Nice live performance, nice feelings!

Yesterday, I played my latest live performance at Théâtre National de la Criée in Marseille.
It was a very nice set and I think people appreciated it.

The official/unofficial Protofuse‘s manager was there: BIG thanks to Lucien de Baixo for his precious & infinite help !
He took some photos & I’ll post them asap here.

BIG Thanks to my other friends Denis, Ilaria, Jonathan & Guillaume I didn’t even talk with because of the busy mood of this evening !

I also want to thank :
- Christian Sébille & Sarah Olaya, respectively Director & Artistic Producer from GMEM, to have invited me & for all things we’ll make in the future (!)
- Radio Grenouille, to have interviewed me around my work & technology (on the podcast soon)
- Théâtre de la Criée, to have provided me a nice place to play.

Asap, the podcast url & the pictures !

Derek Piotr’s latest masterpiece !

Here it is !
Today.
Now.

Derek Piotr’s latest masterpiece Airing has been released officially today.

This is a genius piece of work mixing, crushing electronic beats & anti-beats, clear or grainy vocals recorded with a real high quality. The global atmosphere brings you very far in a great journey of digital poetry.

These are my humble words.
You noticed I didn’t mention the mastering in these words because, especially, I made it.
Derek made me this great honor by asking me to make the mastering of his albums.

Let’s spread this album as far as you can, good music just deserved this!

Strange & new setup for my close next music live performances

Explorations HAVE to be made on a real exploration mode.
You can decide to explore this or that forrest, ok, but if you want to walk close of the tree #12, then the #14, then the 143 etc you aren’t exploring, you are .. like .. working and in any case, you’ll bore yourself in a very deterministic way.

I decided to explore as protofuse, and not to determine the path before as an a priori
And it comes with some dead end, and lost moments but never really lost.

These little sentences are just about analogies with my musical explorations.
Indeed, it is light, and I could probably write a whole book about that. Maybe it will come.

I have been invited to a festival named Les Musiques by the GMEM.
You can read this about this event.
The official Theater page is here

I decided to use a very new & fresh setup for this particular event.

The hardware
I’ll use my BCR2000, the best & solidest rotary encoders machine EVER.
I never found one lighter, solider, cheaper that the BCR2000.
All knobs job will be done with it. I need knobs under my fingers for volume, fx tweaking etc.

I’ll use my monome for all toggling control.
Probably, I’ll use it to control the clips grid in Ableton Live.
I’m using it with a Python script I made a long time ago specifically for this use.
With it, I can scroll, trigger anything.
It could also be replaced by Touchable  or LivKontrol on my iPad.

Why both mentionned ? Because I didn’t choose yet.
I need a light & efficient application ONLY for clip triggering and it seems that Touchable became a bit too big by making everything which, as a digital artist but a programmer too, makes me afraid a bit.

I could also come one day with my own Ableton Live iOS application which would be totally dedicated to clip triggering, clip looping etc.
Btw, it isn’t the point here.

The software
Ableton Live for all the live stuff.
As usual, I’m composing almost everytime a new liveset.
Today, in the afternoon, I found my new way.
The one which inspires me the most.

I have, in white, rhythmic stuff.
4 first tracks are routed to DRUMS one.
I like to tweak only rhythmic parts, letting the others not tweaking.
It provides a nice way to break, but to tweak slightly too, letting parts almost independant if it is required.

The track 5 isn’t really used but is often for the bass.
Orbital sounds is my title for anything related to pads, ambient & atmospheric soundscapes.
Orbital could be a reference to a group but it isn’t at all, here.
Micro sounds is my name for anything related to noise systems.

Those titles are very subjectives. They make me feeling well and I know what kind of sound is where.

The tOOL.
Used almost only in studio, I decided to manage complex structures using some Reaktor machines on a side, and to samples some parts for performances purpose.
The way HAS to be flawless & flexible.
I need to focus only on sound when I’m composing so, using that way, I’m fast to create, & integrate into my “real” tracks for stage in seconds!

This next live
I hope you like noises & clunks!
You won’t be disappointed if you do. Else, you’ll cry, which can be odd, but if you cry loud, it could add some strange textures (but please don’t do that)

I could modelize this next performance as

“a strange travel into electronic territories with atmospheric rotating sounds, unfiltered noises all over odd rhythmics”

It will yell from the sound system
You don’t have to be afraid but it will be loud.

If you like crunchy noises, you’ll have it.
If you love smooth ethered pads & atmospheric textures, you’ll be in trance (not related to trance goa, mates)

Intrigated? Then come!
Disappointed? Then, come too, there will be beer to drink, drunk mate!

Because I still didn’t finish even really began myUniverse, I won’t have a lot of visuals to show.
So, I asked to a couple of friends artists to provide me one of their creation.
I hope they will do that.
Else, I’ll plug something nice in the VGA bus.. don’t worry.

Early description about my Generative music mood machine

Here is the very early words about my next iOS machine.
This will be my 3rd application on App Store after:
- Mobile Particles
- Digital Collisions for iPad & iPhone/iPod
- The Droner

Best way to keep informed: http://julienbayle.net/contact-subscribe

I’m still developing some parts but the main core is totally ok and I’ll make you hearing a bit asap.
The main purpose is to make the most amazing & efficient mood machine ever.

Because Less is More, I worked and removed progressively a lot of features to keep only the main interesting from an aesthetic & zen point of view.

It includes around 7 moods and more are coming.
Each mood can play (or not, as you’d prefer) unique soundscapes  designed especially for this application by me.

Mobile Mood Machine is one of the strangest iOS application amongst a lot of music application for iPad.

Mobile Mood Machine provides a playground you can touch with your fingers.
Rules are really easy and minimalistic:
- touch the screen to create spherical creatures popping out sine waves sounds
- the more the touch is made at the top, the more the creatures pop out high pitched sounds
- choose a Mood which consists in color gradient, sequences rules, scale
- choose to listen especially designed soundscapes in the background or not
- adjust the delay and the effect of time over the age of those digital creatures
- enjoy !

Minimalism, Zen & Quietness are the main words that could describe this iOS application.

The Mobile Mood Machine ‘s engine works with circular buffers recording til 8 sequences represented by 8 colors.
Each sequence is repeated according to specific rules related to the current chosen Mood.
Some Moods are minor, some are major with a lot of time between sequence repetitions, some are hypnotically repetitive.

You can choose to make creatures becoming old. In that case, they will progressively disappear and their sounds will have a bigger attack til their end, when they will completely disappear.
Some Moods make them to be old faster, or slower.

Here are some possible uses:
- walking in the street
- being in the train
- beginning to try to sleep
- before going to an hardcore meeting
- together with your loved one relaxed

This promising system have already a nice roadmap for the next months.
Especially, The mode Near Sleep Experience will provide a nice way to enter in sleep progressively with a VERY long fade out from the moment when you set up the global time of fading and the last notes played.
This is a nice digital creature holding your hand til the dreams’ world.

Inside’s video clip by Sonia Laura

Here is the rendering of a powerful collaboration I had with the great artist Sonia Laura.
I designed the music and you can also listen to it there on soundcloud.

The result is very impressive.

Here are some words written at the first sight:

I love the mood
scientists are working
strange projects
including humans but very beyond of usual conscious states
I love the part about 3:10
state of consciousness are becoming interesting
maybe, dreams
brain activity is changing
exporing algebra vectorial spaces
strange dreams are unburried
the rabbit, some ghosts
all the history , the past, are becoming clear
like if the everything theory, made by us was only the fact the universe was INSIDE us.
that Hz counter is so nice
OMG that smoke.

Polyphonic Synthesizer w/ poly ADSR

Currently designing the next generation generative music machine for mobile (especially iOS), I needed a way to trigger not only the pitch & velocity of a note to a polyphonic system, but also the amplitude envelope.

I’ll use libPD for this one too.
So yes, I’m using Pure Data too and not only max6 .. but it is the same family, even if there are many pure data nerd trolling a lot about max6.
Let’s prefer to spend time on using and making beautiful things instead of dividing people.
So, yes, I LOVE both pure data & max6 (and even reaktor!)

Why a need of polyphonic synth with an adsr for each event triggered ?
If the usual polyphonic stuff implement a way to trigger multiple note to may voices, each note having its pitch & its velocity, how can we do if we want different amplitude envelope for each note triggered ?
It is absolutely not native in the poly object in pure data (and in max6)

In my generative music machine, I need to send an event including pitch, velocity, attack, decay, release & sustain.
That way, I can control the whole sound triggered, firing some events more percussive, some other more smooth with a longer attack.

How I did that ?
So, after to have questionned here & there if there wasn’t something more native, more efficient, I designed mine which is quite efficient and indeed, it does the job well.
Even if I didn’t use their ways, I want to thank fp from the Cycling 74 forum and mod from puredata.hurleur.com forum.

One schematic is better than 100 words.
Here it is :

You can download it here
I packaged all in order to make an easier way by copy pasting the objects, but, of course, you’ll have to save the patch inside the orange square as voice.pd, then, to reopen the main one.
You’ll also need the adsr abstraction. Mine is inspired by the one here

Digital audio vs Vinyl !

A very nice metaphor
The waveform design with all those discs is very amazing !

Music performance scheduled on May the 15th

In the great National Theater of La criée, I have been invited by GMEM to perform live.

This time, your ears will hear my really really (nervous) IDM.
I hope you are not afraid and are opened to new sound experiences

It will happen on May the 15th around 9:30 PM
The Facebook event is here https://www.facebook.com/events/281294878624714/

myUniverse

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Because every makers/creators/artists have their own universe, it is obvious that, at a particular point of their lives, they want to make the big equation of everything in order to describe it.

Indeed, we (artists), are strange people.
We want to show you everything of us, sometimes nothing, oscillations being a huge part of our work, if we can consider we are working, because I’d prefer to write we are living, instead working.. our life being our work or vice versa.

Building an universe from nothing seems to be hard.
But there are already many parts we just have to stick, to agglomerate, to join.

In my case, I’m just multiple which doesn’t mean mentally ill!

The multiple parts of myself – working together

Art takes its sense with the word technic.
Indeed, even if some doesn’t agree with that, we know art is also relatic to skill.
Britannica Online says Art is “the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others.”

How to separate skill & imagination ?
Indeed, it seems hard, but education, societies, and globally jobs & bosses tend to make you using right & left parts of the brain absolutely not at the same time, which breaks absolutely our bunch of super-powers being inside of us.
My great friend Laurent (Boghossian) agrees 100% with that and it means a lot for me as he’s one of the most accurate to explain that kind of global human theory through his books about management, self-improvement.

Indeed, you have to notice that: each Continue reading »