soundware v1.5
by Aleksandar Vasiljevic + domin8r///CoRRoSioN

on-air / on-line: 28th October 2001

SOUNDWARE v1.5 is a soundscape using side-effect noises created by computer hardware as a sound source. This is a type of sounds we are all familiar with - hard/floppy disk clicks, fans, all kinds of electromagnetic interferences, etc. These sounds are sometimes tranquilising (maybe hypnotic), other times disturbing or even frightening (e.g. a HD head dropoff). Sometimes they are so faint that we do not even perceive them.

In any of these cases, since there is an obvious logical connection with the computer task that is being performed, these sounds oftenly tell us more about the stage of the process being performed inside the machine than a standard VGA screen info does. Therefore, they certainly have influence upon our psychological state, although we are not always aware of them.

Most of my (and domin8r's) friends keep their computer cases open all the time for various reasons: some constantly upgrade their hardware for the sake of pure experiment, some experience regular wiring problems (which force them to check the connections every now and then), some just think that it's the best way to keep their machines cool. This had made SOUNDWARE-type noises a regular and significant part of our audio experience and pulled them out of the subliminal domain into a fully-recognisable part of audio environment.

The "musical" aspect of SOUNDWARE is almost obvious: the rhythmic component is provided by the fact that many computer jobs are based on sequential reading/writing/transfer of packages, while the pitch is controlled by types and length of packages.

Sound samples used in SOUNDWARE v1.5 were taken in three basic ways:
1. Microphone recording inside a PC tower (picking floppy drive, hard disk and fan noises);
2. Line recording of PC and AMIGA 500 analogue audio output while opening/playing different types of non-audio files;
3. Line recording of radio-frequency interferences between AMIGA 500 and a radio tuner.

The samples have afterwards been treated either as continuous crossfading loops (organised and mixed by Aleksandar Vasiljevic) or as PCM waveforms used for making tracker-based electronic music (by domin8r).

The essential upgrade planned for SOUNDWARE v2.0 is creation of dedicated non-musical files (such as graphics, .txt files, etc.) and applications intended to provoke the desired rhythmical/pitch SOUNDWARE pattern.

Aleksandar Vasiljevic