What

I will explain how Bendik Hovik Kjeldsberg and I made an interactive sound installation.

Why

We were invited to make a sound installation.

How

I will go trough the process and discuss some issues we encountered.

——–

About the exhibition:

Bendik Hovik Kjeldsberg and I were invited by Bilder Nordic School of Photography to contribute to an exhibition they called Shameless:

«An exhibition by the graduating students  of Bilder Nordic School of Photography:

SHAMLESS IS A REFLECTION ON SEXUALITY

Sexuality is vital for our survival as a species and gives meaning to our lives. The simple function of reproduction is challenged by the complexity of our heart and brain.

Shameless explores contemporary issues of identity in our society, and the notion of feeling ashamed. Self-image, fantasies, puberty, HIV, minority groups and children’s understanding of sexuality are some of the themes we look into.»

from: bildernordic.no

The exhibition had over 5000 visitors and ran over a period of 10 days.

Placement:

They wanted sound to appear three places in the exhibition hall, all should be short sounds triggered by movement. These places and movements were:

1. When someone went into a room.
2. When someone laid down in a bed.
3. When someone went to the toilet.

Sensors:

Wanting to keep things as simple as possible, we figured out that the sensors that would work for all three scenarios where contact microphones. Contact mics are cheap and robust and works well when you just need an on/off signal.

We soldered xlr plugs to some piezo elements and we were ready to go.

For a more sensitive installation, for example if we wanted to measure how fast some one went into the next room or how heavy the person laying in the bed was, we would have to use other kinds of sensors such as cameras and pressure sensors.

Speakers:

We used three pairs of small handheld speakers and pulled many meters of mini-jack extensions all over the exhibition, I was worried there would be some signal-loss because of the cable length and on the speakers furthest away and we had some problems getting the volume high enough, but still it served it’s purpose.

Sounds:

The thought behind the sounds didn’t emerge from a profound reflection over the theme “shameless”, it was rather a simple and naive way to make the audience feel embraced and some how present an aspect of sexuality in music.

To find the sounds we needed we browsed an open source sound library, freesound.org, we also browsed some porn sites, but we found that quite embarrassing and couldn’t keep it serious.

We chose to have two alternating sounds per area:

System:

I made a standalone application in Max/MSP that ran on an iMac and we used an Avid Mbox Pro sound card for in- and output.

I had to define a limit for how frequent the sensors were active, if not, they would have triggered sounds all the time when there were many people in the exhibition hall. In the application you can define this your self in the number box called “antall sekunder å vente”.

As you can see, the program is divided into four sections. The two faders to the left in each section decide the volume of left and right of the first sample, the two faders at the right decide the volume of the second sample, the fader in the middle decides the threshold for the volume needed from the contact microphone to trigger the sample. The “replace”-button lets you load new samples.

The little square in the middle turns everything on and the “open”-button shows you audio preferences.

Downloads:

Standalone (MAC)

Source Code (Max/MSP)

As those of you familiar with Max/MSP might see, it was made in a hurry.

As I had to make the application in the exhibition hall with a limited amount of time, it ended up quite unsymmetrical and with a language mixture of English and Norwegian, this however reminded me that the patches doesn’t have to look good to work as a one-task-tool that only I have to look at. In this scenario it is more important to get it up and running and focusing on the overall experience of the installation rather than on the layout of the program running it.

Stability:

The system ran flawlessly for 10 days in a row without being turned off (except from when a girl turned off the sound card since it “was so warm”), so it is extremely stable, I was at least expecting to have to go down there once to fix it, but it just worked.

Reactions:

On the day of the opening, the exhibition hall was packed with people and the sounds on the bed and when passing into the other room didn’t quite come to it’s right because of all the chattering and frequent triggering of the sounds. But the setup in the toilet was rather successful since there were constantly people going there and they shared their experiences with the people standing in line when they leaved the toilet, so people started talking about the embarrassing experience of going to the toilet. Due to the nature of the triggered sounds (as sown above), to the presence of a dildo and challenging pictures in the bathroom and to the volume level on the speakers placed there, I must say it made quite an impression having to take a pee in those circumstances.

Timelaps:

Thanks to Anders Tveit for lending us some piezo elements.

The post Making an interactive sound installation appeared first on Drums and electronics.

What:

I will analyze and discuss a performance I did together with Sigurd Ytre-Arne (live visuals).

Why:

I want to become more aware of how I work.

How:

I will analyze a video of the performance and discuss some thoughts I have on improvising together with a VJ.

——–

Preface:

I was invited to perform at “Musikkbaren”, a stage where students at my academy can present what they are working on. I intended to bring the project “Sound Picking“, but since the dancer was not available at that date, I had to find something else to present. For a while I considered just doing a solo performance, but I decided I wanted to take advantage of the situation and bring in another element to challenge my self. As stated in my project description, I want to:

Look into how I can make video react on sound or controllers using the MaxMsp extensions Jitter and Vizzie.

The perfect man to help me with this was my friend Sigurd Ytre-Arne

Since I trust him as a person and enjoy his work as an artist, I decided we would not rehearse, we would just meet at the venue for some hours before the performance and share thoughts. He challenged me in advance to gather some video clips that he should use so that I would have more impact on the overall outcome of the performance, at this task I completely failed.

I suggested massive and intense videos such as:

But he humbly rejected them and after getting to know his approach both trough this performance and another that I will write about soon, I realized that the beauty of his work lies in the trivial and minimalistic shades of daily life.

Video:

Analysis:

• 00:06: Nice and clear start, I like that Sigurd wait with the visuals so that the audience can start focusing on one element at the time.
• 00:23: It is good that you already can see the connection between the audio and the video, that it is triggered.
• 00:38: I like that I work with the texture in the drum
• 01:14: I make a lot of open space and keep the ideas clear. Good.
• 01:29: Could have waited longer with the low frequencies.
• 02:00: I should try to avoid hitting the cymbals by accident, but hey, it was an accident …
• 02:04: Nice sudden change in texture. Would have been better if what was before the change was higher in pitch.
• 03:07: I should have been more clear about using that sample, sound like I didn’t mean to do it … Maybe I didn’t …
• 03:23: I’m glad I just used that repeater once. But it was quite a messy build-up, maybe I should start making clearer ideas in advance and rather improvise the transition between them.
• 03:34: Nice drop.
• 04:22: Could have stayed in that idea longer.
• 04:22 – 04:53: I Like that I take my time with this idea.
• 04:57: Elegant transit, well done by Sigurd Ytre-Arne.
• 05:47: I like the part until here, but now it got too loud.
• 05:58: The looping process goes almost undetected, good.
• 06:07: The reversing of the sound destroyed the flow …
• 06:07 – 06:39: Too messy part, didn’t like it, not clear enough.
• 06:57: The video clearly get’s the focus as I just let the loop go, nice part even though I’m quite tired of that sound.
• 07:41: Sigurd leads me into a new part by changing the video drastically, I should probably have presented a clearer change than just continuing with the slow and large sound I had already done for quite some time …
• 07:51: Should have stopped the loop.
• 08:18: I start to like it, the drums are so clear that they act as a soloist on top of the loop.
• 08:18 – 09:19: I like this part.
• 09:22: Should have stopped the resonating loop as I was clearly moving somewhere new …
• 09:40: Sigurd is with me though, bringing more red to the set.
• 10:03: Nice beat repeat.
• 10:06: The loop that had been going on for so long was cut in a way that it seemed like it was an mistake, not cool! But it’s at least good that I choose to stop it.
• 10:07: Cool new room, both auditive and visually. I had been going with long and strong sounds for ten minutes now, it was nice to change texture.
• 11:24: Should not have moved, seemed like I was done, I should have trusted that I know what I am doing …
• 11:38: Nice new element, and very fitting visuals.
• 12:22: As we see someone walking by in the background on the visuals, I feel it somehow destroys the illusion that we tried to create for the audience to step into. Bad luck.
• 12:40: Talking/blowing into the microphone … That was not cool and a bad idea in this context … I’m not trying to make the soundtrack for star wars here …
• 13:03: Cool visuals! Blending in different movie clips with the live video-feed of me enhances the illusion that we try to create …
• 13:37: I don’t think the poem fitted into this context either, too “epic”.
• 14:22: I like that I start presenting higher pitches again, but still in a floating form.
• 15:36: Should have kept it going instead of going to the common “fast playing on the side of the drums in abrupt patterns”.
• 15:48: It definitely helps with some delay.
• 15:58: Nice place to cut the loop with the low frequencies.
• 15:58 – 16:37: I like this space.
• 16:37 – 16:54: I like this space even better, should have kept it for longer …
• 16:54: Well played by Sigurd keeping the picture frozen. Could have kept it like that even longer.
• 17:43: Nice visuals, I feel they directly reflect the music. I probably stayed longer in this musical room since I saw Sigurd was with me on it. Good interaction.
• 18:48: Yeah! Cool minimalistic music and video. Could have kept it going.
• 19:50: Apparently I felt like I was in a hurry and didn’t know where to go since I had to fall back to this, an idea I definitely use way too much. But it was a nice and clear change. Could have had more high end though.
• 20:35: I don’t hit the kick hard enough so the sample isn’t triggered, but it sounds good and I manage to work with it and the video response is nice and clear.
• 21:14: Same thing happens, probably because I learned from before that it was cool.
• 21:23: The transition from being played to being looped seems quite subtile on the recurring, but I fear that the loss of the direct sound from the kick in the room probably decreased the intensity of the flow in a negative way.
• 21:50: I think it starts to get boring.
• 21:52: I feel that the visuals bring new life to the musical flow by taking focus, good job Sigurd!
• 22:50: You see only visible audience member gets interested in understanding the relevance between what is going on at the canvas and what is happening in realtime. A good proof that the visuals are in focus.
• 19:50 – 23:00: This part, as mentioned is somehow my safe place and I am starting to get extremely bored with it. I’ll try avoiding it at all costs from now on. But still I hope the audience enjoyed it since. It is a clear and strong musical room.
• 23:00: Nice with a change in pitch.
• 23:57: Apparently  I suddenly decide to play in time, since that is such a strong statement in this context I should have done it much clearer. Too much hihat.
• 24:22: Using my voice here is a strong statement that I like and is how I should have started the previous phrase.
• 24:22 – 25:30: I think I like this part. It’s good because it is on one side something different from the rest as it is in time and still it keep the “native” touch the whole piece has (hard to avoid when just using drums). The aspect I don’t like about it is that it sounds quite messy and I feel it’s starting to be a “clich’e” to play drums with delay.
• 25:48: Here I present another comfort sone of mine, it has nice musical impact, but I’m tired of it …
• 27:27: It’s not good that the volume drops when I turn on the reverb.
• 28:37: Should have kept the cymbal-thing going for a little longer …
• 30:02: Nice long fade-out and we managed to keep the audience silent together with us for a while.

Summary:

I remember feeling quite good about this performance and I believe it was due to the calm and slow evolving nature of the piece. In hindsight, as stated, I fell that it was maybe too slow. But still a nice piece with good structure.

Regarding the interaction between Sigurd and I, I think we had a fairly good interaction (see analysis). The clearest moments of interaction where of course those where the video and music where mirroring each other (eg glitchy music and glitchy video), Other interesting moments, that might not have been as clear, were when the video inspired the music to take new directions and vice versa. Another concept of interplay that was present from time to time was contrasts, that one stood still and the other moved or that one was choppy and the other floating. These are concepts that we could pursuit in the future through rehearsal techniques similar to those I have been doing in Sound Picking and Dancer.

The post Performing with live improvised visuals, drums and electronics appeared first on Drums and electronics.

What:

Hedvig and I will analyze a performance we did with Alex Gunia at 300 acting spaces.

Why:

We want to be more aware of how we interact with another musician.

How:

We will state our thoughts and feelings regarding the recording and the preparations for the performance.

——–

Preface:

The 9th of may we were asked to play at 300 acting spaces, an artistic research project initiated by Alex Gunia. Gunia were to join us, so this would be our first performance not as a duo.

Structure:

We did not discuss any structure before we started.

Sensors:

We had been experiencing some problems with the sensors, they were breaking due to their placement on the wrist/hand. We only had one working sensor left for this performance. More on that later.

Right hand:

• Gyroscope on wrist whose function is controlled by Jonas.

Video:

Alanlysis:

• Both: 00:00 – 01:14 Clear minimalistic start. And an obvious link between sound and movement.

• Jonas: 00:00 – 01:14 I think the usage of the sensors might be too extreme, I would like to see something more subtle and slow evolving when we know we are to do such a long performance? Maybe. But it was a nice intro.

• Both: 01:15 Great transition to the next part.

• Both: 02:43 – 02:48 Cool contrast from Hedvig.

• Both: 01:15 – 03:53 Nice and elegant part, not too much, not too little.

• Jonas: 03:53 Back to the intro, great!

• Both: Cool video effect, us “dancing” together.

• Both: 05:20 – 07:00 We feel that this part has no obvious sense of direction.

• Hedvig: When new impulses/patterns appear, we should not be scared to stay in them and we should avoid falling back into old habits in situations like these.

• Jonas: 07:00 – 10:02 nice build up to a new part at 10:02.

• Jonas: 10:02 This is a nice example of rehearsed parts easily being integrated into improvisational pieces.

• Hedvig: 11:52 This is starting to get quite flat and uninspiring.

• Jonas: Agree

• Both: 12:42 Nice, sudden transition and a nice relief from the previous hectic part. The transition wouldn’t have been as relieving as this if the previous part hadn’t been “too long”, so was it too long?

• Both: 12:42 – 14:36 Fresh start, but it might not be obvious enough that Hedvig is controlling the sound, if that is important.

• Both: 14:36 – 18:11 Nice and balanced part, clam and easy.

• Hedvig: It’s obvious that we stand for what we do and that we are on the same page.

• Jonas: I feel that we are calm and just create art together, it’s not pretentious, just playing and having fun.

• Hedvig: 18:11 – 20:30 I think this part was strange and choppy, but I liked it.

• Jonas: The part might be a little undefined, but I like it.

• Jonas: 19:49-19:54 I like that I use this sound just for 5 seconds, and not again.

• Jonas: 19:54 – 22:40 – I like that it is minimalistic, but it could and should have been clearer landscapes musically.

• Hedvig: Nice focus, I like my approach.

• Jonas: 22:57 Nice new musical element. And cool tension to the previous slow evolving part.

• Jonas: 23:29 Cool, I like the lead-approach Alex steps into.

• Both: 23:52 Hedvig gives room, nice.

• Both: 24:30 Hedvig gives even more room, even nicer.

• Both: 25:03 Hedvig articulates her contrasts with nice small gestures. Cool!

• Jonas: 25:18 Obvious change when Hedvig decides to hit the floor. Here Hedvig is really controlling the structure in the music.

• Hedvig: 25:18 I like the feel of a “rewind in movements” from what happened before I sat down.

• Jonas: I feel that this part well represents the shockwaves from the previous part. A well connected piece.

• Both: 25:52 – 26:00 Awesome!

• Hedvig: 26:52 This action summarizes my idea of my “rewinding”.

• Jonas: 26:27 Nice trivial romantic sound.

• Jonas: I like that Hedvig is siting down and dancing with just her hands.

• Both: 28:15 We think that Hedvig easily could have sat down longer, since it was such a clear statement.

• Both: 26:52 – 34:10 A nice part, not too much ambition, but as stated, is is rather trivial and easy to enjoy.

• Jonas: 34:14 I like Hedvig’s contrasts to the slow evolving music.

• Both: Nice calm ending, good recap.

Listen:

Seperate tracks:

Summary and overall thoughts:

The most interesting aspect with this performance was for us the trio format. It made us relax more and give more room as we knew that we could rely on Gunia to put new life into the piece if it were to “die out”. It also made us act more as one instrument since Hedvig’s movements was only controlling the output of the drums. We could think as one instrument and utilize some of the techniques we had rehearsed and enter some of the musical rooms we were accustomed to in interplay with Gunia. The trio format also made us go to places we had never been before and we were challenged to get out of our comfort zone. This is definitely something we will do again.

The post Performing with guitar, drums, electronics and a dancer with sensors appeared first on Drums and electronics.

What:

I will see if I can use a Phidgets-kit on a dancer, it is NOT wireless.

Why:

I am waiting for the Eowave-system to arrive from France and I want some progression in the project.

How:

I will go trough available sensors and think of possible solutions.

——–

Sensors:

These are the available sensors and my thoughts on using them:

Circular Touch:

Too Big.

IR reflective (5mm):

Measures too short distance (max 5mm).

IR reflective (10cm):

Measures too short distance (max 10cm).

Force sensor:

This is both small and sensitive enough to work with.

Magnetic sensor:

Not favorable since the dancer would have to wear a magnet and the distance to where it starts to sense is too short.

Rotation sensor:

I don’t want the dancer to turn knobs, I want her to dance. I could have made something with some strings and springs connected to the knob, but that seems extremely stupid to me.

Touch sensor:

Initially a relevant sensor, but as I tried to put it on a glove, it sensed being on the glove as being touched. I even tried with rubber gloves, still it told me it was getting touched just by sitting on the glove. So I can’t use it.

Motion sensor:

Initially I thought I would be able to use this, but apparently it just senses when there is movement, not on what axis there is movement and how much tilt. That is probably why it is called a motion sensor. Then again, I could use it, but it would not be very clear what it is doing since the numbers I get are quite messy, I would have to try to filter them somehow.

Slider:

Once again, I don’t want the dancer to turn knobs or slides, I want her to dance.

Joystick:

Basically a good idea, but too big for this project.

Temprature sensor:

Cool, but it would be hard to control the temperature instantly based on immediate reactions to what happens in the music.

——–

Wearing the system:

That leaves me with only the force sensor:

I imagined it would be best if the dancer could press it with her fingers, so I put two of them on each their glove:

The dancer would have to wear the interface as well, so I put it on an old belt:

And of course I had to try it on:

Summary:

It felt quite comfortable wearing it, let us just hope that the dancer feels the same way.

Since this system is not wireless, there is a major challenge to actually dance with it, but since I am no dancer, I didn’t bother even trying to figure out how that would work.

As mentioned, this is just a temporary solution until I get the wireless system from Eowave, then I will put together a more permanent solution.

The most important aspect I want to research with this solution is how I will map the incoming data to the processing of the audio. This setup facilitates the concept of starting and stopping a loop as mentioned in the idea sketch:

The two flexion sensors are to decide when to start and stop the looping and also the initial length of the loop. When the left hand closes (if the dancer is close to the drums) is sets the starting point for the loop/starts recording into the looper, when the right hand is closed the en point is set and the loop starts playing. When both hands are opened again the loop stops.

I am thinking that after starting a loop, if more pressure is put on the sensor, that decides the speed and pitch of the loop.

I will also look for a gyroscope to go with this solution so I can use the rotation of the dancers hand(s) to control parameters like we did with the Eowave-system.

The post Testing sensor system on a dancer – temporary solution appeared first on Drums and electronics.

My thoughts on being touched by music.

Why:

This was an assignment in a course in esthetics.

How:

I will briefly discuss how I get touched by music.

——–

INTRODUCTION:

In the first semester of my master studies, I collaborated with a dancer. We worked to develop a platform for us to improvise on.

It happened at times, sometimes for only a fraction of a second and sometimes for several minutes, that we felt there was no obstacle between us. During these events communication flowed freely, it was for me like I was playing with a clone of myself and the result was perceived very properly and naturally when we studied the video footage we did.

When we think back on the creation of these stretches, it is often that we do not quite remember what we did, I believe this may indicate that all of our focus was in the conduct and communication.

To provoke these moments, which I see as an ultimate music experience, quickly becomes a little artificial because the concept to provoke something natural is contradictory. Nevertheless, after several hours of exercises and interactions, this occurs more frequently. This probably indicates both that we are becoming more familiar with each others expression and that we are more in agreement about what we as a team want to express. But it also results in that we try to re-create such moments from earlier, then it loses much value to us, but it might feel like it happened there and than for an audience seeing us for the first time?

Sometimes, performing can affected me in a positive sense, but when I look at the recording I don’t get the same feeling. The opposite may also happen: I do not feel much when I perform, but it touches me when I listen to it. Therefore I have chosen to divide this reflection into two categories: “To be touched when performing” and “To be touched when listening”:

To be touched when performing:

Being touched when I perform usually involves that I feel the communication between me and the other practitioners as a completely free flow without obstruction, or that the music’s progression is moving to places I did not know about. In these situations, I am not aware of what I play, but know that it is correct. If I try to analyze what I do, everything pretty much falls together, so this situation often requires that all focus is on the overall outcome of the audiovisual performance, not on what I’m doing as an individual.

To be touched when listening:

One of the factors that touches me when listening to music is when I feel that the musicians performing it are being touched by their own performance. When I see they do not show off their technical skills or are trying to hard to make things work, that they with no effort make the music they know so well or is being produced at that moment. These ideas somehow reflects the ideas presented in the book “Effortless mastery” by Kenny Werner. (Werner 1996).

Another factor that touches me when listening, both to live and recorded music is when I get surprised by the progression in the music or that innovative chances are made and the result takes the piece to a new level.

It also touches me when sounds I have never heard before, or never in the context of music appear. Or when something happens that I cannot explain, be it rhythmically, harmonically or texturally.

This might be a curse for many music students, that we are so used to analyzing the music that we don’t manage to listen without interest to the overall outcome of the music and thereby not enjoying it to the same extent as one not trained in the school of music.

SUMMARY:

As you see what touches me is basically when I discover something new or when I feel there is a free flow between the musicians mind and the musical outcome.

Sometimes I get touched both by performing and by listening to the performance afterwards, or more frequently I will not be touched by either of the occasions. It is probably the first example that has to be pursued. Nevertheless, it depends very much upon the circumstances and other external factors.

Is there something that touches everyone always? That must be what we define as “good music”.

The post To be touched by music appeared first on Drums and electronics.

The first concert was filmed, and it can be seen bellow:

This was out first public performance as a duo and we were quite excited to see how the outcome would turn out to be.

Analysis:

• 0:05 – The beginning gets another function than earlier since now you can clearly hear the audience calming down.
• 1:25 – I like the length, but I think it should have been cut quicker, not faded out.
• 1:27 – I like this sound as it has the same function as the previous one, but another texture so there is variation.
• 1:46 – Yeah, that worked well. I think that starting with a scape in the middle range, then high range and ending with low range worked well.
• 2:02 – I should be aware of that my body is also a part of the visual aspect.
• 2:20 – I am glad Anette waited for this clear sound that stood out from the previous ones. Yet, this obvious pitching is not favorable. Maybe I should go out and look for a bass stapler or something that makes a similar sound as the pitched down version.
• 2:45 – Anette works out of routine. That is fair enough as this is our first performance and one tends to be nervous in such situations and to stick with what one knows best. Yet I like the room she takes between my “clucks”.
• 2:56 – I can like the decrease in volume, but again, I do not like the following pitching sequence.
• 3:15 – The music is evolving really slowly, yet Anette manages to make it somewhat more interesting.
• 3:36 – NO! I know I keep doing that because I like bass frequencies. Maybe I should try to fade it out, pitch it down and then fade it back in? Or I could get an extremely large singing bowl.
• 3:50 – Anette starts doing the moves I usually “squeak” my cymbals to, I choose not to join her on that, I am doing my own thing.
• 3:53 – I like those small wobbling changes in the “sound carpet”.
• 3:53 – 4:35 – I like this part.
• 4:35 – I notice that Anette is getting more intense and I choose to join on “squeaking” cymbals.
• 4:40 – Anette is done with her “move” and has moved on to something else exactly when I join on “squeaky” cymbals, I think it fits very well.
• 4:51 – It looks like Anette wanted to join that “squeaking” as we had done it before, but since she already did it the usual way with her hands, she does it with her legs. That works quite well, but I would have liked to see what had happened if she stayed in the “new room” she was in at 4:40.
• 5:20 – We start to not follow each other as clearly, mainly as a result of me not getting any sound from my cymbal, that is embarrassing yet inspirational and true.
• 5:50 – Anette keeps on doing her thing even though I stop. It look good.
• 6:15 – I try to sample water I am pouring from my bottle, but I fail. Both because the microphone is not gained high enough and that it is sparkling water and it doesn’t sound as “glugglugglugg” as it should. I feel as a result of that that the music is stagnating. However, Anette comes to my rescue.
• 6:57 – It is way to obvious that that sound was not meant to appear. It looks like I am having focus problem this minute.
• 7:12 – And as a result of my malfunctioning focus, I retreat to old habits, I guess that is what they are for. Since the singing bowl is full of sparkling water, it sounds quite dull, should have thought of that.
• 7:50 – It is easy to tell that we now are more secure, since we have done this before. But we might also be too relaxed. Yet, the audience have never seen this before, is that a valid argument?
• 9:50 – I like the progression until here, but why am I afraid of keeping it going? It sounded good. I might, there and than, have felt that it was too much of a cliche. But I clearly play just to loop it and make music of it later, not to make music with it while I loop it. Bad habit!
• 11:36 – I like the part up to here. By being in the beat, Anette gives more room for the nuances in the music.
• 11:37 – Anette is anticipating something she know I will do since that movement usually goes with the lion roar I trigger with my floor tom. Interesting, yet I do not know if I like it. She might have done that because she thought I would do it there (it would have been quite obvious considering the build-up) and just kept doing it since it would have looked strange if she did it just once, or would it? Anyways, that action shows that we both are affected by what we have rehearsed earlier, that is of course a good thing, but I don’t like it as direct and obvious as this.
• 11:55 – 13:20 – Well, it is that thing again, I am personally tired of it and I think it lasted too long, yet I got the beat slicing (the build-ups to the roars) quite well.
• 13:48 – Horrible pitching. The end result is quite cool, but I have to find a better transition.
• 14:40 – I like the transition into the new “room”, You suddenly realize it was there the whole time.
• 14:40 – 17:26 – This is my cup of tea, I enjoy the progression, the texture and the energy of this part. And I actually manage to stick to just playing for a while.
• 17:26 – Anette does something familiar (11:37), and it must have triggered me to break things up, resulting in the fade out. I have gotten feedback that this might have sounded as if it was not intended for, I should probably try to do it more convincing.
• 18:06 – Anettes rapid movements to my busy music seen out of context would have been quite boring and linear as mentioned in my previous post on this project. But in this context where she had been following the slow lines in the music for a while and then suddenly bursting out in this energy passage I found it quite suitable.
• 18:27 – This stop is much more convincing, maybe because it had happened before but I also felt that the overall energy was much more convincing.
• 18:38 – Anette clearly signs that she is done and it is my turn, based on the trading exercises we did earlier.
• 18:39 – I really enjoy the short glimpse where I am waiting for my own loop to appear, a lot of energy in that moment.
• 18:39 – 19:39 – Even though the volume and density curve is decreasing I feel that this was a good part of the piece.
• 19:39 – Fast interaction with electronics, I am getting there!
• 20:00 – Anette is literally back in the picture. I give her some space.
• 20:16 – Even though what I play here is just for looping it, I feel that it fits to the piece.
• 20:36 – I am slowing down, Anette is speeding up. Cool!
• 20:55 – Anette joins me.
• 21:37 – Anette brings structure to my muddy, shifting sounds.
• 22:05 – The sounds Anette make on the floor have an impact on the total auditive product.
• 23:54 – When Anette goes back to floor level, she marks very well that we are nearing the completion of the piece as this was the same state as she started in. She makes this final when she lies back down in the same position as she started, and luckily(?) the music is also close to what we started with.
• 25:23 – 25:35 – I like these quiet seconds where I, with my appearance keep the audience extremely focused on whether this is the ending or not. I like the ending.

Summary:

When there is more time between my comments, I feel we are doing something right since I have nothing to criticize. As you see, these parts appear in the middle of the piece, so our main problem seems to be the beginnings and the ends. That is why we decided to prepare how we were to start, but I feel that it might have affected the overall piece too much. Even though it might not seem so from the audiences perspective, it actually takes 14 minutes and 40 seconds before we are really improvising. Of course one can always say there is improvisation to a certain extent for that period too and one can ask why it has to be improvised. The only thing I can say to that is that I enjoy performing much more when I do not know anything about what is going to happen, yet I do not feel we did anything wrong since this had to be done for me to realize this.

At my request, the audio and video from the concert was streamed live to another room at the venue, where some audio and video artists did the following remix right after our concert. I enjoy this way of remixing, especially when video is included, since then, the link to the original material is much more obvious. Thanks to Bendik Baksaas (Electronics), David Aleksander Sjølie (Guitar) and Sigurd Ytre-Arne (Video).

This somehow concludes my first semester and first encounter with dancers and inter-art-form-collaborations.

The post Dancers – concert appeared first on Drums and electronics.

(…) a sensor based setup for a dancer and a drummer, where the dancer can pick up sounds played by the drummer and process them with movement (…)

My project description

What:

Dancer wearing sensors – controlling sound.

The idea is that the dancer can approach my drum set (sound source) and pick up the sounds I am making at that instant. Then he or she can modulate the sounds with movements and try to make it artistically interesting and fitting to the rest of the music if there is any.

Why:

Concrete interaction between music and dance.

The main motivation behind this is that I want to experience a more concrete interaction between a dancers movements and a musician sounds in a live performance setting.

How:

I will make a patch in Max/MSP, buy sensors and rehears with a dancer.

Equipment and procedure:

The dancer will have to wear some kind of gloves and maybe some socks/shoes with the following sensors:

Gyroscope:

A gyroscope is a device for measuring or maintaining orientation, based on the principles of angular momentum. Thanks to the fast development in smartphone technology they are now extremely small and quite cheap and can look for example like this (not the coin):

In this context the gyroscope will be used mainly for detecting the rotation of the dancers feet and hands.

More on gyroscope sensors here.

Flexion (bend):

Flexion sensors, (from Latin flectere, ‘to bend’) also called bend sensors, measure the amount of deflection caused by bending the sensor. There are various ways of sensing deflection, from strain-gauges¹⁾ to hall-effect sensors²⁾. The three most common types of flexion sensors are:

• conductive ink-based
• fibre-optic
• conductive fabric/thread/polymer-based

www.sensorwiki.org

The flexion sensors will be used to detect when the dancer is closing or opening his or her hands.

More on flexion sensors here.

Distance (Infrared):

These sensors uses infrared light whose waves are those just below the visible spectrum of frequencies. I will use one of these to determine the distance between the dancers hands.

More on infrared sensors here.

Radio-frequency identification:

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is a technology that uses radio waves to transfer data from an electronic tag, called RFID tag or label, attached to an object, through a reader for the purpose of identifying and tracking the object.

I will place a RFID tag on the dancer and RFID readers by the drums and in the buckets (see explanation further down) or the other way around so that when he or she gets close to the buckets or drums it gets registered.

RFID tags can look like this:

RFID readers can look like this:

More on RFID sensors here.

Movement tracking:

I would also like to track the dancers movement on stage, for example with a Kinect so that the sounds that are being carried can be panned to the corresponding location on stage.

Buckets:

The idea also includes some buckets with RFID sensors where the dancer can place the sounds so that they stay looped while he or she continues the performance. It would also be convenient with some lights in the buckets representing if they contain a loop or not.

…

Mapping:

Once again the most challenging factor is the mapping, mapping is to choose what the sensors/controllers should do. A crucial point for me is that the sensors functions are obvious.

I am not quite sure of the gyroscopes function yet, but I guess it will be a filter, delay, distortion or a reverb or a combination of all of them. I could of course say that the dancers placement on stage or another parameter should decide what effect to use, but I will try to keep my feet at the ground and restrict my self until further on in the process so that it will be easier to start working on it.

The two flexion sensors are to decide when to start and stop the looping and also the initial length of the loop. When the left hand closes (if the dancer is close to the drums) is sets the starting point for the loop/starts recording into the looper, when the right hand is closed the en point is set and the loop starts playing. When both hands are opened again the loop stops.

The distance sensor in one of the hands sees the distance to the other hand and, if a loop is playing, decides the speed and pitch (not sure about pitch yet) of the loop. When the hands are closer, the loop plays faster and when the hands are further apart, the loop plays slower.

The RFID sensors, as already mentioned, are to decide if the dancer can record new sounds or not and to tell when a sound is supposed to keep on looping “in a bucket”. If the closed hand is in a bucket wile it is released, it keeps on looping and the dancer can go make another loop.

So the left hand has:

• Flexion.
• Gyroscope.
• RFID.

The right hand has:

• Flexion.
• Gyroscope.
• Distance.

For now, the feet will just have each their gyroscope.

Hypothesis:

I think the first rehearsal will just be amusement over the feeling to “touch sound” and over-using it – like when a guitarist gets a new pedal. Further down the road we will probably encounter problems if we want to play in time and we want loops to be in sync, then I will have to create some kind of transport control and we will need a metronome or backing track.

I think the main challenge will be for the dancer to merge the performance of music and dance. I might have to compose something that he or she can dance, maybe not down to the finest detail, but I think it will be a challenge to improvise well with this setup, then again, hopefully I am wrong.

Reflection:

We will obviously have to practice a lot to make the end result a good experience. I feel that the concept is not strong enough to stand by it self for more than the first 5 minutes of amusement over the technology. I might realize that this is just a dead end, but I have a strong feeling it will not result in that because of earlier experiences with the common denominator between music and dance (see the “Dancers-section of this blog).

Special thanks to Haakon Berg Mathisen for thoughts on how to write well for the internet.

The post Dancer controlling sound with sensors – Idea sketch appeared first on Drums and electronics.

(…) I should instead dive into my setup, experiment and play with it and get to know it as well as possible.

I stumbled upon an interesting aspect where a certain combination of effects resulted in a controllable feedback as shown below:

I used a tone generator, a delay that sounds “drrr”, a simple delay, a reverb (Lexicon Chamber) and another reverb (Waves’ IR1) in that specific order.

The track looking like this:

At the master bus I had a reverb, an auto filter and a limiter like this:

The most essential factor however, is the placement of the microphones and speakers and their properties. I used my “ukko -b-band” microphones in the tom but the other microphones might also have contributed to the feedback to a certain extent.

Anyways, the most interesting aspect with this, I think, is that while improvising with my setup I can stumble upon something unexpected even though I thought I knew every millimeter of my setup. I try to always allow this to happen when performing live. Sometimes it sounds really bad, but other times it’s exactly what the piece needed. That is of course an essential factor of improvising; to be open for other outcomes than you originally expected.

Then again, some artists do not approve of incorporating random factors to their performances. Or at least not a random “decided” by a computer. For me this has been a dilemma for a while, but I think it is all about moderation, that the computer random can be included to a certain extent. Personally I like to have control over what I do, however, the computer random can give me ideas that I can shape as I like or throw away if I do not like them.

The post Random impulses appeared first on Drums and electronics.

Despite what I stated in the previous post,

We agreed on that we had reached a state where we temporarily are agreeing on the expression of the concept and should for a while just improvise together without any specific tasks to solve.

after reviewing our rehearsals we found some things we wanted to explore.

The “call and response” as in the previous rehearsal at 13:45:

I like this tool, but as previously stated:

(…) I might think that one or two times is enough, if it occurs for a longer time than that, it might seem we have locked us self’s too tight. That will of course depend on the context.

Unfortunately it’s quite clear that we didn’t agree clearly enough on this being strictly a “call and response” rehearsal before we started.

But it feels good to have repeated it, because now, it’s a more established tool than before.

We also wanted to look into the concept of following each other completely linear:

I did not like this at all. There is no depth in it and it feels way too naive. There can of course exist a touch of it when we for example want to gradually change who is in focus or just playing with the tension between us, but I feel it can not be as obvious and naive as this.

One interesting aspect that came out of this is where our visual focus was when trying to do the same thing at the same time. Anettes focus was on my hands, and my focus on her legs, so we were focusing on the limb closest to the most obvious communication act. Maybe, if we instead had eye contact, we could have shared intentions and been “one step ahead”?

Last Rehearsal:

Analysis:

• 0:00 – Obvious beginning, setting the mood, I’m glad that it lasts as long as it does.
• 1:08 – Unnecessary sounds, my intentions were that they would be “ambient” sounds, but it didn’t turn out as I hoped. I was inspired by the sounds in theroom from the light bulbs and other “cracking sounds” and that intention I feel is right.
• 1:21 – This sound has the ambient quality I was looking for and it triggers Anette to do her first movement.
• 1:36 – Too early for cymbals, I should have saved those frequencies for later.
• 1:42 – 1:56 – I try to do too much, cymbals, rims and “chair cracking”, it’s not clear enough what I want to express.
• 1:57 – This I consider an obvious statement. Anette gives room to me.
• 2:14 – You see that Anette already started a movement and when I introduce another sound, it affects how she carries it out.
• 2:19 – 2:30 – A “call and response” where Anette starts and when she stops, I take over, probably not conscious, but since we have rehearsed it, the the technique lives in our sub consciousness.
• 2:36 – Extremely unprofessional of me not to put my phone in silent mode.
• 2:40 – I get inspired by this happening and decides to try to get some auditive results out of the vibration feature on my phone, but fails to do so. Than again, this gives more room to Anette.
• 2:52 – In curiosity of why it doesn’t work, I tap the microphone to check it’s gain level, this of course has an auditive result which I like. This is a “technique” I have continued to use.
• 2:58 – This again inspires me to use other body parts as input source, and then of course, the most obvious, is the mouth.
• 3:12 – I change to a new texture, should have restricted my self to one.
• 3:22 – Unnecessary sounds. All the sound should have come from Anette moving on the floor.
• 3:49 – I’m back to my earlier “accident” and I like it.
• 3:56 – I like the change in background texture, but I think the change should have been faster, if not immediate.
• 4:00 – I really like the interaction between Anette and me until now, we give and take place as we feel is right, and I do not think we steel focus from each other. She could of course have done the directly opposite of what I am doing by moving a lot with extreme energy, but I think that would have been to much.
• 4:15 – I stop and Anette takes focus. It’s been back and forth for a while now.
• 4:30 – Even tough I now change the texture back to what it was initially, Anette now continues her “story” and puts the texture in a new context, I feel this presents a new room in the peace.
• 4:41 – Unnecessary sounds.
• 5:05 – Took to long before my sound reappeared looped, it should come immediately, and I have to avoid that pitching scale thing, I am extremely tired of it!
• 5:20 – I should have held the background texture longer. It is an interesting aspect with gaps and stops, but I should have saved it, I am generally too impatient. Than again, I like the new “room”.
• 5:30 – I like the sounds Anette make on the floor.
• 5:45 – More rapid actions, I like the intention, but I feel I don’t manage to keep it going.
• 6:04 – New room, I really like it, because of the acoustic organic sounds blending with the pulsating loop.
• 6:48 – For some strange reason it looks like I think what I’m doing is boring and decides to do something else, not good!
• 6:55 – Why this pause?!
• 6:59 – Same intention, new sounds, should have kept the same sounds, I liked them.
• 7:24 – I change again, not cool.
• 7:42 – Again, now with reverbs. Seems like I’m afraid of just playing on top of a loop even tough it sounds good, I’ll have to work on that.
• 7:49 – As I start looping my self, Anette also starts to loop her self, that’s cool, I don’t think it is conscious, but I like it.
• 8:13 – As previously stated, I don’t like that pitching, why do I keep doing it?
• 8:41 – Anettes loop keeps going even tough I stop, good!
• 9:00 – Anettes looping stopped, and I seem to have taken a new direction, new room.
• 9:30 – Even though I’m quite “busy”, Anette keeps her calmness emphasizing the underlaying slow rhythm.
• 9:54 – I seem too obsessed with breaks this day. I would have liked to see that idea evolve. Yet, I like the new room.
• 10:09 – Anette keeps doing looping. I like it!
• 10:23 – Perfect sync! I really enjoy when these moments appear.
• 10:32 – Anette takes the lead, good!
• 10:43 – Everything goes well until I start pitching and Anette stops.
• 10:53 – We’re back after 10 seconds of nothing.
• 10:56 – Anette is calming down, I would have liked her to keep it up and continue the lead.
• 11:10 – 13:10 – Suddenly we entered a room with great communication and I felt it was very natural and good what we did.
• 13:10 – I decide to take some space, and Anette seem to agree and gives me space.
• 13:31 – I like the way Anette slowly starts to illustrate the underlying massive slow rhythmical intentions I have, and doesn’t just go for the first most obvious impulse.
• 14:09 – YES! Once again, perfect sync!
• 14:12 – Anette starts to take back the focus.
• 14:21 – 14:50 – We decide to go hand in hand for a while and react quite linear to each other, I think that in this context and for this short period, it works well.
• 14:50 – I decide to let Anette back in focus.
• 15:07 – I decide to join and Anette keeps going, but makes space for me. It might sees as we have a common understanding of how much place there is in the total expression and adjust our selfs to this.
• 15:07 – 16:14 – I like this.
• 16:14 – 16:32 – My interaction with the electronics is way to slow.
• 16:32 – 16:37 – YES! Another sync, and many in a row.
• 17:32 – Even though it’s a cliché, I like how this room ends.
• 17:32 – I think Anette does a good job here, just keeping her loop and processing it.
• 17:58 – I don’t like what I do here, but that is probably because I am so tired of that sound.
• 18:23 – I like that Anette kept her loop as long as this, she could also have kept it even further. I get the feeling that we just do what we always do on that sound here, but I saved it for so long so it might get another effect, but unfortunately, it didn’t. We just fell into old habits.
• 18:55 – Unnecessary sounds.
• 19:00 – 21:00 – You can clearly see that I’ve lost focus and that I am still falling into old habits.
• 21:00 – 21:04 –  For a short period I feel we are onto something more aggressive, extreme here, would be cool to test it out.
• 21:29 – The same feeling comes back, should have kept it.
• 21:36 – 21:38 – The “accident” at the beginning is back. Cool.
• 21:38 – Still old habits, guess it is because we are not used to play for this long and we are loosing focus. That is bad and has to be worked on.
• 22:22 – Way too sudden fade out.
• 22:42 – And it is back, I don’t see any artistic reason for this 20 seconds absence of that loop.
• 22:42 – 26:21 – We (at least I) are still just falling into old habits and I seem quite out of focus, yet, to someone that has not heard this earlier, it might sound good?
• 26:21 – 28:31 – Even though it is quite cliché improvisation with this abrupt beat, I like how it floats on top of the all too familiar loop.
• 28:58 – It becomes too clear after a while that my intentions with playing this is mainly for looping it and pitching it down. Instead of thinking about the end result and start playing something based on that, I should instead think of what I could do with what I already am playing, than it might not sound as forced as it now does. However, I consider it a good thing to have a clear direction/goal with what I am doing since than it might sound more convincing, but the end result does not have to be what you intended it to be. So what I am saying is that I can make a plan, as I did here, regarding where to go, but then be open to derive from that plan if I sense it will sound unnatural as I should have done here.
• 29:27 – Too fast fade out.
• 29:53 – I love the ending with the trading and all the space, air and individuality.

Summary:

I feel we generally had good communication and flow trough out the piece, yet the long period of falling out of focus can not be tolerated and I have to work on that. I mean that no professional improviser can blame the surroundings or the flow of the day for a bad performance, one has to deliver quality music every time. Yet, some interesting aspects arose in the areas between full focus and the lack of it, where I noticed less seriousness and more playfulness from my side. This is where I feel that some of the most interesting and innovative turns happened, I have to remember that to play does not only mean to perform music, it also means what children do when they are free to do what they want.

I have to emphasize that there is nothing as exciting for me like when we suddenly are in sync for just a fraction of a second.

It is hard to equally divide the roles that music and dance have in the performance since people with a background in dance will probably focus more on the dance and vice versa. One could ask someone that have the same amount of experience in both dance and music, but people will look at it individually and you can, as far as I know, never have a completely neutral relationship to art.

However, it is nice for us working towards a feeling of equality.

The post Dancers – part 4 appeared first on Drums and electronics.

One of the first issues I wanted to look into when I started working on my master thesis was audio latency.

Audio latency is the delay between when an audio signal enters and when it emerges from a system. Potential contributors to latency in an audio system include analog-to-digital conversion, buffering, digital signal processing, transmission time, digital-to-analog conversion and the speed of sound in air.

The reason I wanted to look into this immediately is that I felt that for a drummer, being quite conscious about timing, this would be an essential aspect.

To elaborate further:

When playing with effects such as reverbs and other effects that lasts for a certain amount of time, I don’t feel that some milliseconds back or forth have any disadvantage, it could actually be an interesting musical aspect.

But when it comes to triggering sounds, delays, looping, gating and other effects that have to react fast, audio latency is relevant.

When I started testing this, I was very fixated on finding the sound card with the lowest latency and I thought that when I did, it would radically revolutionize my setup.

With my current setup, I have to live with a total latency at about 8 milliseconds. What i gathered from my research (as shown below) is that I could obtain a latency at about 2 milliseconds with a certain, and quite affordable setup. That’s a difference of 6 milliseconds, let’s put that into context.

In dry air at 20 °C, the speed of sound is 343.2 meters per second. That is 343.2/1000 = 0.3432 meters per millisecond ≈ one meter in 3 milliseconds. So the difference in audio latency between the two sound cards corresponds to two meters in distance to a sound source. Many guitarists have at least that distance to their amplifier. The distance from my drums to my ears could be close to a meter, that’s 3 milliseconds. What about a taller drummer than me, that would mean even more latency. From this reflections, I can’t conclude on anything else than that it’s all about habituation.

So, to a certain extent one can get used to a fair amount of latency, you learn to press “loop” a little bit before you actually will loop, and you make sure you push the beat just a little bit when playing with delays or triggering samples. This definitely doesn’t have to be conscious, by practicing and listening, one adapts to this quite quickly.

But compressors, gates and similar effects still demand low latency to operate at their best. When compressing drums, I don’t think you would want to add another 8 milliseconds before the compressor actually kicks inn. That’s why I completed the following test.

First, a brief run trough of the parameters needed to control the latency.

– Sampling rate:

When analog audio is sent into the computer, it goes into an ADC (Analog-to-digital converter) which takes X samples of the audio per second. X is defined in hertz, is called the sampling rate and is usually at a value of 44’100 or above if you want to listen to Swedish-American engineer Harry Nyquist and how his theorem is described on Wikipedia:

In theory, a Nyquist frequency just larger than the signal bandwidth is sufficient to allow perfect reconstruction of the signal from the samples: see Sampling theorem: Critical frequency. However, this reconstruction requires an ideal filter that passes some frequencies unchanged while suppressing all others completely (commonly called a brick-wall filter). In practice, perfect reconstruction is unattainable. Some amount of aliasing is unavoidable.

Signal frequencies higher than the Nyquist frequency will encounter a “folding” about the Nyquist frequency, back into lower frequencies. For example, if the sample rate is 20 kHz, the Nyquist frequency is 10 kHz, and an 11 kHz signal will fold, or alias, to 9 kHz. However, a 9 kHz signal can also fold up to 11 kHz in that case if the reconstruction filter is not adequate. Both types of aliasing can be important.

When attainable filters are used, some degree of oversampling is necessary to accommodate the practical constraints on anti-aliasing filters: instead of a brickwall, one has flat response in the passband up to a point called the cutoff frequency or corner frequency, (pass all frequencies below there unchanged), then gradual rolloff in a transition band, finally suppressing signals above a certain point completely or almost completely in the stopband. Thus, frequencies close to the Nyquist frequency may be distorted in the sampling and reconstruction process, so the bandwidth should be kept below the Nyquist frequency by some margin (frequency headroom) that depends on the actual filters used.

For example, audio CDs have a sampling frequency of 44100 Hz. The Nyquist frequency is therefore 22050 Hz, which is an upper bound on the highest frequency the data can unambiguously represent. If the chosen anti-aliasing filter (a low-pass filter in this case) has a transition band of 2000 Hz, then the cut-off frequency should be no higher than 20050 Hz to yield a signal with negligible power at frequencies of 22050 Hz and greater.

– Buffer size:

A buffer in this contexts can be explained as how much time the computer can use for “processing” before we have to see or hear something happening and it is defined in samples. So, if the buffer size is 512 samples and the sampling rate is 44’100Hz, the buffer adds an additional delay of 512/44100 ≈ 0.012 = 12 milliseconds. The computer do need a buffer, how low you can go regarding buffer size depends on the computers cpu, ram and hdd speed but also, a really important factor is what audio interface (sound card) you are using. This is because all the manufacturers write their own drivers and have different ADC’s (analog-to-digital-converters) and DAC’s (digital-to-analog-converters), which are all major contributors to latency.

The complete audio monitoring latency of a configuration, often referred to as the roundtrip latency, is the sum of:

• AD converter latency
• Input portion of the I/O buffer
• Audio driver latency
• Output portion of the I/O buffer
• DA converter latency

When just doing playback, of course you don’t have to go trough all of these and the latency is the sum of:

• Audio driver latency
• Output portion of the I/O Buffer
• DA converter latency

Now, let’s move on to the actual test:

These where the candidates:

Focusrite Pro40 (FW)
RME Babyface (USB)
RME Fireface 800 (FW)
“Lynx Aurora 8 (FW)” Didn’t get this to speak well with OSX 10.7.1, or I had the wrong break-out cable.

Focusrite ISA 828 (ADAT)

I tested the I/O-latency by running a cable from the output to the input and measuring the delay with a program called MaxMSP.

I used a MacBook Pro 6,2 (15″ mid 2010), 2,66GHz intel core i7, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 ram, running Mac OS X Lion 10.7.1 (11B26).

I/O vector size and signal vector size as described in the MaxMSP manual:

• The I/O Vector Size (I/O stands for input/output) controls the number of samples that are transferred to and from the audio interface at one time.
• The Signal Vector Size sets the number of samples that are calculated by MSP objects at one time. This can be less than or equal to the I/O Vector Size, but not more. If the Signal Vector Size is less than the I/O Vector Size, MSP calculates two or more signal vectors in succession for each I/O vector that needs to be calculated.
• With an I/O vector size of 256, and a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz, MSP calculates about 5.8 milliseconds of audio data at a time.

The I/O Vector Size may have an effect on latency and overall performance. A smaller vector size may reduce the inherent delay between audio input and audio output, because MSP has to perform calculations for a smaller chunk of time. On the other hand, there is an additional computational burden each time MSP prepares to calculate another vector (the next chunk of audio), so it is easier over-all for the processor to compute a larger vector. However, there is another side to this story. When MSP calculates a vector of audio, it does so in what is known as an interrupt. If MSP is running on your computer, whatever you happen to be doing (word processing, for example) is interrupted and an I/O vector’s worth of audio is calculated and played. Then the computer returns to its normally scheduled program. If the vector size is large enough, the computer may get a bit behind and the audio output may start to click because the processing took longer than the computer expected. Reducing the I/O Vector Size may solve this problem, or it may not. On the other hand, if you try to generate too many interrupts, the computer will slow down trying to process them (saving what you are doing and starting another task is hard work). Therefore, you’ll typically find the smaller I/O Vector Sizes consume a greater percentage of the computer’s resources. Optimizing the performance of any particular signal network when you are close to the limit of your CPU’s capability is a trial-and-error process. That’s why MSP provides you with a choice of vector sizes.

—–

Babyface (USB), 44,1kHz, Line (XLR):

I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 171 samples = 3.877551 ms
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 203 samples = 4.603175 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 267 samples = 6.054422 ms

I/O vector size: 1024, Signal vector size: 1024 = 2187 samples = 49.591835 ms

Babyface (USB) + ISA 828, 44,1kHz, Line (XLR):

I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 170 samples = 3.854875 ms
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 202 samples = 4.580499 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 266 samples = 6.031746 ms

I/O vector size: 1024, Signal vector size: 1024 = 2186 samples = 49.56916 ms

Babyface (USB), 48kHz, Line (XLR):

I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 171 samples = 3.5625 ms
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 203 samples = 4.229167 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 267 samples = 5.5625 ms

I/O vector size: 1024, Signal vector size: 1024 = 2187 samples = 45.5625 ms

Babyface (USB) + ISA 828, 48kHz, Line (XLR):

I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 170 samples = 3.541667 ms
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 202 samples = 4.208333 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 266 samples = 5.541667 ms

I/O vector size: 1024, Signal vector size: 1024 = 2186 samples = 45.541668 ms

Babyface (USB), 96kHz, Line (XLR):

I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 140 samples = 1.458333 ms
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 263 samples = 2.739583 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 327 samples = 3.40625 ms

I/O vector size: 1024, Signal vector size: 1024 = 2247 samples = 23.40625 ms

Babyface (USB) + ISA 828, 96kHz, Line (XLR):

I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 140 samples = 1.458333 ms
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 263 samples = 2.739583 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 327 samples = 3.40625 ms

I/O vector size: 1024, Signal vector size: 1024 = 2247 samples = 23.40625 ms

Babyface (USB), 192kHz, Line (XLR):

I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 116 samples = 0.604167 ms OUTPUT HAS POLARITY REVERSED
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 228 samples = 1.1875 ms OUTPUT HAS POLARITY REVERSED
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 422 samples = 2.197917 ms OUTPUT HAS POLARITY REVERSED

I/O vector size: 1024, Signal vector size: 1024 = 2342 samples = 12.197917 ms OUTPUT HAS POLARITY REVERSED

Fireface 800 (FW400 -> 800), 44,1KHz, Line:

I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 219 samples = 4.965986 ms
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 251 samples = 5.69161 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 315 samples = 7.142857 ms

I/O vector size: 2048, Signal vector size: 2048 = 4283 samples = 97.120178 ms

Fireface 800 (FW400 -> 800) + ISA828, 44,1KHz, Line:

I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 213 samples = 4.83 ms OUTPUT HAS POLARITY REVERSED
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 245 samples = 5.555555 ms OUTPUT HAS POLARITY REVERSED
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 309 samples = 7.006803 ms OUTPUT HAS POLARITY REVERSED

I/O vector size: 2048, Signal vector size: 2048 = 4277 samples = 96.984123 ms OUTPUT HAS POLARITY REVERSED

Fireface 800 (FW400 -> 800), 48KHz, Line:

I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 219 samples = 4.5626 ms
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 251 samples = 5.229167 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 315 samples = 6.5625 ms

I/O vector size: 2048, Signal vector size: 2048 = 4284 samples = 89.25 ms

Fireface 800 (FW400 -> 800) + ISA828, 48KHz, Line:

I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 213 samples = 4.4375 ms OUTPUT HAS POLARITY REVERSED
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 245 samples = 5.104167 ms OUTPUT HAS POLARITY REVERSED
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 309 samples = 6.4375 ms OUTPUT HAS POLARITY REVERSED

I/O vector size: 2048, Signal vector size: 2048 = 4277 samples = 89.104164 ms OUTPUT HAS POLARITY REVERSED

Fireface 800 (FW400 -> 800), 96KHz, Line:

I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 188 samples = 1.958333 ms OUTPUT HAS POLARITY REVERSED
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 348 samples = 3.625 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 412 samples = 4.291667 ms

I/O vector size: 2048, Signal vector size: 2048 = 4380 samples = 45.625 ms

Fireface 800 (FW400 -> 800) + ISA828, 96KHz, Line:

I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 189 samples = 1.96875 ms
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 347 samples = 3.614583 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 411 samples = 4.28125 ms

I/O vector size: 2048, Signal vector size: 2048 = 4379 samples = 45.614582 ms

Fireface 800 (FW400 -> 800), 192KHz, Line:

I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 166 samples = 0.864583 ms
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 326 samples = 1.697917 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 598 samples = 3.114583 ms

I/O vector size: 2048, Signal vector size: 2048 = 4566 samples = 23.78125 ms

Fireface 800 (FW400 -> 800) + ISA828, 192KHz, Line:

I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 166 samples = 0.864583 ms
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 326 samples = 1.697917 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 598 samples = 3.114583 ms

I/O vector size: 2048, Signal vector size: 2048 = 4566 samples = 23.78125 ms

Pro40, 44.1Khz, Line:

I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 5.827664 ms
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 6.55328 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 8.004535 ms

I/O vector size: 2048, Signal vector size: 2048 = 97.981857 ms

Pro40 + ISA828, 44.1Khz, Line:
I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 6.485261 ms
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 7.210885 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 8.662131 ms

I/O vector size: 2048, Signal vector size: 2048 = 98.639458 ms

Pro40, 48Khz, Line:
I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 5.354167 ms
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 6.020833 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 7.354167 ms

I/O vector size: 2048, Signal vector size: 2048 = 90.020836 ms

Pro40 + ISA828, 48Khz, Line:
I/O vector size: 16, Signal vector size: 16 = 5.958333 ms
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 6.625 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 7.958333 ms

I/O vector size: 2048, Signal vector size: 2048 = 90.625 ms

Pro40, 96Khz, Line:

I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 5.541667 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 6.208333 ms
I/O vector size: 128, Signal vector size: 128 = 7.541667 ms

I/O vector size: 2048, Signal vector size: 2048 = 47.541668 ms

Pro40 + ISA828, 96Khz, Line:
I/O vector size: 32, Signal vector size: 32 = 5.916667 ms
I/O vector size: 64, Signal vector size: 64 = 6.583333 ms
I/O vector size: 128, Signal vector size: 128 = 7.916667 ms

I/O vector size: 2048, Signal vector size: 2048 = 47.916668 ms

—–

Note that hardware with very slow transient response may decrease accuracy of measurement.

When I connected the adat cable and the ISA was at 192kHz when I turned it on, I got super system failure …

Here are some graphs, x=buffer size, y=latency in milliseconds:

—–

One parameter I didn’t realize until later I should have measured is how different sound cards handle low latency also called LLP (Low Latency Performance), I didn’t record any numbers for this, as I didn’t know how to do it, but I experienced that the RME Babyface handled low buffer sizes quite well compared to the other cards, I used the “test section” in Ableton Live, which simulates a certain cpu-usage and lets you listen to a test tone and hear if there are any drop-outs.

I also experienced that I could increase the sampling rate, thereby lowering the latency which is defined by samples in the buffer size, and still get good performance from the test tone. Any thoughts on sampling rate vs buffer size and how this affects the performance of the system? why choose low sampling rate and low buffer size, instead of high sampling rate and high buffer size, if they result in the same amount of latency? To get an answer to this and the concept of LLP, I had to seek help amongst other nerds at gearslutz.com and I stumbled upon this forum thread where they answered me on my issue on buffer size vs sampling rate:

“TAFKAT”:

Raising the sample rate not only effects the latency value but also increases the overhead in DSP processing , throughput and data file sizes so its a balancing act. For those needing to work at the higher sample rates the usual practice is to raise the buffer sizes accordingly to compensate for the increase in processing overhead. There is no real advantage to increase the sample rate simply to lower the latency value if the higher sample rates are not specifically required for the project IMO.

“tuRnitUpsuM”:

(…) Higher sample rates do not equal lower latency in the bigger picture when you (action <> reaction) have to raise buffer values to compensate for increased DSP data overflow. Data size increases, time value increases to process the change. Whats gained on the front end – is lost on the back end.

My response:

Are these relations linear? From the numbers I ended up with, I got the impression that they’re not. Would there be any reason to measuring the sound cards LLP at different sample rates and see if the performance/sample-ratio is the same?

For example: would a setup running 44.1KHz with a buffer size of 16 samples perform exactly equally to a setup running 88.2KHz with a buffer size of 32 samples on the same computer?

“Timur Born”:

There is a linear correlation and a non-linear one.

Linear: Double the sample-rate at double the audio buffer size equals exactly the same audio buffer latency.

Linear: Double the sample-rate equals exactly double the data/bandwidth the CPU + RAM + HD need to process, which at double the audio buffer size equals about half the number of tracks/fx being usable.

Non-linear: AD/DA conversion is faster (=lower latency) with higher sample-rates. But we are talking about a maximum of 2 ms here, usually less.

Non-linear: Your computer (CPU + RAM + HD) may not be able to deal with the number of “theoretically” possible tracks/fx, so either you may not get double the tracks/fx at half the sample-rate or may not get half the number of tracks/fx at double the sample-rate.

“TAFKAT”:

I don’t believe it will remain linear with the number of Plugins/Polyphony when using a higher sample rate at double the buffer to maintain the same latency, as the system still has to deal with the higher processing associated with the higher sample rate.

It may be interesting to get an empirical value to the exact scaling variable , I have some 96K alternate sessions of DAWbench DSP that I will give a run up when I get some time and see what it tips up.

They also had developed quite an extensive database of the LLP’s of different audio interfaces. They used a benchmark program called DAWbench DSP to measure the LLP, keep in mind that some of these cards are high speed PCI cards (which soon is available to laptops trough thunderbolt expansion bays) and not USB or FW cards:

I made a more graphical presentation of the mentioned LLP rating values, the numbers are all just in linear relevance to the best card, higher is better:

When researching on latency, after this point, it starts to get quite technical and the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know. I feel that for now, I know enough about the subject to understand the latency and DSP performance of my current setup. I’ve learned that latency is not as relevant as I originally feared, and that there is more to the concept of latency and DSP than I thought.

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