Up and running on the first day of the new RPM. I don’t know whether this piece I’m working on will be included at the end – it’s a musique concrète piece for an assignment for my Sound Art class and uses recordings I made a couple of weeks ago (some good sounds, mostly the levels were all too low so there’s a fairly high noise-to-signal ratio unfortunately). Right now we’re only supposed to be using our sounds unmodified – just cut up and some fades in/out. I’ve added in a little volume automation (because I couldn’t help myself) and done quite a bit of layering of sounds, but it’s still pretty rough. I’ll see where it goes over the next few weeks. Hoping a draft will be ready to post here tomorrow though.

I also finally got around to doing some more listening to the pieces we’ve heard bits of in class, in particular Pierre Henry’s Variations Pour Une Porte Et Un Soupir (Variations for a Door and a Sigh), which I’m absolutely loving. Totally lives the principle of less is more and demonstrates how much can be done with a palette of sounds from very limited sources!

I guess it might be a good time now to lay out the kit I’m going to be working with this month. If I add anything, I’ll mention it in the relevant place, but for now:

• Mac laptop with Logic Pro 9 and Max/MSP 6
• Mbox 2 interface
• Tascam DR-40 portable digital recorder (stereo + 2 XLR inputs)
• Røde M3 condenser mic (mono)
• JrF contact mic (mono) (although I’ve just discovered a problem with this one so there may be less contact mic action this month than planned, alas)

Planning on taking the Tascam with me pretty much whenever I go out this month. Tomorrow I need to go into London, so fingers crossed I find some interesting sounds!