overflowing room tones

Orange microcrush, Yamaha MSR250, microphone, laptop running Max/MSP/Jitter. 2018.

Overflowing Room Tones is a work that can function as both a sound performance or installation. The piece is for multiple loudspeakers, a single microphone, and a room.

Multiple acoustic feedback loops are set up in the room between a microphone and speaker outputs. The way each loop activates the properties of the room differs due to the size of the speaker and its relationship with the microphone and overall space.

Each speaker plays all of the sound captured by the microphone and so plays back every feedback loop. While every sound produced ‘rings’ the room as it is a resonant frequency of the room, only particular sounds resonate powerfully for each speaker.

Energy levels move from one feedback stream over into others as they gather momentum and volume before dropping off again.