Elektroplankton

[Rev]

So we can have everything in one place, with funky tunes - here you are. One thread.

The Process, as far as I am aware:

If you don't know, you need a sound recording piece of software. Possibly Audacity: Free Audio Editor and Recorder which is free. And I've used it before.

You'll also need one of these 3.5mm Jack to 3.5mm Jack leads. This is the first I found using google. I'd guess that Maplin would sell them too.

And you're away.

Go!

[giant_frying_pan]

I'll repost these here for easy reference:

Tracy

Tracy2

Lumiloop

Luminaria

SunAnimalcule

Hanenbow

Beatnes

Tracy3

Composed by mr_sockochris. Captured using the method Rev mentioned.

giant_frying_pan

[Rev]

I'll repost these here for easy reference:

Tracy

Tracy2

Lumiloop

Luminaria

SunAnimalcule

Hanenbow

Beatnes

Tracy3

Composed by mr_sockochris. Captured using the method Rev mentioned.

giant_frying_pan

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My first 2 - very nice in my opinion too. Thanks to elektroplankton rather than me though I think.

Created (rather obviously) from Luminaria.

Luminare 1

Luminare 2

Not got huge amounts of webspace, so they may be cleared out in not too long. So download them if you want them - got more or less unlimited bandwidth so thats no problem.

Problem with them though - not in stereo. Any offers as to how to make them stereo? They were playing in stereo through my pc while recording, but seemed to end up mono. Odd. Anyway - enjoy. Or at least...listen.

[scottcr]

mmmm... very nice

[Rev]

It does seem I'm the only person who can be arsed doing this. But here is a new track. The first time I've played with using more than one elektroplankton to make a song. This uses Sun-Animalcule, Lumiloop and Rec-Rec. Rec-Rec was added when I decided it needed some talky bollocks over it.

The first half of the song is pretty poor but the back end works pretty well in my opinion at least. It was only 25 minutes of fiddling with Elektroplankton though - sure with time it could make a real great song.

For the record - nothing was added when merging recordings. All the noise is from Elektroplankton. They were just added together in Audacity.

Anyway, It's here:

WalkingInTheRain.mp3

[anewman]

It does seem I'm the only person who can be arsed doing this.

I'd like to post something myself, but mine still hasn't turned up from lik-sang yet...

But here is a new track. The first time I've played with using more than one elektroplankton to make a song. This uses Sun-Animalcule, Lumiloop and Rec-Rec. Rec-Rec was added when I decided it needed some talky bollocks over it.

The first half of the song is pretty poor but the back end works pretty well in my opinion at least. It was only 25 minutes of fiddling with Elektroplankton though - sure with time it could make a real great song.

For the record - nothing was added when merging recordings. All the noise is from Elektroplankton. They were just added together in Audacity.

Anyway, It's here:

WalkingInTheRain.mp3

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Anyway, nice track. Very moody. Sort of Blade Runner style.

[Rev]

I'd like to post something myself, but mine still hasn't turned up from lik-sang yet...

Anyway, nice track. Very moody. Sort of Blade Runner style.

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Blade Runner style is probably entirely due to the lumi-loop background. The green circle gives a very ScaryAtmospheric background noise.

I'll look forward to some new tunes then at some point, glad to hear other people will get started with it. I'll make some more tunes at some point too. Since I enjoyed putting this one together so much I think I might actually try and make a full album of tunes. The limitations of each elektroplankton are pretty broad - but combined it is pretty much limitless I think. Great cartridge.

[Beertiger]

It does seem I'm the only person who can be arsed doing this.

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No we're just giving you a head start. Have you got a version of that Walking in the rain without the vocals?

When will my damn copy get here.

[Rev]

No we're just giving you a head start. Have you got a version of that Walking in the rain without the vocals?

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No. More intelligent people would save it as an audacity project. But I didn't, so no. Although I could only remove the Rec-Rec track anyway and that includes the drum beat.

I've got another song to finish off that will be safely vocal-less.

[Rev]

One last one for a while I think.

Elektroplankton v. 2

A mix of luminaria, rec-rec and lumi-loop with a little bit of Sun-Animalcule at the end. A bit of a cheat this time as I added a few fades in. Which you can easily do by altering the volume of the DS while recording but I'm not clever enough to plan ahead.

[anewman]

One last one for a while I think.

Elektroplankton v. 2

A mix of luminaria, rec-rec and lumi-loop with a little bit of Sun-Animalcule at the end. A bit of a cheat this time as I added a few fades in. Which you can easily do by altering the volume of the DS while recording but I'm not clever enough to plan ahead.

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Trippy. I think I preferred your Blade Runner one. Do you keep all the songs you make, or is it more like you make things on the fly, then maybe if you like something you record it to post on here?

[Rev]

Trippy. I think I preferred your Blade Runner one. Do you keep all the songs you make, or is it more like you make things on the fly, then maybe if you like something you record it to post on here?

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Sort of a mixture. I play about with Elektroplankton away from my pc and if I happen to make anything nice I remember how I did it so it can be repeated (the very end of the last song I did was done exactly that way) but when I have a little plan for a song I do it at my PC. Hooking up the DS through my PC means that if I un-mute the microphone I effectively have my DS running through my stereo. Which is awesome.

Then I fiddle.

Then I record.

So fiddling happens on the fly but with a bit of a plan in advance. Every full song I've made I've posted here. But you don't get to hear any of the messing about I do away from my PC. Obviously.

[Don Rosco]

One last one for a while I think.

Elektroplankton v. 2

A mix of luminaria, rec-rec and lumi-loop with a little bit of Sun-Animalcule at the end. A bit of a cheat this time as I added a few fades in. Which you can easily do by altering the volume of the DS while recording but I'm not clever enough to plan ahead.

Nice! Quite focused. You could have made more of the strings at the end maybe.

Come on folks - get some tunes up. I'll have something up by next week fo sho.

And turning down the volume on the DS is anything but easy - wackest fader ever.

[anewman]

And turning down the volume on the DS is anything but easy - wackest fader ever.

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This is very true.

If I record some Elekroplankton stuff into my iBook, am I allowed to use GarageBand to add fades - or would that be against the principle of the thing?

[Rev]

Nice! Quite focused. You could have made more of the strings at the end maybe.

Come on folks - get some tunes up. I'll have something up by next week fo sho.

And turning down the volume on the DS is anything but easy - wackest fader ever.

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Glad you liked the tune. The plinky-plonky at the end was originally all the way through but sounded shit and was replaced with the rec-rec beat.

Turning down the volume works well...it cuts out kinda sudden but after you get used to that the second time you do it.

This is very true.

If I record some Elekroplankton stuff into my iBook, am I allowed to use GarageBand to add fades - or would that be against the principle of the thing?

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That's what I was confessing to.

I did the fading on my pc, not by fiddling with the volume controller. I think anything that you can achieve with the DS is fine to emulate with software - but anything you couldn't do is cheating. For now at least.

For the record I've also added - gasp! - silence using the software as well but thats due to it assuming nothing goes before the recorded tracks rather than silence which would be much easier most of the time.

[Rowan Morrison]

One last one for a while I think.

Elektroplankton v. 2

That's nice, though I like it better in the first half where it's quite minimal - reminds me of Nannou by Aphex Twin. I think EP plus some post-processing sounds very promising - the generative nature of the software plus some conscious sculpting... I really ought to order it. I must.

Well played, anyway.

[Rev]

That's nice, though I like it better in the first half where it's quite minimal - reminds me of Nannou by Aphex Twin.

Well played, anyway.

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That's my main problem - Kid. Sweetshop. In. A.

Rearrange.

There is so much offered keeping it quite minimal is a real challenge - it's something I'm sure I'll get better at though. In fact - on your Nannou mention (which I'll admit I had to dig around my hard-drive for - didn't know it at all) I knocked up something broadly similar to it.

I'm sure with patience someone could make Nannou using Marine-Snow. I can't get to grips with that though so I used Sun-Animalchin again for this. Merging a night and day sequence (it'll make sense to anyone who's used it...different shaped plankton in short that make a subtly different noise) with a little Lumi-Loop for the simple reason I like Lumi-Loop.

This was almost exactly 10 minutes work - Elektroplankton is amazing. With more time on my part or more skill on someone elses part there will be some great stuff come out of this. Anyway.

Enjoy.

Revou

Oh and thanks - of course.

[timgp]

Will someone please lend me their copy for a day I'm doing in a local school soon to encourage kids about music and IT?

[Suizid]

I've just ordered this from lik-sang - i'll post mine as soon as I can. Just downloading some of these now.

[Don Rosco]

This is just brilliant. I've recorded a few bits I did, although i've yet to stick em together. I'm kind of torn as to the best way to do it. I think it might just be best to leave it recording the whole time and stick up excerts, raw and unedited, but part of me wants to get some loops and throw them into Cubase or something and really try and make a tune with them. Either way, it's a hell of a lot of fun just messing around.

I really want a translation of the manual though. Anyone fancy scanning it and giving it to the NTSC guy?

One bad point - there is an absolutely horrendous level of noise. I suppose it is a toy really...

I want Elektroplankton 2 now though!

[Rev]

This is just brilliant. I've recorded a few bits I did, although i've yet to stick em together. I'm kind of torn as to the best way to do it. I think it might just be best to leave it recording the whole time and stick up excerts, raw and unedited, but part of me wants to get some loops and throw them into Cubase or something and really try and make a tune with them. Either way, it's a hell of a lot of fun just messing around.

I really want a translation of the manual though. Anyone fancy scanning it and giving it to the NTSC guy?

One bad point - there is an absolutely horrendous level of noise. I suppose it is a toy really...

I want Elektroplankton 2 now though!

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I'd like a manual translation and was going to digital photo the pages and send them off but there is just too much. Plus it is kinda nice keeping discovering things - like it changes the pattern the nanocarp are in if you clap.

The noise is pretty bad though - not much you can do about it. Record quietly is the best I can offer.

Still very cool though.

Also - pop trivia. It is spelt Electroplankton. Not Elektroplankton which I have spelt it as forever now. Most other people spell it with a k too oddly enough it seems. Which may be my fault due to the thread title.

[Beertiger]

Just been playing around with it tonight, it's lovely and relaxing and awesome. For tonight I'll just have my first unedited luminaria tune.

Luminaria

Created in the good old fashioned way of just tapping away!

[Rev]

Found this earlier.

Elektroplankton Site

Beertiger - enjoyed it. Although for some reason quicktime spazzed out and played it really high speed but added extended silences. Very odd. Played fine in Media Player 10 though so no idea. I thought I'd mention it if anyone else had the same problem though.

[Don Rosco]

Just been playing around with it tonight, it's lovely and relaxing and awesome. For tonight I'll just have my first unedited luminaria tune.

Luminaria

Created in the good old fashioned way of just tapping away!

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That's excellent. What's even better it's playing some kind of loop at the end, it's the bubble sound and the pad. I dunno if you did it or it's just winamp freaking out or something but it's been playing for about five minutes now. Crazy!

re the noise - you should be able to get a good noise signature for the noise reduction. I dunno what it's like in audacity but the plugin one in Sound Forge is capable of astounding results if fiddled with enough. Haven't tried it on this yet though.

[Don Rosco]

it's been playing for about five minutes now. Crazy!

I CAN'T STOP IT

[Don Rosco]

I CAN'T STOP IT

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It was the electroplankton website.

[Rowan Morrison]

Revou

Score. I love the way this - and almost all the EP stuff I've heard - is just organic enough to get away with the repetition. When you say you're mxing in another - I don't know, organism or rule or whatever - does that mean you're doing it in a sound editor, or is it possible to do that in EP itself? Is Revou coming straight from your DS in that form, or could it, at least?

Well, two things need to happen with this - group performances and someone sending a copy of the game to Brian Eno. Revou sounds reminiscent of the stuff the Koan software was doing a few years back on the PC, but the interface is a thousand times better - well suited to live performance, surely.

Okay, remind me who to use to get this over here effectively - PlayAsia? YesAsia?

[Rev]

Score. I love the way this - and almost all the EP stuff I've heard - is just organic enough to get away with the repetition. When you say you're mxing in another - I don't know, organism or rule or whatever - does that mean you're doing it in a sound editor, or is it possible to do that in EP itself? Is Revou coming straight from your DS in that form, or could it, at least?

Well, two things need to happen with this - group performances and someone sending a copy of the game to Brian Eno. Revou sounds reminiscent of the stuff the Koan software was doing a few years back on the PC, but the interface is a thousand times better - well suited to live performance, surely.

Okay, remind me who to use to get this over here effectively - PlayAsia? YesAsia?

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That one was 3 tracks. Although only ever two running at the same time - so technically it could be done by playing on two DS's at once. Impossible on one though. It is done in a sound editor. You can't mix plankton on the "game" - you can only have one running at a time. Since you have to be sat at your PC to record anything though it is a very small leap to recording more than one track in the same song.

Group performances could work well but I think Mr Eno would probably find it too limiting. There are little annoyances like selections making a noise which always sounds crap on any songs made and things like the sun to moon transition on Sun-Animalchin. It's cool to look at and sounds nice but should have been optional.

It is great fun though - it and meteos are getting most of my gaming time now.

Importing - PlayAsia will almost certainly get it to you fastest. YesAsia will be slower but guarantee no customs charges - they repost in the UK. Possibly worth noting that the box is the size of two DS games and seems to have picked up customs charges of £8 or so judging by the Discussion thread.

[Beertiger]

I can't find my DS charger...

[Rev]

I can't find my DS charger...

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SP?