Forshage Neo-H build thread.

octatonic

Here it is at an earlier stage with the harmonica microphone in place:



That is part of the Tornipulator circuit where I can get instant feedback, as well as 50 cycle hum/ground lift and a Kill Switch.

ThePrettyDamned

Ohhhh boy

octatonic

Here is another model with the Tornipulator and the El-Rayo pickups in it.
Go to the end to hear the crazy effects.

Greatape

What an awesome way to honour your mum. 

I'm a massive fan of that Torn/Phelps/Baggetta/Aarset school of sound manipulation. I hope you'll post examples of what you do with it, in time. 

octatonic

Greatape said:

What an awesome way to honour your mum. 

I'm a massive fan of that Torn/Phelps/Baggetta/Aarset school of sound manipulation. I hope you'll post examples of what you do with it, in time. 

Thank you.
Yes I guess I am of that school of thought, in terms of how to approach 'sound design' with the guitar, although I use generative/stochastic processes rather than simply improvising with the guitar.

My current methodology is rather than using guitar effects I use the 'guitar as an oscillator' in a modular synthesiser.
This is my main system, although I have a few different smaller systems as well.

Greatape

octatonic said:

Greatape said:

What an awesome way to honour your mum. 

I'm a massive fan of that Torn/Phelps/Baggetta/Aarset school of sound manipulation. I hope you'll post examples of what you do with it, in time. 

Thank you.
Yes I guess I am of that school of thought, in terms of how to approach 'sound design' with the guitar, although I use generative/stochastic processes rather than simply improvising with the guitar.

My current methodology is rather than using guitar effects I use the 'guitar as an oscillator' in a modular synthesiser.
This is my main system, although I have a few different smaller systems as well.

'Stochastic'...you mean..randomised? Excuse my ignorance. Intrigued to hear more. 

octatonic

Not just randomness- stochastic processes are based on random probability distribution.

Randomness would be something like this:



What this is doing is a sine wave is instantiated at 440 Hz and every 100ms it is snapshotted and that value is converted to a float number.
It is for all intents and purposes 'random' within the framework set out- the snapshot values are not predictable beyond being in a data range.
 
If I was to insert a stochastic process to this I might use a Bernoulli gate, that basically a weighted coin toss, adding probability to the likelihood that a head or a tail might come up. In the above example I might use it to weight how often the snapshot cycle (currently at 100ms) is changed to a new value.

It gets really interesting when stochastic processes sit on top of other stochastic processes.

Total unrestricted randomness is, imho, pretty unmusical.
It is the limitations you set upon the randomness that can lead you into interesting musical territory.
 
It is worth checking out Iannis Xenakis- either his music or his text "Formalized music: thought and mathematics in composition."
Or look into Markov Chains.

kjdowd

octatonic said:

Greatape said:

What an awesome way to honour your mum. 

I'm a massive fan of that Torn/Phelps/Baggetta/Aarset school of sound manipulation. I hope you'll post examples of what you do with it, in time. 

Thank you.
Yes I guess I am of that school of thought, in terms of how to approach 'sound design' with the guitar, although I use generative/stochastic processes rather than simply improvising with the guitar.

My current methodology is rather than using guitar effects I use the 'guitar as an oscillator' in a modular synthesiser.
This is my main system, although I have a few different smaller systems as well.

Love the idea. Be fascinated to hear some examples of the output 

octatonic

Here is something:

http://jamesrichmond.com/audio/tornapart.mp3

I composed this using a contentious verse of a religious text (I'd rather not say which) which was converted to Morse code.
The morse code (a binary system) was used to start and stop a Turing machine locked into 32 steps.
This was split out to two Ornament and Crime quantisers, a number of sequential switches and then to a pair of Resonator modules, fed into a granular effects unit.

kjdowd

Absolutely love that. I'm not familiar with the method at all so forgive the question - is that entirely system generated in the way you describe without manual intervention? Is there any fine tuning? 

ennspek

That's a lovely sentiment 

octatonic

kjdowd said:

Absolutely love that. I'm not familiar with the method at all so forgive the question - is that entirely system generated in the way you describe without manual intervention? Is there any fine tuning? 

So it really depends. 

A lot of this sort of thing can be done ‘deaf’, where I build a system without hearing it.
But as a generative system it changes from performance to performance. 

What you hear is a version of the possible versions that could exist.

A sense of aesthetic comes into this when it comes to choosing which version to use, but again that can be decided with a random number generator.
One of my current interests is this sort of blind composition where I ideate what I want to achieve, built the system, record it without ever hearing it. It isn’t the only thing I am doing though, so it really depends on the approach, the compositional choices I’m making as part of the system/process.

octatonic

Some gut shots:

octatonic

Get a load of this:







What an incredible top.

Vibetronic

Looks amazing and the electronics are really interesting. Looking forward to seeing and hearing it when it's done!

octatonic

Thanks..

Here is the side after the grain has been raised.
Next will be final sanding and a few coats of Tru-oil.
We've decided to do an oil finish on this- the Koa will pop.

Humbucked

Very interesting instrument build going on. Look forward to the finished article. Intrigued by your compositional approach too, I can see potential for a collaboration with Brian Eno. My hat's off to you.

Vibetronic

This is pretty awesome too - a small FB group I'm in has a guy who knows the chap, and he posted this - looks amazing: 

octatonic

Yes, I saw that one- crazy.

I have no idea how Chris finds the time to be such a great musician too.

octatonic

Humbucked said:

Very interesting instrument build going on. Look forward to the finished article. Intrigued by your compositional approach too, I can see potential for a collaboration with Brian Eno. My hat's off to you.

If you've got his number then I'm fairly keen.