Well, things are starting to conform to a routine, starting the day with breakfast at 8.30am at the Hawthorns restaurant, then heading to the studio to practice. Then lunch, sometimes in town, otherwise improvised (just like today where we had chips and coke for lunch..lol!) and then dinner either at The Sneyd Arms or in the hostel eating cup noodles.
How did we get chips for lunch? Well, our practice was 'interrupted' today because we had to meet some of the Keele guys for a meeting to discuss the upcoming plans for the Keele tour, well, the following video will explain everything...
So yea..these are the guys whom we are working with, basically if there's one thing to describe what we do, it would be Sonic Arts. (Amos Chua would be excited about this :P). Well, although plans have more or less been made, I believe thing will change, because we always end up improvising most of the time. I think this entire trip will end up teaching us how to improvise our way around UK should we return back to this place.
so yes, apart from receiving chips and stuff, we have of course new stuff to our sound sculpture and our instrumentation...a big thank you for Mr. Diego for letting us use his collection of 'noise making objects'
And apart from this, a new software on iPad (programmed by Michael Spicer) - Crystal Garden. Perhaps one of the hardest thing to play along with. Most of the sound it produces is mainly either random, or in a pattern of which on the programmer himself understands. Oh well, so much for generating possibilities.
Well, perhaps you might be wondering what I am playing in this group, well, apart from the mixer (of which Valarie is slowly taking over my job), I am playing an instrument I call the Feedback Synthesizer - A synthesizer you use when you do not have one.
How does it work? Well, basically in my case, this Feedback Synthesizer is made up of guitar pedals, connected in a loop, such that the signal travels from one point to another and is routed back to the beginning point, as you see in the picture. Guitarist will ask this - how then do you get sound if there no input of sound, what then will make it have sound, the answer - noise.
Basically in any circuitory, in any cable or any pedals in this case, there bound to be electrical resistance/impedance(Ω), and this causes noise, but because we use good stuff, this noise are more or less not perceivable. So we use either a overdrive or distortion pedal to boost this noise so that we get the feedback we want.
How feedback works:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_feedback
So let's see the parts that makes up my version of the feedback synthesiser..
Transparent Overdrive - One of the pedals that can help boost noise to create feedback, this one gives me a warmer tone as compared to the fuzz or distortion pedal.
Distortion Pedal - either the overdrive or distortion would suffice, but because I wanted to explore more possible timbres, so I added it in, I end up having 2 of the drive pedals most of the time.
Wah Wah pedal - This is actually a mini wah, but any wah pedal will do. basically it makes it easier to change the pitch of the feedback, use this at your own risk, this one can get very nasty..
Chorus pedal - Any modulation like Phaser, Flanger, and Tremolo is possible as well. this is actually optional, I end up using this like a Vibrato pedal so that I can add colour to the tone of the synthesizer to sound almost just like tone-wheel organ with tremolo.
Delay - This one's outside the circuitry of the feedback synthesizer, as a external effect to reduce the harshness of the feedback tone, as well as to add some eerie effects to the synthesizer when you slide between pitches, also has a modulation to create siren effects, very interesting tone you can get from this.
Truth be told, I have yet to be able to tame this animal, the feedback synthesizer I would say is the hardest instrument to play because it is hard to gain control of feedback. Moreover, playing this too much may run into a risk of offending people too. (Especially Sean Chan :P)
Well, looks like I'll need more practice with this instrument, hopefully we can stil use this instrument to play on the actual performances, there's beauty in this instrument if it's tamed properly, hope to be able to use this in my next song production. :D
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