The Noise Professor’s rig

A sudden chorus of whoops and yibbles burst from a kind of juke box at the far end of the room. Everybody quit talking. The bartender tiptoed back, with the drinks.

“What’s happening?” Oedipa whispered.

“That’s by Stockhausen,” the hip graybeard informed her, “the early crowd tends to dig your Radio Cologne sound. Later on we really swing. We’re the only bar in the area, you know, has a strictly electronic music policy. Come on around Saturdays, starting midnight we have your Sinewave Session, that’s a live get-together, fellas come in just to jam from all over the state, San Jose, Santa Barbara, San Diego”

“Live?” Metzger said, “electronic music, live?”

“They put it on the tape, here, live, fella. We got a whole back room full of your audio oscillators, gunshot machines, contact mikes, everything man. That’s for if you didn’t bring your ax, see, but you got the feeling and you want to swing with the rest of the cats, there’s always something available.” — Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, 1965

One of the things I love about #ds106radio is how it continues to mutate into new forms. The latest wrinkle brought about by yet another Grant Potter inspiration, taking the existing station configuration (one stream running uploaded AutoDJ content, which is overridden by the live stream whenever anyone takes it), and allowing for new streams to run concurrently off of the same server and IP address (off of a different Mount Point).

Part of the result was captured and I share it below. Essentially, DJ Dr. J, AKA @draggin, AKA Jason Toal laid down relatively minimalist beats and soundscapes, perfect for manipulation by the @noiseprofessor AKA Zack Dowell. Zack’s rig is pictured above.

The first seven and a half minutes is Jason, Zack’s stream kicks in then… I mostly followed him from then on, occasionally switching back to Jason just to get a sense of what the source sound was.

Listen (23:27):
http://abject.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/draggin-noiseprofessor.mp3

Download – (17MB MP3)

With multiple streams, the listener becomes a mixer as well, conceivably able to spin out yet more streams — which is where I see some real potential for future experimentation. I kept the streams more or less distinct, but you can also check out a more integrated mix of the two via Nigel Robertson:

Draggin’ & Noiseprofessor on dual stream by easegill

Yeah, I kinda had fun with how it all played out…

UPDATE: I just had to move Zack’s comment into the text:

In case anyone is interested in the chain:

@draggin on ds106radio /newmount -> Droid 2 (via A Online Radio app) -> Ernie Ball VP Jr. (volume pedal) -> EHX Ring Thing (single sideband modulator – a pretty sophisticated ring mod of sorts) -> Subdecay Noise Box (crazy octave generator/unstable oscillator that makes Atari 2600 sorts of noises) -> CoPilot FX Android II (another ring mod, though I use it most often as a choppy tremolo) -> Digitech Screamin’ Blues (overdrive) -> EHX Big Muff Pi (king of classic fuzz pedals w/ tone stack and voltage sag mods) -> EHX Tube Zipper (envelope follower, something like an auto-wah) -> EHX Small Clone (chorus) -> EHX Flanger Hoax (through-zero flanger/phase shifter) -> EHX Deluxe Memory Boy (analog delay) -> EHX Stereo Memory Man w/ Hazarai (digital delay) -> Boss RC-50 Looper (looping pedal) -> Fender Hot Rod Deville 212 (tube amp) -> iPhone (via Papaya app) -> ds106radio /live