Runway Lights In 128 - Wake Forest University

vaisvil

Runway Lights (in 128) was the solo I performed at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem North Carolina on the 26th of September 2015. The recording you hear is from the University mics. The title is actually a misnomer – a mistake on my part created when Johnny Reinhard needed the title for the program and I gave him the title of a piece that was in Blue JI instead the piece in 128 which I intended. My bad, but then the 128 piece didn’t have a proper title.

The picture you see above is the light layout I used to perform the solo in. Striking is the fact that the lights to not fill up the Linnstrument (the pads between lit notes are active). This is because I have the device in “no overlap” mode and what you see are all 128 possible midi notes in a 200 pad form factor. While it may look constraining it is much better format than I have had before for 128 since a full octave of notes are available. The timbre of the solo was in form was a progression where I started with pianoteq and added and subtracted other samplers and synthesizers. The brief pauses are where I made changes during the performance to both the sound generators and Linnstrument. The pitch content of the performance followed an outline I had developed in the days before the performance and takes advantage of the Linnstrument’s ability to send midi data out in a “channel per note” to the synthesizers in omni mode allowing me to hold notes and slide others at the same time.

The software used was Windows 7, Sonar X3, Pianoteq 5, Kontakt 5 (factory library), and Z3TA+ 2.1 (two instances) on a 3 core AMD cpu laptop. I didn’t midi record since in the past I had a nasty experience where my laptop crashed while trying to record midi.

I would like to thank Johnny Reinhard, Director of the American Festival of Microtonal Music, and Aaron Matthew Bachelder for arranging our three nights of performances in Winston-Salem NC.