On the bus over to Heriot Toun studios the bus driver commented that there were two people going to Heriot at the same time. This is obviously a rare occurrence. I was sure that this person would be creating a Max patch and sure enough, half way through the journey, Scott pulled out his laptop and his Max patch appeared so I wasted no time in introducing myself. I felt a little bad as he's obviously a last minute patcher like I am and I think he felt obliged to make conversation rather than smarten up his software.
It is 4pm and right now we're tightening up Scott's patch for the rehearsal this afternoon which will start when Su-a arrives. I love last minute patching as it can cause all sorts of excitement but it is really hard to keep track of the updates. We've been making some improvements, adding slow panning to the processing and some refinement of the dynamics and gain structure throughout the patch. We've also added some preset management so that the fader assignments can be stored and recalled if the patch crashes ; ). I would like to be able to mix between the individual stems of processing but because the patch is quite processor heavy, it is too difficult to disentangle the stems Scott has summed in the patch to save CPU cycles in the short time available so this is something that will have to wait until the workshop is over.
The piece itself is very atmospheric and I know we are going to get a fabulous mix of this by the end of the project.
Scott's music is intense. The whole score is littered with microtonal shifts between all the instrumental parts. Whilst this may seem random at first as McFall's band worked through the piece, attention to details paid off. The moments of diatonic harmony that occasionally stand out work really well. The processing sustains pitches and harmonies from the individual instruments causing further microtonal noise.
We spent quite some time discussing the finer points of sul pont. (playing close to the bridge to induce an effect similar to guitar distortion) and trying to get to the bottom of the longer-term musical shape but we also had to produce a decent recording of the live parts so that Scott could make a satisfactory performance of the electronics once the band had gone home. This is a very useful part of the project, giving the composers the sound files of the band so that they can optimize their electronics designs after the workshop. A very generous gift on behalf of the band and to the cause of live electronic music making.
In future versions of the piece I'd like to see a lot more detail in the score itself both about the vision for the live electronics, (what should happen and when), more phrasing and shaping writing into the parts so that musicians know where the music is aiming, and details about what kinds of sound levels the live electronics computer needs when sent from the front of house desk for processing. Composers need to think carefully about the tolerances of input levels so that their patches will work as expected in any scenario.
In this piece I'm also curious about the role of the live electronics elements. It would be good to get a sense from Scott if these are for a performer (on stage with the players and riding faders) or out of the view of the audience and part of the "mixing" side of the presentation.
Right now Scott is making some final run through of his live electronics parts and as I thought, we're going to get a good mix of this work.
Alex is doing an incredible job of keeping this whole project together. Any project involving live electronics needs a sound expert who cares and Alex pays incredible attention to detail. We finished the day around midnight, making a final rough mix and bouncing stems for Scott to practice off line with. I stayed over at Heriot Toun to save me the commute back in. Proper darkness outside, shame the clouds were blocking the stars.
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