Suck (2010)

Suck (2010) by olilarkin

15 minute long shepard tone work out. Featuring mostly Endless Series Version 3 and Valhalla DSP plugins. This is a 2 channel mix of a 3 channel composition, that was meant to be experienced loud and was premierd @ Strange Vibrations, Music Research Centre, York UK on 01/12/2010.

Automatics Group @ Music Research Centre Feb 2011

The Automatics Group, MediaMix, 18/02/11 from mrcyork on Vimeo.

From a recent gig at the Music Research Centre

Endless Series Version 3 - Progress Report

Over the past 6 months I have been porting my plugins (which were previously developed using Synthedit and MaxMSP/Pluggo) to hard-coded AudioUnits/VSTs. This has been a substantial amount of work but I'm getting there now. The DSP for the plugins is mostly done and I am working on the UIs. The new versions are compatible with more hosts, load faster and support multiple processors.

Sonogram of a recent composition using Endless Series v3

For Endless Series version 3 I have added many cool new features. If you don't know about the original version of these plugins see here:

http://www.olilarkin.co.uk/index.php?p=eseries

Here is a sneak preview of the main changes from version 2.

• Endless Series is now one plugin (you can switch between tone generator, ring modulator, flanger, filter and phaser effect modes). This makes it much easier to experiment with the different timbres that each effect provides, whilst keeping settings such as the rate of the glissando/steps.
• The pitch shift mode is gone and a new bandpass filter mode is added
• True stereo operation: Endless Series v1 and v2 were "mono to stereo" plugins. Version 3 can work like this but can also be used in true stereo mode (for all the different effect modes), and the two channels can be offset for detuning effects
• MIDI triggering: In the stepped mode the steps can be triggered by sending MIDI notes to the plugin. This means you can sync the stepped tone up to your host, so it steps on each 1/4 note , or even program in a rhythm and play the shepard tone with that rhythm 
• The "phase" of the glissando/scale can be reset with a specific midi note, meaning that you can reproduce the same glissando/scale each time
• In the "Tone generator" mode, you can add harmonics for a richer sound
• When in stepped mode an amplitude envelope can be used to make "gaps" between the steps of the shepard scale
• The internal DSP features improved interpolation methods and other tweaks

There's still a way to go (the time it takes to make GUIs is not to be under-estimated). I will be offering a generous upgrade price for existing owners when the plugins are eventually released, which will hopefully be first quarter 2011. I'll post some audio examples here in the near future.

Strange Vibrations

I'm organising and performing at a free concert in York. For more details, see the facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=167434656607933

Through The Looking Glass - Sound Art Radio

My friend played my track Wrong Morning on his radio show for Sound Art Radio.

 Through The Looking Glass 2010-09-09 by Through the looking glass

Kasio phase distortion synthesiser

This is a max patch that I have been working on for a while. There is an ongoing discussion on the C74 forums about the lack of fully featured synth examples, so I thought I would polish this up and put it out there. It's loosely modelled on a Casio CZ101 and uses phase distortion synthesis, which is a kind of FM. The UI is purely functional. It doesn't use any externals.

Free to use in non-commercial projects.

http://www.olilarkin.co.uk/blog/files/kasio_v0-1.zip

Repairing Korg MonoPoly keyboard contacts

Korg MonoPoly keyboard contacts, originally uploaded by olilarkin.

I had some keys not triggering on my Korg MonoPoly - a common problem with this and other synths of the era. I cleaned the contacts as per the old crow tutorial (twice) and still some of them didn't work - I guess the conductive rubber had just worn away. Thanks to some advice from the Analogue Heaven mailing list I applied some conductive paint to the contacts which seems to have done the trick.

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