Re: Room sounds

["Dennis W. Leas" <dennis@mdbs.com>]

Yes!  That's Alvin Lucier and the CD is called "I Am Sitting in a Room"
Check out: 
http://www.cdemusic.org/cgi-bin/cde_search.pl?keywords=aluciercds
Recommended!

After being inspired by this recording, I've done something similar with an
EDP and a SPX-90 reverb.  I used the EDP as a long delay line (feedback=0).
The set-up looked something like:

                             in                out
        mic -----+------->   EDP  >----------|
                      |                                       |
                      |      out                 in        |
                      +-------< SPX-90 <-------+
                      |                                       |
                      |        out               in        |
                      ----------< mixer   <-------+------->speakers

so a portion of the EDP's output is returned dry to the EDP input and a
portion is returned after passing through the reverb.  The intention is to
simulate Lucier's set-up.  Of course, I really used aux/effect send/returns
and input channels to realize the set-up but the above diagram shows the
signal flow.  Mess with the EQ in the mixer path to simulate treblely or
bassy rooms, etc.

It's a little tricky to get the right gain structure so that the signal
level remains approximately the same with each repetition.  I had to "ride"
the send/returns a bit.  Some kind of compressor/limiter would be helpful
here.

My favorite input material was the local newspaper's High School sports
section.  The language is suitably inane.  I would read one or two
paragraphs.  As with Lucier's set-up, the sound goes through an amazing
transformation, smoothly turning into an abstract sequence of tones.  You
get a sense of the beauty hidden in even really trite writtings.

Never did perform this in public.  This set-up required too much prep.
Well, there's always the future...

Dennis Leas
-----------------------------
dennis@mdbs.com

-----Original Message-----
From: K. Douglas Baldwin <dbaldwin@suffolk.lib.ny.us>
To: Sean Witters <seanwitters@hotmail.com>; Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com
<Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com>
Date: Friday, June 04, 1999 11:35 AM
Subject: Re: Room sounds


>    This thread on room sounds reminds me of a process piece, perhaps by
Lou
>Harrison. The title, as I best recall, was/is "I Am Sitting In A Room..."
>and it consists of a short text which is read out loud. The text is the 
>set
>of instructions for performance. Here's a paraphrase:
>    "I am sitting in a room with a microphone about six feet away. This
>microphone's signal is being recorded onto tape. This recording will be
>played back from approximately where I am sitting, and recorded again. 
>This
>process will be repeated for as long as is practical, and the entire
process
>will be recorded."
>    The resulting recording would then consist of this short spoken piece
>repeated over and over, slowly degenerating into room resonance and 
>circuit
>resonance until it sounded like a bit of musique concrete. There may have
>even been an instruction to play the entire thing backwards somehow,
>allowing the text to emerge from the cloud of resonances. Can anyone
>identify this piece better?