Category: recording

  • making sense of: recording

    making sense of: recording

    On July 20th 2023, with the help of Jorge Vallejo, Karin Schistek and I recorded my solo piano piece making sense of at the Folkwang University’s Tonaufnahmestudio. There are no electronics in this piece but Jorge did make a single-camera video recording—with some music manuscript paper flourishes after the recording was done—which Karin then used…

  • in competence: ZKM recording

    in competence: ZKM recording

    From the 18th-22nd December 2022 Trio Abstrakt and I rehearsed and recorded in competence in the Kubus of ZKM Karlsruhe. This c. 70-minute through-composed work was commissioned by Trio Abstrakt  and premiered by them, just prior to the recording, at the Alte Feuerwache in Cologne, on December 3rd. Programme notes in English and German are available…

  • Se tu porti il vino, io faccio il pesto (for Roberto Doati)

    Se tu porti il vino, io faccio il pesto
    (for Roberto Doati)

    I’ve just made a binaural render of my Se tu porti il vino, io faccio il pesto. This was written (very quickly!) in 2020 and composed/mixed/mastered in 3rd-order ambisonics (16-channels). I took the opportunity to remaster this binaural stereo version using, amongst other things, Melda’s MCompressor plugin. I love this tool because it allows me to finely-tune several stages of…

  • ma bell premiere (and recording with Ambeo mic)

    ma bell premiere (and recording with Ambeo mic)

    On January 10th 2022 Michael Pattmann premiered ma bell, a reworking of ma bel. For one beautiful bell and four percussion groups consisting of six objects each of wood, metal, drum, and plate plus computer (the latter producing 3rd-order ambisonics surround sound) this is essentially a piece for percussion and sampler, in the form of…

  • WDR Broadcast on Electronic Composition @ ICEM (in German)

    WDR Broadcast on Electronic Composition @ ICEM (in German)

    On September 21st 2020 I was a guest of Johannes Zink and Frank Hilberg at WDR Cologne. Johannes and I spoke about the Institute for Computer Music and Electronic Media at the Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen, in particular the compositions of my students of Electronic Composition there (Tamon Yashima, Sebastian Wendt, and Tim…

  • gold im bach

    gold im bach

      The title gold im bach arose from a discussion I had with Karin Schistek during a trip in summer 2019 to Camogli, near Genoa, Italy. I had made a mock-up of this new piece with my algorithmic composition software slippery chicken and we’d been listening to it in the background over a cheap bluetooth…

  • Premiere of Durchhaltevermögen in Münster

    Premiere of Durchhaltevermögen in Münster

    In May 2018 I was in Münster with edimpro colleagues Dimitris Papageorgiou and Karin Schistek to give improvisation workshops to students at the Hochschule für Musik. Mieko Kanno was with us to perform a lovely new work by Dimitris for electric violin and computer called deti. That work showcased Mieko’s research project ‘Modelling a Virtual…

  • elsewhere, with Mike Svoboda

    elsewhere, with Mike Svoboda

    elsewhere by Edwards/Hayes/Michalakos/Parker/Svoboda Back in May 2012, while Mike Svobodo was visiting Edinburgh to do some workshops with University of Edinburgh postgraduate students, some locals, including myself, did a free-improvisastion concert with him. We recorded it and finally got around to mixing and mastering it before releasing it on bandcamp in 2017. It’s a single-track…

  • three back-to-back edimpro releases

    three back-to-back edimpro releases

    forest by edimpro alison by edimpro heated by edimpro Just before leaving the UK in September 2017, amongst packing boxes and the fifteen other circles of hell that accompany an international move, I managed to clear the decks of several mixes which had been lying semi-dormant on a hard drive, awaiting my attention. The result…

  • Recording “in limine” with Henrique Portovedo

    Recording “in limine” with Henrique Portovedo

      Henrique Portovedo and I have just finished recording my piece in limine, for two soprano saxophones and computer, written 2003-2005. We’ve now got to work on the mix and master before Henrique puts it on a release he has planned of my complete works for saxophone and electronics. I’ll be working first of all on a…

  • Music for Parallel Consumption: An open-ended self-reconfiguring musical composition as app

    Music for Parallel Consumption: An open-ended self-reconfiguring musical composition as app

    Composed in 2010 but not released until some final polish was applied in 2015, Music for Parallel Consumption is a 4-channel digital composition made for delivery and playback via a custom computer app. The title refers only partially ironically to the tendency to consume music as part of a backdrop to our otherwise-engaged lives. At the same time as offering…

  • Music for Parallel Consumption

    Music for Parallel Consumption

      Update, January 2016: This project has now been released on bandcamp It’s a lovely word but a little overused by self-help and marketing gurus: serendipity. Those familiar with talks on my slippery chicken algorithmic composition software are no doubt aware of the claims I make for the explorative potential of such systems. I argue…

  • The mNAP sound installation

    The mNAP sound installation

    Experiencing this sound installation involves stepping into a custom-built soundproofed box (the mNAP) and listening to the twelve-minute piece I made on stereo headphones. Simple feedback on the piece can made by participants via a custom iPad interface I programmed using MaxMSP and the Mira app. The audio file that mNAP participants hear inside the box…

  • step well cistern in the heart of Delhi

    step well cistern in the heart of Delhi

    This was a great find: a step well in the heart of Delhi, namely Agrasen Ki Baoli–see recordings location map. Not only did this have some interesting sonic reflections between the parallel walls you can see here but at the bottom it had a very low crawl space into the now empty water cistern. This…

  • Dilli Haat Food and Craft Bazar

    Dilli Haat Food and Craft Bazar

    Another shot of me with that far away look–no idea where that comes from because whilst recording these ambiences I feel very focussed on the present moment. In fact this type of recording process is extremely and instantly meditative for me, despite being in public and attracting a lot of stares and bemused looks from the…

  • for rei as a doe

    for rei as a doe

    My 40-minute algorithmic composition for piano and computer came out on the Aural Terrains label this month. Rei Nakamura premiered it in London (partial version) and Stockholm (complete version) in 2012. Karin Schistek played it in Bangkok, Trento (Italy), and Edinburgh before we took to the Reid Studio to record it on March 3rd 2013. Booklet text…

  • better a broken bone

    better a broken bone

    A new release of freely improvised music featuring me on saxophones and electronics, Christos Michalakos on drums and electronics, and Jack Weir on electric guitar is now available on the reid label. Christos did the graphic design and came up with the title, which I believe came from Majory Allen’s phrase “Better a broken bone than…

  • Bad Alchemy review of slippery chicken

    Bad Alchemy review of slippery chicken

    Rigobert Dittmann’s Bad Alchemy 75/12 review of my slippery chicken release has to be the best I’ve every received. Not because it’s the most flattering, but because the writing style is both hilarious and somehow deeply evocative of the music. Immediately below is the original text; it’s followed by my translation of the German. MICHAEL EDWARDS Algorithmic…

  • slippery chicken recordings

    slippery chicken recordings

    A multi-format, surround and stereo recording of five of my compositions made with slippery chicken is now available for order or download. Made possible by a grant from the AHRC, the recording accompanies the open-source release of my algorithmic composition software and includes liner notes in a beautiful poster-style print made by Timothy Donaldson. Liner notes below. slippery chicken…

  • not us

    not us

    Not Us by Not Us Fritz Welch and I have just released not us, a studio album made in my Edinburgh flat (in the sauna, actually). Recorded and mixed collaboratively between 2010 and 2012 it features two extended tracks using various percussion instruments played by Fritz and contributions on tenor saxophone and computer by myself.…

  • lapslap – granita

    lapslap – granita

    Our fourth and final (for this series at least) lapslap CD is now out on Leo Records. As the booklet text below attests, in contrast to our previous CDs I made the form for this one-hour piece in post-production. It was a labour of love but I wanted something special for this final CD and think it…

  • lapslap recording sessions, september 2010

    lapslap recording sessions, september 2010

    lapslap are Michael Edwards (saxophones, laptop), Martin Parker (horns, laptop), and Karin Schistek (piano, Nord synthesiser). We recorded free improvisations in the Reid Hall from the 8th to the 12th of September 2010. This was to be our fourth album on Leo Records. On September 11th, the American percussionist and 9/11 survivor Fritz Welch visited…

  • 5.0 mastering with the TC System 6000

    5.0 mastering with the TC System 6000

    To get to know the various dynamics, EQ, and reverb effects on the TC System 6000 I tried a mastering session with the 5.0 mix files of my piece 24/7: freedom fried for viola d’amore and computer.  This was recorded in September 2006 at ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany, by Garth Knox.  It was (is?) to be…