START
-Nancy: walks on to stage; takes lipstick out of pocket and places in front of herself \
-Sound: silence\
-Visuals: Nothing\
\
-Nancy: removes top off of lipstick, same body position\
-Sound: pre-recorded oscillating synth sound\
-Visuals: nothing\
\
-Nancy: pushes lipstick up\
-Sound: Pause/silence, back into synth
-Visuals: nothing\
\
~ 30secs
\
-Nancy: puts lipstick back in pocket, does not put it on; walks over to open luggage laying on table on stage, contents not visible to audience .\
-Sound: sound clip, ogunwomansound.wav plays (layered over synth sounds)\
-Visuals: nothing\
\
~ 45secs
\
-Nancy: Removes machete from luggage and begins to dance. \
-Sound: movement of machete sonically mapped by max patch.\
-Visuals: Start, Fremez poster, glows/pulsates w/ synth sound or does something where the red spreads slowly over the two people’s faces in the images…\
\
~ 3mins, 15secs
\
-Nancy: Nancy blows whistle, to call in the drums, walks over to podium (in front of stage)\
-Sound: Nick on drums start; backing track starts\
-Visuals: Cuba landscape pics mix with video of La Lupe during first verse (controlled by Nick’s drums w/ jitter patch). [maybe: 4 images (of each female archetype) for 4 sets of "do your hard work" of chorus]\
\
~ 3mins, 45secs
\
-Nancy: Takes lipstick from pocket and puts it on, starts singing lyrics to Campina while at podium, using elephant mic stand.\
-Sound: Backing track continues (prerecorded and timed); Nick continues to play\
-Visuals: same as above\
\
Everything ends at same time, timing based on backing track, nancy’s last words “I’ve been working for the trees;” Nick stops playing when backing track ends.}
~ END 5mins 30secs

Long preview on blip.

Despite being jetlagged and massive sinus pressure, I got a good bit of work done today. I’ve received only one of the two Fishman Powerjack endpin preamps I’ve ordered, but I got one conga drum to control max/msp/jitter today. I had to solder the 6-inch piezo film to the preamp, attach a 9V battery, and then secure the film and preamp inside the drum. The result is surprisingly good. This configuration makes a very sensitive and high quality microphone:

I then ran the output of the mic/preamp into an m-audio quattro interface, and into max/msp/jitter. Right now the patch is very simple. I’m using the peak frequency of the incoming audio amplitude adjust crossfading between two images, and things like brightness, color, and saturation:

At least things are talking, the actual effects can be modified later.

Also, I got a new aluminum pipe with a secure base flange to replace the pvc pipe on the old mike stand. I’m going to give up the twisting effect of the main pipe in exchange for structural integrity. The elephant will still twist, but the rest of the stand will be stationary. Other effects will have to be controlled via some onboard pots or something.

The major breakhrough today was getting the machete movements mapped to sound. I did this through rewire, with Max as the master and Ableton Live as the slave. Basically, I took the x,y,z data in from the accelerometer, filtered each stream of data using some javascript functions I wrote, and then used that filtered data to control midi notes which were used to control a synth in ableton live. The sound is not really what I want, but for now at least it’s fluid and fairly well-mapped to movements. Whew.

The patch:

Machete in action:

Click To Play

Also, I ordered aluminum pipe and flanges so i can work on elephant mic stand round 2. I also ordered pre-amps for the drums, which are here now. Here’s some footage of the prototype stand in action. The song being sung is still in the works, and Nancy’s still rehearsing the vocals.

Click To Play

Unfortunately I’ve got to go out of town tomorrow till Sunday the 24th, but all necessary parts will be here when I return.

This week I am constructing the elephant microphone stand. It consists of pvc pipe on a wood base, and there is a potentiometer beneath where the pipe is attached which rotates when you twist the pipe. On top of the pipe is the base for the elephant stand, and again there is a potentiometer beneath this base so that when you twist the elephant stand the pot is twisted as well. Thus, the main pipe and the elephant stand can twist independently of each other, and when twisted a pot sends out values into arduino and into max/msp.

Since this is a mic stand, in max/msp I’m using those values to pan incoming vocals (by twisting elephant stand) and augment vocal pitch (by twisting main pipe stand).

I also got a temporary housing unit for the wiTilt. The circuit is constructed and fairly robust, but when I put it on the machete I’ll have to find a more subtle container.

Unfortunately, the congas have yet to arrive. The work the drums require though (placing piezo film beneath their heads, running them through pre-amp) isn’t too high so it won’t take too long to get that working.

Next steps: Once I get everything working and talking to max, I need to work hard on the max patch itself. Since my devices aren’t amazingly technical, the sound and visuals for the performance need to be well planned and of a high quality. Then we need to rehease the performance itself so that all the kinks get worked out.

This week has been pretty good. First off, I got my WiTilt from sparkfun. Following the instructions on the sensor workshop, I had no trouble getting the wiTilt’s data into Terminal. Getting the data into max and parsing it, however, proved not so easy. I could get the data in, but couldn’t get it to send continuously as the messages kept timing out. So then I tried downloading Woon Seung Yeo’s W2O, an app that parses the WiTilt’s data and sends it via OpenSoundControl into Max, but in her example patch she was using a deprecated object for receiving OSC data. I tried using Max’s built-in OSC reciever object, udpreceive, but things wouldn’t talk.

I finally found a patch via the Max/MSP forums that someone had made for the receiving and parsing the WiTilt data. Analyzing it, I realized that I was sending the wrong command (in ascii) to the WiTilt telling it send data. Problem solved. So now I’ve got a patch that takes in the witilt data wonderfully. I attached some oscillators to the incoming x,y,z data from the WiTilt, and the results are below:

Click To Play

Plus, I got the machete I’m going to use with the WiTilt. So one object/instrument is looking very good.

I also received a large elephant I ordered off ebay that is fairly light and i think it’s perfectly drillable for inserting a pot. I also got 20 panasonic WM-61A mics for the elephant after reading about them in “Getting a Bigger Sound” by Bart Hopkin and hearing them used in a live setting on this site.

These mics are really, really small. And there is a hack for the mics that prevents distortion under high sound levels that requires some really intricate soldering. I got one to work, but probably ruined 3 in the process. I’m not sure what to do with these things now. Wiring many of these seems like too much a time consuming task. I’ll probably give it another go though. I really need to put at least two or so on the elephant’s trunk.

I also got 5 or so OPA134 op-amps that I was going to run the mics into max with. They are typically used in DIY headphone amp circuits, but I figured they’d be plenty powerful for my needs. First tests weren’t successful, but I need to sit down and put more time into it.

Next week: Get mics/amps to work and then use them in max. Get hand drum to use with contact mic in max. Be optimistic.