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Multichannel DeGrader VST plugin

August 4, 2023

DeGrader Demo from Trond Lossius on Vimeo.

 

The DeGrader VST plug-in is now fully functional, with similar behaviour to the C’74 Max object degrade~ Based on code base for the IEM Ambisonics Plug-in Suite, it can process from two to sixty-four audio channels. The DSP signal processing algorithm is a port from Jamoma DSP code, and hence proof of concept for porting and implementing further DSP algorithms from Jamoma to VST.

In the process, I gradually learn more about C++ development, the IEM code base and the Juce framework.

Restoring video and audio documentation

August 1, 2023

When I ported this web site to Nanoc last year, video and audio documentation of past works, hosted at Vimeo and SoundCloud, got lost in the transition. Today I finally got around to restore them.

There is a series of works done in recent years that remains to be properly documented and added, one of them being this collaboraiton with Ingeborg Annie Lindahl at Surnalad billag in 2021:

Trond Lossius · The Transience of Time (soundtrack, 2021)

Compiling IEM plugins usinc Cmake

July 31, 2023

A note to myself after a way too long hiatus here at the blog:

Here is how to compile the IEM Ambisonics plugins using Cmake:

// Clone and set up repository with the JUCE submodule
git clone https://git.iem.at/audioplugins/IEMPluginSuite.git
cd IEMPluginSuite
git submodule init
git submodule update

// Set up build folder
mkdir build
cd build

// Set up Xcode project to build VST plugins only
cmake .. -GXcode -DIEM_BUILD_VST2=ON \
-DIEM_BUILD_STANDALONE=OFF \
-DIEM_STANDALONE_JACK_SUPPORT=OFF \
-DVST2SDKPATH=“/Users/lossius/dev/VST/vstsdk2.4”

The Xcode project can be found in the build folder. Choose the ALL_BUILD scheme, and build. The VST plugins built will install to the ~/Library/Audio/Plugins/VST/IEM folder.

I have updated the code for a GainAdjust plugin I made a while back to boost signals from Zylia recordings, and I am currently working on some multi-channel DSP processors. Tye altered GUI works and compiles, but it remains to implement the DSP processing.

Dolby Atmos ABC

July 10, 2022

For long I have wanted to get aquinted with Dolby Atmos. Over the past week I have spent a few hours a day reading up, and I now have Reaper integrated with the Dolby Atmos Renderer. The two above screenshots are initial tests listening back to some 3rd order ambisonic field recordings, decoded for and played back using Dolby Atmos. A next step will be to render to ADM files that I can load on my iPhone in order to see how they sound with head tracing.

Whle figuring out how to work with Dolby Atmos in Reaper, I found quite a few useful tips on the YouTube Channel of Immersive Audio Mixer, so a shout-out and thanks for that!

Field recording at Ensjø

June 19, 2022

For the first time in quite a while, I have added a new field recording to the Suburb Sound site. Check it out here.

Moving to a new server

May 22, 2022

For the past fourteen years, this website has been running as a Ruby on Rails application at a Mac OSX Server hosted by BEK. For several years, BEK has warned me that the server will soon close down, but until now, I have never had the time to act on it, apart from backing up server content. It has made me hesitant to add new content to the website, with the result that there has been very little activity here in recent years.

I have ported the site from Ruby On Rails to Nanoc. Nanoc generates static web pages with security and speed benefits on the server-side. Creating new content is a little finicky, but it should still be OK. Hopefully, the transition will invite more activity here in the future.

For the time being, the website uses the same layout as when conceived initially back in 2003. However, I plan to update it later this year to make it responsive.

The above image has nothing to do with anything; it is just a sample image that, at some point, came bundled with OSX. I included it here to test that I have gotten the CSS right for images in new blog posts.

I am my own studio tech assistant

February 24, 2021

Img_7643

Maintenance work at my studio over the past few days:

  • Substituted a cable from sound card to amplifier to have all 16 channels of the surround setup working again
  • Calibrated all audio outlets so that all 16 channels work properly with consistent sound levels
  • Got rear pair of a quad setup working (finally)
  • Installed macOS Big Sur on a laptop
  • Set the same laptop up to use a MOTU 1248 sound card over AVB
  • Installed new 4K computer monitor (harsh reality check regarding the current level of photo skills)
  • Tidied up and cleaned the studio
  • Installed Ableton Live 11
  • Got bass guitar properly working with DI box and connected to various VST bass amp simulators (fun)

I am my own studio tech assistant.

Diatribe, conversation at Ringebu Prestegard

August 25, 2020

Katrine_køster_holst

Coming Saturday, I take part in a conversation on the exhibitions and processes by Monica Winther, Katrine Køster Holst and Runhild Hundeide. They are all visiting artists at different locations in Innland county.

Conversations will reflect on how the exhibitions relate to where they take place and also traces ongoing research and explorations that will continue beyond the exhibition period. A first question is therefore whether these artistic practices can be communicated and considered as traditional exhibitions, or whether they bring with them a different type of awareness of the work’s creation that asks for alternative critical perspectives.

http://kunstopp.no/2020/08/20/diatribe-6-kritikersamtale-pa-ringebu-prestegard/

DART seminar in Madrid

February 10, 2020

Trond_lossius_ekkofritt

Coming weekend I give a seminar for PhD students at Fundacíòn Katarina Gurska outside Madrid.

 

http://katarinagurska.com/en/novedad-educativa/5o-encuentro-del-programa-dart-de-investigaciones-artisticas-curso-2019-2020/

How can artistic research be motivated, understood and developed from within artistic practice? The literature on artistic research (AR) often argues for AR from an institutional perspective. I want instead to reason from within and consider AR a meaningful and productive way to structure, develop and share the artistic practice as well as methods, insights, reflections and perspectives that emerge from within the practice and that might be of use to fellow artist and community at large.

I will give a self-presentation focusing on my own background, artistic practice and experience as a research fellow, cultural worker, as PhD supervisor and as former Head of Research at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. I come to all of these roles and functions from the position of an artist. Methodologically I position my approach according to the “Nordic” or “Norwegian” model, with a sui generis perspective that foregrounds research in and through artistic practice, as a thinking-doing and doing-thinking from within.

How can AR be understood and managed as it unfolds? AR is a twofold process: Research has to be carried out, and next, it needs to be disseminated. Dissemination is an editorial process where elements are selected, prepared and organised to communicate the research clearly and convincingly. There is a rhetoric element to this, as suggested by several of the terms used by Michael Schwab to describe sharing of artistic research; staging, performing, unfolding, exposing, exhibiting or curating.

Successful expositions of AR are valuable, but they do not necessarily provide a chronological overview of how the research developed. In general, there is a potential danger if models for dissemination gets retrofitted into expectations for how research is to unfold. The research process is seldom as neat, tidy, structured and linear as the dissemination might suggest. I propose an alternative model for reflecting on the AR process as it unfolds. It combines six categories or perspectives. It considers (1) Research Question, (2) Context, (3) Methods and 4) Results. Results are often are temporary and site-specific, and hence (5) Documentation is essential. Finally, (6) Reflection is required. The proposed model emphasises how all six dimensions interrelate, inspired by a similar relational didactic model by Hiim and Hippe. The model invites reflection on the research process, emphasises relationships between categories, and acknowledges the research as a complex and dynamic process where none of the perspectives comes first. Instead, developing the AR implies that all six dimensions evolve.

During the seminar, there will be ample time for conversations and discussions. We might also head out for a listening session, to experience first-hand some of the approaches I have to my own artistic practice. The Sunday session is set aside for brief presentations by each of the students and subsequent discussions on how the perspectives offered in the seminar might relate and apply to their ongoing research.

Call for Vis #5 – Onbe more time, let’s do it again!

February 7, 2020

Vis-call

https://www.en.visjournal.nu/call/

The call is open between 17 February and 1 June 2020.

 

THEME “ONE MORE TIME, LET’S DO IT AGAIN!”
Trond Lossius, Editor of VIS Issue 5

The OECD Frascati Manual defines five criteria that all research and development work must meet. The fifth of these is that the activity must be “transferable and/or reproducible” 1. Reproducibility has revealed itself to be thornier than previously perceived, and the last decade has seen something of a “reproducibility crisis” in several scientific disciplines 2. This crisis also extends to the humanities 3.

There are reasons to question whether it is legitimate to deploy such scientifically-oriented research concepts in artistic research 4. Taking the interpretation of classical music repertoire as an example, is it at all meaningful to consider this highly individualised activity in relation to scientific ideas of replication? Do not musical interpretations instead negotiate an artistic field of tensions and possibilities between remaining ‘true to tradition’ and ‘breaking new ground’, between respecting the intentions of past artists and craving space for interpretative freedom, always resulting in something new?

Rather than engaging with the question of reproducibility, VIS Issue #5 will reflect on what “doing it again” may lead to in artistic research. Doing something again is integral to many artistic practices. The performing arts require rehearsal (répétition in French). Once adequately rehearsed, performances are commonly given several times over 5. Other artists engage with a series of works, or revisit a motif, topic or question over and over again. Works of art may benefit from “a second chance”, not least in artistic research. Repetitions might be the result of deliberate choices or emerge as recurrences within the practice 6. Artists may “do again” within their own practice or engage with the work of others through reading, restaging, referencing, reproducing, appropriating, reusing, sampling, or re-enacting 7.

Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt suggest that “repetition is a form of change” 8. What insights may emerge by doing something again and again, repeatedly, over a long period? How may artistic research draw upon and benefit from such iterations? We invite expositions of artistic research where “doing it again” is of importance, and we invite contributors to expose the artistic research questions, contexts, practices and outcomes in which repetition manifests itself, reflecting upon how “doing it again” may contribute to practice, to research, insights and to knowledge production.

(The title for this call cites the lyrics from a song by Röyksopp and Robyn 9.)

 

1 OECD. (2015). Frascati Manual 2015. Guidelines for collecting and reporting data on research and experimental development. The measurement of scientific, technological and innovation activities. Paris: OECD Publishing, p. 45.

2 Baker, M. (2016). 1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility. Nature, 533(7604), 452–454. https://doi.org/10.1038/533452a

3 Peels, R., & Bouter, L. (2018). The possibility and desirability of replication in the humanities. Palgrave Communications, 4(1), 95. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-018-0149-x

4 Ruiten, S. van, Wilson, M., & Borgdorff, H. (Eds.). (2013). SHARE: Handbook for artistic research education (Amsterdam, ELIA), p. 25.

5 Crispin, Darla, Hultqvist, Anders and Lagerström, Cecilia (Eds). (2016). Repetitions and Reneges, PARSE Journal, 3, 7-11 (Gothenburg, University of Gothenburg). https://parsejournal.com/article/introduction-to-repetitions-and-reneges/

6 Bandlien, B. Å. (2019). PhD-project: Recurrences – a method and practice within dance and choreography (2016-). Retrieved 15 December 2019, from PhD-project: Recurrences a method and practice within dance and choreography (2016) website: https://khioda.khio.no/khio-xmlui/handle/11250/2425899

7 Refer to the topic of VIS Issue #3 History Now.

8 Eno, B., & Schmidt, P. (2001). Oblique Strategies. Over one hundred worthwhile dilemmas (5th ed.) [Deck of cards].

9 Berge, S., Brundtland, T., & Robyn. (2014). Do it again. Arts & Crafts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btBSxtKzF6Q

For older blog posts, please refer to the monthly archives.