Free Ableton AfroDJRack #65: RubberBand Synth

A Simple RubberBand Becomes a Deep and Versatile Ableton Live Synthesizer!

I recently got inspired  to buy a contact mic by Diego Stocco's "Music from Nature."  Before I go on, let's watch the video, Diego is the man.

To celebrate Earth Day 2012 Burt's Bees asked me to create a video performance in the style of my Music from a Tree. To expand the concept I also included as "instruments" some of the ingredients used in their products, like honey, almonds, rice, and coconuts; also bees had a musical role in this piece. I performed the whole composition by playing these natural elements, no synthesizers, samplers or additional sounds have been used. Here's a gallery on Behance with more info and pics: behance.net/gallery/Music-from-Nature-Burts-Bees-Earth-Day-2012/3698325 I hope you'll enjoy it! 
Diego UPDATE 5/31/12: I'll present the 7.1 surround mix of this work at the Vimeo Film Festival during a workshop on music sound design, sponsored by DTS: http://bit.ly/LDkYdj

Being in the spirit of helping the little guy, I turned to Creme DeMentia.  Creme DeMentia is a pretty awesome DIY circuit bending and contact microphone company.  I bought one of their homemade contact mics for $15.  These little guys (mine is pictured below) are made from a beer bottle cap and two two-liter soda bottle caps.  Check out this awesome video of them putting it to use.

I've never owned a contact mic, so I can't compare it to other companies, but I love this mic!  Contact microphones are placed directly on whatever object you are recording, and it picks up any vibrations within that object.  What a great sound design tool!    The mic is durable and well built, and I find the homemade-ness of it to be endearing.

So, for my first endeavor with my new contact mic, I decided to try to record a rubberband.  As you can see from the video, my cat, Theo, was just as excited about this project as I was.  The resulting sound was a much cleaner, punchier recording than I was able to achieve with a condenser mic (I tried to do this months ago, but it wasn't sounding very good).  I recorded the samples into Ableton Live, did a little high pass filtering to remove some sub bass frequencies, and dropped them into Sampler.  From there, I added some effects, an FM oscillator, and an arpeggiator to create this, the 65th Free Ableton Live AfroDJRack.  Check out the video below for an in-depth walkthrough and just below that is the free download, enjoy!

Here's a free Ableton Live Instrument rack made from the sound of a rubber band plucked and recorded with a contact microphone. Special thanks to Theo, my cat, for helping out. Full Post and Download: http://bit.ly/freesynth65 Homemade Contact Mic: http://getlofi.com/shop Visit my site for more stuff like this, including Live Instrument downloads, tutorials and music!