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Cinema Volta
John Maxwell Hobbs
Cinema Volta
John Maxwell Hobbs
Version #3
Just taking this through a number of different mutations. 2005-05-28

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 28, 20050 min read
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Slower
A variation on yesterday. By making it slower and changing the voices, some of the intervals and the tuning, it doesn't feel as sad. 2005-05-27

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 27, 20050 min read
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Today
Instead of working from a technique or a set of sounds that interested me, I set out to create a track that reflected my mood today, using fairly traditional means - no tricky effects or patches, just some standard sounds and a little bit of reverb. This is sort of a canon and does a good job of expressing how I feel at the moment. 2005-05-26

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 26, 20050 min read
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A little tweeky
Still traveling down the same river here. I took yesterday's didjeridoo recording and added a more processing, using the sound to control even more parameters. I'm working on getting this setup to work more smoothly and responsively - I think there's some potential buried in here somewhere. 2005-05-25

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 25, 20050 min read
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. . . and deeper
Another didjeridoo track using the same system as yesterday. This time it's controlling the parameters of a different set of effects. I think the control signal to result process is a little more apparent in this one. 2005-05-24 By the way, this is the 100th track so far.

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 24, 20050 min read
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Digging deeper
I expanded on yesterday's idea. This time, the audio signal from the didjeridoo is being used to control a number of the effects parameters. So, as the playing gets more active, so do the effects. 2005-05-23

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 23, 20050 min read
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Delayed response
This is a very rough, quick sketch for something that needs to be explored further. I've created a whole set of effects that are only triggered when the didjeridoo goes above a certain volume. There's a lot more that can be done with this approach. 2005-05-22

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 22, 20050 min read
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So you can dance underwater and not get wet
Took yesterday's track, cut the tempo in half and stuck it underwater. 2005-05-21 A big thank you to the latest contributer for the very generous donation.

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 22, 20050 min read
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Recast
Here's a variation on yesterday's. Strings instead of piano and now it's in just intonation. 2005-05-20

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 20, 20050 min read
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Return
This is a very old fashioned type of track for me. 2005-05-19

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 19, 20050 min read
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Attempting to make chaos out of order
I did this track with Garageband, which is a truly amazing program that I wish was available when I was 16 years old. I'm still pretty happy to have it now. Garageband does a great job of pulling everything into line, matching tempos, keys and phrases. I've worked quite hard to create something that feels quite disorganized from it. 2005-05-18

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 18, 20050 min read
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Digital generation loss
One of the fun things about doing recursive processes in the old analog tape world was discovering the interesting sound quality that would arise from the generation loss as you bounced the signal from tape to tape. This doesn't really happen in the digital world, where copies are perfect. One thing that I have been doing during this project is using the MP3 files as the source material, so as we progress through generations of encoding and decoding, there is the introducti

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 17, 20050 min read
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So, anyway . . .
Just a big wash of sound. Press play, sit back, relax and ignore it. 2005-05-16

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 17, 20050 min read
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25% !
This project is now one quarter of the way through. To celebrate that, I morphed two of my favorite tracks so far. Can you guess which two they are? 2005-05-15

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 15, 20050 min read
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Return of the long wooden tube
As promised yesterday, the dijeridoo makes a return appearance, this time sent through the feedback machine and a whole bunch of frequency and spectral processors. 2005-05-14

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 15, 20050 min read
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Slamming into a brick wall at full speed
I reintroduced the feedback machine with a few modulation and panning twists. I think I've taken this path as far as I can at the moment. Tomorrow - the return of the long wooden tube! 2005-05-13

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 13, 20050 min read
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Slightly veering to the left
Similar processes to the last few, but no feedback this time. There's delay lines and moving filters. Amazing to think that this all began with a simple sine wave. 2005-05-12 A big thanks to the person who sent a donation yesterday.

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 12, 20050 min read
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Flogging a dead horse
Continuing with the feedback machine process. This time there's a slight difference. I used yesterday's track as the source for the feedback, but this time set up the feedback machine as a send instead of as an insert, so you can still hear the original track beneath the new sounds. 2005-05-11

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 11, 20050 min read
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Second verse, same as the first
Same process as yesterday, using yesterday's track as the trigger, with another moving filter and a reverb added. 2005-05-10 For those of you who live in Sweden, Denmark, Norway or Switzerland, Apple's iTunes Music store is now available to you. This means that you can buy Cinema Volta albums online. If you live in Switzerland, it also means you can get one free song.

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 10, 20050 min read
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Round and round
Continuing in the same vein. I took yesterdays track and used it as the source material for the feedback machine I created. I tweaked the parameters a bit and came up with this. My wife thinks it sounds like a Doctor Who soundtrack. 2005-05-09

John Maxwell Hobbs
May 9, 20050 min read
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