For the Alex Vittum portion of my blog I would like to submit a copy of my Master Class paper on the presentation:

On Friday, November 5, 2010 I went to a lecture demonstration at the MPA Music Hall at CSUMB. The presenter was Alex Vittum, who is a drummer, composer, instrument builder, recording engineer, producer, and extremely free thinking musician. The venue could hold about two hundred people, and there were about fifty in attendance.
Vittum began by giving a little background. He began his musical studies as a drummer in New York where he met Dr. Waters playing in a workshop band that would practice and work out contemporary compositions. As his career and tastes developed be sought out more of the technical side of music creation as a new outlet for composition. Vittum came to California to study at Mills college for his post graduate work, were he began working in Berkeley for Donn Buchla the instrument builder and synth designer.
As part of his experimentation with bridging the gap between drumming and engineering, he developed a software instrument project called Prism. The setup for this software is he has his drum set with Audix drum mics of the snare and kick, which go through his Metric Halo 2882 interface into his computer which uses the MIO software to interface with MaxMSP which houses the Prism instrument, which is then routed back out of the computer via MIO to a pair of Mackie SRM 450 powered 2-way loudspeakers that sit just behind the drum set. Max MSP is also connect via MIDI to a one octave Mallet Cat trigger surface that allows him to trigger different assigned parameters in the Prism program. This setup allows him to use his drum set and other percussion instrument to generate different sounds and loops via Prism that would playback through the speakers which adds the further element of controlled feedback from the speaker to microphone relationship.
The Prism functionality was inspired by some of the base concepts of the Buchla synths; the manipulation and control of Timbre, Amplitude, and Frequency. These parameters can be manipulated in a number of ways via Prism, but the most direct and used for this demo were frequency shifters, effects routing via a complex matrix, and Granular synthesis. For some compositions he would split the two input signals into four signals for extended sampling ability and more complex loop harmonics. The program also includes envelops, minimal compression, and cross-effect routing for feedback.
The first piece he performed used the drum kit, a saw blade, and bells and in Prism used frequency shifters and reverb. As he played the bells and the blade he would trigger via the MIDI controller different ranges of frequency shift which when bussed to the reverb created these complex harmonic tones that while unruly and unlike the natural sound still felt organic and authentic. I found the composition to be and incredible exposition of his instrument and what it can be capable of. The second piece he played utilized the Granular synthesis concept which involves the sampling of four different segments of time of his playing and the predetermined or randomizing of samples within those samples that have independent “window” of shape. This means that sections of his tracked loops are played back and affected to create a delay style unlike any other delay available. The third piece he played was in many ways like Alvin Lucier’s I am Sitting In A Room in that what he did was play a snare roll (which was insanely executed, it was like he could just turn his snare roll on and off he had such good technique) that was fed into reverbs and sent back out the speakers. He continued the snare roll until resonate feedback from the mics began to occur. At first the feedback was from the snare mic but after a while the floor tom which was also micd began to resonate at it’s frequency to add a low drone that built up with the snare sound until a cacophonous roars had built up to the point where he could stop playing the snare and let this ominous feedback buildup continue and stimulated the snare and tom to resonate continuously. The build up was so long and so steady that the gradations in sound could not be heard but rather felt at intervals; it was very, very impressive.
When asked about the role his instrument design plays in his composition he said it was a “give and take” relationship. While the concept for a piece might be birthed from a concept created by Prism, elements of Prism were also inspired by composition concepts. This is a very unique and interesting synthesis between the production concept and the compositional process.
Vittum finished his presentation with a short demonstration of on of Buchla’s hybrid analogue digital modular synthesizers. While the interfacing and the routing and the components themselves are all analogue and traditional the inner workings are all interpreted digitally with a computer. This enables presets and recall capabilities that normal analogue synths do not have. The synth can also interface with controllers via MIDI, which we set up with one of the standard M-Audio 61 key KeyStations. The synth contains three oscillators each with a primary and modulation oscillator. These can be routed in mono, or in poly where one can have three distinct voices or two voices with two mods or two voices with one mod. These oscillators also had mod controls for Timbre, Amplitude, and Pitch, and linear sine wave shape potentiometers. There are also four envelopes with Attack and Release controls, which can also be configured as two envelopes with Attack Decay Sustain and Release. These filters also have alternative inputs so that one can create internal feedback loops for increased harmonic creation and control. It can also be controlled via a touch plate that is sensitive in pressure, location of the touch, and the velocity or intensity of the hit. This allows for unending possibilities for sound creation and synthesis and is definitely one of the most impressive and comprehensive pieces of equipment I have ever seen.
This presentation was very impressive and highly inspirational. As with much of the related curriculum in MPA 334 this presentation has further opened my mind to the endless possibilities in composition, engineering, the use of an instrument and in production.