PLAN B analog blog

comments in line from PG.


Hi Peter:

I caught Analog Live at Redcat last week, and it was great.  Sure, 
the last piece wasn't exactly analog, and Thighpaulsandra wasn't 
entirely live or analog (lots of sequencing and digital piano),

from PG: Something tells me you were on the right side of the Theater, yes? That wasn't digital piano Thighp was using!  We had a Steinway behind his riser and he stepped down there and played those sections live.  He originally intended to ring modulate it via the Aries and had it set up at one point, but TPS's preferred it unprocessed.  I'll see if anyone took a photo of him playing the Stienway and i'll post it.  His playing skills are excellent, btw. 

...but their pieces were a nice contrast to the other more analog pieces and it was all very enjoyable. The Secret Life of Semiconductors was a 
real standout.  Loved the percussive vactrol sounds you got.

from PG:  Thank you for that, it really means a lot to me after what I went through to get it to that state.  It was pretty much a nightmare before I decided to use midi.  I was freaking out a bit, admittedly intimidated by the caliper of the artists in the room waiting for my suggestions and at times they were rightfully concerned about what it was sounding like, which blurred my focus even more. It all sounded like mush because we couldn't hear our individual parts well enough making it impossible to control the dynamics of the piece, which is waht it's all about. it was all soup before the last day of rehearsals.  We only did two successful run-throughs that we were pleased with prior to the performance and only one with Richard, who was the main solo!


Being a gearhead, I had some questions about how some of stuff was 
pulled off. 

1.	It was often difficult to tell who was playing what part.  
The exceptions to this were the interaction between you and 
Alessandro Cortini in your "Secret Life" piece and the big swelling 
ensemble events that Thighpaulsandra cued in his piece.  Could you 
take some time to explain who was playing what in the various 
pieces?  Oh, and what was everybody doing during those cued sections 
in Thighpaulsandra's piece?  

From PG:  Actually, all of the plyers took part in Secret Life of Semiconductors.  I was doing nine voices in total, four driven from midi and five others which were variations of two different live patches.  TPS ws takng one degree of the E major chord on his Serge, Alessandro had three voices - one from the EAR system and two from the Buchla 200e and Gary had yet another voice coming from the Wiard that had two vairations. So these guys coupled by my parts made the bulk of the main voice - the E maj chord. 

In some of the pictures of my rig you can see a group of long cables coming off the left side cabinet - one of them is blue.  Those are the analog triggers I was sending to the other players. We made a special cale to reach Thighp ws was close to 60 feet long.  All of this cabling tothe various players caused from signal loss, which manifested in trigger delays between the parts, but I stil think it worked.  

On top of it all, Chas was playing his steel guitar - first using a piece of glass on the string for a bowing effect and then a fuzz-processed E drone about halfway through the piece and Richard took the solo onb the second half tha for some reason was way down in amplitude through the speakers.  It's better on the recording, which I'll post soon.

Some of the sounds herd in mine were sampled, but from pre-recorded analog parts taken from the original tape realization of this section.  It would take to many VCOs and too much worry that they were all in tune.  Notable among the sampled bits were the three man chords at the beginning, some the the one-time 'bang-whooshes' during, and the coda at the end. 

In Ally's piece, he was playing the main part on his Buchla and the rest of the ensemble was providing the F drone underneath.

In Thighp's piece, the ensemble did the chords in sections 2 and 8 and I added some swirling sounds at the beginning and the low descending bass lines, the'BOOO-ooooohs' during his Voyager solo.

Gary and Richard did their pieces as solos works and Gary coupled with Chas in his piece.

 2.	In Gary Chang's piece, it looked like he was playing chords 
on a keyboard that were then gated, modulated and mangled by his 
Wiard system.  What was he using to play the notes of the chords?  
(I'm assuming it was not the Wiard's oscilators.)

From PG: It was in fact the Wiard VCO's

3.	There was no obvious re-patching and not a whole lot of  knob 
turning going on. How did all the sounds get programmed? Was 
everybody's rig just big enough so all sounds needed all night could 
be set up before the show?

From PG: I think it's fair to say that Gary and my analog systems were large enough that no repatching was required.  Gary also played two Roland Super Jupiter racks synths which are repatchable, Thigh had his Vyager changing timbres all the time and I had a (ok, hate me) Novation Super Nova II in my rack.

4.	Seemed like almost everybody had a laptop.  What were they 
doing?

PG: Midi sequencing mostly.  Four of the parts in my piece were played by midi files so I could control the dynamics and pitches while I had to do other things with my hands.  I'm not familier enough with the other pieces to embellish what thers were doing, though I do know Gary's was supping the triggers with fired the gates on his Waird because timing of those events and the polyphony of those timing was critical.

Anyway, it would be great and probably very enlightening if you could 
spend some time answering these questions.  Thanks.

K.

Peter's response pretty much tells the whole story but here's my take on my piece for 
Analog Live.  As with much of my material truly live performance is very difficult.  I have 
no problem with that.  Some things sound better sequenced (ask T Dream) and if I can get 
a computer to do all my patch changes too then I can concentrate on playing.
On this occasion I opted for some written material, some improvised and some sequenced.  
Like Peter, I too recreated some of the more module intensive events from samples of the 
original work.  One particular three second event would have involved the use of 24 
modules and some very precise tuning.  As this was clearly impractical for the purposes of 
this show I opted to replay a sample of that event.  Another sample was the use of four 
VCOs and four Serge Waveform Multipliers for the opening drone.  As Virgin Atlantic have 
pretty tight baggage restrictions these days I was unable to bring my whole Serge system 
from the UK for this show.  I played as much of the score as was possible and practical and 
if you noticed I always had my hands full.  
As Peter mentioned the piano was a Steinway.  The piano was micd with two AKG 414s.  
The original score had the piano ring modulated by two Synton Fenix ring mods.  In 
rehearsal we tried to recreate this but the ring modulators seemed to add to the monitor 
feedback problems from the piano so I opted to leave the piano untreated.  
The rest of the gear for the show was as follows:-
Waldorf Microwave - used for bass sequences, and the long chords in sections 2 and 8.  
This also provided the filtered chords in the improvised middle section.
EMS Synthi AKS - used for effects in sections 2 and 8
Custom EH 16 sec delay - used to reverse and pitch change the EMS in the above sections
Nord Modular - Added sharp attacks to Moog bass notes in section 4
Aries Modular - (kindly lent by Roger Cordell at Big City Music) used to recreate the two 
ARP 2600s from the original score.  I was seriously impressed with this synth. I checked 
the tuning on my strobe tuner the day before the show and it seemed very stable.  Five 
minutes before the show I checked it again and was pleasantly surprised to find that all 
four VCOs were rock solid.
Moog Voyager - (thanks again to Roger Cordell) used for fast intro sequences in section 1, 
bass in section 4 and the nasal solo I played in section 6.
Serge Modular - (thanks to Chris Pitman) used for Peter's SLOS
Kenton Pro4 - Midi - CV convertor used to run the Aries
Doepfer and Fatar midi controllers - (kindly lent by Analogue Haven) used to control the 
Waldorf and Nord in both my piece and Alessandro's.
Apple Macbook with MOTU midi and audio interfaces - played samples via NI Kontakt, 
sequenced the onstage synths and provided large visual cues (because I'm almost blind) 
via MOTU Digital Performer for sections 2 and 8.
During my piece Gary added  various Roland textures throughout but particularly amazing 
bell-like textures in sections 2 and 8.  Peter added more to the chordal sections and 
descending tones on my Moog solo.  Alessandro added some great French 
Connection/EAR to the chordal sections and evolving Buchla to the improvised section 5.  
Chas played steel on the chordal sections and bowed his waterphone device in section 5. 
If there's any more questions please don't hesiitate to ask.

Thighp



--- In PLAN_B_analog_blog@yahoogroups.com, "okiikahuna" <okiikahuna@...> wrote:
>
> comments in line from PG.
> 
> 
> Hi Peter:
> 
> I caught Analog Live at Redcat last week, and it was great.  Sure,
> the last piece wasn't exactly analog, and Thighpaulsandra wasn't
> entirely live or analog (lots of sequencing and digital piano),
> 
> from PG: Something tells me you were on the right side of the Theater, yes? That wasn't 
digital piano Thighp was using!  We had a Steinway behind his riser and he stepped down 
there and played those sections live.  He originally intended to ring modulate it via the 
Aries and had it set up at one point, but TPS's preferred it unprocessed.  I'll see if anyone 
took a photo of him playing the Stienway and i'll post it.  His playing skills are excellent, 
btw.
> 
> ...but their pieces were a nice contrast to the other more analog pieces and it was all 
very enjoyable. The Secret Life of Semiconductors was a
> real standout.  Loved the percussive vactrol sounds you got.
> 
> from PG:  Thank you for that, it really means a lot to me after what I went through to get 
it to that state.  It was pretty much a nightmare before I decided to use midi.  I was 
freaking out a bit, admittedly intimidated by the caliper of the artists in the room waiting 
for my suggestions and at times they were rightfully concerned about what it was 
sounding like, which blurred my focus even more. It all sounded like mush because we 
couldn't hear our individual parts well enough making it impossible to control the 
dynamics of the piece, which is waht it's all about. it was all soup before the last day of 
rehearsals.  We only did two successful run-throughs that we were pleased with prior to 
the performance and only one with Richard, who was the main solo!
> 
> 
> Being a gearhead, I had some questions about how some of stuff was
> pulled off.
> 
> 1.	It was often difficult to tell who was playing what part.
> The exceptions to this were the interaction between you and
> Alessandro Cortini in your "Secret Life" piece and the big swelling
> ensemble events that Thighpaulsandra cued in his piece.  Could you
> take some time to explain who was playing what in the various
> pieces?  Oh, and what was everybody doing during those cued sections
> in Thighpaulsandra's piece?
> 
> From PG:  Actually, all of the plyers took part in Secret Life of Semiconductors.  I was 
doing nine voices in total, four driven from midi and five others which were variations of 
two different live patches.  TPS ws takng one degree of the E major chord on his Serge, 
Alessandro had three voices - one from the EAR system and two from the Buchla 200e and 
Gary had yet another voice coming from the Wiard that had two vairations. So these guys 
coupled by my parts made the bulk of the main voice - the E maj chord.
> 
> In some of the pictures of my rig you can see a group of long cables coming off the left 
side cabinet - one of them is blue.  Those are the analog triggers I was sending to the 
other players. We made a special cale to reach Thighp ws was close to 60 feet long.  All of 
this cabling tothe various players caused from signal loss, which manifested in trigger 
delays between the parts, but I stil think it worked.
> 
> On top of it all, Chas was playing his steel guitar - first using a piece of glass on the 
string for a bowing effect and then a fuzz-processed E drone about halfway through the 
piece and Richard took the solo onb the second half tha for some reason was way down in 
amplitude through the speakers.  It's better on the recording, which I'll post soon.
> 
> Some of the sounds herd in mine were sampled, but from pre-recorded analog parts 
taken from the original tape realization of this section.  It would take to many VCOs and 
too much worry that they were all in tune.  Notable among the sampled bits were the three 
man chords at the beginning, some the the one-time 'bang-whooshes' during, and the 
coda at the end.
> 
> In Ally's piece, he was playing the main part on his Buchla and the rest of the ensemble 
was providing the F drone underneath.
> 
> In Thighp's piece, the ensemble did the chords in sections 2 and 8 and I added some 
swirling sounds at the beginning and the low descending bass lines, the'BOOO-ooooohs' 
during his Voyager solo.
> 
> Gary and Richard did their pieces as solos works and Gary coupled with Chas in his 
piece.
> 
>  2.	In Gary Chang's piece, it looked like he was playing chords
> on a keyboard that were then gated, modulated and mangled by his
> Wiard system.  What was he using to play the notes of the chords?
> (I'm assuming it was not the Wiard's oscilators.)
> 
> From PG: It was in fact the Wiard VCO's
> 
> 3.	There was no obvious re-patching and not a whole lot of  knob
> turning going on. How did all the sounds get programmed? Was
> everybody's rig just big enough so all sounds needed all night could
> be set up before the show?
> 
> From PG: I think it's fair to say that Gary and my analog systems were large enough that 
no repatching was required.  Gary also played two Roland Super Jupiter racks synths which 
are repatchable, Thigh had his Vyager changing timbres all the time and I had a (ok, hate 
me) Novation Super Nova II in my rack.
> 
> 4.	Seemed like almost everybody had a laptop.  What were they
> doing?
> 
> PG: Midi sequencing mostly.  Four of the parts in my piece were played by midi files so I 
could control the dynamics and pitches while I had to do other things with my hands.  I'm 
not familier enough with the other pieces to embellish what thers were doing, though I do 
know Gary's was supping the triggers with fired the gates on his Waird because timing of 
those events and the polyphony of those timing was critical.

> 
> Anyway, it would be great and probably very enlightening if you could
> spend some time answering these questions.  Thanks.
> 
> K.
>