Making Synthesized Sounds More Acoustic (+ live show)
I'm playing live in the Mission in San Francisco, CA on the 28th, my first live show since I was a teenage noise bro. The best way to keep updated is to follow AV Club on Instagram (link has strobing).
And yes, I guess this has become an artist event newsletter, but I'll continue to bundle these with blog post announcements to avoid cluttering your inbox.
Speaking of blog posts, I intend to concentrate on DSP for the year's three remaining entries. Lately, I've been interested in synthesizing instruments that are neither real nor realistic, but rather capture some of the depth and complexity of acoustic instruments in ways that aren't always obvious when working with synthesis. I've compiled some of my notes on that into this month's blog post:
Making Synthesized Sounds More Acoustic | Nathan Ho
My first public performance in years will be at the HEXCODE 2 event, presented by AV Club on Saturday, 2023-10-28, at Gray Area in San Francisco, CA. The best way to keep up on this event would be to
Why not just use physical models? I do like them and hope to discuss them more on the blog, but they're not a shortcut in any sense, and they don't do your sound design for you unless there are already presets for them.
This is part of my efforts to return to my teenage aspirations to compose modern classical music (or Western art music or new music or whatever you call it) for acoustic instruments. I've been doing a lot of critical listening to composers in that tradition -- some favorites are Eric Wubbels and Gerard Grisey -- and trying to mimic not just the instrument sounds, but entire arrangements and pieces. What excites me most is what gets lost in translation and how I fail to perfectly replicate my influences, and the ways that it crossbreeds with my process and previous aesthetics. I'm pretty jazzed about the music I've been making in this vein, and hope to release it soon. (If you run a label, get in touch...)
Finally, a big thanks to my audience as usual. I've noticed an uptick in readers who have reached out and told me that they enjoy my writing or that it's inspired them to make something. I'm always touched by such interactions, you all are the best!