Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup makemicromusic Re: [MMM] Rick's recent piece...

Jonathan M. Szanto wrote...

> Very nice work on your latest suite! If those on the list haven't
> taken the time to listen [...]

Thanks, Jon! Probably nobody's heard it yet, since I never announced it! I
had just posted it to a couple of friends so they could listen, but now
that the cat's out of the bag, I might as well say what it is... It's a
4-movement suite (four "ballet scenes") in 15 tET. It's scored for 12
"instruments" (11 channels of Rhino and one percussion channel). I like
working in 15 tET quite a bit; this is my 2nd large-scale work in this
tuning.

> BTW, it isn't a small file at all!

Hm, yes. 25MB, running just under 25 minutes.

> Rick, maybe for something like this you could find a few excerpts

Since I hadn't intended to demo it around, I didn't excerpt it. So, if
you-all on the MMM list act fast enough, you can get the whole thing. I'll
soon remove it from my web site, 'cause it's huge. Later I may excerpt it.

> One of the problematic areas of the softsynths is finding a true
> 'character' for each, so that the mix of instruments in a piece doesn't
> just become flat. In a way, a couple of different instruments helps, if
> only because they might take different approaches to sound generation.

Right... but what I like about Rhino is that it has a gigantic mixed bag
of techniques: FM, additive, subtractive, and also some built-in samples,
and really good envelope control. With mix-and-match you can do a lot of
different stuff using just Rhino. I've now made over 150 patches for Rhino,
with quite a variety.

> Would you expand just a little on your percussion use? You mentioned
> sampling around the house (it sounded lo-tech yet appropriate!), and I
> thought you said something about FXpansion?

Sure... As mentioned above, it's the free FXpansion DR-005. I used a
high-quality vocal mic to sample a bunch of stuff around the house --
clicks, clacks, wood, knives, bells, cans, glasses, bowls, beads, springs,
vocal syllables, etc, etc. (Many of those sampled percussive sounds made
their way into Rhino itself as pre-set waveforms to use for "attacks" and
such; since I was a beta-tester for Rhino.) Using some of these percussive
sounds, I made several percussion kits; one of these kits you hear in this
piece.

I also used FreeverbToo 1.5 to add some room acoustics. It's best heard
with head-phones. I may have to EQ it for big speakers; it's a bit
"middle-heavy" on a big speaker setup, because I do most of my work with
headphones.

Cheers,

Rick

🔗Dante Rosati <dante@...>

Rick- I'm glad Jon let the cat out of the bag, 'cause its a great piece - I
love it! I downloaded it- hope you dont mind. BTW, whats it called
("fbs-op45"?)?

Dante

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rick McGowan [mailto:rick@...]
> Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 4:22 PM
> To: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MMM] Rick's recent piece...
>
>
> Jonathan M. Szanto wrote...
>
> > Very nice work on your latest suite! If those on the list haven't
> > taken the time to listen [...]
>
> Thanks, Jon! Probably nobody's heard it yet, since I never
> announced it! I
> had just posted it to a couple of friends so they could listen, but now
> that the cat's out of the bag, I might as well say what it is... It's a
> 4-movement suite (four "ballet scenes") in 15 tET. It's scored for 12
> "instruments" (11 channels of Rhino and one percussion channel). I like
> working in 15 tET quite a bit; this is my 2nd large-scale work in this
> tuning.
>
> > BTW, it isn't a small file at all!
>
> Hm, yes. 25MB, running just under 25 minutes.
>
> > Rick, maybe for something like this you could find a few excerpts
>
> Since I hadn't intended to demo it around, I didn't excerpt it. So, if
> you-all on the MMM list act fast enough, you can get the whole
> thing. I'll
> soon remove it from my web site, 'cause it's huge. Later I may excerpt it.
>
> > One of the problematic areas of the softsynths is finding a true
> > 'character' for each, so that the mix of instruments in a piece doesn't
> > just become flat. In a way, a couple of different instruments helps, if
> > only because they might take different approaches to sound generation.
>
> Right... but what I like about Rhino is that it has a gigantic mixed bag
> of techniques: FM, additive, subtractive, and also some built-in
> samples,
> and really good envelope control. With mix-and-match you can do a lot of
> different stuff using just Rhino. I've now made over 150 patches
> for Rhino,
> with quite a variety.
>
> > Would you expand just a little on your percussion use? You mentioned
> > sampling around the house (it sounded lo-tech yet appropriate!), and I
> > thought you said something about FXpansion?
>
> Sure... As mentioned above, it's the free FXpansion DR-005. I used a
> high-quality vocal mic to sample a bunch of stuff around the house --
> clicks, clacks, wood, knives, bells, cans, glasses, bowls, beads,
> springs,
> vocal syllables, etc, etc. (Many of those sampled percussive sounds made
> their way into Rhino itself as pre-set waveforms to use for
> "attacks" and
> such; since I was a beta-tester for Rhino.) Using some of these
> percussive
> sounds, I made several percussion kits; one of these kits you
> hear in this
> piece.
>
> I also used FreeverbToo 1.5 to add some room acoustics. It's best heard
> with head-phones. I may have to EQ it for big speakers; it's a bit
> "middle-heavy" on a big speaker setup, because I do most of my work with
> headphones.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Rick
>
>
> [MMM info]------------------------------------------------------
> More MMM music files are at http://www.microtonal.org/music.html
> ------------------------------------------------------[MMM info]
>
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>
>

🔗Rick McGowan <rick@...>

🔗Paul Erlich <perlich@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Rick McGowan <rick@u...> wrote:

> Thanks, Jon! Probably nobody's heard it yet, since I never
announced it! I
> had just posted it to a couple of friends so they could listen, but
now
> that the cat's out of the bag, I might as well say what it is...
It's a
> 4-movement suite (four "ballet scenes") in 15 tET. It's scored for
12
> "instruments" (11 channels of Rhino and one percussion channel). I
like
> working in 15 tET quite a bit;

me too. your piece (at least the the first half) reminds me a bit of
herman miller's "mizarian porcupine overtune" (often discussed on
tuning and related lists) which is also in this tuning. you revel a
bit more in the atonal regions (a great reason to use microtonality
in the first place), and the actual sound(s) you've got going on is
pretty darn pretty!

🔗Jonathan M. Szanto <JSZANTO@...>

Rick,

{you wrote...}
>It's a 4-movement suite (four "ballet scenes") in 15 tET. It's scored for >12 "instruments" (11 channels of Rhino and one percussion channel). I like >working in 15 tET quite a bit; this is my 2nd large-scale work in this tuning.

I really like it when someone really devotes themselves to a tuning. Outside of my one obvious choice (from my Partch days), I'm looking forward to playing with a number of tunings to find the one that either suits me, or my idea of the time, best. And then try to stick with it rather than do a microtonal "Elimidate"!

Then again, there are some people that have come up with nice results with multiple tunings - seems everyone works differently.

>Right... but what I like about Rhino is that it has a gigantic mixed bag >of techniques: FM, additive, subtractive, and also some built-in samples, >and really good envelope control. With mix-and-match you can do a lot of >different stuff using just Rhino. I've now made over 150 patches for >Rhino, with quite a variety.

Why are you doing this to me? I just registered two synths, and now you're making me want a third! :) (I only passed on Rhino because of the interface, which wasn't as comfortable for me) Remind me: would it be possible to actually import older FM patches, like from my TX81Z, or would I have to start from scratch to emulate them? (this is not a priority, but if I recreated some old works using new tunings, it might be easier to emulate the programming in Rhino, with the flexibility of tuning).

>Sure... As mentioned above, it's the free FXpansion DR-005.

Got it. And I have no shortage of perc sounds... :) It's my living.

>I also used FreeverbToo 1.5 to add some room acoustics. It's best heard >with head-phones.

I don't commonly have a setup to listen to the mp3 stuff on the computer with phones, but maybe I'll dl it to my mp3 player. Be sure to check out that free reverb I posted, it really is quite nice.

Last question: are you still working in Finale and then playing the score with midi, or was this a sequenced piece?

Cheers,
Jon

🔗Paul Erlich <perlich@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan M. Szanto"
<JSZANTO@A...> wrote:
> Rick,
>
> {you wrote...}
> >It's a 4-movement suite (four "ballet scenes") in 15 tET. It's
scored for
> >12 "instruments" (11 channels of Rhino and one percussion
channel). I like
> >working in 15 tET quite a bit; this is my 2nd large-scale work in
this tuning.
>
> I really like it when someone really devotes themselves to a
tuning.
> Outside of my one obvious choice (from my Partch days), I'm looking
forward
> to playing with a number of tunings to find the one that either
suits me,
> or my idea of the time, best. And then try to stick with it rather
than do
> a microtonal "Elimidate"!

yes, i wholeheartedly agree and sympathize. it takes time to find the
new avenues of inspiration that a single new tuning system opens up,
and to reformulate one's language accordingly.

> Remind me: would it be
> possible to actually import older FM patches, like from my TX81Z,
or would
> I have to start from scratch to emulate them? (this is not a
priority, but
> if I recreated some old works using new tunings, it might be easier
to
> emulate the programming in Rhino, with the flexibility of tuning).

not sure if the tx81z is like the sy-77 in this respect, but you may
be able to find all the information you need to emulate the patches
between the manual and the synth itself.

🔗Rick McGowan <rick@...>

Jon asked about Rhino...

> Remind me: would it be possible to actually import older FM patches,
> like from my TX81Z, or would I have to start from scratch to emulate them?

Currently there's no import facility for the old FM patches. I don't know
what the future plans are, but Big Tick knows that there are tons of these
old patches that people want to use.

I have made some Rhino patches by hand-copying my old TX802 patches --
i.e., looking at the algorithms & FM settings and copying them to the Rhino
oscillators & envelopes -- and the results are OK. If you tweak them up to
take advantage of Rhino's better envelopes, etc, you can do better, and
get something that sounds close to the original. And this is less effort
than dreaming up an entirely new patch. But there isn't any import utility
at this time.

Rhino does implement two separate FM models, the "linear" and
"exponential". Rhino native is linear, Yamaha model is exponential. And
this seems to work fine to set exponential mode when you're trying to
emulate a Yamaha patch. The other thing to watch out for is that Rhino has
no fixed "LFO" for vibrato with envelope like the Yamaha synths. Rhino has
a "global pitch" envelope that you can hand-tweak to do whatever LFO you
desire; and oscillators can cycle interestingly in their sustain portions.
It's a bit harder to use than the Yamaha LFO model for vibrato, but once
you get the hang of it, it is very flexible; and Rhino comes with many
pre-set envelopes for your simple vibrato, etc. The depth can be modulated
by velocity, etc, etc.

Also, I have found that if you emulate old DX or TX patches, which
typically use all 6 oscillators (sine only), the voices are less efficient;
they take more CPU than if you program up a similar sound from scratch in
Rhino. You can do better with fewer oscillators in Rhino, by taking
advantage of additive waveforms and other built-in facilities.

> Got it. And I have no shortage of perc sounds... :) It's my living.

Cool... I usually don't use much percussion because I don't really like
boom-boom pop music drums; or shall we say, it's not my thing. I
occasionally use some percussive accenting, etc, as you heard in this
piece. I'm always on the lookout for good percussion sounds that I can use
without thinking I'm ripping someone else off... so I decided to just make
my own from household items! No worries about copyright there.

> Last question: are you still working in Finale and then playing the score
> with midi, or was this a sequenced piece?

Yes, I'm an old-school kinda guy. This is scored in Finale and played back
through Finale. I can't work with piano roll or that kind of thing. Finale
works really well for me. I just got the 2004 upgrade, and it has this
"human playback" mode that is really pretty darn good at doing an
expressive rendition. But to use it to advantage, I will have to modify my
way of working a bit. Currently I tweak the MIDI data and tempos by hand in
Finale using very spare score markings, but I would have to start using
more consistent dynamic markings, hairpins, cresc/decresc, etc in the score
so that the human playback module can "read" them out of the score. The
"human playback" mode ignores the hand-tweaked MIDI data... kind of
unfortunate. But on the other hand, it knows how to do a decent reading of
an orchestral score for expressive rendition.

Rick

🔗Rick McGowan <rick@...>

🔗Joseph Pehrson <jpehrson@...>

🔗Rick McGowan <rick@...>

Replying to Joe...

> Everything is in 4/4!

Heh heh... Except the 3rd movement which varies between 3/4 and 7/8... ;-)

I guess I'm not so much of a rhythm person. Rhythmic asymmetry in this
piece is mostly relegated to the percussionist's syncopation...

Speaking of percussion, Joe wrote:

> The only sounds I found a little questionable were the "rattly" high
> ones. That sounded a bit like I had a rattle in my cans, a problem
> that I actually *did* have at one point.

Ah, you must be referring to my sampled can rattling and bead swishing... ;-) !!
Yes, that's right... The percussion instruments are all little weird
things you find around the house, amplified greatly.

> ***So, Rick, how does this work in Finale again? I'm assuming that
> the regular Finale 12-tET pitches get "new assignments" in Rhino,
> yes? And how about notation? I'm assuming you just leave it in 12-
> tET in Finale??

Exactly. I just write the score in 12-tET notation and Rhino is tuned to
15-tET. Works for me... So in Finale the interval written as a "minor 10th"
and fingered as C to E an octave plus minor 3rd above, is really sounding
2:1 (an octave).

> Rick, do you have a specific ballet performance in mind for your
> piece, or is it meant as a "demo..."

It's an abstract piece of music that someone could dance to, if they felt
like it.

Rick

🔗Jonathan M. Szanto <JSZANTO@...>

Rick/Joe,

{you wrote...}
>Replying to Joe...
>I guess I'm not so much of a rhythm person.

Isn't that why we keep *me* around? :) My pieces tend to fall into one of two camps: either blatantly percussive/rhythmic, or elegaic (some might say sappy, or long-winded, or just dopey). That is when they don't end up being just sound pieces, or a theatre piece...

But usually it is my percussion background, whether I like it or not, that comes to the fore. Such is life: we create within and from our own experiences.

I liked your rattly bits, btw. I'll make a piece out of all these found-sound sessions I did with a local theatre composer a few weeks ago, just for fun, and post it somewhere.

Cheers,
Jon