This is the fourth set of example Pd patches ported to Max from Andy Farnell’s Designing Sound book. It includes some of my favorite patches for creating clicks, electric fan and engine sounds.
Download Sound Design Practical Series – Machines
If you haven’t already, be sure to download the Sound Design Practical Series helper files
This is the third set of example Pd patches ported to Max from Andy Farnell’s Designing Sound book. It includes some excellent fire, water and electricity sounds, among others.
Download Sound Design Practical Series – Nature
If you haven’t already, be sure to download the Sound Design Practical Series helper files
This is the second set of example Pd patches ported to Max from Andy Farnell’s Designing Sound book. It includes a nice bouncing sound algorithm and some good bell tones.
Download Sound Design Practical Series – Idiophonics
If you haven’t already, be sure to download the Sound Design Practical Series helper files
![](https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/large_book_cover/http/mitp-content-server.mit.edu%3A18180/books/covers/cover/%3Fcollid%3Dbooks_covers_0%26isbn%3D9780262014410%26type%3D.jpg?itok=sk2EU8gU")
I enjoyed reading Andy Farnell’s excellent Designing Sound book a few years ago. While working through the Practical Series examples he provides, I decided they would be more useful for me as Max patches. When it comes to coding and algorithms, I also know that I learn better by going slowly and working step-by-step, so I decided to port the patches from Pd to Max.
A few disclaimers and caveats:
Download the Sound Design Practical Series – Artificial Sounds
I’m excited to perform next week as part of the Sonic Frontiers season. I plan to play a set of pieces for banjo and electronics drawing from the material on Post & Beam, adding a few new twists, and hopefully including one or two “sound bug” pieces from my Radicans project.
Also on the bill is Justin Peake, a New Orleans based percussionist/composer known for his work as Beautiful Bells. Justin is a Tuscaloosa native, so this will be a homecoming performance for him.
I think it’s going to be a great night!
Thursday March 7 2013 at 7:30pm
Bama Theatre Greensboro Room
600 Greensboro Ave.
Tuscaloosa AL
Admission is Free.
Justin Peake – Workshop at Badabum Atelier from Michelle Ettlin on Vimeo.
David Zicarelli (the main man behind Max) just wrote about Post & Beam on his Cycling ’74 blog.
Holland Hopson’s Post and Beam was released last year, but I stupidly didn’t fall in love with it until recently. I guarantee you’ve never heard anything like it — beautifully performed original and traditional folk songs set against an electronic dreamworld. I can’t think of a recording that provides a more powerful study in contrasts — heartfelt and alienating most of all. Check it out and see if you don’t think the Maxified banjo is not the up-and-coming instrument of the decade!
Cage’s Inlets will be performed using his original shells
Saturday’s Cage/Gould concert at RPI’s EMPAC in Troy NY is the next in a long line of John Cage centenary tributes happening this year. Featuring the Rensselaer Contemporary Music Ensemble directed by Michael Century, the program includes works by John Cage juxtaposed with a recreation of part of Glenn Gould’s final piano concert.
Saturday, November 17 8pm
EMPAC Theater
Rensselaer Contemporary Music Ensemble
Cage Gould
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy NY
The french philosopher Elie During knits it all together in a pre-performance lecture (5pm) with the help of a vacuum cleaner (no kidding!) or at least the metaphor of a vacuum cleaner or the memory of the sound of a vacuum cleaner or the memory of the experience of the obliteration of all other sounds thanks to a vacuum cleaner… I guess we’ll have to go to the lecture to find out for sure.
I’ll be providing some electronic dialogues in the concert between Cage and Gould using recordings of their voices. I put together a Max patch to trigger the cues and quickly found that my old-school use of Max’s “coll” object wasn’t quite cutting it. I looked into Max’s new “dict” object as a replacement but hit a limit recalling nested hierarchical statements. So I delved into SQLite and Javascript to put together a relational database of cues and associated tags. Now I’m able to query and sort the cues at will. I can also change the content of the database (add cues, edit tags, etc.) without munging up the patch itself. Lovely!
Wind Whistling in Overhead Wires is a collection of field recordings and outtakes from my work on Jacqueline Goss’s film The Observers.
This is a pay-what-you-wish (starting at free!), digital download release on Bandcamp. I made the field recordings during our two amazing shoots at the top of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire (see these previous posts). I processed some of the sounds using custom effects developed with Cycling 74’s Max software and added a few instruments in the studio. I chose my favorite sounds and sketches that didn’t make it into the final film and sequenced them to create a continuous 20-minute piece (though some of the tracks work well on their own, particularly Downslope Flow). Enjoy!
I made these 4 short pieces to celebrate the new folding chairs ASAC has provided for the UAG. One folding chair, two contact mics, a superball mallet, a cheap cello bow and Max–the pieces practically made themselves.
Cycling ’74 has posted a new video from the Science Fair they hosted as part of the recent Expo ’74 event in Brooklyn. I show off my extended banjo instrument (along with my unashamedly geeky enthusiasm). My segment runs from 2:16-3:13, but watch the whole thing and marvel at the wonderful, strange things people do with Max (and their own geeky enthusiasms). Other videos in the series can be found here.
And a big shout out to Eric Prust who built the fine fretless banjo (minus the electronics) in the video.