Feedback [1-5]

About

This is an artifact from a number of sonic experiments with feedback I created in 2008. Feedback and harsh noise was in the forefront of my mind after living with fellow Mills College graduate David Holton. He would spend all day hunched over a Mackie mixer configuring aux send and receives to master the signal flow. Not only was it inspiring to see someone so dedicated to their craft, the sonic result was extraordinary.

Witnessing Dave inspired me to investigate feedback within the computer. I used Reason, Max/MSP, and an Oxygen 8 MIDI controller. I started by looping one output back into an input and adjusted sends and receives on a virtual mixing board. First with one channel, then with two, three, etc.. Eventually, I added basic processing (effects) to the channels. Every sound is purely digital from within the machine.

After I updated my OS, these feedback works became dead. I did not update my copy of Reason, my Max patches were lost and I never reconfigured my MIDI mapping. Maybe this is the nature of working with electronic sound; it is ephemeral. However, the memory of creating these improvisations remain. I was sitting in a hot dorm room at Amherst College, my headphones on, twisting knobs, observing the audio meters pegged into the red. It was the summer, it was sweaty, it was the perfect environment for creating some noise.

Years later (it is now 2014) I stumbled upon these feedback recordings on an old external drive. I selected five tracks and left the others stored away; most likely to obscurity. This is a compilation of those recordings. I like how they turned out and hope you do too.

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Feedback [1-5] (Full quality .aif files and .pdf | 289.7 MB)