JASON KAHN

"I recorded these pieces live in studio using analogue synthesizer, floor tom and small cymbals. The synthesizer produced sine waves and treated the sound of the percussion, which I ran from a condenser microphone mounted on the floor tom over the mixer and back into the synthesizer. I could then control how much of the synthesizer's output was coming from external input or from its oscillators and, via the microphone, loop the output back to the mixer and to two speakers in the room, which amplified the floor tom's signal. The floor tom functioned as resonant chamber, providing both feedback and a slightly different harmonic imaging of the room sound. Attached to the floor tom were two contact microphones, one mounted on the shell of the drum and one mounted on the bottom skin. These microphones created feedback and resonant signals in different frequency ranges, depending on how I worked the equalisation on the mixer. I was able to record with eight different room microhpones, the room being extremely large, with 20-meter high ceilings. Each room microphone picked up a different frequency range, depending on its placement and how the room's resonant frequency mixed with what I was playing. In addition to analogue synthesizer and percussion, the room itself was thus the third «instrument» I used on this recording. These pieces were not edited. The only post-production involved working with the equalisation and phasing of the different room microphones to affect subtle changes in the overall mix." J. Kahn, January 2004