Neophyte question on computer noise

[RicheyCorll]

Hello noise-lovers!

I'm an avid consumer of noise music, but something of a technology and equipment neophyte. I have a guitar, Gristelizer, Black audio Destructor and some other gear, but am also keen to elarn how the likes of John Wiese, Icapacitants or Merzbow are able to generate such ear-splitting high-pitched squeals using their laptops. Is it a specific software? If so, is it available for Macs? I'm guessing there's more than one method, but feel taking the dumbass approach ensures I get the best feedback.

I also noticed when I went to see Pain Jerk perform live that he had a weird, slender board that he would rub with a piece of circular metal to produce amazingly loud and crunching noise. Anyone knows what that could be?

Many thanks to anyone who can recommend anything that could help me learn more on this noise journey.

[Ciderfeks]

Hi Richey,
Most of the people I know who make noise music use either Max or Pure Data (PD), both of which are available for the Mac. You pay for Max whereas PD is free and a quick Google search will get you to it. There is now also a version of Max for Ableton Live which provides you with loads of handy ready made instruments/effects and access to the building blocks of Max patches in a familiar Live style interface.

Also some friends of mine run an arts group in France (APO33 find them on Facebook) with leanings towards noise music and they have come up with their own Linux based mutimedia OS which they call Apodio. You can create a partition on your Mac (or put it on its own drive) and it comes with tons of audio/visual tools, all freeware and is arguably everything you'd need. Apodio is free and you can download it here: http://www.apodio.org/

Also, if you're anywhere near London look up A10lab on Facebook as they run reasonably regular workshops in Peckham with all things related to Noise, hacked hardware/software and generally interesting things.

I've no idea what that instrument you described was, but you will soon find yourself making your own anyway. Get yourself some Piezo transducers and you can turn the most unlikely items into noise makers which in combination with a computer system will provide you with almost limitless possibilities.

I think I just sounded like an old Korg advert....

[Ciderfeks]

On the subject of that unidentified instrument you spoke of, purely by chance i was just browsing the Get LoFi shop and noticed this instrument which sounds not a million miles from what you described - they call it a Dingjo and the current revision comes with a can pickup and is $50. It's here: http://www.getlofi.com/?page_id=1837

[Z3R0]

This isn't computer noise as such but you might find this interesting.

If you want to make a custom instrument as a means of extreme noise then a junk guitar of some description is a good bet. You can make them out of almost anything. I made mine out of a piece of aluminium extrusion and a bag full of springs i bought off of ebay. Just random springs attached to bolts i screwed into the extrusion. It's not the most versatile instrument by a long shot but for live performance in power electronics and noise territory it's a good bit of kit.

All you need other than your pieces of chosen noise making metal are a piezzo mic disc and a 1/4 inch output socket wired to it. I attached mine by bolting a small abs project box to the junk guitar and adding an on off swith to cut it off as needed.

Cheap and powerful in the right circumstances


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z51AfIAzYbQ


Merzbow inspired sonic nihilism! ? ! ?



Sorry if my contribution to this is a bit late. I haven't been on here for about 8 months..

If you'd like to assemble some samples of raw computer data to process as part of a noise set then reading eproms and opening the data files in something like soundforge or some other sample editor will give you just that. Ear splitting streams of data.

[untune]

On the subject of that unidentified instrument you spoke of, purely by chance i was just browsing the Get LoFi shop and noticed this instrument which sounds not a million miles from what you described - they call it a Dingjo and the current revision comes with a can pickup and is $50. It's here: http://www.getlofi.com/?page_id=1837

Haha, so they just ripped off a diddley bow and stuck a price tag on it