Giana Gayles
MUSIC 220B (Winter 2022)
Homework 3: Drum Machine

Dreamscape 2



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I have turned in an unfinished project on 2/16/22 with no recording and performance video, so I will describe what I had/have at this given time. I hope to convey my general ideas for the drum machine in the practical sense but more with regards to the strange psychological space that I was hoping to create. When I was brainstorming, I began wanting to do a rhythmic loop (as per the assignment), but rather than having all or majority drum sound samples, I wanted to have majority or all short sound samples of vocals, instrumentals, and or ambient sounds. I wanted to and was naturally inclined to also build off of the nostalgic and dream-like energy of my homework 2 project. The image below is part of what I wanted to display when presenting my project, I would display it on my laptop which would be a part of the performance video (perhaps with some sort of animated wave filter to create a shimmering effect on the image). I want to emphasize the dreamlike qualities of my samples and the atmosphere I create. The samples themselves come mostly from two (unreleased) songs by the artist Lana Del Rey. You can find them on Soundcloud: one is called “Mermaid Motel”, and the other “Tusla Jesus Freak Samuel Fnderio Remix”, including the drum sounds. I cut them off of the main wav files on audacity. I would recommend listening to these songs (especially mermaid motel), they both fascinate me in the unique atmosphere they create. Another major influence on the concept I wanted to have for this project is “The Backrooms”, which I absolutely love. It is difficult to describe without asking you to do a personal google search, but essentially it is a world of lore that initially emerged as a creepypasta. It is a very interesting fictional world which is becoming increasingly relevant with the creation of the metaverse. The backrooms is the “backrooms” of a virtual reality world, abandoned spots that are essentially a purgatory for lost beings. There are many explanations for the backrooms, many describe the backrooms in a way that Is more similar to a (non-virtual), personal purgatory, an amalgamation of different memory spaces that seem oddly familiar that an individual might wake up and find themselves lost in. I could go on for a long time about this, but I recommend searching backrooms on the internet, and especially on YouTube, where you can find the many “levels“ of the backrooms, often accompanied by equally nostalgic and eerie music. The backrooms is essentially where I found the above photo, and has served as inspiration for my last two projects. Moving on from this, my code is very simple. My aim was to create a series of drum loops that I could turn on and off. You can find this functioning now only in the BUTTON ONE section. My issue was that I could not figure out a way to push the button twice, or another button, in order to turn a loop off when I wanted, though I was able to do this for at least one sample in my project I referenced occasionally from 220a. Because of this, I listed most of the functions meant to activate the shreds at the bottom of the code. The loop that you can hear when you play the code has nothing more to offer at the moment than a general preview of the “vibe” I was attempting to capture. The one joystick function I have is to change the reverb. I hope to be able to solve my issues with turning on and off the functions, as well as adding many of functions that I created for effects to the code, such as sample speed, reverb, and general chopping functions for sndbuffs. As far as challenges, something I ended up spending a lot of time on was programming my remote - a ps4 controller. Although I had used one before for my final project for 220a, the first project's code was incomplete, and not all buttons were coded with full functionality. I also struggled with the concept of the drum machine in general and figuring out how to achieve this in the code was something I found difficult as somebody who does not seriosuly study coputer science, though I have completed about three previous coding courses. The code I have submitted is far more simple in both the practical and abstract senses than would be ideal. Another big takeaway from this project for me was learning how much more I need to learn. I coded many more chunks and functions that I did not include in the final code, because I could not figure out a way to incorporate them into my drum machine either functionally or conceptually. For this reason, the only moveable functionalities plugged into the remote are a reverb lever/scale created on the right joystick, and the simple ONE button to trigger a spork, though I could not figure out a way to stop the spork, despite trying using an envelope, or a shred.exit(); function. The chuck code is linked and the files are downloadable, so that you can get a sense for the sound set and basic atmosphere I created with the drum loop. Included in this page is all that I have turned in by my extended time limit.

Chuck Code Dreamscape 2