For this project, I used a recording of a Kalimba riff from a friend.

1. Recorded IR1 (Maggie Mo Hallway), IR2 (WestWing staircase, balloon pop at top recorded at bottom). Recorded IR3 (myself saying “Kalimba”. Used a sample for IR4 (a water drip sound effect)
2. Ran the kalimba riff in Max through all 4 convolution effects and recorded through ‘sfrecord~’ Code: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/978888ce9c3f36fe2fdfb96b659bee4f

Here are the results:

I really liked the sound of this, and decided to make a track through Ableton Live.

Track explanation as follows:

1. Percussions (kick, clap, claves, woodenruffle, drip, underwater-twirl-sound, chimes): except for kick, and chimes, all other reverb effects were used by running the original sample through the Max patch with IR1 as the convolution effect.

Kalimbas:

1. Starts off with the original riff, adding the IR1 IR2 IR3 IR4 riffs each loop. IR3 is pitched down two octaves to provide a bass-ier feel.
2. Once all are included, the oiginal riff IR1 IR2 IR4 fades away in order each loop. IR3 is kept at the very end (wanted to end the track with the distant “kalimba” voice within the kalimba reverb.

Apart from a tiny bit of compression (Ableton built-in) and limiter (George Yohng’s W1) added, not much else mixing is done (my apologies).

I’d like to make a playable 3x Oscillator in Max. The basic functionality will be three separate oscillators with switchable waveforms which can be (de)tuned and volume adjusted separately. On top of hooking this up to a keyboard (and maybe functionality to have it read from USB Midi input?) I could also implement a bunch of user-customizable options like hi/lo pass filters, panning, reverb, and EQ options. I could also add some visualizations of the resulting waveform.

For this assignment, I made patch utilizing a sample from the intro vamp of an old radio play narrated by Vincent Price.

The recording I provided uses all four convolutions at once — 3 of which are only played once and the fourth, which is a simple IR from a stairwell is offset from the others and then put through a large set of delays to generate a cascade of sound — as if it is coming from multiple sources placed close together in the same room.

The two impulse recordings which are not actual impulses were chosen by how the fit together and were edited for length so that they could be played simultaneously and build to a wall of sound before tapering off.

The end result is below.

I think even further narrative content could be developed by carefully made audio cues. However, I think these may be better triggered using a launchpad rather than programming each in — so there is a greater element of indeterminacy.