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Firstly, this sounds quite a bit like the Symphony For Dot Matrix Printers. If you haven't heard it, I urge you to find a copy. I've linked to some video below, but it is significantly better as an album. It has all the compositional richness of a classical symphony, performed in realtime by an orchestra of printers. I dare say, it is my single favourite musical work.

Secondly, I'm reminded of the cassette tapes that computer programs used to come on (Commodore 64, etc). My friend had a box full of these cassettes, but I can't remember what machine they were for. We used to listen to the tapes and jam along with our laptops. It was a bit like having a garage band, I guess, but for tech-heads.

Symphony #1 For Dot Matrix Printers (video excerpt): http://vimeo.com/6868193

Symphony #2 For Dot Matrix Printers (full concert video): http://vimeo.com/16207657

#1 is my favourite, but #2 is also fascinating. #1 has more immediate textural/tonal exploration, while #2 is a more gradual evolution. Feel free to skip around the videos to get a sense of the breadth of sounds in these symphonies.



Those are indeed fascinating.

I do find this a bit of a stretch: "Leaving the constituent elements untouched, the process imposes a new order upon them, reorganizing the sounds along a musical structure." There are parts in there that are almost certainly slowed after recording. The deep thud of the carriage changing direction (starting at 1:47 in video #1) is one such sound that I believe has been slowed.

I could certainly be mistaken.


What you're hearing is almost certainly the Proximity Effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_effect_(audio)

I used to record music for a living. I was really big on using natural sounds in unexpected ways. There are a lot of things you can do with creative use of microphones.




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