For years now, I’ve been making electronic music which can be performed live, without using computers, synthesisers, samples, or preset sequencers. This generally involves setting up a table full of guitar effects pedals bought at pawn shops or cadged off friends, all connected with a rat’s maze of cables, to produce feedback loops. It’s inconvenient, but it’s fun when it works.
This type of feedback system, made without using anything designed to actually produce sound by itself, is often called the “no-input mixer”. Sketch for “A”-16 is a new piece I’m working on, my first attempt to make a piece for a no-output mixer.
The fundamental premise for the piece is a principle used by David Tudor in some of his compositions: that many electronic audio components have jacks that can be used for either input or output. I’ve used this aspect in my recent live electronic works, but Sketch for “A”-16 is the first piece I’ve made which is entirely based upon this property. It can only work if the inputs for each circuit are simultaneously working as outputs.
I’ve uploaded some examples of how the work’s going so far. They’re more of a proof of concept than a finished composition, but still work quite nicely as music, each with its own mood and sense of form. What you hear in these tracks is the combination of two simple bi-directional feedback loops. Future versions of this piece will use a greater number of components, to produce a greater and more subtle variety of sounds.
1. Sketch for “A”-16, take 1 (part 1) (3’48”, 2.97 MB, mp3)
2. Sketch for “A”-16, take 2 (16’15”, 12.95 MB, mp3)
3. Sketch for “A”-16, take 1 (part 2) (8’05”, 5.73 MB, mp3)
There is no editing, overdubbing, mixing or other post-production of any kind on these three pieces. Each was recorded directly to hard drive, with all sounds produced by analogue electronic feedback loops, created with closed circuits of effects boxes and an 8-input mixer.
