Ciat-Lonbarde KARPER Tocante

Cool pic of the Ciat-Lonbarde KARPER Tocante via @ctl_mod/CONTROL

"One of our favorite Peter B designs yet, the new Ciat-Lonbarde KARPER Tocante"

Peter Blasser of Ciat-Lonbarde on the Tocante Karper

via PETER B : JUST B

"The new 'Tocante Karper' uses 24 pic chips in parallel to synthesize karplus-strong string emulations, in the Tocante scale. That scale is initially based on a very analog thing- the capacitor values in an E6 preferred number set. For example: 10, 15, 22, 33, 47 and 68 are my starting numerology. Because they are integers, and also because the frequency varies as the reciprocal of the capacitance (bigger capacitor, lower frequency), it ported over seamlessly to sixteen bit string buffers of different lengths..."

Click through above for the full post. You'll find previous posts under the Tocante and Ciat-Lonbarde channel labels below.

TOCABASSKARP

Published on Nov 16, 2015 Peter B

Audio starts on left channel only. Peter B is the man behind ciat-lonbarde. I created a new Tocante channel for these. Click through for previous posts.

"Demonstrating three new Tocante instruments: Bass Thyris, Bass Bistab, and Karper, which is parallel microchips doing string synthesis in the Tocante scale."

Some additional info via Tocante:

"Zenert is a simple name, deriving from the source of its noise, a zener diode, and the spectral flavoring applied by a simple resonant circuit, the twin-t. Its operation diverges from the previous Tocante pieces, where finger-touch simply connected oscillator outputs to an amplifier. In Zenert, finger-touch injects the zener noise into the inputs of the flavoring circuits. So instead of a number of discrete symbols at its rim, Zenert has a band of copper tracing, scripted to mimic the waveform of noise. The inner nodes, for circuit bending on Thyris, Bistab and Phashi, are now the injection points for each resonance. The resonators on Zenert share the same tuning-by-capacitor scheme, establishing continuity with the previous ones. Thus Tocante shares a two-faced nature with its nemesis, Ieaskul F. Mobenthey; looking backward to previous designs for the general framework and manifesto, but looking forward to new ways to break out of the mold.

The Tocante line of musical instruments is "about" and "touching" the materials of electronics. Each touchpad represents a pitch according to industry "preferred numbers," chosen by old wartime engineers for non-musical purposes. Here they form a unique and haunting musical scale, not unlike that of a gamelan or the neutral intervals of Persian music. Beyond these base pitches, three golden sandrodes flank each touchpad; touching these androgynous nodes yields intermodulation, pitch and timbral shifts, and emergent chaotic masses. The instruments come in three flavors: thyris the triangle, bistab the square, and phashi the circle. The oscillators sound like a bowed string, a most powerful clarinet, and a howling serene whistle, respectively. Each responds to touch differently. Solar panels charge the onboard batteries, that power the oscillators and a speaker. They are the perfect self-contained instrument for nightly music at the campground."

The New Church of Wine

Published on Oct 24, 2015 Wein Glas

"Weinglas starts shoegazing ;)

What you see is what you hear: Just a Ciat Lonbarde Tocante Phashi into an Industrialectric RM-1N!"

Tocante Phashi Love 9

Published on Jul 3, 2015 Smokey Quartz

"I play the Tocante Phashi until my fingers loose conductivity on a hot July morning."

Ciat-Lonbarde's Peter B. Drops by Control with Zenert Tocante & Dunst

via @ctrl_mod

"Peter B. came by yesterday & dropped off the new "Zenert" Tocante & the new "Dunst" eurorack module. Both in-stock! "

http://ctrl-mod.com/

Tocante Phashi Love 8

Published on Jun 3, 2015 Smokey Quartz

"We play the Tocante Phashi with a HiWatt Echo Theremin plugged into the Phashi's output jack. It's a shrill, harsh, late-night, in your pajamas type of noise jam."

Tocante Phashi Love 7

Published on May 29, 2015 Smokey Quartz

"Sitting by the creek, playing the Phashi."

Uses of Zener Noise

Published on May 28, 2015 Peter B

Peter B is ciat-lonbarde.

"Here are the final products of explorations in zener noise, which is created by a differential network of reverse-biased transistors.

The first is a Tocante instrument, called Zenert. It is inspired by my experience playing tuba for a noh play, Matsukaze, wherein I learned a technique for emulating wind in the pines. Zenert allows you to inject pure noise into an array of twin-t filters, tuned like the rest of Tocante instruments, to the preferred number series of industrial electronic components. It thus offers a palatte of resonant noise sounds, for whispering, whistling, and pining.

The second use is a parallel thrust, but in Eurorack format. Ieaskul F. Mobenthey announces a fifth module, called Dunst. Dunst is short for "Dust and Noise," but in Jagersprache it also means a fine-grained shotgun. It is inspired by Supercollider's Dust opcode, which generates random timing pulses. It does this two ways: with a calculated, arbitrary-bounded ramp wave; and by comparing zener noise against a reference to yield different stochastic distributions.

Both are available at http://synthmall.com"

Tocante Phashi Love 6

Published on May 27, 2015 Smokey Quartz

"I emerge from the tall stinging nettles to find a Tocante Phashi just laying on the ground near the creek! And a field recorder! What are the odds? Of course, I have to sit down and jam for a bit."

Tocante Phashi Love 5

Published on May 26, 2015 Smokey Quartz

"In this Tocante Phashi Love video, I play a mournful Phashi above a creek while sitting on a rotting tree."

POLY LOVES PHASHI 4

Published on May 24, 2015 Smokey Quartz

"In this video the Ekdahl Polygamist makes love to the Tocante Phashi. Or is it the other way around? Either way, it is consensual but not very "sensual" in the ordinary sense. Stick around as towards the end I start making out with Phashi to make Poly jealous… don't worry, I don't lick it.. hot breaths only!"

POLY LOVES PHASHI 3

Published on May 23, 2015 Smokey Quartz

"So you take two Knas Ekdahl Polygamist oscillators (7 if you include the audio rate LFOs, ADSR, and self-oscillating filter, 10 if you include the sub-pitches of VCO2) detune them and add a Tocante Phashi… then what????"

POLY LOVES PHASHI 2

Published on May 22, 2015 Smokey Quartz

"A sunset love drone between the Tocante Phashi and Ekdahl Polygamist."

POLY LOVES PHASHI 1

Published on May 18, 2015 Smokey Quartz

"In this video, the Tocante Phashi is plugged into the Ekdahl Polygamist and I record their first encounter. Awkward meeting or love at first sight? Also, the infamous Girl Party ladies take a face painted bath. We had too much fun making this video, if such a thing even exists."

Tocante Phashi Love 1

Published on May 10, 2015 Smokey Quartz

"After an afternoon for charging in the sun, I have a short post-sunset Phashi jam while getting sucked on by mosquitos. I'm not licking the instrument but breathing on it to unleash some nice drones."

"These are solar powered synthsizers with built in speakers, made by the guy who does the Ciat-Lonbarde stuff."

Peter Blasser's superORGAN

superORGAN I: Rainforest Airport

Published on Dec 1, 2014 Peter B

These are in order. Be sure to see part 2 & 3 below for different takes. Peter Blasser is the man behind Ciat-Lonbarde.

"When a computer controls a pipe organ, it can trigger the notes really fast. If you get it fast enough, just barely attacking the pipes, it can elicit all sorts of squeals and pukes. In the computer music conference of 2014, we installed an incarnation of David Tudor's Rainforest next door to Wesleyan Chapel, in its airport-like lobby. Referring to the bacchanal nature of this lobby, and also the pre-show routines of Tudor, came half of the initial lyrics: a list of alcohols. The other half came from the odd chambres and containers used in Rainforest: a styrofoam cooler, a gourd, copper helmet. These objects all have resonant peak frequencies, of course, and a challenge came to emulate them on the pipe organ next door, so musics could waft throughout the sacred and the secular.

Thus part one in this piece for midi organ: superORGAN. Supercollider is the scripting language, and also synthesizer of accompanying sound-worlds, originally made for playing through rainforest objects, but now using the pastor's sound system in the chapel. Here is a list of pipes: vox humana, bassoon, clarinet, french horn. Here is a list of religious terms: liturgy, stole, vow, tabernacle, multi-denominational, pallium, papal, rome, synod, chalice, vespers... crypt. Note the recording is a rare, close-miking, intended to hear the strange whispers of windy pipes in the night."

SuperORGAN II: Resistor Zoo

Published on Dec 1, 2014 Peter B

"When a computer controls a pipe organ, it can trigger the notes really fast. Here the goal is to put only a tiny puff of air into a pipe, to hear the so-called chiff sound, like a consonant before the long vowel of a speaking pipe. Usually one records an organ out in the church, to hear it echoing off the walls and sounding like the voice of God in space. Here, I chose to shove the microphones physically into the chests, so you can hear the sound of various valves, squeaky bellows, and other aspects of the machinery of the universal voice.

Composing computer music for the pipe organ can entail exploring the relationship between tunings. This movement pits the scale encountered in designing an analog synthesizer tuned by raw capacitor values (tocante) against the organ's equal temperament. That forms the basis for the lyrics: "10,22,33,47,68,82,56,39,27." The dissonance between sonic systems is already present in the synthetic nature of loudspeaker sound versus the natural projection of tones by wind-pipe."

superORGAN III: Pile of Fourths

Published on Dec 1, 2014

"Adapting David Behrman's "Pile of Fourths" for the midi organ, I again came up to the possibility of dissonance in confronting tunings. The piece involves improvisational articulations on a ladder of fourths, easily played by the organ. The circle of fourths has always been a fascinating sound, but it also beguiles me with its numerical rationale of compounded powers of three. Did Pythagoras mean that we can hear exponents? Maybe we can, but I chose to command Supercollider to immediately calculate harmonic approximations to the pile of fourths, according to different sub-octaves of A440.

The contrasting pitch material decided, all I needed was a gradient fade between the pipe organ and the computer music. Difficult to fade a pipe organ, so I decided to use patterns to create a sort of primitive, MIDI pulse width modulation, starting with full duty cycle, and ending in the shortest, chiffest clicks of notes. Likewise, I faded the computer music up in a granular way, extending event envelopes from very short to legato in gesture."

rolzer

Published on Oct 28, 2014 Peter B

"Tocante has made a version of the rolz-5 circuits. It is an expansion board for the plumbutter. Plumbutter has that nice voltage control for each of its rhythm generators (rolz) but they lack the pure crunchy ultrasound paradox capability of the simple rolz. This expansion board is to make up for that; the rolz are tuned by capacitors, in the range of 1 microfarad, through 1.5, 2.2, 3.3, 4.7, 6.8, up to 10 microfarads (allegro to larghissimo). The odd beats and strange interjections are caused by wiring them to each other. They are all "brown nodes" as on the plumbutter, androgynous, both input and output. Here, they are processed by plumbutter's ultrasound filter, and a gongue and snare drum.
http://ciat-lonbarde.net/rollz5/
http://ciat-lonbarde.net/plumbutter/
http://synthmall.com/tocante/"