Interview ​with ​Erdem ​Helvacioglu

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By Katharine Neil

“I have created a very complex mixing, routing system within
AudioMulch. This mixing system includes a total of 48 (and sometimes
more) different channels of FX that are all very different from each
other and all routed to each other in a special way”.

Turkish musician and composer Erdem Helvacioglu
has an international reputation for his electroacoustic music, and is
perhaps most well known for the way he combines solo guitar with live
electronics. As well as releasing critically acclaimed albums, Erdem
composes for film and theatre, and has been part of the lineup of
Turkish punk band Rashit.

Erdem is a long time user of AudioMulch, and we were keen to learn more about how he uses it.

How does AudioMulch fit into your sound design and production process?

Erdem: I can say that Audiomulch is one of the most important sound
design tools for me. I use it in every aspect of my work: film music,
electroacoustic composition and pop music production work. For pop
production, I process things like the drum tracks and vocals in
AudioMulch and export these new processed files for use in the final
mix of the song. For my film and electroacoustic work, I create more
complicated setups. These setups may involve the use of tens of
plug-ins at the same time and automation of hundreds of parameters.
Similar to my pop work, I export these sonic creations to be used
within the final mix.

How do you use AudioMulch in live performance?

I use Audiomulch with my acoustic guitar setup. This setup includes
an Ovation custom legend 1869 electric-acoustic guitar, a Sansamp
acoustic DI, a Carl Martin compressor, a Behringer FCB 1010 MIDI foot
controller, a TC Electronic Fireworx hardware multi effects processor
and a small analog mixer. The guitar signal is routed to the
compressor, the acoustic DI and then finally to one of the mixer
channels. Through the two aux sends, this signal gets routed to
AudioMulch and TC Fireworx. The outputs of AudioMulch and the Fireworx
get connected to the mixer too. This allows me to send these two
different systems to each other for more interesting sonic results. I
have created a very complex mixing, routing system within AudioMulch.
This mixing system includes a total of 48 (and sometimes more)
different channels of FX that are all very different from each other
and all routed to each other in a special way. These FX include the
DLGranulator, FrequencyShifter, Nebuliser, DigiGrunge and lots of VST
plug-ins. Besides this complex routing system, I also control selected
parameters in real-time either with a MIDI controller, the Metasurface,
with the mouse or as automations in the timeline.






A screenshot of Erdem’s AudioMulch patch for “Shadow My Dovetail” from his album Altered Realities.

Click for a closer look

What are your studio and live performance setups?

Besides my software setup, I have a big collection of hardware
equipment. As a composer, I definitely believe that one should have
access to both unique hardware and software gear. I have many electric
guitars, a unique handmade Togaman violguitar, many analog pedals
including the whole Moogerfooger collection, Zvex, MXR and
Electroharmonix pedals. For hardware FX units, I use the Eventide
Eclipse, TC Electronic Fireworx, Lexicon MPX100, Lexicon Vortex and
Korg Kaoss Pad. For synths and drum machines, I use the Access Virusb,
Waldorf Blofeld, Korg n5, Korg er1 and Machine Drum. I use Cubase,
Soundhack, Metasynth, Soundforge besides AudioMulch.

For my studio work, I use a combination of this equipment with the emphasis being on AudioMulch for creative sound design.

For the live acoustic guitar and electronics work, I use the setup described above.

I also have a live guitar and electronics setup that is completely
hardware-based. This setup includes my Les Paul electric guitar, a
Marshall JMP-1 pre-amp, an Eventide Eclipse, a TC Electronic Fireworx,
a Lexicon MPX100, an Eventide TimeFactor and various analog pedals.

I have a large collection of instruments including an Iranian santoor,
a Turkish bowed tanbur, an ud, a lapsteel, a mandolin, and various
percussion instruments that I record for my film work. I recently
bought a new violguitar built by Jonathan Wilson in LA. This is a
futuristic, hybrid instrument that is played by a bow. It is one of the
most inspirational instruments that I own and it is such a great tool
for creating interesting textures and film work.

Do you have any favorite VST plug-ins?

This is a hard question to answer since I use so many different VST
plug-ins and most of them are unique in their own way, but I guess I
can state that some of my favorite VST plug-ins are Delaydots Spectral
Pack, Antares’ Filter, GRM Tools, Fishphones, Izotope Spectron, PSP
plug-ins, Soundhack Spectral Shapers, AbVST and plug-ins by
Smartelectronix.

Can you describe some of the techniques you used in your albums Altered Realities (New Albion, 2006) and Wounded Breath (Aucourant, 2008)?

I used two different approaches for these two albums. Altered Realities
is an album of solo acoustic guitar and live electronics, whereas
Wounded Breath is an album of electroacoustic tape pieces.

For the Altered Realities album, I used the complex routing, mixing
setup that I described above. Many of my guitar and electronics records
are based on either long or short loops that control the main structure
of the pieces. But on Altered Realities, there is no use of loops at
all. Rather than using loops, I tried to create long textures that
change, evolve over time using many different FX parameters and complex
automation.



Listen to an excerpt from “Shadow My Dovetail” from the album Altered Realities

On Wounded Breath I used a similar system, but involving exporting
sounds for re-processing and final mixing.
The sounds I created were mostly long textures that evolve spectrally
over time. The single hits and short sounds were created and processed
within Cubase. For a single sound, I would sometimes use so many
different contraptions and automations that the CPU usage on my machine
would hit 90%! Creating the pieces on the Wounded Breath album live
would mean a hundred MacBook Pro machines running simultaneously at max
CPU! So my process was iterative: after creating the textures I would
mix a part of the piece, export that segment and process it again
within AudioMulch.

The piece “Below The Cold Ocean” on the Wounded Breath album is a very
good example of this working method. This piece also received a prize
at the prestigious Luigi Russolo Electroacoustic Music Composition
Competition.



Listen to an excerpt from “Below The Cold Ocean” from the album Wounded Breath


Visit Erdem’s myspace to listen to more of his music

What are the main features of AudioMulch that you tend to use?

The main features of AudioMulch I use are parameter control and
automation, the Metasurface, the LoopPlayer, FilePlayer, FileRecorder,
DLGranulator, DigiGrunge, FrequencyShifter, Nebuliser, BubbleBlower,
and occasionally the LiveLooper for looping some of the FX returns.

Do you have any favorite contraptions or techniques?

My favorite contraption is the DLGranulator. It is a great granulator,
and I have used it for both my live electronics and electroacoustic
sonic design work.

If you had control of Ross’ development schedule, is there any feature you’d make him add to AudioMulch?

I would very much like Ross to add LFOs (low frequency oscillators),
various envelope and sequencing contraptions that can be assigned to
any parameters. In combination with the automation and the Metasurface,
this would make AudioMulch an even greater tool for sonic processing in
real-time. Also, it would be great if AudioMulch could be used as a VST
plug-in within sequencer programs such as Cubase and Protools. That way
we could have the option of using the program either as a stand-alone
application or as a VST plug-in within those sequencers. Besides these,
I also definitely need a feature where we would be able to create sub
patches. My patches are so dense; sometimes I begin to lose sight of
what is connected to where. Being able to create sub patches would
really help users like me who create dense patches with lots of
routing.

You’ve been quoted as saying:

“For me, the compositional process involves the guitar and the
electronics equally. It’s not like I have a musical idea, and then try
to find electronics to go with it. Or that I find a cool patch, and
then try to play music using it. I start with both simultaneously—much
like one might compose parts for a chamber orchestra.”

[1]

What do you mean by “simultaneously” here? Does that mean you spend
time jamming with AudioMulch (or other software) with your guitar as
live input? Or some other process?

I mean that when I start composing a live electronics piece, which
may involve any kind of instrumentation, I start to write basic ideas,
harmonies, and techniques on paper while creating the electronic part
too. The live electronics part that I create within AudioMulch involves
not just various contraptions and routing systems, but also complex
automation of various FX parameters. In that sense, besides the written
score, the mixing environment and the automation timeline become my
score. Just as how a composer writing a symphony would be aware of
every detail on the score, I also need to be aware of every detail
within the FX parameters and the automation timeline in AudioMulch.
With the help of this system, I can create sophisticated pieces in
which textures evolve spectrally over time.


Thanks Erdem!


Erdem has also kindly consented to answer a few questions from the community.
If you have any questions for Erdem click here to ask them in the Forum.

Reference

[1] Interview with Erdem Helvacioglu, Guitar Player Magazine, August 2007

original : http://www.audiomulch.com/articles/interview-with-erdem-helvacioglu


Dance great Cunningham dies at 90

By JyKang in People 0 Comment



A statement from the Cunningham Dance Foundation said the New
York-based dancer “died peacefully in his home of natural causes” on
Sunday.

He formed the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 1953 and choreographed nearly 200 works for it.

Although he used a wheelchair by the end of his career, Cunningham danced on stage well into his 80s.

‘Kind and hospitable’

The
statement said he “revolutionised the visual and performing arts, not
for the sake of iconoclasm, but for the beauty and wonder that lay in
exploring new possibilities”.

Radiohead have paid tribute to the dance star, calling him “kind and hospitable”.

In a statement posted on their website, the band said: “We are very sad to hear about Merce Cunningham’s death.

“Merce invited us to take part in his Split Sides project, in October 2003.

DANCING WITH CUNNINGHAM
Steve Schifferes
Steve Schifferes, BBC News reporter


I
studied the Cunningham technique as a student at Bennington College in
Vermont with many of his key disciples, and later briefly took some
classes with Cunningham at his Westbeth studio in New York’s Greenwich
Village.

Cunningham was mesmerising in person and as a dancer –
especially the expressiveness of his gestures, with his feet almost as
expressive as his hands.

His technique, involving loosening up
the lower back and making movement more free-flowing, was a relief to
those who studied the tensed movements of his previous mentor, the
great modern dancer Martha Graham, whose story-telling approach to
dance he also rejected.

“It was a collaboration of music and dance, but one where each of
the elements – set, costume, choreography and music – were randomly
combined, to create a performance around chance.”

They added
that Cunningham had showed them how “discipline and focus can create
the space for an unexpected moment, when something new can suddenly
exist: such a contrast to the scripted world of rock”.

‘Great artist’

Judith
Fishman, chairman of the Cunningham Dance Foundation, said: “Merce was
an artistic maverick and the gentlest of geniuses.

“We have
lost a great man and a great artist, but we celebrate his extraordinary
life, his art, and the dancers and the artists with whom he worked.”

In
April, Cunningham celebrated his 90th birthday with the premiere of new
work Nearly Ninety – set to new music from Led Zeppelin’s John Paul
Jones and Sonic Youth – at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, in New York.

Last month, Cunningham set up The Living Legacy Plan, aimed at continuing his teachings in the future.

As
part of the plan, Cunningham’s work is to celebrated by his company
with a two-year world tour culminating in a final performance in New
York.

Toss of coin

Born just after World War I in a small town near Seattle, Cunningham loved to dance as a child.

From
1939 to 1945, he was a soloist in the company of Martha Graham,
regarded at the time as one of the foremost pioneers of modern dance.

He
presented his first New York solo concert in April 1944, with music
from composer John Cage, who became his life partner and frequent
collaborator until Cage’s death in 1992.

Merce Cunningham

Cunningham formed his own dance company in 1953

In a radical move, the couple decided to end the traditional
marriage of movement and music, saying that both arts should exist
independently even when sharing the same space.

Cunningham also abandoned conventional storytelling through ballet to focus entirely on the poetry of dance.

He
even tossed coins or threw dice to determine steps, saying the use of
chance was “a present mode of freeing my imagination from its own
cliches”.

He was hugely admired by other dancers and worked with visual artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol.

Cunningham’s work has been presented by the New York City Ballet, Zurich Ballet and the Rambert Dance Company among others.

Among
the accolades he received over his long career included the Kennedy
Center Honors in 1985 and the National Medal of Arts in 1990.

Percussionist Max Neuhaus who revolutionized sound art dies

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By DOUGLAS BRITT Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
Feb. 3, 2009, 4:12PM

Max Neuhaus exhibited his Soundwork and Circumscription Drawings at the Menil in 2008

Max Neuhaus, a percussionist with Houston ties who pioneered a field of contemporary art known as sound installation, died Tuesday of cancer at his home in Marina di Maratea, Italy. He was 69.
Josef Helfenstein, director of the Menil Collection, described Neuhaus as a sculptor who worked with nonmusical sound instead of traditional materials such as clay or steel. Neuhaus’ second permanent U.S. museum piece, Sound Figure, was installed at the Menil in May.
“He is really part of that generation who changed art in the 1960s,” Helfenstein said. “What he did is very radical, actually. … He managed to define space with sound.”
Born in Beaumont in 1939, Neuhaus began performing as a percussionist when he was 14. He graduated from Lamar High School in 1957 and trained at the Manhattan School of Music. During the 1960s, he performed solo recitals of contemporary music by composers such as John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen at a time when it was rare for a percussionist to be a soloist.
“It’s a little more common now, but there were only three of us in the world at that time, and I did my first recital in 1964 and became well-known while I was still in my 20s,” Neuhaus told the Houston Chronicle in May. “But at a certain point, I started having these other ideas. I tried to do both at the same time, but … the better musician I was, the more people were convinced that what I was doing (with experiments in sound installation) was music, so to speak. So in a way, I had to commit career suicide as a musician.”
Neuhaus said he didn’t have the courage to walk away from music until after Columbia Masterworks contacted him about recording his repertoire, preserving what he thought was his best work. That 1968 solo album is considered an early example of live electronic music.
“I made the record and went out the back,” he said. “They never forgave me, of course — along with a lot of other people.”
Having achieved early fame as a performer, Neuhaus turned to an anonymous form of expression, embedding sound into environments as unlikely as New York’s Times Square or a Brooklyn, N.Y., subway station. He was secretive about his techniques and left no speakers visible.
First installed in 1977, Times Square was disconnected in 1992 and reactivated in 2002. As was his custom, Neuhaus did not label the piece, wanting people to discover it for themselves.
Menil spokesman Vance Muse lived in New York from 1984 to 1994 and walked through Neuhaus’ sound piece on his way to work every day.
“Like most New Yorkers, I thought for a long time it was the beautiful sound of the subway groaning and moaning,” Muse said. “Then an artist friend told me what it was, and it became a wonderful place to meet on the way to dinner or the theater — standing in that Times Square traffic island.”
Helfenstein described a similar experience while visiting Neuhaus in Marina di Maratea, where the artist moved in 2006.
“He used his house and garden always as a laboratory for his work,” Helfenstein said. “Once, he didn’t tell me anything. I just walked around the garden, and I walked into a sound. … And I stepped one foot to the right, and the sound was gone. It was like an invisible cube but formed by sound.”
Neuhaus’ friendship with Menil founder Dominique de Menil began in the early 1970s at a New York dinner party, which she interrupted by ordering 10 limousines to take her guests to Brooklyn to visit Walkthrough, the subway-station piece that was installed from 1973 to 1977.
“She was always very supportive,” Neuhaus said of de Menil, who died in 1997. “For a long time, it was very hard to find the wherewithal to keep going with these works, which you couldn’t sell, which there were no drawings for (until years later), and she was always there at the last minute.”
Neuhaus’ art-world recognition grew, however, and his sound pieces included permanent works for Dia: Beacon in New York; Landesmuseum Joanneum in Graz, Austria; Documenta 9 in Kassel, Germany; and the Castello di Rivoli, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Turin, Italy; as well as ephemeral installations for the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1979 and the 1999 Venice Biennale.
In 1989 Neuhaus began producing what he called “circumscription drawings” of his sound works to address the problem of “finding a way to publish without destroying the work.”
Curated by Helfenstein, Max Neuhaus: Circumscription Drawings was on view May through August at the Menil to coincide with the unveiling of Sound Figure, which was permanently installed at the museum’s north entrance.
“It’s almost like going through a shower — purifying, in a way — before you enter (the museum),” Helfenstein said of walking through the installation.
Neuhaus has been represented by Lawrence Markey Gallery in San Antonio since 2002. He is survived by his wife, Sylvia Neuhaus; their daughter, Claudia; and his sister, Laura Hansen, of Sanibel, Fla.
Arrangements for a memorial service are pending.
douglas.britt@chron.com