acrocorps' blog

Author: Alfie Wall

  • Puredata practice 2

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    Alfie Wall
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    In this patch I followed a Youtube tutorial on how to make ADSR envelopes in Puredata. the bang sends a signal to a series of sections controlling the amplitude of an oscillator/noise object, first gradually ramping up, then reducing to an amplitude which is sustained briefly, then decreasing gradually until the sound is silent. This…

  • Puredata Practice 1

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    Alfie Wall
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    This is a PureData patch that I worked on to practice the workflow of the software and broadening my understanding of techniques such as FM synthesis. I initially followed a tutorial on the bela.local website for an FM patch, but upon realising that I didn’t have the hardware available to control the input parameters it…

  • Ideas to explore with Sound Studies & Aural Cultures unit

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    Alfie Wall
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    Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about cohesive soundscapes, and particularly the concept of sonic worldbuilding. other areas I’m interested in currently are Mark Fell’s ideas around process, and the ‘ping volume one’ compilation released on different circles. In terms of sonic worldbuilding, san paolo artist Yvu who i was introduced to through Kai Winston’s…

  • Circuit Reflex Study

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    Alfie Wall
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    Today I spent some time trying to recreate a section of a track I really love, “Circuit Reflex” by Niqh and Hypna. This was a task suggested a few weeks ago in class, and I thought it could be a good way for me to understand composition in general more deeply, not just as a…

  • Granular Metal and Emergent Sound

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    Alfie Wall
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    Today I spent some time in Ableton, experimenting with textures and processing using Granulator 3. I’d been reading Curtis Roads’ Microsound and wanted to try out some of the ideas he talks about, especially how granular synthesis lets you work at an incredubly small scale of sound, where texture becomes the focus instead of rhythm…

  • Resampling Material and Exploring Emergent Based Composition

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    Alfie Wall
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    Today I spent some time in Ableton working on gathering material to use as samples in future projects. I wanted to explore sounds that have really unique timbre and spectral quality. I’m a big fan of sounds that feel alive, alien, or hard to categorise, so more ways to create these kinds of sounds is…

  • Shepard Tone

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    Alfie Wall
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    I have been reading Music, Cognition, and Computerized sound (An Introduction to Psychoacoustics) by Perry R. Cook, and it’s been inspiring for me. Today I decided to see if I could figure out how to make a Shepard tone from scratch, and this is how my process went. I started by thinking about how a…

  • Messing Around in Ableton

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    Alfie Wall
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    Today I decided to take a different approach to working in Ableton, less about trying to finish a track or “be productive,” and more about just having fun with sound. After reading that interview with Hekt and thinking about how he treats production as a playful, open ended process, I felt inspired to do the…

  • Hekt’s attitude towards ‘fun’ in production

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    Alfie Wall
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    I recently came across Hekt (Jesper Nørbæk)‘s track ‘Front’ while listening to a dj mix from Unearth and Guide on Reprezent Radio on soundcloud, and I was just so intruigued by the sound design initially, I used shazam and luckily it worked so i could see who made it. What drew me in was first…

  • Thinking about Gamelan and Ritual

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    Alfie Wall
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    I’ve been interested in Indonesian gamelan music for a while and wanted to research it more properly. I came across a thesis by I Wayan Sudirana called Gamelan Gong Luang: Ritual, Time, Place, Music, and Change in a Balinese Sacred Ensemble, and it was honestly a lot more interesting than I expected. I’d listened to…