Recordings and Complexes

‘ . . . the source was “a tape of a tape of a tape of a dub of a tape.”’ (Robbie Robertson in Schwartz 1995:13 n.8)

Applications; equipment set-up

Although the doublerecordings and recovered recordings were mainly produced using standalone applications developed in Max, it is not my intention to discuss the applications in depth here. To a certain extent similar effects could have been made using a generic multichannel sound editor. The ‘Doublerecorder’ 12 and ‘Doubleplayer’ 13 both used the same algorithms

or pre-selected recording durations and delay latencies between the stereo channels of recordings. In this respect, the automated proliferation of short recordings, in close succession to one another, was the Doublerecorder’s main effect. The delays themselves, in both applications, could also be understood as a part of this automated production of successive recordings, rather than as only an echo effect.

the internal microphone of a laptop 14, many of the subsequent recordings and

rerecordings used the same recording equipment and set-ups as the other

15.

12

13 See DVD II: Doublerecordings/Applications/Max/Doubleplayer 1.0; Doubleplayerdelay 1.0.

14

Complexes 16: doublerecordings; rerecordings; doublererecordings; recovered doublerecordings; variable doublerecordings; clones

The DR applications evolved together with the doublerecordings and a further series of methodologies and recordings that were developed simultaneously. or ‘recovering’ doublerecordings; and by rerecording them either using generic technologies or again through the Doublerecorder (‘doublererecording’). In the same way that the DR application produced two marginally different

rerecorded and ‘recovered’ versions of these.

Together these built up complexes of related recorded sounds accretionally, which themselves remained open to most of the same ‘double’ procedures

17. The complexes of recordings that were produced were neither intended

potential of further and future recordings.

This focus on the multiplicity of recordings and echoic effects, rather than the and evaluative approach to the resultant recordings. Many of the DR recordings further highlighting the range of effects that the different latencies produced. Doublerecordings

After the initial development of the DR applications, the doublerecordings 18

project. The automation of the DR application, the randomised, brief recording

16 This describes a group of individual recordings that are considered associated together, rather than only in isolation (e.g. through an original place or time of production; or by a subsequent procedure such as rerecording).

17 Apart from the rerecordings from loudspeaker playbacks. 18 E.g. DVD I: Tracks 19-22;

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edited, made it possible to make many doublerecordings in quick succession. The duration of the doublerecordings (and therefore the other DR recordings), typically ranged from a few seconds to under three minutes.

Rerecordings 19

rerecordings, these were developed more decisively in the subsequent projects. This was partly because the effects of the rerecording process were more evident in the smaller and more regular shaped spaces the later rerecordings were produced in. However, there was no attempt to reduce these effects in DR.

process, in DR it provided a further strategy of ‘double’ recording, which added of rerecording, in this way, became audibly implicated with virtual echo effects. Rerecordings, by producing echoes and reverbs, also foregrounded and ‘naturalized’ these effects, as an inevitable part of the recording process, and, by doing so, exposed the work and illusion of stereo realism.

Recovered doublerecordings 20

listed the random durations and delays of the doublerecordings made during its run-time. This made it possible to accurately reverse the effect of the recordings.

Clones 21

19 DVD I: Tracks 8-12 (CD051115_01).

20 DVD I: Tracks 13-17 (CD051115_02). E.g. compare DVD I: Tracks 23 (original doublerecording) and 24 (‘recovered’ doublerecording (rerecording from loudspeaker playback)).

reproduced. Although digital copying has no effect on the sonic quality of an production of a digital copy of a recording, on a hard drive or CDR 22.

CDRs were numbered each time a further CDR copy was made (e.g. ‘_c4’). In this way the physical materiality of each recorded copy became related to the ‘versioning’ of the doublerecordings themselves. Each further instance of a this to the repetition or reproduction of a singular or original point 23.

Variable doublerecordings

An adaptation of the DR algorithm, which could be applied to either application, also variably altered any delay set during recording or playback; using a line input to produce a continuously variable delay over the duration of a recording. This moved from an echoic to a non-echoic effect, making it possible to slowly ‘recover’ a doublerecording to a classic stereo recording 24.

Although the variable delay was not used extensively in DR, it suggested a together with both further genres of recorded sound and real-world acoustics; echo and reverb. This production of a ‘smooth continuum’ between different

The variable delay also relates the DR recordings more explicitly to the use of gain modulation in Sonicinteractions, through the persistent exploration of a single, linear axis of recorded sound. In the case of DR, the stereo format itself might be considered as a parameter of recorded sound, which works against its typical habituation through realism. The DR recordings, within this paradigm, can be understood as adjustments to and from stereo realism; classic stereo recording, or of a virtual echo.

22 This strategy quickly became unworkable. 23 Cf. Simulacra.

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CDR format

recordings, also encouraged an enquiry into whether it would be possible to play these back in a more coherent and sustained way, without then losing their transitory and contingent qualities. The question of format was ultimately left unresolved in DR, and a series of CDRs were made from selected doublerecording complexes 25.

Whereas the doublerecording playbacks through the DR application preserved

original doublerecordings 26

be realised in the live production and simultaneous diffusion of a DR complex within a sound installation.

Because the DR recordings were produced randomly, in large numbers, it is not possible to individually detail all of these. Instead, the recordings that make up the DR complexes written onto CDRs are mainly presented here. 5 CDRs were ultimately produced which were each arranged around an individual doublerecording complex. The complexes were either related together by their content, the millisecond length of a delay, or methodology.

Field recording content

informed each of the projects in this thesis 27

recordings were made randomly and repeatedly from my own daily life, and the recorded content was nearly always contingent on where I happened to be; rather than deliberately sought out. Local production noises, such as equipment

25 DVD I: Tracks 7-12 (CD051115_01);13-17 (CD051115_02); DVD II: Doublerecordings/ CDR.

26

mundane, everyday sounds of a rural UK environment. These included natural sounds (e.g. wind; leaves; birds) and indoor and outdoor technological noises (e.g. washing machines; computers; TV; DIY noises; garden and agricultural

Some of the original DR content directly related to the real-world environmental presence of echo and reverb (e.g. in room ambiances or night-time exteriors). A number of doublerecordings also intentionally included real-world echoic

28. These further connected to

independently featured echo and reverberation 29.

ubiquitous presence of recorded and mediated sounds in the environment. A number of the doublerecordings also included brief extracts from two DVD

30. Although these were only indirectly appropriated, the recordings in DR

were also intended to more broadly suggest and relate to further recording instances through their use of delay.

28 DVD I: Tracks 15-17, 26. 29 DVD I: Tracks 27, 28.

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