New song!

This is a song that I wrote last summer with Kevin Emre of I-ching. (they are freaking amazing by the way check them out!!)

It's taken too long to get out and I'm still not too happy with the mix... If only I had a studio to record everything in!!

Incidentally if anyone out there wants to lend me a studio, that would be awesome. I will bake you lots of cake in gratitude.




Anyways, feedback would be really appreciated, drop me an email at helenbellringer@gmail.com with your thoughts (even though I know the two people that read my blog - hi Mum, hi Dad)

Or you can 'tweet' me because I'm all modern now #checkmeout @HellsBellaBells in twitterland

I'll be bringing some more musics out soon!!

LuckyPDF live stream!

The LuckyPDF TV live show can now be seen online! Featuring some cool performances from different artists, and Helen Benigson (Princess Belsize dollar) for whom I wrote the music which she is performing to.

Princess Belsize dollar and I can be seen performing right at the end of this show; live from the Frieze art fair on the 16th October

Watch live streaming video from luckypdf at livestream.com

Enjoy!

My Music was on the culture show!!

I've been working recently with artist and rapper Helen Benigson who performs as Princess Belsize Dollar. This Wednesday we performed at the Frieze art fair in London for the art collective LuckyPDF. A few weeks ago the BBC came to record one of our rehearsals for the culture show and it was aired last night! The short segment at the end features Helen rapping to some of my music and the rest of the section also uses my music (and a Nicki Minaj tune) as a backing track! Check out the episode by clicking the title of this post!

My Nord Wave's TV debut!

So I performed at the Frieze art fair with Princess Belsize dollar for LuckyPDF yesterday. As the boys were being interviewed for a segment on Channel 4 news, we were being filmed! My ever enthusiastic parents recorded the show to play back to me and there are some rather fantastic shots of the Nord in action!


Check out LuckyPDF's site at http://www.luckypdf.com/

E4 sting!

This is an E4 Esting competition entry created by the lovely Alice Dunseath from Voodoodog. I created all the sounds you can hear in this video; I even wandered round my dads hospital with my recording equipment for the background sounds! All the disgusting squelchy sounds come from various fruits and friends' mouths... gross!! Sounds I did not create are the actors' voices, but I did edit them to the video using the rushes from the shoot.



Alice's other work can be found on her blog http://alicedunseath.tumblr.com/

Ferragamo is live!

I'm very excited today because today the interview of Salvatore Ferragamo that I created music for went live online!

I composed the music on behalf of Angelini design who shot and edited the video; they created the video for Lancia Trend visions and the video can be found here!

http://www.lanciatrendvisions.com/en/373/interview-with-leonardo-ferragamo



This is the music I created for the LANCIA Trend Visions titles, which they will be using as the title music for their interviews.

Within these resonances

This is a new song I created for my fourth year portfolio. It began as an exercise in binaural panning that became a song. I created, sung and played and recorded everything in this track except for the Cello part which was played by Angharad Maxwell. This piece is best enjoyed on headphones as it is intended to create a virtual performance space in the brain.


Within these resonances by HellsBells

Gina shoes

I've been meaning to put this up for a long while now. This is the sound and music I created for Suburbia Media's video for Gina Shoes.

Enjoy!

The Red GINA Shoe from suburbia on Vimeo.

eenie-meenie-miny-arduino.

I've had a request to put a post up explaining a little more about the Arduino technology I used to create my audio-interactive Twister board.

So here we go!

I wanted to create an audio-interactive twister board that played sounds as the different coloured circles were covered. I fell upon the idea of building a board with Light dependent resistors (LDR’s) embedded in the circles. By wiring these LDR’s up to an Arduino I was able to use the LDR’s as on/off switches to play samples using a programme called PureData (PD).

To wire the LDR’s to the board, I had to solder longer wires so that the connectors would reach. I then used a breadboard to build the circuit that would make the link between the LDR’s, the Arduino and the computer. The pins of the LDR’s were inserted into slots in the breadboard; the pins were in series with a resistor and the current then flowed to a jump wire that was inserted into the analog input of the Arduino. The USB connection from the computer to the Arduino meant that the breadboard was powered by 5v. I used the Arduino software, which facilitates the communication of the arduino with the computer, to get numerical readings from the LDR’s. I could then turn these into 'on' switches in PD that played sounds.

Here is my patch....



If an LDR was covered, the numbers would increase and stay constant, so I wrote an algorithm that instructed the computer to play a certain sound if the numbers received were above a certain threshold, depending on the resistance of the LDR and resistor in the circuit (a lower resistance would produce smaller numbers).

Because there were 20 coloured circles on the board I had to use four laptops. The Arduinos only had 5 inputs each, and could only one could be used in a computer at a time. I chose various different sounds, some comical and some everyday household sounds to make the overall experience as fun as possible for the audience.

Big shout out to Alex Davies who is gonna reference this post in his essay!
Alex's blog is... http://zeelasonitus.blogspot.com

check it out yo!

Some girls use their student discount for shoes from Topshop...

I used mine on a soldering iron, 28 piece screwdriver set, miniature toggle switches and some miniature pots from maplins....

My how the time flies...

Literally. Where did my first term go? I will upload some more music soon, I'm just trying to make all my projects as amazing as possible, so I have a lot of works in progress!

One project that I can share with you is my CIRCUIT BENDING PROJECT!

My idea is to circuit bend an old baby toy (that I used as a sound source for my first year end of year recital) to make it useable for a more mature piece. I'm planning to drill a load of LDR's into it eventually and write a PD patch to work with it - creating an interactive instrument.

I must admit here and now that I am a complete electronics novice, but what I lack in experience I make up for in enthusiasm.

Here's the old toy....



Pretty cool huh? I don't know the make of it or what it's called if anyone does, please let me know!

This is what it looks like inside...




Under the careful guidance of my marvellous tutor from RWCMD - Odilon Marcenaro, I have managed to find a nice bend for the circuit. Here it is!



By the way these are my tutor's hands here... I don't have man hands...

Next on the agenda is soldering finding more bends and various pots and switches onto the toy. More pics and videos to come soon!

Swan song

So this piece has taken me a long time to put up, it is a song that I performed for my end of year recital in June. The lyrics were written by my aunt - Judith Goddard and I created everything else! The lyrics tell the story of a life through a lens, a poignant reflection on a relationship with a camera. With this in mind I recorded my aunt's old cameras and carousel and used the rhythm of these old machines as the rhythm for the piece. Listen out for the samples!

Swan song by HellsBells

Love magazine video

So I was commissioned by Suburbia Media to make sound for their video for LOVE magazine. I made a soft sounscape using my own voice and different camera sounds - It can now be viewed and heard on Suburbia Media's website!

Or here

LOVE 3 - The Fashion Icons Issue from suburbia on Vimeo.

http://www.suburbia-media.com/love3/

These are alternative musical ideas that I produced for the project.

Love alt version 1 by HellsBells

Love alt version 2 by HellsBells

Love alt version 3 by HellsBells

Love alt version 4 by HellsBells

HellsBells animation

So the lovely Grace Bird made me an awesome animation for my blog and night! I created a short beat-based soundscape to go with the visuals.

Enjoy!



One again Grace can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/Grape1988

Frankenstein must be destroyed.

This is another video from HellsBells and the Audio Adventurers that I've (finally) put up on youtube. It is a piece by Ed Millington that he and I adapted for a multi-media-spangly-sparkly performance and it features live Nord wave, live sample triggering, live cameramin, live drums and the amazing Emma-Jean Thackray on live Trumpet!

Enjoy!

When you fall

This is a song that I wrote and sung and cut up to play live on my ipod! In this piece I am again tapping into the XY and Z axises of the ipod's accelerometer, but I am using these axises to control the parameters of the effects that can be heard on the vocals. I am triggering the vocal samples using the buttons in OSCemote, and the different movements I'm making are mapped to delay, reverb (which freezes when the ipod is flipped 180 degrees, or onto its' Z axis) and a velocity controlled filter which affects the frozen reverb.

If you would like any more information on the technical side of things, send me a message! Screen shots of the patch I developed for this piece and my other OSC pieces can be found in the sideshow that is (or should be!) playing at the top left of the screen. Also in the sideshow are pictures of the audio-interactive twisterboard and octophonic wobble board panner that I made for the occasion!

Movement 1

This is a piece that I wrote for tape and live ipod that I performed in my night - HellsBells and the Audio Adventurers.

In this piece I am tapping into the accelerometer in the ipod using an app called OSCemote - streaming the data to my custom built PureData patch on my laptop. I have translated he XYZ accelerometer coordinates into musical gestures.

If anyone is interested in the PD patch or any other aspect of the technology or music, message me for more info!

It's been a while...

well... a very long time! Sadly deadlines and such mean that I haven't been able to commit as much time to my blog as I should have - however, it does mean that I've been beavering away creating new sounds and music and experiences! Alongside curating and performing in my night, I have composed and created sound for a few other projects, as well as finishing my research paper on Kyma - for which the wonderful CARLA SCALETTI (!!!!!!!!) was kind enough to answer a few questions for me.

So without further ado.. Here is the video from my night of Abby Foulkes on her reactable!!!

HellsBells and the Audio Adventurers!

So I'm putting on a night at my college filled with live performances and audio instillations. Should be good!




Thanks so much to the lovely Dionne Helene who made this awesome poster for the night!

check her out at http://madflavour.weebly.com/index.html

Dr. Jecklin and Mr Hyde/Marcenaro

Thanks to the careful guidance and wise teachings of Odilon Marcenaro of RWCMD CMT fame, the CMT department is now a proud owner of a (hand made) Jecklin disk! Here's a video that the Marvellous Ed Millington made to document the occasion!



Check out Ed's rather lovely blog at http://totallysound.blogspot.com/