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Mini Oramics: Potential and Actuality
No full textThis paper will outline briefly the continued research into the legacy of the British composer and innovator Daphne Oram (1925 – 2003), before going into some detail about a less researched part of her legacy. Oram was a proponent of drawn sound techniques and the inventor of the Oramics Machine: an innovation that bears comparison to both the RCA and ANS synthesisers. Having had privileged access to both the Daphne Oram Archive at Goldsmiths, University of London, and the Oramics Machine in the Science Museum collection, the author is in the final stages of a practice based PhD study of Oram’s work with a specifically hands on and forensic, techno-historical approach.
This research has led to the initial conclusion that the Oramics Machine was never really finished, and was beset with technical problems, despite the remarkable conceptual vision and technical efforts of Oram and her collaborators. This goes some way to explain its relatively limited musical output despite the fact it was in operation for about ten years.
Having had an acute awareness of these issues, Oram realised that compromise was necessary if the commercialisation of her drawn sound technique was to be successful. In the early 1970s she turned her thoughts to the production of a smaller, simpler version of her machine, to be marketed to private and educational studios. Oram’s insight here is pertinent, given the relative success of smaller and cheaper products such as the Synthi AKS and MiniMoog when examined next to their bigger and more expensive cousins. Oram’s Mini Oramics is still an under-researched area of her practice, and unlike her original machine we do not have a physical artefact to study. However, the archival designs for Mini Oramics are far more complete than those of her original machine, and so in many respects her intentions and ideas are easier to interpret than with the original.
After examining Oram’s plans and contrasting them with contemporaneous developments in music technology, it will be argued that Mini-Oramics could have had an important impact had it been launched at the right time and with sufficient backing; in an era when electronic music sequencing techniques were often restrictive, lacking in temporal nuance, with un-intuitive interfaces (until the advent of MIDI and affordable computing). This line of research has been significantly augmented by the practice-based element of the study, where a hardware version of Mini-Oramics has been constructed, and will be evaluated alongside its contemporaneous technological ‘competitors’. This reconstructive research methodology has provided significant insight into the difficulties Oram and her collaborators faced in the design and construction of her machines. In addition it will enable further research into the practical interface of Oramics, and whether the painstaking nature of programming such a machine was worth the extra degree of compositional nuance it would have provided
The Don Banks Music Box to The Putney: The genesis and evolution of the VCS3 synthesiser
No full textThe VCS3, made by EMS, is well known as the first commercially-produced European synthesiser. While in recent years interest in such early analogue synthesisers has grown, and VCS3 prices on eBay have exploded, a thoroughly researched and detailed account of the genesis of this significant device has not yet appeared. One of the aims of this paper is to demystify the origins of the VCS3 and to debunk some of the myths that have grown up around the instrument.
The VCS3’s precursor, commonly referred to as the VCS-1, was brought into being following a request in 1968 from the Australian composer Don Banks for an electronic music device that would cost no more than £50. Banks’ request was addressed to the incipient team of composers Tristram Cary, Peter Zinovieff and engineer David Cockerell. The success of the device they built for Banks led the trio to set up Electronic Music Studios (London) Ltd., or EMS, in order to develop and then manufacture the VCS3.
Drawing on little-known and recently-discovered primary source material this paper traces the development of the VCS3 from Banks’ original request, through various intermediate stages, to its launch in November 1969. A brief discussion of the instrument’s impact and significance is also included, and the vexed question of how the VCS3 came to be yoked to a keyboard is also addressed.
The paper also considers the workings of the informal network of Banks, Cary, Cockerell, Zinovieff and other associates, each of whom at the time were essentially freelance or independent practitioners, beholden neither to academic institutions nor industry. This network formed just one of what Bijker, Hughes and Pinch might call a ‘relevant social group’ with respect to the VCS3. Other such groups would include early adopters amongst the rock music world; early ‘live electronics’ groups such as Intermodulation, Gentle Fire and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s group; and the rash of electronic music studios, particularly in the UK, that sprang up in tertiary institutions in the late 1960s and early 70s.
Starting with an outline history of Peter Zinovieff’s private electronic music studio in London, the paper proceeds to trace the networks of personal and institutional connections, and technological conditions, that engendered the VCS3, and challenges some of the received wisdom regarding its origins, nomenclature and impact
Individual records of desertion from the British Army 1807-1815
No full textTranscriptions of deserter records from The National Archive’s volumes WO 25/2906 and WO 25/2907. The sample comprises desertions from the following regiments:
· 2nd Dragoon Guards
· 3rd Dragoons
· 7th Light Dragoons
· 8th Light Dragoons
· 9th Light Dragoons
· 10th Light Dragoons
· 1st Foot Guards
· 1st Foot
· 6th Foot
· 22nd Foot
· 35th Foot
· 43rd Foot
· 59th Foot
· 74th Foot
This dataset lists the name, regiment, and rank of 1,300 individuals, details of their desertion given in the original records, along with additional fields used to analyse this information. The dataset covers 1807 to 1815, and the bulk of the records are concentrated in the years 1813 to 1815
Dataset relating to 'Time domain measurement of terahertz magnetoplasmon resonance in a two-dimensional electron system through direct pulse injection'
No full textWe demonstrate the monolithic integration of AlGaAs/GaAs 2DEGs with short carrier lifetime photoconductive LT-GaAs, allowing the investigation of THz frequency range magnetoplasmon resonances by the direct injection of ~picosecond duration pulses through the system. The evolution of time domain signals with magnetic field were measured, and the results found to be in good agreement with theoretical calculations made using a mode-matching approach for frequencies above 0.1 THz. Our experimental work introduces a generic technique suitable for the study of ultrafast carrier dynamics in low-dimensional semiconductor nanostructures at THz frequencies
Cold air bypass within contained aisle data centres - experimental bypass measurements and calculations undertaken to estimate flows through, and power consumptions of servers.
No full textUnderlying data relating to the paper "An experimental and theoretical investigation of the extent of bypass air within data centres employing aisle containment, and its impact on power consumption". The dataset includes raw experimental results, as well as calculations made on data obtained from other sources
Extended train robots
No full textTrain Robots is a dataset of synthetic scenes of a robot arm picking up and putting down different objects together with natural language descriptions of these actions. These descriptions were obtained using Amazon Mechanical Turk. An extension to the original dataset includes two more shapes and an additional colour. Finally, the natural given descriptions are given in Arabic as well as English
Dataset associated with 'Long spin lifetime and large barrier polarisation in single electron transport through a CoFe nanoparticle'
No full textRaw data relating to the publication "Long spin lifetime and large barrier polarisation in single electron transport through a CoFe nanoparticle" is provided. The raw data for each figure is provided
Data for “Kinetics study and modelling of steam methane reforming process over a NiO/Al2O3 catalyst in an adiabatic packed bed reactor” in International Journal of Hydrogen Energy.
No full textData file containing datasets used to generate the figures and tables in the paper
Industrial Activity: Kraftwerk's Radio-Activity as dystopian sonic template
No full textRadio-Activity (1975) deals with the most dystopian themes the pioneering German electronic group ever addressed. It was released shortly before the emergence in Britain of what became known as industrial music. The paper will argue that the more sonically radical and conceptually dystopian elements of the album were a strong precedent for industrial music and the way in which it used electronically-generated sound and noise. The minimalistic electronic percussion, oscillator and voltage sounds, shortwave radio recordings and collages of sampled voices deployed by Kraftwerk here can be directly compared to industrial's use of noise as a texture, within and against a pop format. The use of these sonic elements to explore dystopian and ambivalent subject matter is also relevant here. Geiger Counter manipulates the fears surrounding radiation and The Voice of Energy features an alienated, electronically processed vocal that gives voice to fears of technological domination. The use of simulated and actual radio sounds and news reports on News has parallels with the near-contemporary work of the British group Cabaret Voltaire and their use of similar materials and themes, for instance on the early track Baader Meinhof. While Kraftwerk took this sample-based technique no further, it would become a key stylistic trope of industrial music. Uranium is a chilling soundscape that coldly dramatises the lethal potential of the element, and uses electronic sound to communicate a sense of ominousness. Another important parallel to be considered is the use of sonic and conceptual ambivalence. The album was the group's most controversial, with some seeing it as being uncritical of, or even consciously aestheticising nuclear power. This overlooked Kraftwerk's documentary ambition to present tone pictures of everyday technological life, as well as their sly irony. The presenation of extreme and disturbing subject matter in industrial has generated even more severe criticism, with many being disturbed by its sonic-conceptual ambivalence. With these questions in mind, Radio-Activity will be compared with examples from groups such as Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, Clock DVA and others, illustrating some of the related approaches that appeared in the wake of the album. Both Kraftwerk and these artist consciously used what were then the still-alienating potentials of electronic sound, manipulating and ambivalently exploring technophobia and the darker side of late 20th Century ideas of (post)-industrial progress. Due to the controversy generated by its apparent “over-identification” with nuclear power, it has been relatively overlooked and is seen as less influential than those before and after it, yet it did exert a hidden influence as what Slavoj Žižek terms as a “vanishing mediator” between the approaches informing the elektronische musik of the Cologne School (which Kraftwerk members were fully aware of) and industrial. From there the still under-narrated industrial's effect on subsequent forms including Electronic Body Music (EBM), New Beat, Techno and certain strains of electronica can be traced, expanding our understanding of Kraftwerk's stylistic and conceptual influence further than previously
Electroacoustic Mythmaking: National Grand Narratives in Electroacoustic Music
No full textHistories of electroacoustic music tend to converge around a limited set of grand narratives, which construct an outline of electroacoustic history organized around themes including the 'Great Studios', a small handful of 'Great Composers' (Stockhausen, Schaeffer, Berio, Cage...), and contrast and conflict between 'Great Nations' – primarily, between France and Germany. While all of the above had roles to play in the development of the genre, these narratives can at best be described as misleading, and at worst be accused of rather sinister undercurrents.
Not only are such simplifications extremely reductive, and at times demonstrably false, they also support a form of broad national caricature that demands a thorough and critical rethinking. Where composers of this period of post-war Modernism were desperate to ensure that the nationalist romantic mistakes of the past would not be repeated, the retrospective gaze of electroacoustic history has re-imposed this same narrative once again, by emphasizing post-war animosity as a defining factor in the birth of a new musical genre.
These narratives of 'great men', 'great studios', and 'great nations', are all focused on loci of power – but silently and invisibly, without addressing the various sources and motivations that lie behind these accumulations of power. The picture that emerges as a result appears to privilege and celebrate power, lacking an essential level of scrutiny.
To balance this largely unintentional narrowness of vision, we might usefully pursue two parallel paths. A focus on various forms of power as a defining factor in the development of electroacoustic music is not without its relevance, but requires contextualization and closer examination; for example, an examination of the resources involved in EA's development – the flow of resources, points at which resources are or have been abundant, or at which they have been lacking or denied – would serve to openly address and balance narratives of power, and could be expected to lead to greater insight into the forces that formed our field, and may potentially help in shaping strategies for future development.
On the other hand, we might move away from power as a central narrative, to focus on some of the more positive forces that have had every bit as much of a formative effect. Many of the 'great men' and 'great studios' were of such great importance not only through the force of their thought and creative output, but, very importantly, through their often significant efforts and successes in building communities of interest. Taking this as a starting point, a number of alternative approaches to electroacoustic history suggest themselves, taking the interplay of communities and community outreach as cornerstones: for example, a mapping of electroacoustic history through its great pedagogues, and the communities and webs of influence they have helped to inspire. This would retain something of a 'great men' approach, but a focus on pedagogical figures leads us, in my opinion, to a more accurate and fuller image of the changing electroacoustic landscape