Pretty much since I started acquiring my own modular synth rack, I’ve been wanting to get myself the Verbos Harmonic Oscillator. Now I finally have one, partly after convincing myself it would be so very useful for making brainwave music. Last weekend I created the first EEGsynth patch for this wonderfully sounding module, mapping out ‘harmonics’ in the EEG to harmonic overtones: In short, the EEG is decomposed into the delta, theta, alpha and beta band. After normalization and smoothing, each EEG frequency band then controls the power of different overtones. Yesterday, we tried this patch out with live EEG recordings, and made recordings of an upcoming documentary on our work by the film and documentary maker Fabien Guillermont, inspired by our Transformation event.
Furthermore, thanks to a colleague from my lab, I also started playing with intracellular (i.e. from inside the cell!) recordings of rat thalamic neuron. I’ve transformed the recordings into a .wav file, and play it as audio using the Disting Mk4 (I sold my Make Noise Morphagene to buy the Harmonic Oscillator, can’t have it all…). A threshold detection on the neuronal spikes, can then be used to trigger e.g. an envelope -> VCA, or add any discrete events, which provides a very interesting and natural stochastic element into a composition.
All of this is some practical preparations for a live performance in October at the neuroimaging center of Aalto, Finland, where we will be combining EEG and human iEMG recordings in modular sets. Expect to see the program come by soon.
For now, let me share a quick video of a little harmonic patch below, as well as some other video recordings getting to know the harmonic oscillator.