So what happened at SoundCamp @ UnBox?
“The UnBox Festival is an annual celebration of interdisciplinary thought and work through a series of workshops, performances, exhibitions and talks.”
Border Movement invited eight musicians, DJs & producers to work in an open lab space and record with UnBox musicians in two temporary studio spaces which were setup and equipped at Zorba, the UnBox Festival venue in Sultanpur (New Delhi). The group of soudcampers included: Asvajit Boyle (from Colombo, SL), Gaurav Malaker (BLOT!), TL Mazumdar, Udyan Sagar (Nucleya), Suryakant Sawhney (Peter Cat Recording Co), Sanaya Ardeshir (Sandunes), Vinayak Karthikayan (Vinayak^a), myself (dRONe, Raumagent Alpha) and, for organisational support, Gerriet Schulz (Border Movement) and Jan Ramesh De Saram (Bang Bang).
I’ll be writing just about my personal experience here. For a complete review of SoundCamp please visit:
http://www.bordermovement.com/review-soundcamp-unbox-edition-2013/
UnBoxing Ron:
I arrived in New Delhi on the second day of SoundCamp. The studios were already installed and running. Onto a movable table (which should get carried around across the venue a few times during the following days) I set up my gear and began jamming with my new co-musicians. It couldn’t have started any better – our first improvisations were really enjoyable.
I knew I just met a good group of musicians here.
Do you know where we find noisy toys? Things that make sounds?
The next day started with a little problem: Some technicians took out the mixing desk from the electronic studio and were using the recording studio as a storage area. Knowing we wouldn’t be able to work for a few hours Jan and me decided to check out Delhi’s electronic markets to get some noisy toys blinky things. I ended up buying:
- 1 kiddy toy “animal voice” piano
- 1 wind-up drumming rabbit
- 2 blinking lights
- 1 electonic mantra box (the Hindu iPod)
- 1 vintage analog delay with 4-ch input mixer
I sticked a piezo pickup on the bunny’s drum and made it play drumrolls through my synthesizers and effects. The modified drum now is like a microphone and also picks up the mantra box’s speaker sound. Believe it or not, pads and soundscapes can be made with this thingy. The blinking lights play nicely with the light sensors I made to control my analog synths. The vintage delay needs some repair but its built in mixer works well enough to sum the new toys for further sound processing. Only the animal voice piano (without modifications, yet…) was just a funny joke in the studio cheering us up every now and then.
In the evening the UnBox area got pretty crowded during the opening party and we all received an impression of the space where three days after we were supposed to perform material we did not have – yet…
Analog Ron – The relationship between the artist, music and technology-based instruments:
Day 3. The movable setup table was carried to the glass house for a workshop that basically was outlined as “nerdshit for newbies” by the Festival Handbook:
“Ron Schneider will share his passion for electronic instruments, notably analog synthesizers, taking participants through simple demonstrations of the capabilities and aesthetics of sound embedded in these technologies. (…)
Participants need not to be conservant with electronic music or culture”
From disco to disco – the mobile synth table:
Moving the table back to the studio for an ambient drones session recording with Vinayak. 
We decided to play together on the main stage the next day when suddenly a time window of Mt Aditya Srinivasan, a classically trained tabla player, opened up the possibility to record some grooves. I wish I was better prepared to play a real call and response musical game with him instead of just taking one shot of drumming to one othe tracks I had in my MPC. The recording session was quick and dirty and the tabla had to be taken on stage for this night’s UnBox Festival performance where later on TL and Suryakant played as well.
The next day was mostly used for recording sessions with the other Sound-Campers before carrying my equipment to the stage for the dRONe vs. Vinayak^a live show which was amazing (and very pleasant for all the UnBox participants who spent the last days busy in workshops and projects). Vinayak^a’s drones and sound scapes were like a sonic shower flushing all the pressure away and people just liked watching the bunny drumming and me playing gestured melodies by pointing the light sensor to the spots while playing finger-drums into the delay loops.
Closing night:
The last day started with a meeting about how we are going to present the live show. We had to bridge a pretty long changeover time, about four tracks done, some unfinished ideas and our improvisation skills. Seems like some pretty tough issues but we found a way to play safe. Time for some more jam sessions:
[vimeo 59713047]
In the evening the festival area looked completely different than the nights before and aunties & uncles or drunk rich people crowded the scene. Because of the venue’s double booking mess the band Indian Ocean was wasting indian roots until the UnBox closing party could start. My ready-to-go setup table was waiting on stage to immediately spit out some drones as soon as the band was done and tune in to the atmosphere of what was about to come next. The drones gained more and more textures with TL adding some jazzy vibes. And little by little all the other SoundCamp artists had their setup in the main mix, too.
Showtime!
After the drone intro we played all the finished tracks, blended into an improvisation session based on the unfinished loops. I liked the jam session a lot, here’s a nice part from the ending (including a drum bunny roll at 4:20), before we left the stage to Sanaya and Asvajit for DJing:
So far. This is how I spent five days at SoundCamp. The studio tracks are to be released on an EP and I’m sure some other material (a few hours are recorded) will be transformed into tracks or song. Vinayak & me like to print CDs from our ambient / downbeat / drone / chillout sessions. What else? Let’s see…
Bangalore Ron 