This sound bank is a compilation of runout grooves from most of my record collection of as January 2012. The idea to record and document these grooves came about when I found myself picking out a record with the intention of listening to the runout groove, after the music, for an extended period of time. I wouldn’t exactly call it therapeutic but its a sound I’ve heard ever since I was a child, have yet to grow tired of, and enjoy listening to while working. The patterns are all unique, utilizing the same sound palette of pops, clicks and static but once in a while there is a strange creak, a steady hiss, or a resonant hum from the motor, all in a perfect repeating pattern.

As with all audio and sample banks there are unlimited ways to utilize them. Some basic examples are to use them as source material and mangle it up with plug-ins.

- Sidechained to a kick with Amp Designer
- Soundhack Decimate with Valhalla Room
- Uhbik G with Valhalla Room
- Timestretched with Native Instruments Guitar Rig

A few of the records have etched or blank back sides which create interesting patterns depending where you place the needle and some are picture discs which tend to be noisier. Some of the records have lock grooves which I’ve decided to omit for copyright reasons.

The grooves were recorded with a Pro-ject RPM 1.3 turntable with a Sumiko Pearl cartridge in stereo at 24 Bit 48kHz. The files are normalized -3dB, meaning there is some headroom to play with and dynamics to take advantage of. The approximate natural tempos for a runout groove at 33 rotations per minute (RPM) is 133.6510 and at 45 RPM’s is 180.4290. Every file has fades on the top and tails so that they will seamlessly loop in your audio player without clicking.

Here is a free sampler download. It contains 2 standards runout grooves at 33 RPM, 45 RPM, and a picture disc side. Download Here – 14 mb!

$18 – Full Edition
Includes all 310 Runout Grooves at a comprehensive 1.2 gigs. Over 100 albums recorded and 1 hour 8 minutes of subtle runout grooves, noisy picture discs, etched sides, blank sides and a few incidental sounds.

$12 – 100 Edition
A selection of 100 Runout Grooves 395 mb. An efficient and versatile selection from the Full Edition. 22 minutes.

Background
I was born in Abergavenny, a smallish town in South Wales. I went to uni in London for 4 years and now live in Bristol. I started messing around with computer sound when I was 12 or so when my family got our first computer (an epic 186mhz) on this shitty MIDI programme called Evolution Audio Lite. I wrote a couple of potential xmas number ones on that – one anthem called Losenge, and another that consisted of one of the demo songs compressed down to a single beat. Then later got Fruity Loops v1 on a pirated mega-disk of music software my brother brought me back from Thailand, then worked up through every version until now (10).
Listening to the IDM classics got me motivated back then, these days music doesn’t so much. I have real motivational issues sometimes with music, especially when I’m under deadline pressure. The spiral usually goes like this: leave it too late -> don’t think I have enough time to make it as good as possible -> don’t think it’s going to be any good -> put it off -> leave it too late, etc. There a lot of other things I like doing and sometimes music doesn’t get my time for weeks (but when I go back I remember what I was missing and have an all nighter).

Current Favorite Hardware
If it counts, first is my computer by a long, long way. Most stuff that can be done in hardware can be done in software, and if it can’t someone is usually working on it. One thing software can’t very well yet is imitate the real world, so second is my Zoom H2 recorder and mic collection. I bloody love it. As soon as I bought it a couple of years ago it became my camera and I always keep it in my bag, just in case there’s some sound that I want. I’ve got some nice mics to go with it – some deep-ear binaural mics, some waterproofed contact mics (double up as hydrophones) and this relatively new one, a coil mic that picks up the electromagnetic fields of electronics (you can hear CPUs crunching numbers, it’s nuts). I’ve also modded the H2 ready for a soundfield mic that I’m making for capturing ambisonic recordings, for post-rec panning with head-tracking experiments. Third favourite is this little Roland Dr-Drum that I’ve taken the back off to expose the synthesis circuits. When you poke it, it sounds like the scream of someone trapped in a digital nightmare. Instaglitch. Crack a bit of reverb on it, job done.

Current Favorite Software
Synthmaker is fuckin wicked. I started playing with it when Max dropped their export to VST feature in favour of the Max for Live thing (which I have almost no use for, and when I thought I might do I’ve found it can’t do it yet). It’s done so many things right and in some ways I prefer it to Max. It’s so quick to prototype stuff in it that it’s changed what VSTs mean to me – now I tend to knock out ones that create a specific sound for a specific track, rather than more flexible synths etc. Plus it’s tightly integrated in FL which which is great. I’m a Max fan though, but I just use it for live stuff and sound generation, I’ve never found a way of knitting it fully into my setup. A couple of years ago I started programming, and that’s changed things because now I can make new tools for sound design and sequencing. For example, one thing I’m working on is sound painting – sculpting sounds from the ground up by painting their spectrums using a digitizer I got for xmas. Another is a tool for sequencing fractal-structured tracks with infinite zoom (i.e. as the track slows, the next layers emerge in the opening gaps between the beats), a bit like that fold 4 wrap 5 Autechre tune but controllable faster and slower. As for actual VSTs, xoxos.net has some really weird physical modelling ones which are great, and also the convolver that comes with FL is excellent – you can record the impulses of other plugins with it.

Workspace and Environment
I know this is Workspace and Environment, but they don’t really effect me too much to be honest. I find that when I get into the zone it doesn’t really matter where I am. I’ve snapped out of sessions and realised that I haven’t eaten since breakfast and that I’ve been needing a piss for the last 4 hours – where I am is the least of my concerns.

Are Ergonomics Important?
Very, after one summer without a mouse and keyboard and the savage aches and pains in my wrists that resulted. I sorted it out then and haven’t had a problem since.

Does Your City Affect Your Output?
Definitely, but I’m far more affected by the people around me than the music scene of the city itself.

Ideal Location
The massive dweeb answer: virtual reality. It would be bonkers. Music wouldn’t be just sound anymore because sound waves wouldn’t exist and you wouldn’t have eardrums to hear them if they did. Everything would become general sensory input. Smelling music and hearing light, etc, etc. Sound/visual synths that you control just by thinking about it. It brings up some interesting questions. How fast could you press a note of a keyboard or twist a dial if you weren’t limited by the physical speed of your finger? How many separate parameters could you control at once? I’ve thought about this way too much. A slightly more realistic location would be in some sort of floating sky-booth that sits above the clouds, like the London eye but not shit, a lot higher and with a stonking sound system.

Routine
Generally I make an effort to experiment with new techniques. It’s too easy to get locked in the same formula. A while ago I got muscle memory tweaking this one reverb to exactly the same sound, and put it on almost everything. I try to avoid that now. Though I guess my general process is to listen back to the tune I’m working on for little hooks and ideas (not necessarily intentional ones as I use some generative techniques), and then develop those. It’s by expanding and emphasising these anomalies that my tracks are made basically.

First Piece of Gear
My Event TR-8 monitors. Loved em then, love em now. When I bought them I cracked them on the floor facing each other and lay between them, listening to rain sounds of all things. I know you can more expensive ones with flatter responses, but unless your studio is in an anechoic chamber inside another one in space it seems a bit pointless getting posher ones since the room has much more of an effect…and I’ve been in acoustically turd rooms since I got them.

Last Piece of Gear
10 radios for one of my half-finished projects. My thoughts of them now are that I’ll probably never end up using them so I should just offload them to the chazza shop, but probably won’t. My thoughts of them in the future will be that I should have offloaded them to the chazza shop because I never used them, and now they’re just going in the bin.

How Many Workspaces Have You Had?
As many as I have had houses in the last 5 years…so 7. It hasn’t changed that much to be honest. It’s not the best studio but I only really use the monitors to listen to things really, really loud, generally I find a good pair of headphones better for mixing. The biggest change it got was when I got a sub a couple of years ago. The first thing I did when I got it (as everyone must do when they get a sub) is do a 20kHz to 20Hz sine sweep. I got a call 2 minutes later from my estate agent because the lady next door had ran to the office to complain that my ‘drum and bass music’ was rattling her picture frames. It goes down to 20Hz, and having this entirely new chunk of the spectrum really affected my music (and the neighbours), putting 20Hz rumble in tunes and that.

Extra Curricular
Me and my housemate made this silly animation recently that seems to be going down quite well on youtube. The internet does love cats it seems. Too much in fact because some people have actually bought the track. Some german public TV show contacted us to feature it and we’re getting 40 quid out of it which is nice.

- Vaetxh
- Rob Clouth Soundcloud

- Via Jonathan Snipes of Captain Ahab’s Twitter

A great podcast featuring in depth synth interviews conducted by a regular at TRASH_AUDIO events, Bizarro Lord Zool. There are only 4 interviews at the moment but I saw him hustling around NAMM interviewing lots of people so expect more.

- Waveform City Podcast

waveform city episode 02 gorillabox by waveform city

waveform city episode 01 christopher jon by waveform city

By Stretta

hardware: Livid Code
software: harmonic designer, drone designer and wavestep

download this software at http://cycling74.com

This is the companion video to Working With Hardware part three. In addition to a tutorial on how to build your own Max applications that use the Live Code, four free applications are included. These applications are demoed in this video.

http://cycling74.com/2012/01/04/working-with-hardware-livid-instruments’-code/

Drone Designer hosts audio effects plug ins, the sends of which are controlled from the Code. An Audio Damage Eos reverb was used on both the Drone Designer and wavestep examples. A tempo synced delay is included in wavestep.

4ms – PEG Quadratic Beats from Richard Devine on Vimeo.

Patch using two 4ms Pingable Envelope Generators. This was an experiment to see what rhythmic possibilities are possible using only two PEGs synced to the same LFO clock. This same clock also was controlling one MakeNoise Brains, and two pressure points. The output of the Pressures Points was CV controlling the PEG’s divided time divisions making some cool repeating glitchy effects.

http://www.4mspedals.com/peg.php

Background
I was born here in LA. I arrived here by being born – it got messy. Ive made music since I was a lonely wee lad. I had lots of time not having alot of friends and not getting laid, a few good motivational sources there. What keeps me motivated is my desire to keep motivated. I make as many decisions as I can afford to based on what will keep me interested and keep the proverbial flame lit, and of course I’d like to continue getting laid.

What is your current favorite hardware
Favorite current piece of hardware is almost always the most recent piece of hardware, right? That would be Make Noise Phonogene module, right now. Actually captured a spam cell call in the Phonogene this morning and fucked around with it, love that little thing. I would have to probably describe my access virus c as THE piece of hardware I couldn’t live without. Since a friend gave it to me, yeah, I know; GAVE it to me, I found its the workhorse. It does everything great. I also love my Andromeda A6, Little Phatty, etc. Oh , fuck, did I forget my OP-1? Christ that thing is creative.

Favorite current software?
Soundtoys. Decapitator. Decapitator. Decapitator. Did I mention Soundtoys?

Workspace and Environment
I try to shut out the day as much as possible. Its the Las Vegas casino strategy: if you don’t know what time it is, you’ll just get lost in it. I find ergonomics generally feel more fascist than comfortable. Just as long as you don’t move, you feel perfectly comfortable? Not me. Not for very long anyway.
I don’t think municipalities can always really have much of an effect on your work. Not site specifically really but LA has because I grew up in a multigenerational film family. My grandfather was an LA transplant re-recording engineer, father was an actor. Academy members, involved in the business and art of film. I think that directly informs my work, always has and probably always will. To a greater degree than anything else. Regardless of the style of music I am ever currently interested in, I am always listening to things in a cinematic way. A sense of place or environment has always been more important than melody or other more musical concerns. Not always consciously but always just the same.

What is your ideal workspace?
Wherever I am really. When I get too concerned with anything being just right, I generally just get a bigger than usual dosage of the blank canvas syndrome. The blank canvas becomes a giant white wall. Ok, everything is just right…ready…set…go…make genius happen now. I hope that makes sense. Plus, if I lived in a big scruffy warehouse space on a beach with a great surf break, I might be too busy counting my blessings everyday to get anything done.

I adhere to the by-hook-or-by-crook strategy. Whatever gets it done. I always hear people talk about rules “all the best music just flows out easily” blah, blah. Not for me. Sometimes the music that just flows out FEELS great but when I listen back a few days later I just think, “oh no its happened, I am officially a douchebag”. Sometimes it’s my best work but sometimes my best work comes from hammering the shit out of some idea for years until its listenable or makes some sense one day. Some folks might have tidy creative rules that apply. Not me. look at the accompanying pic of my workspace. I’m a fucking mess.

TipTop BD808, Snare, and Open/Closed High-hats-Patch 2 from Richard Devine on Vimeo.

Patching with the new TipTop BD808, Snare, and Open/Closed High-hats. Sequencing only with the 4ms Clock divider, SCM and one plan-b LFO.