Works » By Title » A » ANAGENIC (1985)

“Particle Music” was made completely by sampling real sounds. The sampling software was written entirely in Z-80 assembly language on an SD-Systems Z-80 Starter Kit with 50K of RAM and an 8 bit Cromenco D+7A a/d/a converter. Each sound was sampled and stored as a 16K file, allowing 3 files at any one time in memory. Sixteen successive samples were taken before an end of file check was made. This, along with selecting sounds that had a “built-in” dither component, allowed seemingly greater dynamic range and less noise from the 8 bit machine. Sounds were sampled directly or from prerecorded tape, from a wide variety of pots and pans, toys, instruments, junk, natural occurrences, etc. Each piece was composed with the multitrack in mind (4 track) so as to layer the parts. I found that rhythm and “composite timbre” offered the most flexibility and interest in organizing the sampled sounds, and so the compositions were based on these two considerations. In creating “particles” my ears were open to the world of real sounds, and the fun of listening for and finding common objects that had extraordinary sound potential. Often assisted by my four year old son, I relearned the simple beauty of unexpected day-to-day sounds and the true wonder of unquestioned existence, a truly satisfying project. JW