Events
2021 - Another YouTube video featuring bcResonCtrl
Will Hatton dives a little deeper into how you can create unique rhythmic chord patterns using resonators and bcResonCtrl after being inspired by ELPHNT's video on the same topic.
2020 - bcResonCtrl featured on Ableton.com
ELPHNT reviewed and made a nice tutorial for Ableton's website on how to use the Bug Compass MaxForLive bcResonCtrl patch for creative sound design.
2019 - Home, at The Joffrey Ballet, Chicago
Bug Compass features on the track Lost, part of Ross Allchurch's score for choreographer Andrea Walker's Home. Commissioned by The Joffrey Ballet, Chicago.
2018 - Skin Tour
After the sell-out international tour of Smother, 201's award-winning hip-hop theatre returns with SKIN: a boy's intimate journey of gender transition to discover a body that feels like home.
Music composed by Ross Allchurch, with Bug Compass collaborating on Two Worlds.
Further information and tour dates: https://www.201dancecompany.com/skin
2015 - Bug Compass' bcResonCtrl M4L device reviewed on Sonic Bloom
The online Music Technology website Sonic Bloom has a great review of my Bug Compass bcResonCtrl Max for Live device. The device was adapted from a Max/MSP patch which converts incoming MIDI notes (from an external keyboard or software sequencer) into the cc# information needed to control (or play) Ableton Live's Resonators.
Read the Sonic Bloom review here. full details of the development can be found in the patches section of this website.
2012 - Music Played in Parliament
A recent Vegan Society video with a Bug Compass soundtrack was played in the UK Parliament on Monday 29 October.
2011 - Concert featuring Cassiopeia A
A Bug Compass Max/MSP FFT Freeze patch was recently used live in the song The Gambler, available here on: YouTube, with bug compass also playing piano on the song. The concert groundbreakingly featured live realtime audio from the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, vocoded with the singer Zinta Marchant's vocals (previously Zinta Egle).
Bug Compass also played a variety of other instruments during the show including keyboards, glockenspiel, melodica and Indian harmonium (sometimes awkwardly simultaneously). The entire concert was streamed live on the web.
Read more at: Astronomers Without Borders.
See the the live web stream capture of the song Snowstorm World featuring the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A at either YouTube or Vimeo.
2011 - Immersive sound and vision at the ICA
The Bug Compass composition Sheng was featured as part of an evening of immersive sound and vision at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.
"For July's edition of Everything SoundFjord curates an evening of immersive sound and vision in the form of an extended screening of absorbing, contemplative sound art and elastic, subsuming imagery. These works have been especially selected to define the concept of the 'Sublimated Landscape' by exploring the saturation of the sonic and visual field, represented by works of immersive sound and visual art. Using the notion of 'sublimation' as a point of departure, the screening has been expanded to encompass an exploration of sonic topology through the framing, shaping and distortion of sound, image and space."
2010 - Artist Talk at The Horsebridge Arts Center
On October 20th a public talk was delivered and answered audience questions relating to the Mayan Calendar installation, exhibited as part of the Wide-Word: Word-ART Exhibition at the Horsebridge Arts Center in Whitstable, Kent.
2010 - Mayan Calendar Installation
The Bug Compass Mayan Calendar installation was exhibited for one week at the Horsebridge Arts Center in Whitstable (Kent) as part of the Wide-Word: Word-ART Exhibition.
The Mayan Calendar was set to run for one complete cycle over the length of the exhibition (7pm on the 20th October to 2pm October 26th).
Releases
2019 - Lost [Digital]
Lost (feat. Bug Compass) - Ross Allchurch
Released: 2019
Format: Digital
CAT No:
Label: Independent Release
℗ 2019 Ross Allchurch & Bug Compass
2017 - Two Worlds [Digital]
Two Worlds (feat. Bug Compass) - Ross Allchurch
Released: 2017
Format: Digital
CAT No:
Label: Independent Release
℗ 2017 Ross Allchurch & Bug Compass
2011 - Counting What Ifs [Digital]
Counting What Ifs (feat. Soundmouse) [Bug Compass Remix] - boyChild
Released: 24 May 2011
Format: Digital, Reel to Reel
CAT No: TSD402
USBTX1100020
Label: Three Sixty Records
℗ 2011 Three Sixty Records
2007 - The One [12"]
The One [Bug Compass Remix] - Slovo
2007 - The One [Digital]
The One [Bug Compass Remix] - Slovo
Media
Installations
Twister
This installation uses the game Twister to control the development of an audio composition, generated in 'real-time' by computer software via a self-built 24 channel CV to MIDI converter.
Mayan Calendar
This project began in 2001, when a functioning version of the Mayan Calendar was developed in the Max/MSP programming environment. Here, the Mayan Calendar is used to repeat and gradually evolve a soundfile to the point where the origin of the source is lost. Previously used by Bug Compass (and Bingo Starr!) in remixes of Lamb's Stronger and Slovo's The One, here it is presented in its raw form, where the Calendar is allowed to play continuously for the length of the exhibit, day and night - no one point is sonically the same other than when all the calendars realign.
Tunnel
In this installation a speaker array along the length of a tunnel allows visitors to initiate changes in compositional structure by moving along through the length of the installation. Looped sounds from the speakers fade in and out of each other as the guests progress. With each loop being of a very slightly different length, phased panning is created across the speaker array; given that the differences in loop length can be minuscule, the installation's sound will gradually evolve over time, creating different experiences on subsequent visits.
This installation was first exhibited at the Ear Job Exhibition at the Hanbury Gallery in Shoreditch, London in 2003.
Sisyphus Loops
Patches
MIDI Controlled Ableton Live Resonators
Ableton Live 7 didn't have this feature built in, so this pre M4L Max/MSP patch converts incoming MIDI notes (from an external keyboard or software sequencer) into the cc# information needed to control (or play) Ableton Live's Resonators. This original version finds the lowest note being played and maps it to the root note; the higher notes are achieved by adding the semitone transposition. This method limited the available range so has since been updated to map the middle note being played to the root note and then using both + and - transposition to set the other notes. Velocity is used to turn each resonator on and off.
Now also available as a M4L device. Read the review at Sonic Bloom.
Video of original Max/MSP patch
Final Max/MSP Patch Screenshots
Outdated Max4Live device (1.0) download
About
Bug Compass is a freelance sonic artist and musician, who has lectured in Sonic Arts, Music and Music Technology at the University of Kent, University of Greenwich, Canterbury Christchurch University and Canterbury College. His work as a musician and producer has been released on both vinyl and digital formats, and has been featured in several radio broacasts, theatre and dance productions.
The sound art of Bug Compass focuses on making music from the broken; either traditional musical elements are realised using broken instruments or objects whose original function no longer works (a guitar with one string, a rotting piano, a harmonium with a stuck key or squeaky pedal) where through careful editing these anomalies or errors reveal their own musicality; similarly through the use of self programmed software, generally accepted musical idioms and forms become broken and distorted. These ideas collide in a world beyond digital music, where both music is processed digitally and where the digital is processed musically.
Bug Compass has created and exhibited several sound installations including: Twister, using the children's game Twister, electronics and homemade software to edit and rearrange music in realtime; the Sisyphus Tunnel, a tunnel lined with pairs of speakers, whose audio loops interact and interfere acoustically (and psychoacoustically), and the Mayan Calendar, using algorithms from the Mayan Calender in homemade software to repeat and gradually evolve multichannel reiterations of a soundfile. The Mayan Calendar software has also been used by the artist in remixes of Lamb's Stronger and Slovo's The One. As an installation the Mayan Calendar is presented in its raw form, where the calendar is allowed to play for the length of the exhibit, day and night no one point is sonically the same other than when all the calendars realign.
In his spare time Bug Compass makes his own acoustic and electronic instruments, makes field recordings, creates computer software for manipulating existing sounds, plays keyboards in live bands and as a session musician, and creates illicit remixes of pop music.