kaboodle, disquiet Kaboodle Sound
KP+K [disquiet0040-kirschnerplus1]

Created for the Disquiet Junto.

Assignment:

"The latest release from Kenneth Kirschner is a series of duets for himself on piano and Tawnya Popoff on viola.

"For this Disquiet Junto project you will add your own performance to one of the duets. This will turn it, in effect, into a trio.

"You cannot change the existing audio, except to the extent that you can elect to trim it to a more manageable length, in which case you might choose to fade in and out. "

Method:

My first Junto entry for several weeks now (lots going on at the moment) - decided to do this at the last minute.

I wanted to add just a little to the track without changing it too much, and I wanted an excuse to use my BC8 synthesiser. (Some videos of a BC8 here and here).

I played the Kenneth Kirschner track through my computer and fed the output to a small Behringer mixer. I connected the BC8 to an ARTcessories 4-way splitter, which sent the output to a Miidio Vibration Speaker (reghardware.com/2008/02/13/mii...ration_speakers) and to a Mini KP Kaoss Pad, which in turn sent its output to another Miidio Vibration Speaker.

(For anyone that doesn't know, vibration speakers turn any surface they are placed on or are attached to into audio speakers, simply by making the surface vibrate).

The vibration speaker connected to the Kaoss pad was placed on a wooden shelf thing that I made years ago. The other speaker was placed on a steel tea tray. So the output of the BC8 synth was, in effect, sent to two speakers, the signal of one being delayed by the Kaoss pad. The Kaoss pad was set to 'Tape Delay' at 33.6 BPM.

I then set up my Zoom h4N , placing it underneath the steel tray and the wooden shelf unit, as the output was clearer. I taped contact mics to the steel tray and to the wooden shelf unit, and connected these to Zoom h4N as well. I set the h4N to 4 channel mode, and recorded simultaneously through the inbuilt microphones and the contact mics.

I plugged headphones into the Behringer mixer, and listened to Kenneth Kirschner's track while playing along with the BC8. I recorded two sessions like this, and then swapped the BC8 for another mini synth, which I sadly can't remember the name of. (I bought it from eBay a few years ago, and it's suprisingly good).

I tried using a theremin and a Kaossilator as well, but the results were much less satisfying. (My theremin is pretty crap, which didn't help).

I mixed all three recordings with Kenneth Kirschner's original track using Audacity.

I'm not particularly pleased with the result, but I might re-do this some time with a guitar or some other real instrument, or try out some drum patterns...

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The track image is a photo of my setup for this piece, complete with an evil monkey head and the bottom of carved Japanese lampstand.

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The source audio for this track is part three of the Kenneth Kirschner album June 5, 2012, which features Kirschner on piano and Tawnya Popoff on viola. The album was released in September 2012 on the shskh.com netlabel, where it is available for free download.

More on this 40th Disquiet Junto project at:

disquiet.com/2012/10/04/disqui...-kirschnerplus1

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:

Disquiet Junto

More on Kenneth Kirschner at:

kennethkirschner.com