Dinosaur Skin

2010, 16-24 channels
2019, Ambisonics
[►] video with binaural audio

"Dinosaur Skin" (“Piel de Dinosaurio”) is my latest piece for analog synthesizer and computer processing. The analog synthesizer is “El Dinosaurio”, a custom patchcord programmable analog synth designed and built from scratch in 1980/1981, and revived from a very long deep freeze in 2007 (see also The Dinosaur at War and El Dinosaurio Habla). The lone voice of El Dinosaurio is piped through Sooperlooper, an open source multiple loop looper with 16 loops active. The outputs of SooperLooper are then sent to a custom SuperCollider program that processes and spatializes (in 3D) each individual loop around the audience. Its first performance was a two hour live set performed in the Stage through 16 speakers in the context of 2010's Cagean Music Circus

(photo by David Kerr, Cagian Music Circus 2010).

Program Notes

El Dinosaurio was finished in 1981. It is an analog patch cord programmable modular synthesizer. Its single, lonely voice becomes the mad spatialized chorus of a dinosaur herd when piped through a computer with custom software and multiple speakers.

Program Notes (2019)

Dinosaur Skin (“Piel de Dinosaurio”) is a piece for analog synthesizer and computer processing. The analog synthesizer is “El Dinosaurio”, a custom patchcord programmable analog synth designed and built from scratch in 1980/1981, and revived from a very long deep freeze in 2007. The lone voice of El Dinosaurio is piped through SooperLooper, an open source multiple loop looper with 16 active loops. Starting from a blank slate sounds are layered and faded in and out, and are finally sent to a SuperCollider program that spatializes each loop around the audience. The single, lonely voice of El Dinosaurio becomes the mad spatialized chorus of a dinosaur herd. (The small box that rides alongside the Dinosaur herd is a Noise Toaster, a tiny synth kit that can make quite fun and interesting sounds by itself...)

Performances

• Modulations 2019, in Memoriam Carr Wilkerson, CCRMA Courtyard, Stanford, October 5th 2019
• CCRMA Concert: The Lord of the Bings, The Two Bings, Bing Studio, Stanford, June 1st 2019
• ANDERSON x CCRMA: Sound Happenings, Anderson Collection at Stanford University, April 23rd 2019
• Modulations 2011, SOMArts, San Francisco, April 2nd, 2011.
• Music Circus 2010, Fall Concert, CCRMA, November 18th 2010, special two hour live performance.

Fernando Lopez-Lezcano

Composer, performer, lecturer and computer systems administrator at CCRMA, Stanford University

Quick Links

El Dinosaurio
Applesauce Modular Mark V
Planet CCRMA

Music & Performances

Of Dinosaurs and Other Creatures
The Well Modulated Dinosaur
The Love Songs of Flying Dinosaurs
El PianoSaurio
Dinosaur He[a]rd!
Wings
Resurrections
Pia[NOT] Etude
The Miraculous Multiplication of Strings
Y Sonó Como Arpa Vieja
Un Esqueleto en la Cocina
The Hidden and Mysterious Machinery of Sound
Modulate me, please?
Space, S[acred|ecular]
Vox Voxel
Toast and Jam
Divertimento de Cocina
Velvet Skin, Heart of Steel
Fugue 1 (Fanfare)
Jurassic Modulations
Earth Songs
Dinosaur Skin
A Very Fractal Cat, Somewhat T[h]rilled
65 Second Bycicle
The Dinosaur At War
Exit Variations
El Dinosaurio Habla
Kitchen <-> Miniature(s)
Instant Knoll
iICEsCcRrEeAaMm
House of Mirrors
With Room to Grow
Knock knock, anybody there?
Three Dreams
Espresso Machine II
Hot'n Cold
Quest