Category: Event

Samy Bardet delivers AFSI keynote in Paris

César and Golden Reel Award-nominated film sound designer Samy Bardet, was invited to present a keynote lecture/demonstration in Paris on 15 June 2024 for the members of L’AFSI (Association Française du Son à l’Image)*. Sound editor, sound designer and composer, Bardet is renowned in the world of cinema for his aesthetic and innovative sound creations. He has also developed a reputation as a specialist in Kyma which he uses to create, transform, combine and interact with sound (and which he describes as “one of the best sound creation tools in the world”).

In his keynote, Bardet guided an audience of sound professionals through the various ways he uses Kyma to create sounds for films such as Babies, Persepolis, Mami Wata and Sébastien Vanicek’s Vermines, including the signal flow editor, the Timeline, the Multigrid, and spectral analysis/resynthesis tools. One of the most important parts of the keynote, according to Bardet, were the live demonstrations of how one can use the Haken Continuum, iPad and Wacom Tablet as interactive sound design controllers.

Bardet describes Kyma as a language, an instrument that one can learn to play and to master. Each user will develop a different interpretation and this is what makes Kyma unique!

Le Kyma est un langage, un instrument qu’il faut apprendre à jouer, maîtriser. Chaque utilisateur aura une interprétation différente et c’est ce qui fait que le Kyma est unique!

Bardet concluded with a list of some practical benefits of working with Kyma, including:

  • Qualité audio
  • Possibilité créative infinie
  • Librairie de sons
  • Stabilité et performance
  • Communauté
  • Suivi & Mise à jour Logicielle gratuite

Through his atelier, SYMA: sound design, Bardet has worked with contemporary artist Laurent Grasso on several exhibitions (for example Uraniborg at the Musée du Jeu de Paume and Soleil Double atthe Perrotin gallery, in Paris. He collaborated on installations at the Musée des Confluences in Lyon for the Antartica and Terra Incognita exhibitions by Luc Jacquet, and has done sound design for augmented reality in collaboration with The Overlap Factory.

Here, he is pictured during the final mix for the 2017 film To the Top:

black and white image of a team intently concentrating on mixing the soundtrack
Mixing for the film “To The Top” (L to R) Samy Bardet, Sound Editor, Sound Designer, Laurent Perez Del Mar, Composer, Serge Hazanavicius, Director, Thierry Lebon, Recording-mixer

* L’AFSI (Association Française du Son à l’Image) is a professional organization whose aim is to develop relationships, exchange information, discuss methods, contribute to solving common problems, monitor technological progress, and organize meetings to highlight and communicate the importance of the creative and technical contribution of sound professionals in film audiovisual production, and related media.

Soundtrack for a Lost World

Performing with Kyma and a huge (but very soft) pipe organ, Franz Danksagmüller generated a live soundtrack for the silent film The Lost World (think silent-film Jurassic Park from the 1920s) on 25 May 2024 at the National Radio Symphony Concert Hall in Katowice Poland for an audience of 1600 people.

Franz Danksagmuller monitoring the VCS, the film, the Multigrid (on the iPad) and his pencil notes

The Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice seats an audience of 1800 people

In a gravity-defying stunt, Danksagmüller placed two mics within the swell boxes of both Manual V and Manual III, at the apex of the organ pipes, so he could process the pipe organ through Kyma without danger of feedback. He and his sound engineer worked until 2:30 am fine-tuning the setup.

 

Poster for the film “The Lost World” (1925) * First National Pictures – Source, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12690702

* Note that, according to Wikipedia, “This historical image is not a factually accurate dinosaur restoration. Reason: Pronated hands, real T. rex did not have more than two fingers (unlike in this image), outdated posture, tail dragging, lack of possible feathers”

A Movable Beast

In his role at BEAST (Birmingham Electroacoustic Sound Theatre), Simon Smith works with massive multi-speaker array concert systems on a daily basis. These experiences inspired him to design a system of his own that could generate moving sound sources and immersion without the need to carry around large amps and speakers.

When Smith came across the Minirig loudspeaker — a small Bluetooth speaker typically used for small parties and “annoying people on the beach” — he bought 4 of them and, using standard microphone mounts and gooseneck microphone stands, he started experimenting with various configurations. Initially using tea coasters and cable ties, he eventually found drainpipe mounts that fit the Minirigs perfectly. Now he’s able to flexibly angle the loudspeakers toward nearby reflective surfaces (walls, windows, ceilings, panels), creating an impression of the sound coming from the room and not just the loudspeaker.

 

 

 

The speakers are just loud enough that he can play along with acoustic instruments without overwhelming them. Smith’s initial setup has now grown to 8 speakers with 2 subs, and by design, the entire rig (Pacamara, Laptop, and Minirigs) can be battery powered, opening the possibility for impromptu off-grid performances in interesting acoustic spaces. He christened his modular sound spatialisation system the Portable Immersive Sound System intentionally, because he knew he was destined to take it places.

During a recent performance at PAN-PAN, Simon used his MYO armbands to control a concatenatenative synthesis patch routed through Kyma (running a custom delay line designed by Alan Jackson and workshopped by the Kyma Kata), then through an Eventide H90 which sent quad out to his portable spatializing speakers.






See you in Seoul

Video frame from a performance of Testimonio Objetivo by composer Jeffrey Stolet

International Computer Music Conference
“Sound in Motion”
7-13 July 2024
https://www.icmc2024.org/

There will be multiple opportunities to connect with fellow Kyma artists during the ICMC 2024 in Seoul, South Korea, where you’ll hear them performing on several concerts and presenting their ideas on paper sessions. Here are just a few of the composers using Kyma who will be participating in the ICMC during the week of 7-13 July 2024:

Shuyu Lin When Dandelion Whistles
Fang Wan Song Yun
Chi Wang Transparent Affordance
Jeffrey Stolet Testimonio objetivo
Oliver Kwapis Lucky
Jinshuo Feng Listening to the Deep: An Interactive Music Exploration of Oceanic Soundscapes and Climate Change
Tao Li 枯山水 Beyond Landscape
Hector Bravo Benard Nowhere

On the paper sessions:

Jeffrey Stolet Music-Centric Description of Performance with Data-Driven Musical Instruments

Tipping Point

As part of the 2024 International Orgelpark Symposium on 7 June 2024, Franz Danksagmüller invited Carla Scaletti to talk about her piece misfold for hyper-organ and Kyma, which was composed specifically for Danksagmüller.

During the round table wrap up on the final day of the conference, Randall Harlow described misfold as an example of “music for and of our time”

Here’s a performance of misfold recorded by Franz Danksagmüller at St. Nikolai Kirche in Hamburg earlier this year.

La Berge and friends

Anne La Berge posted a photo of her live performance setup for the Tell me more concert at Splendor in Amsterdam, 29 June 2024, featuring her flute processed through Kyma controlled by Continuum mini, iPad and enhanced by a hand-cranked siren:

La Berge had performances throughout the month of June:

Saturday 15 June: The Day of the Composer in The Netherlands
Ensemble Oihua performed La Berge’s composition RAW as part of a varied program at the Batavierhuis in Rotterdam (La Berge performed with them).
Pieter de Hoochweg 108, Rotterdam


Wednesday 26 June
Anne Wellmer, Matt Rogalsky and Anne La Berge (not pictured, but her flute, Pacamara, laptop, Continuum mini controller, and iPad are on the left edge of the table)
Performance with electronics, objects, instruments and inventive musical friendliness.
Zaal 100, De Wittenstraat 100

Saturday 29 June: Tell Me More
Anne La Berge performed a new version of Up Until Now, using old and new material all in one breath as the story of her life.
Splendor Amsterdam, Nieuwe Uilenburgerstraat 116

Zero mass reflections at the EICAS Museum

Sound artist Roland Kuit has three sonic installations currently showing at the EICAS Museum Deventer in the Netherlands, all of which use Kyma.

ZERO = Language – Roland Kuit
Nonversation – Roland Kuit, 2024

Two video screens, each with an alphabetical circle. The circles are traversed by Brownian Walks to generate random letters. The letters are named on one side by Roland Kuit and on the other by artist Karin Schomaker. The found meaning lies in the process of discovering random synchronicity.

Mass – Roland Kuit, 2024

A laboratory with six thousand table tennis balls representing people using social media. Ideas that are pushed through with good or bad intentions in a chaotic world. Visible in this field, is the movement of this chaos. Chaos will always move towards equilibrium. That is looking for a balance and fixing yourself there. This balance may be called polarization. Fixed, and not free. Then it is up to the attendant or spectator to direct the fan(s) differently as new input of an idea to restart this chaos, until a new balance is found. This repeats as long as there are people willing to share ideas.

Reflections with textless paper – Roland Kuit, 2024

Because people disappear into the bubbles of social media, the news fades. The algorithms of the Internet do everything they can to keep people in the bubble. In this installation one sees the newspaper texts fading, newspapers crumpled and thrown away, torn. Cramming memories of something new. This installation shows that a different reality emerges. The fragility of the works on the wall symbolize our democracy and the rule of law. Values on which one could build. These values, seem to fade, lie on the ground. As a reminder, one hears the crackling, crumpling, crumpling and tearing from the loudspeakers on the wall. Like an infinite loop of fading into something that was once reality.

From 4 February to 26 May
Museum EICAS
Nieuwe Markt 23
7411 PB Deventer

AWAY in Dublin

Anne La Berge’s equipment on the Diatribe Stage, Dublin

Anne La Berge and Diamanda La Berge Dramm performed “AWAY” as part of New Music Dublin in a late-evening concert on the Diatribe Stage in what was described as an “impossible, rousing mix of electro and songs”.

AWAY draws together Diamanda’s practice as one of the foremost contemporary violinists, singers and composers of her generation with Anne’s passion for the extremes in composed and improvised music, and her work as a multimedia performer.

Friday 26 April 2024, 10.00pm
Venue: Kevin Barry Recital Room, NCH

Anne La Berge, flute / electronics / voice
Diamanda La Berge Dramm, violin / voice

Acrylic Sounds

Giuseppe Dante Tamborrino asks:

Why is it that a Picasso painting can be widely known and understood by everyone, while sound abstractions are still considered academic and incomprehensible?

Tamborrino’s answer to that question, Acrylic Sounds, was born in January 2024 in the Laterza province of Taranto – Puglia – Italy in the garage of the professor and composer of electro-acoustic music.

Between 2019-2021 (in the period of COVID-19), Tamborrino created a series of abstract paintings using some of the same algorithms he has been using to generate CSound scores for the past 10 years. His idea was to bring his students closer to the concept of sound abstraction by applying the same principles of abstraction to paintings as to musical scores.

Tamborrino does not call himself a painter and has always argued that painting is painting, sound is sound, and sculpture is sculpture; each has a different role, but sometimes they use the same concepts.

While waiting for his score generation algorithms to compile, Tamborrino engaged in creative outbursts with a sponge and a brush as he drew lines or experimented with random color transformations obtained by sponging, likening it to techniques of sound morphing.

Taking these 60 semi/casual paintings as inspiration, he then realized them as Sounds in Kyma. For each painting, he created a formal pre-design and customized Smalltalk scripts to get closer to the meaning of the picture under analysis.

La Sinusoide by Giuseppe Tamborrino

 
For the sonorisation of the painting “La Sinusoide” he used a Capytalk expression that allows you to control the formants of a filter and the index of the formants with the Dice tool of the Kyma Virtual Control Surface (VCS), generating several layers gradually and quickly with the “smooth” Capytalk function.

He also used the Kyma RE Analysis Tool for the generation of a Resonator-Exciter filter, creating transformations of the classic sine wave with the human voice.

He used a real melismatic choir, because the painting represents a talking machine…

 

“Le Radio” by Giuseppe Tamborrino

For “Le Radio”, Tamborrino tried to simulate the search for the right radio station, transforming songs between them. To do this he reiterated several times sounds and music produced by a group of songs in the same family using a simple “ring modulator” to suggest AM radio and used a Capytalk expression to emulate the gradual spectral transformation effect of switching radio stations combined with random gestures to simulate the classic noise between the station and the music. Finally, he used granular synthesis to create glitch rhythmic transitions and figurations and combined selected abstract material as multiple tracks of a Timeline.

“The Mask of the Seagulls” by Tamborrini

“The Mask of the Seagulls” was inspired by the observation of an elderly man annoyed by the anti-COVID mask and some seagulls that repeatedly circled around him, chanting and emitting verses as if nature were making fun of him.

To express the annoyance of the man, Tamborrino simply recorded his own breath recorded through a mask.

For the creation of this syneathesia, Tamborrino emulated the behavior of cheerful and playful seagulls, with a script for the management of the density, frequency, and duration of the grains of granular synthesis; in exponential mode with decelerations and accelerations and friction functions for physics-based controls and swarming.

All of these layers were then assembled in a multi-track Timeline.

 
Tamborrino plans to publish the work as a book of paintings with QR codes for listening and will exhibit the work as paintings paired with performances on an acousmonium.

Some of Tamborrino’s recent work can be heard at the upcoming New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, and he has recently released a new album under the Stradivarius Records label.

Sound Artist, Giuseppe Dante Tamborrini, with his “magic wand” (used for both recycled percussion & painting)

Mei-ling Lee’s Sonic Horizons

Mei-ling Lee: composer, performer, storyteller & assistant professor at Haverford College

 
Music professor Mei-ling Lee was recently featured in the Haverford College blog highlighting her new course offering: “Electronic Music Evolution: From Foundational Basics to Sonic Horizons”, a course that provides students with an in-depth introduction to the history, theory, and practical application of electronic music from the telharmonium to present-day interactive live performances driven by cutting-edge technologies. Along the way, her students also cultivate essential critical listening skills, vital for both music creation and analysis.

 

 

In addition to introducing new courses this year, Dr. Lee also presented her paper “Exploring Data-Driven Instruments in Contemporary Music Composition” at the 2024 Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) National Conference, held at the Louisiana State University Digital Media Center on 5 April 2024, and published as a digital proceeding through the LSU Scholarly Repository. This paper explores connections between data-driven instruments and traditional musical instruments and was also presented at the Workshop on Computer Music and Audio Technology (WOCMAT) National Conference in Taiwan in December 2023.

Lee’s electronic music composition “Summoner” was selected for performance at the MOXSonic conference in Missouri on 16 March 2024 and the New York City Electronic Music Conference (NYCEMF) in June 2024. Created using the Kyma sound synthesis language, Max software, and the Leap Motion Controller, it explores the concept of storytelling through the sounds of animals in nature.