Alva Noto sound design?

fatrabbit · Post by **fatrabbit** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 12:39 pm

I don't know if anyone has heard of Alva Noto?

A good album for an example is Insen, which is a collaboration with pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto.

How does he achieve the sound design of digital blips and bleeps, clicks etc.? Any tips.

SimonPHC · Post by **SimonPHC** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 12:48 pm

He is known to use things like SoundHack and Max/MSP. In Soundhack you can read any file as a .wav or .aiff. Some of his albums are made out of found data read as sound, like the Trans series and his last Unitxt. Some have been made with found sound that is then treated as if it where pictures, most notably on the album Xerrox vol. 1

thelike5 · Post by **thelike5** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 1:30 pm

I'm well aware of the Rastar Noten stuff since my friend is constantly talking about the releases and playing stuff for me all of the time. I honestly think he has just about every single release from that label... all in amazingly minimal packaging. He even has a ton of books by Carsten Nicolai which he spends way too much dough on!!

I personally think the stuff is rather boring and way too pretentious for my taste with the exception of a few releases (the Alva Noto release is quite good.)

Anyways, they could create that sound with anything seeing that it's so stripped down. I'm sure it's recorded in some fancy white room with a Steinway for the piano sounds and probably a Stradivarius for the string samples...

fatrabbit · Post by **fatrabbit** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 2:08 pm

Yeah it can be a little pretentious as you say, but some of the digitally crisp sounds are excellent.

Which SoundHack plugin can open files?

I did try something like that a while back - opening Photoshop files in Audacity. It does produce some wild sounds but they are usually just distorted and overly harsh, but maybe if I chop it down to single hits and treat it a bit...

kaffein · Post by **kaffein** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 2:49 pm

From wikipedia:

Nicolai plays with the rules of physicality. Sound is changed and evolved into time and space and transformed by looping oscillators and tone generators. Through these processes the essence of pure electricity is made audible. He works without sequencers, but mathematically edits his work to give his compositions precise rhythmic structures. Clicks and glitches are not used as ornamental additions to the compositions but make up the essential elements of the work and these sound sources are applied to the rhythmic groove of Hip-Hop and R&B. The sounds of electronic information transmission such as fax tones, modem sounds and telephone pops and clicks are sampled and organised into loops to which Nicolai adds longer electronic tones in the background and foreground as the piece progresses.

thelike5 · Post by **thelike5** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:00 pm

kaffein wrote:From wikipedia:
Nicolai plays with the rules of physicality. Sound is changed and evolved into time and space and transformed by looping oscillators and tone generators. Through these processes the essence of pure electricity is made audible. He works without sequencers, but mathematically edits his work to give his compositions precise rhythmic structures. Clicks and glitches are not used as ornamental additions to the compositions but make up the essential elements of the work and these sound sources are applied to the rhythmic groove of Hip-Hop and R&B. The sounds of electronic information transmission such as fax tones, modem sounds and telephone pops and clicks are sampled and organised into loops to which Nicolai adds longer electronic tones in the background and foreground as the piece progresses.

Pretentious. R&B??!!! What the fuck is he on? Thousands of true R&B musicians just rolled in thier graves.

morerecords · Post by **morerecords** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:57 pm

Insen and Revep were made using a piano and a free app called Gleetchlab. They 'Jammed' live, R on keys, and A on Gleetchlab with a live feed.

I asked the same things when I first heard insen...Check out REvep too, if you haven't!

Those are amazing beautiful albums huh?

subbasshead · Post by **subbasshead** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 8:00 pm

Are you sure about him using GleetchLab?

I know for a fact the visuals are generated in Jitter/Max/MSP
& the programming was done by Karl Kliem - i'm sure I read
somewhere on his blog he had done some audio porgramming too
http://www.dienststelle.de/
http://www.dienststelle.de/2006/10/28/a ... d/#more-28

If you ever go see Carstem Nocolai live, take ear plugs!
I saw him play in Kyoto & would still have tinnitus if I hadnt worn ear plugs,
he played at the (volume) level of a rock band
but all those nasty didital sounds that loud would shred ears..
methink he must have lost most of his high end hearing
& now he is 'sharing the love'...

friend_kami · Post by **friend_kami** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 11:09 am

Through these processes the essence of pure electricity is made audible.

yeah. right.

hangar17 · Post by **hangar17** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 11:50 am

subbasshead wrote:Are you sure about him using GleetchLab?

I know for a fact the visuals are generated in Jitter/Max/MSP
& the programming was done by Karl Kliem - i'm sure I read
somewhere on his blog he had done some audio porgramming too
http://www.dienststelle.de/
http://www.dienststelle.de/2006/10/28/a ... d/#more-28

If you ever go see Carstem Nocolai live, take ear plugs!
I saw him play in Kyoto & would still have tinnitus if I hadnt worn ear plugs,
he played at the (volume) level of a rock band
but all those nasty didital sounds that loud would shred ears..
methink he must have lost most of his high end hearing
& now he is 'sharing the love'...

i second that part about earplugs if you ever go see him play live

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 11:53 am

I have talked a few times to Pixel, who is also on Raster Noton, and he's all about analog synths->Logic. He's hyper-particular about editing and so on, and has an amazing ear for the musicality of simple sounds. Great man.

swishniak · Post by **swishniak** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 2:25 pm

thelike5 wrote: I'm sure it's recorded in some fancy white room with a Steinway for the piano sounds and probably a Stradivarius for the string samples...

no way - alot of those guys are old school east germans from "karl-marx-stadt." aint no steinways around there.

morerecords · Post by **morerecords** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 3:17 pm

Well, I think it's obvious he uses Live

I'm serious though...

I doubt he sticks to any one program, ,but I know how they were collaborating, my roommate did the ryuichi bookings/promotion in US when he came and ask him for me...

(I am a bigger fan if RS)

jbible · Post by **jbible** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 4:51 pm

Just got Unitxt yesterday. Really enjoying it thus far. I really love his Xeroxx album. His older album Transform is really fantastic as well.
So is his 'For' album on Line (12k)

exper · Post by **exper** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 5:47 pm

Carsten is one of my biggest inspirations, along with anything on Basic Channel and Autechre.
My big "secret" is the gate plugin in live, when used on all manner of drum beats/loops. Used to extremes, yhou can get somewhat useable clicks. Also, I recently been using the slice to midi command. once the new track is created, crank the decay and release down to aero, and mess with the sample start knob. Instant, perfectly synced clicks.

Honestly, I wonder is Carsten used(s) a Nord modular because the buzzes and high pitches tones I get from mine sound very close to raster noton stuff.