R!g (review)

Curtis Bahn's compact disc, r!g, is a set of six live solo improvisations composed and performed on his SBass (or Sensor Bass), an improvisational performance system built around a 5-string electric upright bass. The bass is rigged with numerous microphones, controllers, and sensors whose data is sent to a computer for real-time analysis and synthesis. Part composition, part instrument, the SBass is a system that enables Mr. Bahn to have complete control over his music: to be at once a composer, a performer, and an engineer.

The bass is fitted with an array of sensory gadgets including contact microphones, a mouse pad, force sensitive resistors (the same devices used to sense aftertouch controller data in many MIDI keyboards), and even a biaxial accelerometer. The data from these sensors are translated into MIDI messages by a BasicStamp microcomputer and then fed into an Apple PowerBook running a custom Max/MSP patch.

One of Mr. Bahn's stated goals in creating the SBass was to "enable me to take my electro-acoustic music out of the studio and into a wide range of performance contexts" (www.arts.rpi.edu/crb/Activities/ sbass.htm). As such, the patch he has created in Max/MSP is a multipurpose instrument stocked with an army of analysis and synthesis modules. There are objects for harmonization, granulation, modulation, and physical modeling, all of which are controlled by algorithmic and aleatoric processes and by precomposed material. In live performance, the patch is routed to an eight-channel spherical speaker system designed by Mr. Bahn, Dan Trueman, and Perry Cook. For r!g, however, these eight channels were mixed down to a stereo pair.

r!g is by nature an exploratory album, owing to the fact that all of the pieces were culled from longer live improvisations and "lightly edited for CD presentation" (CD liner notes). Indeed, the album conveys a sense of incompleteness, with each track seeming to end in the midst of an idea. However, this does not mean the pieces are devoid of structure. The six pieces on r!g form a patchwork quilt; taken together they form a greater whole than the sum of their parts.

Named after the instrument itself, the first track, Sbass, serves as an apt introduction to the impending sonic adventure. It moves with an episodic, yet circular, structure across many levels of textural and timbral complexity. It starts out with a slow invention-like intro, Mr. Bahn seemingly feeling his way around his instrument, seeing what he can make it do. Soon after, it builds to a wild clash of textures and sounds characterized by extremely dynamic movement. The most striking feature of SBass, even at the outset, is the variety of gestural motives and melodic trajectories, presumably made possible by the many tactile sensors and controllers available on the instrument. The dynamism that such a setup can achieve is stunning, and provides much of the musical material for this track as well as for most of the pieces on the album.

For the most part the data from these sensors seem to be used to modulate various parameters of synthesis (it is most obvious when applied to the granular synthesis objects). They are also responsible for the wild, rapid panning throughout this piece and the rest of the album. Though the panning adds a degree of lively motion, it is overused and quickly becomes tiresome. Admittedly, the panning effects probably sound less wild and are perhaps more interesting in an eight-channel playback system than in stereo. However, Mr. Bahn chose to include these effects on the CD mix-down, a choice that only serves to distract the listener from the more compelling aspects of the music.

The SBass system's abundant use of gestural control gives the music...