Audio Performance at 120 MPH!!!

Ok, it’s been 11 months since I’ve written in this blog. But guess what? I’m a new dad! If that isn’t life changing enough I’m not sure what is; except the following techno tale I have to tell. Through a strange intersection of factors, I was personally involved with a pretty interesting audio experiment, digital or otherwise.

Let me crank back to where I was just after my last entry. I was teaching full-time at SMC, taking an on-line class in serious 3D gaming, and waiting for the baby to arrive. She hit my life like a hurricane November 8, 2007. I barely recovered in time for the Game Developer’s Conference in February, and I've been sleepwalking ever since.

In my lucid hours, I have had time for two loves: electronic music and skydiving. How on earth could these two passions ever intersect than in my wacky life. The baby has continued to grow and my wife and I thought it would be cute to take her camping. And then it all came together….. Burning Man!

I had been musing about the great desert art festival for a few years. How would I rig a performance set-up that would withstand the heat, the dust, and the lack of electricity? Not to mention the acoustic challenge of being outside, in the sun or in the cold of night. I thought immediately of the Korg Kaossilator (mentioned in this column previously) as one of the most versatile music boxes of recent time. It is by nature small, portable, and battery powered.

A quick tap on the pad can kick it into a loop of sound just perfect for the trance like experience of the festival. I then matched it with a pair of portable guitar amps by Smokey. These devices are cigarette-package-sized, practice amps of the most minimal utility. One jack in for the instrument, and one out to pass the pre-amp to a bigger system. The speakers are durable, loud and crunchy, considering that there is no volume control other than your instrument. Distortion is part of the charm! The Kaossilator also has no volume control on its main outputs, so plugging them together meant I just had to deal with the resulting grunge. So how would I use such an extreme performance set-up in this extreme environment?

This brings us to passion #2. As friends will recently attest to, I have changed in the past few years. I have gone from techno-freak to extreme-sport-super-freak. I jump out of airplanes for fun. Maybe not JUST fun. I do compete for skill points, and then there is that saving-one’s-life thing with the parachute. But this is a long story for a different blog.

So, I’m at Burning Man, the big art/performance festival in the middle of the no-where desert. And this is my contribution: I tape the Kaossilator to my chest, under my jumpsuit.

I tape the Smokey amps to my ankles (right and left channels!) and run the cable up my legs. Zip up the jumpsuit, don my parachute rig, and ride an art car out to the Black Rock City airport. After checking my batteries, I board the plane. On the way up to altitude, I’m doodling on the Kaossilator to the annoyance of the other jumpers until I create an interesting loop. I pause it and keep my finger over the play button as I prepare to exit the aircraft 10,500 ft. over the playa floor. (14,500 ft. above sea level). I push the button, take my turn, and jump…

The plan in laymen terms was to meet up with another jumper in free fall, separate around 7,000 ft. and open my chute by 6,000; giving me 5,000 feet of canopy time above the sprawling campsite of 50,000 people (about 10 minutes of gliding), before landing. After my chute opened, I actually could hear the synth loop in the air, AND through my full-faced helmet. I knew it was loud but would it be loud enough? The ride down was stunning and I soon forgot I was blasting music out of my ankles. Swooping over the temporary city was just unreal.

I set up my landing in an open stretch just above the main center of camp and hoped someone would hear the sound. I was rushed by a couple of “burners” asking me how the view was, and then they said it. “Is that music coming from you? Are you listening to music skydiving?” I didn’t have the heart to say it was for them; evidently the entire performance was for the two people that I met on the ground.

What did I learn? Well the first thing is that the amplification needed to be louder for people on the ground to hear me from the air. The entire set-up was also almost too distracting for me to feel safe jumping out of a plane; meaning I probably would not do it again with anything larger or more involved. Thankfully, there was no volume control to think about! And finally, I would have had just as much fun with any of the three activities by themselves: skydiving, playing music, and being at Burning Man. So what the hell am I going to do next year?