#OUTNOW: Intra Muros

I'm pleased to announce the release of "Intra Muros", a new ambient album I composed with Enrico Ascoli:

 

Check it out here: linktr.ee/matteomilani

Intra Muros is a project born during the quarantine nights in March 2020, via a remote collaboration (Milan> Turin). 

The eleven sound-objects, improvised day by day in a sort of creative ping pong between the minds of Matteo and Enrico, overcome the physical barriers of their confinement and recompose themselves the form of apparently stable, but remarkably articulated sound sculptures. 

During the quarantine the apartments have become simultaneously protective shells and static prisons that vibrate, perturbed by ambivalent feelings of calm and tension. 

The tracks symbolize these movements of the souls in constant balance between fever pitch and research of a new interior peace, giving life to an immersive and iridescent sound textures. 

Composed & Mixed by Matteo Milani & Enrico Ascoli 

Mastered by Matteo Milani

Yuri Esposito @ 70th Venice Film Festival

by Matteo Milani - U.S.O. Project, 2013

Yuri Esposito is a film that I recently supervised (as sound designer and ambient music designer) which got its world premiere during the 70th Venice Film Festival, with the support of Biennale College – Cinema. "Yuri Esposito" is a man whose slowness pervades every action in his life and comes to constitute its essence, but his perennial lethargy is challenged by a surprise paternity. It's directed by Alessio Fava - I previously worked with him on the ironic science fiction short film “Project Genesis” set in a future in which the machines give life to human beings (you can watch it here).

 

Press quotes: 

"The slow Yuri is a descendant of such minimalist screen clowns as Buster Keaton and Pierre Etaix; and Fava’s assured directorial sense touches on the signal difference between Hollywood movies and art films: pace. The slow Yuri is an art film in the bustle of a multiplex world". - Richard and Mary Corliss @ TIME.com

"The Italian film, “Yuri Esposito” — really stands out as a commercial entity. At yesterday’s panel, Stephanie Zacharek of the Village Voice praised it, and Richard Corliss of Time Magazine said it was one of the four or five best films in the entire festival. I like it very much as well (...) It’s funny, sad, a character study, a fable . . . and a very good movie". - Mick LaSalle @ SFGate.com

"That quite fragile balance between comedy and drama lead to a true sentimental and somehow bittersweet film. The linear narration, despite the initial idea, doesn’t boast of creativity but it is worked nicely and fulfills all the initial expectations for a charming film". - 24 fois la vérité par seconde24 

[read more reviews and articles - via Biennale College]

Listen to my original tracks composed for "Yuri Esposito":

An interview with Mel Wesson

by Matteo Milani - U.S.O. Project, 2013

Mel Wesson received a multi platinum award for his contributions to The Verve's 'Urban Hymns' album and the anthemic single 'Bitter Sweet Symphony'. It was this album Hans Zimmer was listening to in the New Year of 2000 when he spotted Mel's credit and invited him to work on the score for Mission Impossible 2.
Since that time Mel has created his own niche within the movie score genre as 'Ambient Music Designer'. This area of atmospheric sound has weaved its way through many of Hans' scores including Ridley Scott's 'Hannibal' and 'Black Hawk Down', Christopher Nolan's 'Batman' trilogy and most recently Ron Howard's 'Rush', amongst the others.

[photo courtesy of Mel Wesson]

Matteo Milani: Mel, how you got involved in working on motion pictures?

Mel Wesson: Aside from a few piano lessons as a child I had no real formal music training, I learnt most about my approach to music at Art College...  I learn't about keeping an open mind, freedom of expression, things that have stayed with me all my life. I spent my  youth playing with bands, touring and recording. I started getting offers of session work, one thing led to another... I'd known Hans Zimmer since my late teens and he got me involved in a few projects with his mentor Stanley Myers, as well as some of his own early musical projects. Hans and I drifted apart for a few years when he moved to LA and I got more involved in working with recording artists but eventually Hans called out of the blue and asked me to get involved in the score of 'Mission Impossible 2'. That was the start of a new chapter for me.

MM: Would you like to describe your collaboration between composers James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer?

MW: They're both very different, Hans prefers everything to be in a constant state of flux, whereas James has a more structured approach. I seem to have an approach that works with them both, I'm pretty flexible but I do like make progress through a picture so often I'll leap ahead of wherever  they are in the in movie and  then feed ideas back at them. James often likes to arrive at a cue and find something in place, it might be a soundscape consisting of many cues, or perhaps a rhythmic idea, maybe even a map. Hans tends to assimilate my ideas in his own way, a lot of time things come together at the mix as opposed to the more traditional point of composition, that works for him as he never considers a cue finished until it's in the theatre!

MM: Please explain your role as 'Ambient Music Designer' when working with the composer and other members of the sound editorial.

MW: Well, I really should know the answer to that one but I'm still working on it! The AMD role came about through a few conversations with Hans on 'Hannibal'. People read things into that title, but it's really just a phrase we cooked up to give me a credit on that movie and it stuck! The important thing is I just didn't want to go down the orchestral route (despite what people may think I DO write conventional music occasionally! ) and Hans gave me the opportunity to experiment with sound in a way that crosses the boundaries of music and sound design. A lot of my work is to do with atmospheres, creating a presence, emotions, sometimes through rhythm too. I create bespoke sounds but that's only a part of what I do. I use those sounds to work with picture, that's the real challenge here. The word 'Ambient' can cover a lot of ground in the same way the word 'Orchestral' covers an amount of options... Back to the question, occasionally a composer will have something specific in mind, but a lot of the time I'm left to my own devices and we see what occurs... I enjoy the freedom, it would be rather pointless for everybody if I didn't play  a creative role.

MM: How do you deal with the everlasting collision between sound effect and music?

MW: It's all noise... some noises work together, some don't. I try not to distinguish too much between violins and helicopters, everything has it's place... On Ron Howard's 'Rush' for example there's the most amazing sounding race cars... they're the sound of the movie, the heart and soul the story, yet they'll carve through any music... which is fine by me, I'd far sooner listen to them then an orchestra! Most recently I've been playing with the band 'Node', with producers Flood and Ed Buller, plus electronic artist Dave Bessell. What we do is all about sound, it's all live too, no overdubs, no mix process. The music we're creating crosses a lot of boundaries, there really is no conflict between sound and music in that environment and no one would draw a line between what we do and music. For me it's the ideal band to play with, I'm very excited about our album. 

[photo courtesy of Mel Wesson]

MM: The sounds you've done for 'Inception: the App' are these totally synthesised or is there any usage of reprocessed actual sounds?

MW: Nearly all of my work on Inception, the score and therefore the App was based of reprocessed sounds, mostly from one sample session, but you'd struggle to recognise the source of the sounds in about 90% of the case. It was a session of natural instruments resonating through a piano soundboard, so we had an amazing amount of harmonics to work with plus the room itself. Then I took my ideas back to Air Lyndhurst and replayed them into the hall and re-recorded them again... we got some amazing material of out that session. There was some live recording in the app too.... like rain on my studio window that became part of the environment. There's been a Dark Knight App since that one too, the same team, but based more around a more interactive way of playing with the score in the real world.

MM: For 'Inception: the Soundscape', you’re credited as composer. It’s your first art installation work. Do you have any additional anecdotes to share?

MW: That was played on the walk between Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, (the US Inception Premiere) and the after show venue where we played a live concert. It was a walkway constructed a few hundred metres long and a really interesting project. I used a lot of ambience from the film, plus some sounds I got from sound designer Richard King, things like the train coming down the centre of the road, waves on the beach etc. It was a lot of fun, I'd love to do more... but really more long term exhibition based... and yes, I'm open to offers! Venice Biennale anyone?

MM: Tell us about the software and hardware production tools in your arsenal...

MW: My studio's based around Logic Pro, for now at least.... I love working in Logic but it's way overdue an update so I'm looking at alternatives. So... within the computer world I have a few favourite toys, MetaSynth has served me well in the past, Reaktor is probably still my favourite plugin, it's just so forward thinking, flexible, origional and most importantly it sounds good... that's  everything you want from a plugin. I use a lot of sounds manipulation devices, things from Izotope, Audio Damage, etc. I like the Waldorf plugins too, the Wave 3 is very good, but the most exciting thing I've seen in a long time is the PPG Wave Generator, it's an iPad app, again it's sounds great and it's innovative. I sometimes process sounds through my modular or the Synthi but I don't use a lot of outboard FX, although I've started using a Kemper Profiling Amp. Obviously that's designed with guitars in mind but there's no rules. I use a lot of vintage synths too, partly because nothing sounds as good and partly because the interface makes you think differently. I'm fortunate to have a large analog modular system that's part Moog 3C, part PPG300, other 'Go to' synths include a  Synthi A, PPG Wave 2. It's not just about the sound though, it's how these devices make you think. I just bought a guitar too, I don't really play, but again I come up with things I'd never think of on a keyboard or computer. 

[photo courtesy of Mel Wesson]

MM: What are your preferred titles you worked on and what kind of sounds you designed?

MW: Well all my sounds are organised within folders so there's the 'BatFlaps', for Batman Trilogy,  there was 'Rage' for the Joker, 'Ice Brass' for Inception. 'Gotham Metal', "BanePane'... it's a long list.  Of course we had  'MetaPiggies' on Hannibal!


MM: Can you reveal us a 'making of' of a very special sound effect(s) or a sound sequence for 'Green Lantern'?

MW: Ah Green Lantern... we had a vast library of sounds, unusually for me all of my work was created with synthesisers,  We had there's the Green Energy sounds for the good guys and the sound of Yellow Light which was the sound of fear... We did record the extraordinary voice of Grant Gershon and I processed his voice to create various sounds and textures. We had so much fun on that movie, although it was pretty much universally slated which was a shame as the team was great as was the experience. 

MM: How do you deliver your sound elements to the mixing stage?

MW: I master everything in quad, but really all I do is give options, the real work in surround takes place on the dubstage. They have far more to deal with in terms of effects and dialog beyond the music and that team are experts in bringing it all together. My work is all part of the score, it's a common misunderstanding that I deliver stand alone sounds but for me the sounds are only a part of the process. Once I have my pallette I start to use those sounds to compose with, so the work is delivered as mixes and stems, the same as any other cue would be. That said Chris Nolan is very keen to have my material as wide as possible as what we called 'Melements', he likes to swap things around on the dub and experiment. For me it's always an exciting time and I love the way the process is constantly evolving.


MM: What projects are you currently working on?

MW: Well.... I'm a rarity in this industry in that I actively dislike have more than one project ongoing  at the same time... in an ideal world at least!  This year got off to a crazy start. I've been working a couple of old friends, Trevor Morris on 'Olympus Has Fallen' and Ramin Djwadi on 'Pacific Rim', these have been more electronic arrangements and ideas as opposed to ambient work. I've also worked on 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty' with Teddy Shapiro, plus a few bits for Henry Jackman on 'Captain Phillips' and Chris Bacon's score for 'Bates Motel'. The important thing is at times like that everybody respects everyone else's projects and space... it's not like I have a team around me, I can't and won't delegate which makes things diffiicult at times. A nice Margaux helps though...

[melwesson.com]
[Mel Wesson - IMDb]

Lis10er is now available in the App Store

We would like to introduce you our brand new iPhone app called Lis10er (pronounced Listener). It's a binaural audio augmented reality iPhone application that creates an “augmented soundspace”, warping and mixing in realtime the device live microphone with prerecorded imagined sounds and the elaborated version of the real-time input, designed by U.S.O. Project (Matteo Milani, Federico Placidi) and Tue Haste Andersen.

The app is a mobile installation that places the emphasis on the surfaces of the world in which we live. It contains 10 themes: each one is a carefully composed “virtual place”, where the sonic environment is encapsulated and transformed to invent a new reality, mixing "Live" sounds and their relative aural context with designed ones. 

How It Works

Step 1: To get started you only need the earphones or any other external headset with microphone.

Step 2: With the wet/dry slider you can blend the amount of the input source with the processed output.

Step 3: Swipe left and right to switch among 10 themes.

Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S. Requires iOS 5.0 or later.


What’s in the next versions:

• New Themes
• Non linear selection and crossfading between Themes
• Background recording
• iTunes file transfer
• Soundcloud integration
• Support for iPhone’s built-in microphone

Hologram Room - vol.1 [USO001]

24-bit/48kHz Royalty-free Sound Design Collection

Hologram Room - vol.1 by usoproject

Hologram Room is the first bundle of the abstract Sound Design Collection produced by sound designers and composers Matteo Milani and Federico Placidi (aka U.S.O. Project).

These two gigabytes of “ready to use” original sound elements are designed to help you sweetening and enhancing your sound production. The whole library is organized in eight main folders: Active Drones, Alarms, Blips, Buttons, Communications, Ignitions, Telemetries, Transitions. It provides a selection of out of this world drones and ambiences, futuristic sound effects and electronic tools.

We have been spending hours composing, editing, mixing these categories in Symbolic Sound Corporation Kyma and Avid Pro Tools. All of the audio files have been embedded with metadata for detailed and accurate searches in your asset management software.

A note about the mastering: the library has not been peak normalized, but loudness normalized, based on the recommendation by the European Broadcast Union. What does it mean? During the audition of your samples, they will have the same loudness level when played through monitors.

This work has been made possible by the aid of LevelOne, a program developed by Grimm Audio.

EBU TECHNICAL provides all kinds of information about the EBU R128 loudness recommendation. The official R128 documents and guidelines can be found online, as well as introduction papers and videos.

Here is what you get in "Hologram Room - vol.1":

• Folders:
• Active Drones (81 items)
• Alarms (26 items)
• Blips (52 items)
• Buttons (62 items)
• Communications (18 items)
• Ignitions (34 items)
• Telemetries (35 items)
• Transitions (123 items)
• Tab-delimited file (.txt)
• Excel spreadsheet (.xls)
• License Agreement (.pdf)
• Artwork (.jpg)

Audio Format: Broadcast Wave Files (.wav)
Sample Rate: 48 kHz
Bit Depth: 24-bit
Size: 1.87 GB
Download size is 1.23 GB (compressed .rar archive)

Available on www.unidentifiedsoundobject.com

Brian Eno on Synthesisers

"Synthesisers interest me for two reasons. One is because they do introduce new sounds into the world, and the other is because in working with them, I learn a lot about how sounds made up. The DX7 has been very useful for that, I use it almost as much as a research tool for seeing how a sound is made. [...] My solution has been to make the equipment unreliable in various ways. I used to like to old synthesisers because they were like that. My first synthesisers - the EMS, the AKS and the early Minimoog - were all fairly unstable and they had a certain character. Character has really to do with deviations, not with regularity. And then, of course, I used to feed them through all sorts of devices that also had a lot of character: that were themselves in various ways unpredictable. The interaction of a lot of these things started to create sounds that had an organic, uneven sound to me."

[Music Technology interview, 1988 - pdf | via EnoWeb]

Quotes from some of the conversations recorded for the BBC4 Arena documentary series, dedicated to the life and work of Brian Eno: 

"One of the important things about the synthesiser was that it came without any baggage. A piano comes with a whole history of music. There are all sorts of cultural conventions built into traditional instruments that tell you where and when that instrument comes from. When you play an instrument that does not have any such historical background you are designing sound basically. You're designing a new instrument. That's what a synthesiser is essentially. It's a constantly unfinished instrument. You finish it when you tweak it, and play around with it, and decide how to use it. You can combine a number of cultural references into one new thing. [...] They are a very new instrument. They are constantly renewing so people do not have time to build long relationships with them. So you tend to hear more of the technology and less of the rapport. It can sound less human. However ! That is changing. And there is a prediction that I made a few years ago that I'm very pleased to see is coming true – synthesisers that have inconsistency built into them. I have always wanted them to be less consistent. I like it that one note can be louder than the note next to it."

On the naming of things:

"My interest in making music has been to create something that does not exist that I would like to listen to, not because I wanted a job as a musician. I wanted to hear music that had not yet happened, by putting together things that suggested a new thing which did not yet exist. It's like having a ready-made formula if you are able to read it. One of the innovations of ambient music was leaving out the idea that there should be melody or words or a beat… so in a way that was music designed by leaving things out – that can be a form of innovation, knowing what to leave out. All the signs were in the air all around with ambient music in the mid 1970s, and other people were doing a similar thing. I just gave it a name. Which is exactly what it needed. A name. A name. Giving something a name can be just the same as inventing it. By naming something you create a difference. You say that this is now real. Names are very important."

On the end of an era:

"I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew it would run out sooner or later. It couldn't last, and now it's running out. I don't particularly care that it is and like the way things are going. The record age was just a blip. It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you'd be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate – history's moving along. Recorded music equals whale blubber. Eventually, something else will replace it."

[ via guardian.co.uk]

Generative Music: an interview with Peter Chilvers

by Matteo Milani, U.S.O. Project, September 2009

Generative music is a term popularized by Brian Eno to describe music that is ever-different and changing, and that is created by a system (Wikipedia). I recently had the chance to interview musician and software designer Peter Chilvers, who created the new iPhone/iPod touch application called Air (© Opal Ltd).
Based on concepts developed by Brian Eno, with whom Chilvers created Bloom, Air assembles vocal (by Sandra O'Neill) and piano samples into a beautiful, still and ever changing composition, which is always familiar, but never the same.

Air features four ‘Conduct’ modes, which let the user control the composition by tapping different areas on the display, and three ‘Listen’ modes, which provide a choice of arrangement. For those fortunate enough to have access to multiple iPhones and speakers, an option has been provided to spread the composition over several players.

"Air is like Music for Airports made endless, which is how I always wanted it to be." - Brian Eno

“About 20 years ago or more I became interested in processes that could produce music which you hadn’t specifically designed. The earliest example of that is wind chimes. If you make a set of wind chimes, you define the envelope within which the music can happen, but you don’t precisely define the way the music works out over time. It’s a way of making music that’s not completely deterministic.” - Brian Eno

[via apple.com]

Matteo Milani: Thanks for your time. Peter Chilvers as a musician first: few words about 'A Marble Calm' project.

Peter Chilvers: I happened across the phrase 'A Marble Calm' on holiday a few years ago, thought it sounded like an interesting band name, then started thinking about the type of band that might be. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to tie up a number of ideas that were interesting to me: drifting textural ambient pieces, improvisation and song. By making it a loose collective, it's enabled me to bring in other vocalists and musicians I've enjoyed working with on other projects - vocalists Sandra O'Neill (who also worked with me on 'Air' for the iPhone) and Tim Bowness, marimba player Jon Hart and flautist Theo Travis.


MM: When did you start working with generative music?

PC: In the 90's I worked as a software developer on the 'Creatures' series of games. When we started on Creatures 2, I was given the opportunity to take over the whole soundtrack. The game wasn't remotely linear - you spent arbitrary amounts of time in different locations around an artificial world, so I wanted to create a soundtrack that acted more as a landscape. I ended developing a set of 'virtual improvisers', constantly generating an ambient soundscape in the background - it was quite involved actually, with its own simple programming language, although little of that was visible to the user.

[...] Peter chose to use his background in improvised music to create an array of "virtual musicians" that would play along to the action on screen. Each composition in Creatures contains a set of "players", each with their own set of instructions for responding to the mood of the norns on screen.

Peter was able to generate much more interesting effects using recorded instruments rather than using General MIDI sounds generated by a soundcard, which can often be quite restrictive. This meant that he could take advantage of the many different ways that a note on a "live" instrument can be played - for example, on a guitar the sound changes greatly depending on the part of the finger used to strike a string, and on a piano when one note is played, all the other strings vibrate too. Also by altering the stereo effects, he could fatten the sound at certain times.

He also made use of feedback loops within the soundtrack. Feedback loops were first experimented with in the 1970s - if any of you can remember Brian Eno, you may be interested to know he composed most of his music then using this method. The idea is that you play a track and record it into RAM (onto a tape back in the 1970s). After about a short while (around 8 seconds in Creatures 2), the loop starts and the original sounds are played back so the composer carries on creating sounds in response to what's gone before.

Behind the scenes, scripts control the music engine and set the volume, panning and interval between notes as the mood and threat changes.

[via gamewaredevelopment.co.uk]

MM: Why did you choose the Apple platform to develop the applications?

PC: I've been a huge fan of Apple products for a long time, and their timing in releasing the iPhone couldn't have been better. Bloom actually existed in some form before the iPhone SDK was announced - possibly before even the iPhone itself was announced. From the second we tried running the prototype, it was obvious that it really suited a touch screen. And Apple provided one!

The difficulty developers have faced with generative music to date has been the platform. Generative music typically requires a computer, and it's just not that enjoyable to sit at a computer and listen to music. The iPhone changed that - it was portable, powerful and designed to play music.

MM: Who designed the visualizations of Bloom? Eno himself?

PC: It was something of a two way process. I came up with the effect of circles expanding and disappearing as part of a technology experiment - Brian saw it and stopped me making it more complex! Much of the iPhone development has worked that way - one of us would suggest something and the other would filter it, and this process repeats until we end up with something neither of us imagined. Trope, our new iPhone application went through a huge number of iterations, both sonically and visually before we were happy with it.

MM: What kind of algorithms define Bloom's musical structure? Are they specifically based on Brian's requests or just an abstraction based on his previous works?

PC: Again, this is something that went back and forth between us a number of times. As you can see, anything you play is repeated back at you after a delay. But the length of that delay varies in subtle, but complex ways, and keeps the music interesting and eccentric. It's actually deliberately 'wrong' - you can't play exactly in time with something you've already played, and a few people have mistaken this for a bug. Actually, it was a bug at one point - but Brian liked the effect, and we ended up emphasising it. "Honour they error as a hidden intention" is something of a recurring theme in Brian's work.
A forthcoming update to Bloom adds two new 'operation modes', one of which was designed specifically to work with the way Brian prefers playing Bloom.

MM: Does the graphic and audio engine include audio and video standard libraries or you wrote your own classes?

PC: I've built up my own sound engine, which I'm constantly refining and use across all the applications. It went through several fairly substantial rewrites before I found something reliable and reusable.

MM: Is all the code in 'Objective C' or did you use any external application?

PC: It's all Objective-C. I hadn't used the language before, although I'd worked extensively in C++ in the past. It's an odd language to get used to, but I really like it now.


MM: Is Bloom sample based? What is music engine actually controlling (e.g. triggering, volume, panning, effects)? What about the algorithmic side of the music engine?

PC: Bloom is entirely sample based. Brian has a huge library of sounds he's created, which I was curating while we were working on the Spore soundtrack and other projects. It's funny, but the ones I picked were just the first I came across that I thought would suit Bloom. We later went through a large number of alternatives, but those remained the best choices.

The version of Bloom that's currently live uses fixed stereo samples, but an update we're releasing soon applies some panning to the sounds depending on the position of each 'bloom' on screen. It's a subtle effect, but it works rather well.

MM: Would you like to describe your actual and next projects?

PC: I've been involved in two new applications for the iPhone: Trope and Air. Both Apps were intended to be released simultaneously. Trope is my second collaboration with Brian Eno, and takes some of the ideas from Bloom in a slightly different, slightly darker direction. Instead of tapping on the screen, you trace shapes and produce constantly evolving abstract soundscapes.

Air is a collaboration with Irish vocalist Sandra O'Neill, and is quite different to Bloom. It's a generative work centred around Sandra's vocal textures and a slowly changing image. It draws heavily on techniques that Brian has evolved over his many years working on ambient music and installations, as well as a number of the generative ideas we've developed more recently.

I have just had some interesting news: Trope has been approved, it's now available in the App Store!

More information can be found at www.generativemusic.com.

"Trope is a different emotional experience - more introspective, more atmospheric. It shows that generative music, as one of the newest forms of sonema, can draw on a broad palette of moods." Brian Eno

[all iPhone and iPod touch applications by Opal Limited - App Store link]
[burningshed.com]

[Brian Eno discussing Generative Music at the Imagination Conference, 1996]

UPDATE: Trope in action!

"[...] I had realised three or four years ago that I wasn't going to be able to do generative music properly – in the sense of giving people generative music systems that they could use themselves – without involving computers. And it kind of stymied me: I hate things on computers and I hate the idea that people have to sit there with a mouse to get a piece of music to work. So then when the iPhone came out I thought: oh good, it's a computer that people carry in their pockets and use their fingers on, so suddenly that was interesting again." - Brian Eno
[via timeoutsydney.com.au]

Related Post: Deep Green: sound design for iPhone App