Category Archives: Photo

Summer Shoot at Mt. Washington

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I’ve just started the summer portion of the Mt. Washington film shoot. I hope to write more later about how the mountain is different in the summer than the winter.

Here’s a photo of my audio gear in the corner of an office that was very kindly provided for our use. It’s followed by a shot showing the omni mic I rigged onto the strap of my recording bag. I was hoping to have a true Mid-Side setup this time around but couldn’t get the figure-eight mic I needed. This setup isn’t ideal but it gives me a different perspective on everything I record. (I’ve got two inputs on my recorder so might as well use them both.) The brown fuzzy is a DIY wind screen made from fake fur.

Sedition Edition

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Here are some recordings and photos from my June 19 show at Sedition Gallery in Sydney, Australia. The performance was part of the Left Coast Festival 2010.

The first set consisted of duo improvisations by Holland Hopson, fretless banjo and  electronics with Mike Majkowski, double bass.

Holland Hopson & Mike Majkowski; Photo: Terumi Narushima

[audio:hopson_majkowski_improvisation01.mp3]
Hopson Majkowski Improvisation 1.mp3

[audio:hopson_majkowski_improvisation02.mp3]
Hopson Majkowski Improvisation 2.mp3

[audio:hopson_majkowski_improvisation03.mp3]
Hopson Majkowski Improvisation 3.mp3

[audio:hopson_majkowski_improvisation04.mp3]
Hopson Majkowski Improvisation 4.mp3

Next was a wonderful set by Kraig Grady, just tuned vibraphone and Terumi Narushima, just tuned pump organ.

[audio:grady_narushima.mp3]
Grady Narushima.mp3

Holland Hopson & Mike Majkowski; photo: Terumi Narushima

Arduino On Board

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Photo by Nicholas Zambetti

I recently ordered an Arduino board to try another approach for getting sensor data into my computer. More and more of my students are using them, too, and I wanted some first-hand experience. Most of my previous work has been with the Basic Stamp family of boards. The Arduino arrived this week and I promptly sat down and gave it a try.

The first thing I noticed (aside from the price: the entire Arduino setup costs significantly less than similar boards!) was how much easier it was to get the Arduino going than the Stamp. This isn’t exactly a fair comparison, since my initial experience with Stamps was way back in 1999 or 2000, and it was also my first time fooling with microcontrollers. I’ve learned plenty since then, and the products (along with their attendant software) have come a long way. I have to give the nod to the Arduino for its cross-platform, open-source software. (When I first started with the Stamp I kept a junker 386 PC around, just to run the Stamp compiler. No fun.)

I’m also impressed by the Arduino software. I’ve admittedly done little more than fire up the example “sketches” and tweak a few lines of code. However, the Processing/Java-style language seems a better fit for my (weak) coding style. The community around the Arduino seems very active. There are already a number of projects that simplify moving data from the board to common software such as MaxMSP and Processing.

Then there’s also the luxury of the USB cable that serves for both communication and power supply. This may seem trivial, but I look forward to the day when I don’t need to change the battery in my sensor box before every performance, or carry a spare 9-volt wherever I go. I may also jettison my USB MIDI interface along with a MIDI cable required by my Stamp setup. Suddenly, though, my USB ports are getting a little crowded…

The one niggling worry I have is the serial communication with Max. Using MIDI is certainly slower, but seems foolproof to me: no handshaking necessary, a dead simple initialization process, etc. I hope my fears are simply due to a lack of experience; that once everything is setup and tested I’ll feel just as confident with the serial connection as I do with my aging MIDI cables.

ASAC Presents Defragmented: Marko Timlin and thenumber46

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Albany Sonic Arts Collective presents Defragmented: A concert of emergent systems featuring Marko Timlin and thenumber46 (Suzanne Thorpe + Philip White).

Saturday April 10th
Upstate Artists Guild
247 Lark St.
Albany, NY

8PM
Suggested Donation $5 (all proceeds go to touring performers)

This concert features Finnish- based composer/sound artist Marko Timlin alongside thenumber46, the collaborative effort of electro-acoustic flutist Suzanne Thorpe and electronic musician Philip White. Both Timlin and thenumber46 employ improvisation and non-linear analog systems to create music in which a delicate balance exists between the human and machine. A music at once intuitive and mechanical. Explosive and subdued. Violent and meditative.

More about the artists after the jump.

Continue reading →

Mt. Washington Pt. 2: Rime

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January 11: Summit Weather

  • High temp: 5 F
  • Low temp: -2 F
  • Average Wind Speed: 46.7 mph gusting to 72 mph

A foggy day with visibility down to 1/16th of a mile. The observatory reported zero hours of sunshine for the day. Perfect conditions for rime ice. We could hardly step outside without it accumulating on our clothes and, of course, our gear.

rime ice recording rig

My recording bag covered in rime ice. My headphones were unscathed since I wore them under my balaclava (and hat (and parka hood)).

I brought out my contact mics to record the sound of rime accumulating on them. The best spot I found was attaching them to the windward side of a wooden sign post. Here’s an excerpt:

[audio:rime_accumulation.mp3]

rime_accumulation.mp3

Listening to the entire recording one can clearly hear the frequency of the resonant ping sounds increase as more ice accumulates. I suspect the ice accumulation reduces the surface area of the contact mic or otherwise stiffens the transducer–in a manner similar to a drummer increasing the pressure on a drum head and thus causing the pitch to rise.

Here’s a recording of an ice-covered chain squeaking in the wind. The squeak is less metallic than I expected, sounding more like rubbing ice cubes together.

[audio:squeaky_chain.mp3]

squeaky_chain.mp3

Here’s a photo of the chain (taken on another, much sunnier day). Yes, this chain appears to be preventing the building from blowing off the mountain. The story I heard is that the chains were an important part of the original building. When they rebuilt the structure, chains were included as an historical and decorative element. There were times when I could have used a chain or two to prevent me from blowing away.

Jackie and I covered in rime ice after our contact mic recording expedition.

Mt. Washington Pt. 1: Going Up the Mountain

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I’m back home from the Mt. Washington shoot where I was so busy I never posted any updates. So I’ll be posting news of the trip many days late.

Here's all of my audio gear packed up and ready to go.

January 9: We all gathered at Jackie’s house, threw our gear in the van and drove to New Hampshire. Jacqueline Goss was the leader of the crew: video artist, writer, director, producer. Jesse Cain: cinematographer. Dani Leventhal: talent. (She hates that word, but after spending the better part of a week together I think it fits just fine.) We spent the first night enjoying the comforts of the Appalachian Mountain Club Joe Dodge Lodge. Jesse unpacked and assembled the camera so we could begin shooting first thing in the morning.

Jessie and Dani checking out the focal length on the 135mm lens

January 10: First thing in the morning we met our ride up the mountain (snow tractor!) at the Auto Road and took a minute to shoot a few establishing shots.

Mt. Washington (the summit is obscured here--it's just behind the peak on the right)

On the way to the summit we stopped just above the treeline to shoot a few more scenes. I loved seeing the stunted krumholtz trees that are just visible in the lower left corner of this photo.

Jackie and Jesse on the Auto Road

Late morning, we arrived at the summit and quickly unloaded our equipment. Visibility was good, and since we didn’t know whether we’d get clear skies again Jackie and Jesse and Dani peeled off to shoot some scenes that didn’t require sync sound while I took a look around the observatory and organized our gear.

Summit Weather:

  • High temp: 1 F
  • Low temp: -5 F
  • Average Wind Speed: 45 mph gusting to 62 mph

Here’s an excerpt from the first day of recording; a scene where Dani knocks the rime ice off a sign. These sounds are indicative of winter weather on the mountain: wind envelopes everything, so even rather violent actions produce only faint tinkles of ice.

[audio:knocking_rime_off_sign.mp3]

knocking_rime_off_sign.mp3

Salad Bowl Hemi Speaker #2

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I recently completed my second salad bowl hemi speaker. (See info on the first one here, including links to the Princeton and Stanford laptop orchestras which provided excellent guides to construction.) My second speaker followed the design and construction of the first very closely, with the substitution of Polk Audio DB401 speakers. The Polk speakers were significantly cheaper than the Infinity speakers. I haven’t directly compared the speakers, but I remember the Infinity speakers to be heavier and louder than the Polk speakers. The frequency response of both seems very similar. I do prefer the mounting tabs on the Infinity speakers to the broad flange on the Polk speakers. When mounting them on a hemispherical surface, the Polk speaker flanges don’t lie quite as flat (er…curved).

Here are some photos I took during construction.


This is the bottom of the speaker. I simply scribed the circumference of the bowl on a piece of 1/2″ plywood and cut out the circle using a jigsaw.

Salad bowl with speaker holes marked and taped

Salad bowl with speaker holes marked and taped

Here’s the bowl with the position of each speaker marked and taped. If you look closely you can see a small red mark at the center of each circle. I used a string attached to the center of the bowl to mark the center of all the equatorial speakers. The tape is simply to prevent the bottom of my jigsaw from scarring the surface of the bowl.

Salad bowl with holes drilled for jigsaw blade

Salad bowl with holes drilled for jigsaw blade

Next I drilled holes in each speaker cutout large enough to fit the blade of my jigsaw.

Salad bowl with speaker holes

Salad bowl with speaker holes

Here’s the bowl with all the speaker holes cut. It’s easy to crack the salad bowl after removing so much of the material, so take care with all subsequent drilling and cutting.

Detail of cut used to enlarge back of speaker opening

Detail of cut used to enlarge back of speaker opening

One result of working with the elliptical geometry of a hemisphere is that the back side of the holes we cut is slightly smaller than the front side. This might prevent your speakers from sitting flush against the surface. I only needed to trim a few places from the back of each circle to get the Infinity speakers to mount flush, but I had to cut the entire back edge of each opening in order to mount the Polk speakers.

Finished hemi showing knobs and connections

Finished hemi showing knobs and connections

Here’s the finished speaker. (I know, I skipped plenty of intervening steps! I was having too much fun putting all the pieces together to stop and take pictures.) The volume knobs (one for each stereo amp) are on the left. In the middle is the power connector. On the right is a 6-conductor Neutrik connector for all the audio signals.

Finished hemi on top of subwoofer

Finished hemi on top of subwoofer

A front view of the finished speaker. It’s sitting on top of a Sony subwoofer I picked up at a yard sale. The two together have a nice R2-unit look. I’ve set the crossover fairly high (around 300Hz). I expect I’ll back it down after some more listening tests.

I’ve already performed once with this hemi. So far, the biggest problem I’ve encountered is having the amps cut out on me when the input levels get too high. The Dayton amps seem to have a protection circuit that shuts them down when they’re driven too hard. It’s better than having the amps blow up, to be sure, but a bit of a drag having the audio suddenly drop out. Sending the low frequency signals to the sub seems to ease the load placed on the hemi amps. I’ve also been experimenting with limiters and high-ratio compressors, but I haven’t yet found the silver bullet. I’ve only scratched the surface of spatialization possibilities with this setup, and I’m looking forward to working with it even more.

One Month to the Mountain

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Late Afternoon Cogs Heads Down, Photo by Jeff Glover

I’m headed to the top of Mt. Washington in about a month. I’ll be recording audio for an experimental documentary project led by Jacqueline Goss. At Jackie’s request I’ve been reading material on the history and operation of the Mt. Washington Observatory. I’m already having fun geeking out about cloud cover and wind speed and fog and rime.

Jacqueline Goss, from The 100th Undone

Still trying to figure out how to actually record usable sound in 50mph wind… I’m currently building a handful of DIY contact mics/hydrophones in anticipation of recording ice accumulation and the straining of various summit structures in full-on gales. I’m also building a few electret omni mics so I can have something to take outside with impunity in the worst conditions. I’ll try to post some photos of my homebrew audio projects. Also look for future reports and audio samples from the mountain top.