New piece: Aurora (for Kraig Grady)

Hi all,

I have just published a new piece called "Aurora (for Kraig Grady)". It's a short one, just over 3 minutes. It was written in Csound using blue and Scala. All source code is available for download, along with OGG and MP3 renderings, at

http://mysterybear.net/article/24/aurora-for-kraig-grady

As always, comments are welcome.

- Dave Seidel
http://mysterybear.net

Hi Dave,

What a gorgeous piece! As always, I'll ask if you won't mind if I add
it to the collection of pieces that come with blue.

Thanks for sharing this piece!
steven

On 9/15/07, Dave Seidel <dave@...> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have just published a new piece called "Aurora (for Kraig Grady)".
> It's a short one, just over 3 minutes. It was written in Csound using
> blue and Scala. All source code is available for download, along with
> OGG and MP3 renderings, at
>
> http://mysterybear.net/article/24/aurora-for-kraig-grady
>
> As always, comments are welcome.
>
> - Dave Seidel
> http://mysterybear.net
>
>
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>

Thanks Dave. I am honored by its beauty!

Dave Seidel wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I have just published a new piece called "Aurora (for Kraig Grady)".
> It's a short one, just over 3 minutes. It was written in Csound using
> blue and Scala. All source code is available for download, along with
> OGG and MP3 renderings, at
>
> http://mysterybear.net/article/24/aurora-for-kraig-grady > <http://mysterybear.net/article/24/aurora-for-kraig-grady>
>
> As always, comments are welcome.
>
> - Dave Seidel
> http://mysterybear.net <http://mysterybear.net>
>
> -- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/index.html>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main/index.asp> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

I'm glad you like it, Kraig.

- Dave

Kraig Grady wrote:
> Thanks Dave. I am honored by its beauty!
> > Dave Seidel wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I have just published a new piece called "Aurora (for Kraig Grady)".
>> It's a short one, just over 3 minutes. It was written in Csound using
>> blue and Scala. All source code is available for download, along with
>> OGG and MP3 renderings, at
>>
>> http://mysterybear.net/article/24/aurora-for-kraig-grady >> <http://mysterybear.net/article/24/aurora-for-kraig-grady>
>>
>> As always, comments are welcome.
>>
>> - Dave Seidel
>> http://mysterybear.net <http://mysterybear.net>
>>
>> >

Dave, It's gorgeous! The bells sound like very large flower pots just
played for the first time. I'll remember that sound forever. I had to
play it four times it was so pretty, louder each time.

Prent Rodgers

> I have just published a new piece called "Aurora (for Kraig Grady)".
>
> http://mysterybear.net/article/24/aurora-for-kraig-grady
>
> As always, comments are welcome.
>
> - Dave Seidel

Sveet.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Dave Seidel
Very beautiful and I heard most of your works , very nice.

Shaahin Mohajeri

Tombak Player & Researcher , Microtonal Composer

My web siteوب سايت شاهين مهاجري <http://240edo.googlepages.com/>

My farsi page in Harmonytalk صفحه اختصاصي در هارموني تاك <http://www.harmonytalk.com/mohajeri>

Shaahin Mohajeri in Wikipedia شاهين مهاجري دردائره المعارف ويكي پديا <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaahin_mohajeri>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sounds very precise and yet subtlly organic, really striking
and beautiful! Thanks for sharing it.

Aaron Hunt
H-Pi Instruments

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Dave Seidel <dave@...> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I have just published a new piece called "Aurora (for Kraig Grady)".
> It's a short one, just over 3 minutes. It was written in Csound using
> blue and Scala. All source code is available for download, along with
> OGG and MP3 renderings, at
>
> http://mysterybear.net/article/24/aurora-for-kraig-grady
>
> As always, comments are welcome.
>
> - Dave Seidel
> http://mysterybear.net
>

Dave Seidel wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have just published a new piece called "Aurora (for Kraig Grady)". > It's a short one, just over 3 minutes. It was written in Csound using > blue and Scala. All source code is available for download, along with > OGG and MP3 renderings, at
>
> http://mysterybear.net/article/24/aurora-for-kraig-grady
>
> As always, comments are welcome.
>
> - Dave Seidel
> http://mysterybear.net
> Dave,

This is a standout and my favorite of your works so far---a real gorgeous treat!

It's really electronic yet organic sounding, and the tuning is just beautiful, with it's swirling beating.

Another triumph--how about a hot stone massage from Carl? ;)

Best,
Aaron.

>Dave,
>
>This is a standout and my favorite of your works so far---a real
>gorgeous treat!
>
>It's really electronic yet organic sounding, and the tuning is just
>beautiful, with it's swirling beating.

I do think it's one of his best. I'm partial to Combination Study
also. But really the quality has been very consistent.

-Carl

Dave Seidel,

> I have just published a new piece called "Aurora (for Kraig Grady)".
> It's a short one, just over 3 minutes. It was written in Csound using
> blue and Scala.

Nice gentle work...

One little technical comment: the volume level is very low. It never goes
above -12db. I amplified it 300% so it goes up to -3db, and that makes it
easier to hear more... In general, I advocate using higher amplitudes in
the recording; and people can turn it down if they want it to be totally in
the background.

Cheers,
Rick

At 09:37 AM 9/16/2007, you wrote:
>Dave Seidel,
>
>> I have just published a new piece called "Aurora (for Kraig Grady)".
>> It's a short one, just over 3 minutes. It was written in Csound using
>> blue and Scala.
>
>Nice gentle work...
>
>One little technical comment: the volume level is very low. It never goes
>above -12db. I amplified it 300% so it goes up to -3db, and that makes it
>easier to hear more... In general, I advocate using higher amplitudes in
>the recording; and people can turn it down if they want it to be totally in
>the background.

I did the same thing. Actually, I normalize all my mp3s to about
91dB RMS power.

Going too loud has problems too -- you run out of dynamic range.
CDs have gone that way, sadly, averaging 98dB and up. Google
for "loudness war".

The recommended replaygain is 89dB. But I think 91 is a good
compromise.

Dave's stuff is consistently checking in around 85. I thought he
was doing it intentionally, so I only brought it up to 89.

-Carl

Carl and Rick,

This is a valid point, and I am seriously considering re-releasing it with a bit more gain. I really appreciate the feedback, especially the concrete recommendations.

Carl, it isn't so much intentional as the result of inexperience. Some music should be very quiet, but that doesn't really apply to what I've put out so far.

- Dave

Carl Lumma wrote:
> At 09:37 AM 9/16/2007, you wrote:
>> One little technical comment: the volume level is very low. It never goes >> above -12db. I amplified it 300% so it goes up to -3db, and that makes it >> easier to hear more... In general, I advocate using higher amplitudes in >> the recording; and people can turn it down if they want it to be totally in >> the background.
> > I did the same thing. Actually, I normalize all my mp3s to about
> 91dB RMS power.
> > Going too loud has problems too -- you run out of dynamic range.
> CDs have gone that way, sadly, averaging 98dB and up. Google
> for "loudness war".
> > The recommended replaygain is 89dB. But I think 91 is a good
> compromise.
> > Dave's stuff is consistently checking in around 85. I thought he
> was doing it intentionally, so I only brought it up to 89.
> > -Carl
> > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links
> > > > >

At 10:04 AM 9/16/2007, you wrote:
>Carl and Rick,
>
>This is a valid point, and I am seriously considering re-releasing it
>with a bit more gain. I really appreciate the feedback, especially the
>concrete recommendations.
>
>Carl, it isn't so much intentional as the result of inexperience. Some
>music should be very quiet, but that doesn't really apply to what I've
>put out so far.

As one who thinks all electric music concerts are
health-disgustingly loud, I've often fanaticized about
putting out an album that would make people shut up
and listen in. I thought that might be what you were
up to.

You can boost stuff in a wave editor once you have the CSound
output. In Cool Edit / Adobe Audition, "normalizing" to 90%
of maximum seems to work well.

However, normalizing is a potentially lossy process, if you
don't have enough bit depth to hide the rounding errors.
I recommend to keep masters at 24- or 32-bit, and then dither
down to 16-bit for distribution after all edits, including
fades and stuff, are done.

While all of this is useful when coming from the unruly world
of microphones, you may be able to get around it entirely.
I would think you could have CSound output whatever volume
you wanted. But I don't know CSound.

Regardless of what your wave output is like, the lossy
encoding to ogg or mp3 can change the volume. With ogg,
I think the recommended solution is replaygain, which
actually is just a bit of metadata that tells the player
on my machine how to calibrate its volume knob. But I
don't use ogg so I'm not familiar with the tools to do
this.

With mp3, it's convenient because mp3 frames each have a
'volume' field. And there's a fantastic open/free tool
that lets you analyze the volume of your mp3s, and losslessly
change them.

http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

-Carl

These are really helpful suggestions, Carl. I will look into all of them in time, but for now all I had to do was open my project in blue, bring the master volume slider in the mixer up +9dB, and use Csound to recompile the WAV from which I made new MP3 and OGG files. I've just finished uploading the new files. (Of course, I listened to them first, and they do sound better this way.)

- Dave

Carl Lumma wrote:
> At 10:04 AM 9/16/2007, you wrote:
> > As one who thinks all electric music concerts are
> health-disgustingly loud, I've often fanaticized about
> putting out an album that would make people shut up
> and listen in. I thought that might be what you were
> up to.
> > You can boost stuff in a wave editor once you have the CSound
> output. In Cool Edit / Adobe Audition, "normalizing" to 90%
> of maximum seems to work well.
> > However, normalizing is a potentially lossy process, if you
> don't have enough bit depth to hide the rounding errors.
> I recommend to keep masters at 24- or 32-bit, and then dither
> down to 16-bit for distribution after all edits, including
> fades and stuff, are done.
> > While all of this is useful when coming from the unruly world
> of microphones, you may be able to get around it entirely.
> I would think you could have CSound output whatever volume
> you wanted. But I don't know CSound.
> > Regardless of what your wave output is like, the lossy
> encoding to ogg or mp3 can change the volume. With ogg,
> I think the recommended solution is replaygain, which
> actually is just a bit of metadata that tells the player
> on my machine how to calibrate its volume knob. But I
> don't use ogg so I'm not familiar with the tools to do
> this.
> > With mp3, it's convenient because mp3 frames each have a
> 'volume' field. And there's a fantastic open/free tool
> that lets you analyze the volume of your mp3s, and losslessly
> change them.
> > http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/
> > -Carl

I don't want to flood the list with more individual "thank you" notes, so I will add my thanks here to Christopher, Aaron, and Prent. You guys all make music that I respect and enjoy (and sometimes love), which makes your nice words that much more meaningful to me.

- Dave

Dave Seidel wrote:
> Hi all,
> > I have just published a new piece called "Aurora (for Kraig Grady)". > It's a short one, just over 3 minutes. It was written in Csound using > blue and Scala. All source code is available for download, along with > OGG and MP3 renderings, at
> > http://mysterybear.net/article/24/aurora-for-kraig-grady
> > As always, comments are welcome.
> > - Dave Seidel
> http://mysterybear.net

Good work. You created a mysterious atmosphere that makes for
enjoyable listening.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Dave Seidel <dave@...> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I have just published a new piece called "Aurora (for Kraig
Grady)".
> It's a short one, just over 3 minutes. It was written in Csound
using
> blue and Scala. All source code is available for download, along
with
> OGG and MP3 renderings, at
>
> http://mysterybear.net/article/24/aurora-for-kraig-grady
>
> As always, comments are welcome.
>
> - Dave Seidel
> http://mysterybear.net
>

Thanks, Shahin.

- Dave

Mohajeri Shahin wrote:
> Hi Dave Seidel
> > Very beautiful and I heard most of your works , very nice.
> > > > Shaahin Mohajeri

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Dave Seidel <dave@...> wrote:
>
> ...
> http://mysterybear.net/article/24/aurora-for-kraig-grady
> ...

Great stuff. Your music has some real depth to it.

I have the same feeling about it that I've had about your other music,
which is that it would be great for it to go on a LOT longer.
And if you are a fan of Feldman's then 6-7 hours is not inconceivable.

Bill (looking forward to your marathon work...)