Golden Noises Gig Report by Chuck Fournier / Chroma

So its the day after the gig. Great performance from Eric Calinan. Just the thing for soothing my frazzled sleep deprived nerves. He had a circuit bent noisemaking creation, Casio vl-tone, a Yamaha keyboard with a cool sort of ring mod feature, a multi fx pedal, chorus pedal and a small mixer. Pretty lush and varied sounds from a fairly small setup.

I brought my usual outdated "90s electronica setup" setup. Yamaha a3000 sampler, main sound source and fx unit, handles the drums, some of the bass, pads etc. This thing is usually a major pain in the ass, but its a really great fx processor and versatile sampler. Just got the hack done that fixes the knobissues so im using this more now. There's some really great glitchy granular fx in there. Also use this for hall reverb on the sends.

My sh101 acted up 2 days before the gig but i was able to borrow another one. This is my go-to synth for bass, leads, acid, noise etc. It's so quick and intuitive to edit and sounds great loud. Plugged it through a rat pedal. I don't even bother sequencing this anymore, i just a have a few tracks on my sequencer that sends out triggers to clock sync it and i just play the arp and freak the sliders or totally unsync it.

Also have a rack digital delay for flange, feedback and general delay duties. This is as much a musical instrument as the other stuff. All 3 of us tend to use the mixer as an instrument as well. That's about all we have in common gear-wise.

Sequencing was done by my trusty Kawaii q80 and ry20 drum machine midi merged together. I dont use any of the sounds in the ry20, it just triggers drum sounds from the sampler.

Seido is a madman. Didnt realize there could be so many colors to harsh distortion hehe. He was packing a lap steel that had springs where the strings should be. He also added a contact mic to it so he could tap out sounds and there were a few other hacks that I'm not sure about. He also had a mounted thing with more springs and a humbucker, and a couple of photosensor wristbands that produce squeals that changed in pitch when he moved his hands around. Fx were all guitar pedals: 2 metal zones, 2 pitch shifter delays, a bass eq, a turbo rat, a wah pedal and a volume pedal or maybe it was another wah. He wanted a big bass amp sana but the amps at the bar were pretty small so he used the roland jazz chorus and   bass amp together and mic'ed it up. It was a loud and thoroughly satisfying wall of noise.

These two guys definitely take their noise very seriously, I felt like a hack next to them hehe. Im a bit of a dilettante when it comes to noise and experimentation but these guys are really inspiring. The event and workshop was a first for Davao and people seemed to enjoy it, so we're all hoping this leads to more experimental events down here. Thanks to my good friend Chi for the great job organizing it and holding it together!

Cool performances too from Davao’s very own IÑigo Jaldon on his Yamaha rs7000 groovebox and IP of We Ride Dynamite on a drum machine, fx, providing spooky backdrops to a spoken word performer. Calling all local electronic musicians, sound artists, and sonic experimenters, get out of your bedrooms, step up and lets make this a regular thing!

Chuck Fournier/Chroma may be contacted via email or Y!M through this address: [email protected]
Photo credits: Seido: Francis Regalado. Others: Jad Montenegro