Here's the full project description:
QUANTUM DRIPPING
1) Quantization A
2) Inflaction
3) Quantization B
REBIRTH
4) Time Vector 1 : Elemental
5) Time Vector 2: Mutation
6) Time Vector 3: Modular Lexicon
7) Farewell - for Solo Violin and live electronics
Pierre Schaeffer, pioneer of musique concrete - "The organization is conditioned by the material".
The exploratory journey of U.S.O. Project, even if based on different sections identifiable by their qualities, tends to a homogenization of the materials - from both a structural and formal point of view.
Although different manufacture procedures have been identified as first cause of every aural epiphany, signal processing and operating methodologies vary during the composition, alternating an improvisational approach with one based on more traditional composition.
The "sound matter" we analyze, morphs unceasingly through natural or "techno-mediate" gestures, always prefiguring a modulation path - self-referred but also unpredictable and explicitly "cultured.
In various sections, the transient drawing for example, takes a functional role different from that of basic entity, and becomes a real articulate and vectorial structure.
The studio work is essentially based around the paradigma of creating particles from scratch (transient drawing) or editing small selection of waveform (transformational).
These sound elements feed Kyma Sounds to be played in real-time controlled by human interfaces (tablet, midi controller and keyboard).
We used at least two kinds of generators: custom designed samples, as well as Kyma objects, processed through customized signal flow for an "exotic" result.
Another computationally intensive technique used in our work is called Convolution, an extension of the classic auralization process based on the linear convolution of the "dry" original signal with the impulse response of the system. This method is usually employed for adding to dry music or speech recordings a set of information related to an acoustic space such as reverberation and frequency response.
This pilgrimage from the infinitely small, to the real "sound object", has its accomplished and significant maturity in the "Modular Lexicon" section, where voice and "sound strips" act as actual elements of a rediscovered grammar, in order to cause hyperbolic mutations in both tone and time domains, two spaces finally unified and pacified in the ironic "Farewell for Solo Violin" by Massimo Coen.
Techniques used: Sonographic synthesis (Metasynth), Transient Drawings (Synthetic/Transformational), Particle Cloning, Custom Pulsar Synthesis, Trainlet, Glisson Synthesis, Granulation, Micromontage in d.a.w., Convolution. Spazialization.
The techniques employed have had a fundamentally important role in the signal processing work. They have been selected on the basis of their functionality and effectiveness as to the musical and poetical needs of any specific moment.
The "micromontage" allowed us to create elementary structures which could grow and evolve following precise criteria of composition based on the nature of the material itself (Quantum Dripping to Mutation), whereas additive and sonographic synthesis assured a visual and gestural control on the spectral evolution of various strata, filaments and resonances in the closing section of the work.
The improvisatory aspect of the composition deserves to be addressed separately.
Thanks to the use of a Graphic Tablet, it has been possible to use a gestural expressiveness - well-considered through a selected and attentive use of improvisation - and to take it back to control parameters peculiar for sound transformation, using the physical space and the various dimensions (X and Y axis, pen pressure or tilting on the tablet) as instruments to access groups of parameters, or even complex configurations linearly interpolated using the digital signal processor Kyma of the Symbolic Sound.
In the conclusive part of the work, for instance, the prosody of the text has been controlled using a resynthesis algorithm called TAU, mapping time and pitch on the Graphic Tablet, in order to create "impossible" inflexions with the non-reciting voice - the vocal part has been intentionally recorded without expression.
In this, Kyma is a straightforward improvisation partner, allowing us to create our own sound identity, without any preconception or definition, and without hiding the recombinant world of sound computation.
Composed, recorded & mixed @
Sound Room Studio (Rome) & Graphicalsound Studio (Milan) by Unidentified Sound Object (U.S.O. Project) - aka Matteo Milani | Federico Placidi
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