Pressure gradients form an ever-shifting topography of air, a topography patterned by the earth’s rotation on its axis and the Sun’s cyclic heating of air, land, and ocean. The pressure waves that are the consequence of the spinning earth and it’s proximity to the Sun are a tidal phenomenon with a 12 hour cycle. When…
Category: Machines and Synthesis
A barometric pressure sensor weighs the atmosphere. A micro-controller and a digital to analogue converter (DAC) produce a variable voltage that corresponds to pressure changes. This control voltage (CV) is connected to a synthesizer and a servo motor. In the synthesizer barometric pressure, voltage, and pitch, rise and fall together. Several blades of grass have…
It is 4:15pm on Thursday 25 January, 2024. I sit at my desk at my mother-in-law’s house in Comitán. Rain falls on a large tussock of grass behind me. I see it reflected in the screen of my laptop. It grows atop the wall that separates this house from the car-park next door. I listen…
It is around 5:30pm on Wednesday 17 January 2024. I am at my mother-in-law’s house in Comitán, Chiapas, Mexico . I am listening to changes in air pressure through a two semi-modular synthesizers, by way of a module that I have created for this task. At this time of day, in most parts of the…
What is synthesis? A synthesizer produces control voltages (CV) and audible oscillations in electronic circuits. Its sounds are made of electricity. Unlike the amplification of vibrating strings, the synthesizer is a wholly electronic instrument. CVs can include audio frequency oscillations but are more often lower frequency signals or triggered voltage events. The modular synthesizer uses…
Slow Pass synthesis involves combining audio rate modulation with very slow-moving modulation sources. For example, we might FM modulate one oscillator with another at audio rates while simultaneously feeding tiny fluctuations in voltage to the pitch of one of the oscillators (the slow pass CV). This broad technique is likely as old as synthesis itself.…
At the beginning of this year I demonstrated the basics of sound synthesis to a group of students with my Moog Werkstatt 01 semi modular synth and an oscilloscope. The demo was part of a Drawing Week workshop that I called Sound, Signal, Trace and taught with Peter Blamey at NAS (thanks Peter!). There were…
Treatment (Fleming Street), marks a shift in my practice. This work was created for the 2022 Cementa Festival. It was the first Expanded Synthesis installation. The first work that I’ve made specifically for a space that is not a gallery. The first time that I’ve shown work that comes from applying the knowledge that I’ve…
When I first described this project with synthesizers, I gave it the title ‘Synthesis’. I now realise that was a placeholder. There was a word missing. ‘Expanded Synthesis’ has the benefit of being more descriptive, more philosophical, and more poetic. My work with synthesizers is about expanding the functioning of synth modules. I am expanding…
Categories
Synthesis: 2021 Recap
The series of videos on this page show developments during the first year of the synthesis project. Some of this material appears elsewhere on this site. Read the project description if you want to find out more about the thinking that I’m doing around these works. Time poor? The first thirty seconds of each of…