Ugens date back to 2007 and seem to be less than compatible w/ our futureworld SuperCollider version. So it seems at least for the present. Help is coming so expect updates. Anyway I decided to do what I usually do when I get stuck on tech. I workaround and get to where something is making a sound and work from there. I used a modified turntable (w/ just a regular record on it) and a controller for interface, Audiomulch for sound and Supercollider for control. I made a video w/ my telephone of myself playing the patch. Enjoy. vinyl_patch_demo.mp4

[Thursday August 25 2011 02:56]: Henrik Olsson came to visit. We talked about this and that. About the future and about the past. We did some editing of some material that we recorded a while back at EMS. It's crisp and all but needs some polish. We fiddled around w/ that for a while. After that I spent most of the day making a patch that could ctrl a piece of hardware. The Electrix Repeater. It's something I've been putting off for a very long time. After spending six hours on that little project it is now clear to me that just using a computer to do the job instead of using a computer to ctrl a piece of hardware is better for a lot of reasons. The main reason being that the processor in the hardware is too slow. It can't handle incoming commands at rates above slow (I can click faster than it can process). Another drawback is that the timestretch feature (which is the trick is does well, if you like artefacts, and I know I do) is global. That is it effects all four tracks simultaneously. I deserve better. More bells. More whistles. More ctrl. SuperCollider.

[Monday August 22 2011 03:26]: Noodled around w/ feedback during the day then rehearsal w/ The Schematics in the afternoon. It made me happy. Pleased in a way that I rarely arrive at. After that I was calm and clear and thinking a lot about how composition can inform improvisation in a very satisfying way. I thought about actions and sounds. About what goes together. I was excited by how my mind was clear and how awesome the group is and about how it had got me to feeling so together. After that I went through some files and I found the recording I did of the gig w/ Katt Hernandez a while back at Kafé Klaver. I remember I had gotten stuck on the editing because it was not as crisp as I'm used to nowadays what w/ all of the uptown type recording gear available to us now. It was just a little H2 recording we did for kicks. I worked some on it and I got to where I can live w/ it as a documentation of a gig. Enjoy. hernandez_karlsson_at_kafe_klavér.mp3

[Sunday August 21 2011 01:16]: Today I made a patch in Audiomulch that started out being about sequenced patterns. Like the classic kind that goes up and then down over and over again. I added some bells and whistles w/ SuperCollider as is customary. I made presets for the two sequencers. The presets consist of the pitch material (arpeggiated chords really) and octave distribution. These presets are then chosen from at random (in time). The amount of pitches in the presets vary so that gives changing meter. Also the amount of presets in the sequencers are not the same. The combinatorics are good. It was kind of tricky to get the pitch material to add up. It took a couple of hours to get them lined up so that all the combinations sound good. After I finished that I added some feedback through spectral averaging for good measure. Then I felt it was kind of busy and that it was lacking some kind of larger arc of time. I added a sidechained kick that sort of measures out the time. After that it was all about bass for the rest of the day. This etude ended up being about the low end of the spectrum. Enjoy. sub_etude.mp3

[Friday August 19 2011 20:45]: This morning I woke up to an email from the journalist at the german radio thanking me for the micro modular ensemble pieces I sent her so mission accomplished on that. Today was the last day to apply for the STIM scholarship. It was kind of tricky. They had these stupid restrictions about filesize. The maximum allowed filesize for each file was 10 Mb. I spent hours weighing the position, length and quality of the excerpts. I don't like having my compositions cut short and sounding like utter crap due to skimpy compression quality. I had looked at the application form a while back and I had been mulling over the answers in my head for a while so I got through the questionnaire part ok I think. I went for a walk after submitting my application. I thought about the Audiorama speaker setup and about spatialisation in general. The idea came to me that I don'thave to limit myself to circles as trajectories. A sound starting from the floor and coming up through the rings in a straight line ending in the ceiling and then looping back to the floor only this time shifted one step to the left perhaps. Or maybe a spiral. Any trajectory. Multiple trajectories. Copies of the same trajectories pushing sound through them at different speeds. Divisions by a descending factor. So long as nothing changes too fast I should be ok. Slow and steady.

[Friday August 19 2011 02:48]: Finally finished editing Covert operations. The master came out good in the end. Nice and thick. Created a Soundcloud account for The micro modular ensemble and posted it there. Had to hi-jack the stream off of the player to get the other repertoire from the rest of the composers in the Norberg set. Mailed the rest of the composers so that they can mail me back high resolution masters so I can replace the hi-jacks later. Mailed the link to the micro modular site to the journalist from the german radio who interviewed me about the ensemble at Norberg. Hopefully the tunes will get some german airplay.

[Sunday July 18 2010 04:32]:Recently I've been thinking that I would be happier having less things. I am often disgusted by just how many things I have around me all of the time. The constant surveilling of the state of all items. Always careful as to not let anything become lost or damaged. I've started giving things away. Little trinkets and niknaks I've somehow, almost uncounciously, collected over the years. They pile up to a great many things. I've given some to friends. Some to charity. I am unclear about just how much of a clean house I want to arrive at. I do realize that at a certain point life gets more difficult without the having of all of the things. Some of my possesions are tools which need to be stored until need arises and their purpose can be fullfilled. They need to be stored in a place which is both out of sight and within reach. A difficult equation. A large storage space is needed. A recidence. A home. I feel as though I need to make some kind of list of my possesions. I feel I need to explain to myself what all of these things mean to me. To make clear the responsibility I have entered into as I have let all of these things into my life. I am trying to see the buddhist perspective. I am interested to see how I have let these things control me. Since all my stuff is spread out at various places I thought the shortest and simplest list to make would be this one. If the house I live in and all of the various places where I have stuff stowed away where to simultaneously explode while I was somewhere in transit between them this is what I would have w/ me.

•1 black MacBook 2.4 ghz.
•1 black treated polyester laptop case.
•1 iPhone 3GS 32 gb.
•1 USB to 30 pin chord + slim charger.
•1 pair of Sony MDR V150 headphones.
•1 pair of black rim prescription glasses.
•1 set of keys.
•1 pair of black socks.
•1 pair of black briefs.
•1 pair of black suit pants.
•1 black shirt.
•1 black tie.
•1 black pinstriped suit jacket.
•1 pair of black shoes.
•1 black scarf.
•1 black umbrella.
•1 black duffel bag.
•1 black canvas wallet.