Dread_Rat DFM Broadcast Archive 2005

December 25: X-mess Spacial

X-mess Spacial

Recordings I made during the week, testing a set of new microphones and processed versions of those recordings, with live additions during the broadcast on DFM. Featuring singing bowls, shaman drum, bells, voice, christmas songs toy, chachapas and didjeridu.

December 18: Another Looping Improvisation

Broadcast sunday the 18th of december 2005 - 60 minutes

Another Live Looping Improvisation

Live looping improvisation with singing bowls, rattles, drums, voice, flute, spring-echo toy microphone, crackle box and didjeridu.

December 11: Looping Improvisation

Broadcast sunday the 11th of december 2005 - 60 minutes

Looping Improvisation

Looping improvisation with singing bowls, rattles, drums, voice, flutes and whistles, spring-echo toy microphone and tone/sweep-generator software.

December 4: Sonifications of Raytraced Molecular Structures of Ayahuasca Alkaloids

Broadcast sunday the 4th of december 2005 - 120 minutes

Sonifications of Raytraced Molecular Structures of Ayahuasca Alkaloids

Molecular structure files (pdb and mol format), visualised with Spdbv and POV-Ray, sonified with Audiopaint, streched versions combined with granualated versions. Because of a technical problem during the first hour I continued for another hour, mixing in more elements like mp3 recordings of old shows playing on 8x fast forward on a DVD player and a tone/sweep-generator.

November 27: Sonifications of Visualisations of Molecular Structures

Broadcast sunday the 27th of november 2005 - 60 minutes

Sonifications of Visualisations of Molecular Structures

Molecular structure files (pdb and mol format), visualised with Rasmol, Spdbv and POV-Ray, sonified with Audiopaint, combined into a semi-randomised ambient live mix.

November 20: Abstracted Geomagnetic Sounds

Broadcast sunday the 20th of november 2005 - 60 minutes

Abstracted Geomagnetic Sounds

Collected recordings of geomagnetic magnetosounds and VLF radio,
transformed to MIDI and back, combined in a semi-random mix.

November 13: The Therapeutic Potentials of Psychedelics

Broadcast sunday the 13th of november 2005 - 60 minutes

The Therapeutic Potentials of Psychedelics

Part of a program found on Indymedia, From the Bunker on revereradionetwork, featuring a lecture by Dr Christopher Wiegand, md, about the history and therapeutic potentials of psychedelics, and some words from Terence McKenna about the connection between shamanism and psychedelics, remixed with some echo and glitching and generative sounds. Mixed in the background layer: sounds based on audio spectral analysis of cat's purring, combined with a shortened version of one of the included experimental sequences included with the Freeware binaural brainwave entrainment software SBAGen.

November 6: The Cat and the Singing Mice

Broadcast sunday the 6th of november 2005 - 60 minutes

The Cat and the Singing Mice

Some experiments with speech synthesis software, including an item based on the discovery that male mice serenade potential mates using ultrasonic sounds and some pieces based on a poem by Parahamansa Yogananda about the cosmic AUM, the primordial sound of creation according to Hindu mythology. Purrscape 3 (30 minutes) - a sound loop based on audio spectral analysis of cat's purring, imitated with a didjeridu with a pitch (frequency) two octaves above actual cat purring, pitch-shifted two octaves down was combined with river sound loop and a shortened version (3 repeated sequences instead of 4) of one of the included experimental chakra sequences included with the Freeware binaural brainwave entrainment software SBAGen.

November 30: Purrscape 2

Broadcast sunday the 30th of october 2005 - 60 minutes

Purrscape 2

Sounds based on audio spectral analysis of cat's purring. Some tones were purely sound-sculpted on the computer, others are recordings of didjeridu with a pitch two octaves above cat purring slowed down or pitch-shifted two octaves down. Later, toward the end some actual cat screams and meows and some roaring lion samples are added into the mix.

October 23: Healing Frequencies of Purring Cats

Healing Frequencies of Purring Cats

This week I started exploring the purring of cats, I found several recordings and did audio spectral analysis on them. For this webcast I have combined the actual recordings of the purring of cats and a young puma, and some tone combinations I made of the most prominent harmonic frequencies present in the purring sound.
Many of the links I found refer to the possible (self-)therapeutic healing and pain relieving effects of the audio frequencies present in the purring of cats:
Solving The Cat's Purr Mystery using Accelerometers
"All the cats had purr frequencies between 20 Hz and 200 Hz. With the exception of the cheetah, which had frequencies 2 Hz from the rest, all the species had frequencies, notably 25 Hz, 50 Hz, 100 Hz, 125 Hz, and 150 Hz, that correspond exactly with the best frequencies determined by the most recent research for bone growth, fracture healing, pain relief, relief of breathlessness, and inflammation. All of the cats' purrs, including the cheetah, had frequencies 4 Hz from the entire repertoire of low frequencies known to be therapeutic for all of the ailments."
"Following injury, the purr vibrations would help heal the wound or bone associated with the injury, reduce swelling, and provide a measure of pain relief during the healing process."
The Felid Purr: A healing mechanism?
Someone who made a composition on the same lines, primarily meant as a sleep aid:
Djinnestan - Purr [wh020]
"Purr is a 76 minute ambient track intended to be played at low volume as background ambience, preferably as you go to sleep. It generates a warm and cozy feeling, like having a cat purring next to your head."

October 16: Electro-Acoustic Generative ReMix

Electro-Acoustic Generative ReMix

Generative remix of sound fragments that were used in the programs of the previous 4 weeks, playing in three randomized layers.

October 9: Electro-Acoustic Bamboo Flutes and Generated Tones and Noises Mix

Electro-Acoustic Bamboo Flutes and Generated Tones and Noises Mix

Sounds of bamboo flutes, plain as well as digitally modified and digitally generated tones and noises, playing in three randomized layers.

October 2: Electro-Acoustic Bell, Bowls and Voice Mix

Electro-Acoustic Bells, Bowls and Voice Mix

Sounds of singing bowls and khoomei (overtone) singing, plain as well as digitally modified, playing in three randomized layers.

September 25th: Electro-Acoustic Mantra Mix

Electro-Acoustic Mantra Mix

Sounds of singing bowls and stainless steel pans with water and reciting and singing of Sanskrit mantras. Contains brainwave synchronisation sounds (binaural beats) that promote concentration and alertness (Beta brain waves). Noiser 1.0 by ixi-software was used in the creation of this mix.

September 18th: Deconstruction and resynthesis of chat

Recombined phrases

Layers of singing bowls with water sounds and phrases read from logs of the chat at #DFM on IRCNet. Noiser 1.0 and DFX Stereo Buffer Override were used in the creation of this mix.

September 11th: Deconstruction and resynthesis of speech elements

Vowels, consonants, words

Background layers of sung vowels and spoken consonants, singing bowls and cigar box fiddles, and words read aloud from the backlog of the chat at #DFM on IRCNet. During the live cast some more singing bowls sounds, singing and drumming were played live into the mix. A deconstruction and resynthesis of speech elements. Noiser 1.0 and DFX Stereo Buffer Override were used in the creation of this mix.

September 4th: Loops from last week and singing bowls with water

Loops from last week and singing bowls with water

Background layer was an aleatoric remix of left over loops from last week, the second layer were singing bowls with some water in them, played with hands and with a bow. During the live cast some more singing bowls sounds were added and sound effects added. Noiser 1.0, DFX Stereo Buffer Override and Ambiloop were used in the creation of this mix.

August 28th: Cigarbox fiddles and live looping (featuring Farmer P.)

Cigarbox fiddles and live looping (featuring Farmer P.)

Background track was an aleatoric remix of 6 short recordings of 3 home made cigar box 2 string instruments, each one recorded both bowed and played with a slide (bottleneck). Farmer P. and me were creating and mixing live loops with singing bowls, mouth harps, rattles, rasp, drums, flutes, cigar box fiddle and (overtone) voices. Noiser 1.0 and Ambiloop were used in the creation of this mix.

August 21st: OIMA x Curtis Bay Aleatoric Remix

OIMA x Curtis Bay Aleatoric Remix

Layered aleatoric remix of 2 x 23 sound snippets from DFM webcasts of OIMA and Curtis Bay. Noiser 1.0, DFX Stereo Buffer Override and Ambiloop were used in the creation of this soundscape.

August 14th: Electro-Shamanic collage/mix

Electro-Shamanic collage/mix

Layered aleatoric remix of 21 short recorded sounds of shakers/rattles, drums, orca-ocarino, Tibetan temple bell, singing bowls, Zube Tube, with live input, throat singing and drum during the broadcast. Noiser 1.0, DFX Stereo Buffer Override and Ambiloop were used in the creation of this soundscape.

August 7th: Finally some deep stuff

Finally some deep stuff

Layered mix from 2 layers of noiser remix of short recorded snippets of my voice, mouthharps, drum, flutes, rattles, with live input, mainly voice and drum, during the broadcast. Noiser 1.0 and DFX Stereo Buffer Override were used in the process.

July 31st: Recycling sounds from Stubnitz performance

Recycling sounds from Stubnitz performance

Aleatoric Mix of sound fragments from live performance during DFM showcase at the MS Stubnitz and geomagnetic sounds, made with noiser 1.0.

July 24th: Aleatoric Mix II

Aleatoric Mix II

Aleatoric Mix of sound fragments on my HD made with noiser 1.0.

July 17th: Aleatoric Mix

Aleatoric Mix

Aleatoric Mix of sound fragments on my HD made with noiser 1.0.

July 10th: Tracks from 20 years ago

Tracks from 20 years ago

From my self-taping cassette archive a selection of tracks recorded in the year 1985.

July 4th: Recycled pre-synthesizer electronic improvisation

Recycled pre-synthesizer electronic improvisation

I found back what might be the only remaining recording of electronic sound improvisations I did before I had access to a synthesizer, by creating feedback loops with my open reel tape deck by connecting outputs to inputs and adjusting the input potmeters until the circuits went critical and started chaotic oscillations. By reversing and using a half speed version of a mix of the original and the reversed version I expanded the original 30 minutes recording to an hour.

June 26th: Rasta Robert and Friends - Live at Ruigoord

Rasta Robert and Friends - Live at Ruigoord

This weekend there was no Birds of a Feather, because I was performing at the didgeridoo festival in Ruigoord. So for this time a registration of the live performance will be up for download and as this week's podcast.

June 19th: ElectroShamanistic Sounds

Electro-Shamanistic Sounds

Improvisations together with Sai Jo and Marianne Dolphin, with Ambiloop looper and Stereo Buffer Override software, moring khuur, voices, mouthharps, singing bowls, tingshas, drums, overtone singing and didjeridu.

June 12th: ElectroAcoustic Improvisation

Electro-Shamanistic Improvisation

Improvisation with Korg MS20, Ambiloop looper software, guitar, cigarbox fiddle, voice, Korg Rhythm33, mouthharp, mouth bow, singing bowls, tingshas, various bells and shakers, drums, overtone singing and didjeridu.

June 5th: ElectroAcoustic Improvisation

Electronic/Acoustic Improvisation

Improvisation with Korg MS20, Ambiloop looper software, guitar, voice, Korg Rhythm33, mouth harp, singing bowls, tingshas, various bells, overtone singing and shortwave radio.

May 29th: Electronic/Acoustic Improvisation

Electronic/Acoustic Improvisation

Improvisation with Korg MS20, Ambiloop looper software, Korg Rhythm33, voice, singing bowls, rasps, tingshas, various bells, overtone singing and shortwave radio.

May 22nd: Improvisation

Improvisation

Improvisation with Korg MS20, Ambiloop looper software, guitar, voice, shaman's drum, singing bowl, yidaki, bamboo flute, mbira, overtone singing.

May 15th: Fiery Tongues Poetry

Fiery Tongues Poetry

Registration of live webcast from the Fiery Tongues Pentecoast Poetry Festival at Ruigoord. With the japanese Poet/composer Daisuke Terauchi, jazzman John Clarke, powerfull poetress Iriel Sayeed and Baden Prince jr., introduced by El Plompo and Mignon Omoroka.

May 8th: From the cassette archive: 80s recordings

From the cassette archive: 80s recordings

This week I dug into my cassette archive and present a selection from recordings of projects and bands I was involved in during the 80s: Nervous System, Tom & Rob hometaping, Profetie tegen Babel, the Doors of Love and some tracks I made while I was in art school.

May 1: Delay Lama with prayer-X-wheel

Delay Lama with prayer-X-wheel

Several VSTi/VST plugins combined for semi-aleatoric synthetic overtone singing sounds in an ambient soundscape, during the live webcast combined with real human overtone singing and acoustic instruments (Singing bowls, drum, plastic bottle played with a mallet and fingers).

April 24: various tracks

various tracks

Some recordings made with a microphone outside in my back garden, birds, traffic sounds, occasionally barking dogs, interspaced with other recordings and mixes made during the week, one track featuring a tape cut-up by William Burroughs which uses material from the book Breakthrough by EVP researcher Konstantin Raudive.

april 17: Submarine mission

Submarine mission

New electronic sounds, composed and recorded during the week, while during the live cast, effects and environmental sound from a microphone positioned outside were mixed in.

april 10: Looping, dubbing, glitching

Looping, dubbing, glitching

Mix of computer generated sounds, acoustical instruments and sound effects. Moring Khuur (Mongolian horsehead fiddle), khomus (Siberian mouthharp), Indian hand drum, overtone singing, Tibetan singing bowl.

april 3: Aleatoric Audio, DFX Buffer Override and hand drums

Aleatoric Audio, hand drums and DFX Buffer Override

Continued exploration of the possibilities of X Wheel Of Fortune VSTi plugin, after playing with it for about a month, getting more control over the settings. The result sounds rather Indian, tabla-like, I think, combined with hand drums I played live during the cast. DFX Stereo Buffer Override was chained directly to X-Wheel of Fortune for the 3 tracks featured in this cast.

march 27: Aleatoric Audio, hand drums and DFX Buffer Override

Aleatoric Audio, hand drums and DFX Buffer Override

Continued exploration of the possibilities of X Wheel Of Fortune VSTi plugin to generate the basic drony soundscape layer, over which which I played hand drums. All the time I had an effect loop running involving the free VST plugin DFX Stereo Buffer Override providing live granulation and glitching.

march 20: Aleatoric Audio, Binaural nature sounds and DFX Buffer Override

Aleatoric Audio, Binaural nature sounds and DFX Buffer Override

This week I finally upgraded to a more modern computer, so I can make better quality webcasts. Especially when you listen to the live cast on the hifi DFM stream, you will notice a big improvement, but also the sound quality of the podcasts should sound quite a lot better now, encoded with the highest quality settings for a 40 kbps file. Similar setup as last week, VSThost was used again to run X Wheel Of Fortune, making deep, slow and intense soundscapes, over which which I played singing bowls and hand drums and did some throat singing. An other layer consisted of two looped binaural recordings of nature sounds made by Jesse Hammons, found on the free sound archives at archive.org. All the while I had an effect loop running involving the free VST plugin DFX Stereo Buffer Override providing live granulation and glitching. Listening with good headphones is highly recommended.

march 13: Aleatoric Audio, Re-Dubbed Reggae, Drum, Brainwaves and DFX Buffer Override

Aleatoric Audio, re-dubbed reggae, drum, Brainwaves and DFX buffer override

Similar setup as last week, VSThost was used again to run X Wheel Of Fortune, making deep, slow and intense soundscapes, over which which I played drum, spinned a couple of 80s reggae tracks by Dillinger, Jah Lion and Trinity during the first half hour, the second half hour is the aleatoric audio with some extra delay and phasing effects. All the while I had a feedback loop running involving the free VST plugin DFX Stereo Buffer Override and mixed far in the background binaural brainwave entrainment compositions I made last year. Listening with headphones recommended.

march 6: Aleatoric Audio, Singing Bowls, drum, throatsinging and DFX buffer override

Aleatoric Audio, Singing Bowls, drum, throatsinging and DFX buffer override

VSThost was used again to run X Wheel Of Fortune, to generate a slow and intense soundscape, over which which I played Singing Bowls and drum, added some throatsinging and fragments grabbed from TV, while I had a feedback loop running involving the free VST plugin DFX Buffer Override. Listening with headphones recommended.

februari 27: Algorithmic Audio and Bowed Singing Bowls

Algorithmic Audio and Bowed Singing Bowls

I used VSThost to run X Wheel Of Fortune, an algorithmic/aleatoric/generative VSTi plugin, to generate a slow moving electronical soundscape, into which I played bowed and tapped Himalayan Singing Bowls, and treated this mix with delay, chorus, reverb and flanger effects.

februari 20: Aleatoric, Glitched and Looped

Aleatoric, Glitched and Looped

Collage made during the week exploring a heap of freeware VSTi instruments and VST FX plug-ins with freeware VSThost software. Mainly aleatoric/generative instruments and granulation and delay effects, resulting in ambient and dubby sounds. During the live cast the sound was fed through a delay loop using Ambiloop.

februari 13: Random and generative

Random and generative

First half hour is a random mix of archived recordings and DFM stream, second half hour some generated acidy stuff (Saiko algorithmic electronica composer), processed through too many audio effects. Everything was also fed though a 31 second delay loop using Ambiloop.

februari 6: Dub Ya Bush State of the Union Cut/Up mix

Dub Ya Bush State of the Union Cut/Up Mix

A cut/up mix of Bush reading the State of the Union mixed with sounds composed and recorded by Kev and Jeff, and some old Bob Marley / Lee Scratch Perry tracks (Mr Brown / Duppy Conquerer) dubbed in from vinyl. The State of the Union was recorded from the DFM stream, where the opr8tor was already mixing it live, while I was also mixing in sound effects and other things during the recording to cassette. Parts that were edited and cut up by EVPMaker were added live during the cast.

januari 30th: Burroughs Lectures Cut/Up with soundtack

Burroughs Lectures Cut/Up with soundtrack

A cut/up collage of lectures from William Burroughs, and a short appearance by Alan Ginsberg reading from Nova Express all found at the Naropa Audio Archive at the audio archive of archive.org The background soundtrack also consists of sounds that where mainly from the audio archive of archive.org.

januari 23rd 2005: Audio Blogosphere Cut/Up

Audio Blog-o-sphere Cut/Up

A cut/up collage of sounds from the audio version of the Fractal blogosphere, sounds from Titan, some of those sounds resynthesized by myself from the sonograms with Coagula Light, tidbits about the Schumann resonance, brainwave frequencies, atmospheric electromagnetism and the purring of cats, audio from DFM and indy media streams around the inauguration of G. Dubya Bush, and a call for spiritual awareness from the Maya Elders in Guatemala. Again EVPMaker was used, and also Granulab and The great Kazoo, for granulating and randomizing the sonic material.

list of urls:

• Read/Write Web: Audio version of The Fractal Blogosphere
• Sounds from the Huygens Microphone
• Coagula - Industrial Strength Color-Note Organ
• Schumann resonance - Space Physics Text Book of Oulu
• Schumann Resonances, Geomagnetic Reversals, and Human Brain States
• Indymedia radio
• The Dubya Report - the real George W. Bush
• Saq Be - Organization for Mayan and Indigenous Spiritual Studies
• EVPMaker
• Granny - as gray as they come
• Digital Liquid - Freeware

Januari 16th: Electronic Voice Phenomena

Electronic Voice Phenomena

This week I have been experimenting with EVPMaker, the developer of it made it as one of the methods to generate raw audio material to contact spirit voices from the dead, but basically it is a .wav random cut-up program, or a granulator. You can set the length of fragments it cuts out and use several different random methods. You load a .wav file into it containing the material you want to generate a cut-up from, you set length of fragments, if you want them to overlap and/or to crossfade or not. Under extras / random source you can choose for pseudo random generator, fractal chaos formula, soundcard input or a pcm file to use as the randomization process. I used mainly the soundcard input and use a PCM file made from a SETI@HOME workunit. As input were used several synthetic computer voices with DFM station call and program announcement, The Theory of Cut-Ups by William Burroughs, some other short Burroughs soundbytes, my own voice reading from the essay - It Belongs to the Cucumbers, from The Adding Machine by William Burroughs, two denoised samples from the vinyl record that came with the Dutch version of Breakthrough by Konstantin Raudive, some short soundbytes from the old Batman TV series and Star Trek, a fragment of a few minutes recorded from the DFM stream last week, and sounds from the radar of the Cassini-Huygens during the landing on Titan.

list of urls:

• EVPMaker
• The American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena
• introduction to randomness and random numbers from Random.org
• THE ELECTRONIC REVOLUTION - WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS - 1970
• The Cut-Up Technique primer
• Cut-Up scripts and links
• An essay on the Cut Up method
• THE NEW KING OF POP: DR. KONSTANTIN RAUDIVE
• TWiki . Main . GranuLator
• Granular Synthesis by Barry Truax
• Granulation of Sampled Sound by Barry Truax
• A World in a Grain of Sound by John Duesenberry
• Granular Synthesis by Gordon
• Granular Synthesis by Eric Kuehnl
• Planetary Society - Sounds of Titan
• Titan lander RADAR sounds edited to sound even more like an 8-bit game sound

Januari 9th 2005: Hacker Radio

HOPE5 (june 2004) audio, textfiles.com, hacker radio

After starting the new year with a quite minimal cast based on the magnetic vibrations my computers are emitting, seeking sounds resembling interference on AM radio, this week a lot of talk content. Sounds picked up with the telephone coil (see last week) were mixed in the background, combined with sound from rand()%internetradiobot streaming generative music. Monkey science to begin with, some fun with Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie. Next a parody add promoting ASCII text: Make the switch to textfiles found in the basement at audio.textfiles.com, a subsection of textfiles.com. The main part of the show is a presentation from the fifth HOPE conference, held in summer 2004 in NYC. There is now an mp3 archive with 78 hours of audio from the 5th HOPE speakers. The featured presentation is Hacker Radio by sl1pm0de.

Hacker radio is a growing phenomenon throughout the world. The evolution of hacker radio from the early days of spreading information via bulletin board systems, websites, forums, and mailing lists to today's online audio streams explored. Discussion of hardware and open source software methods for setting up your own show and getting your own opinions and ideas out there for all to hear. Current examples of hacker radio.

list of urls mentioned:

• Shoutcast
• Icecast
• Peercast P2P streaming
• SLIPNET Links
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Off the Hook
• Binary Revolution
• Default Radio (dead link?)
• Radio Freek America
• Rantradio
• uberleeto
• Doug TV
• Whitesword TV
• HackTV
• hackermedia

2/1/2005: Captured Computer Noise

Broadcast sunday the 2nd of januari 2005 - 60 minutes

Processed captured computer noises

For the first cast of 2005 I used a suction cup pick-up coil, meant to record sound from a telephone by inductive coupling, to capture the sounds of stray fields from the computer, especially near the hard disks it picks up quite some sounds, especially when the machine is active with a lot of disk activity, like running a system wide virus scan. The sounds were processed with vinylizer, delay, phasing, reverb, chorus and equalizing/filtering.