Extended Bass is a research project supported by the city of Amsterdam. The research has started by the end of September 2018 and will last until September 2019. In concrete, my research will converge on three points:

a) Design of a system of micro-amplification for the doublebass. Micro-amplification is a sound process in which a ‘magnifying glass’ is applied to specific and small sonic details. Its goal is to bring to the foreground unique characteristics of the sound of the doublebass which have very little volume, yet an enormous richness.

b)Design and construction of resonance strings:
With the help of Camille Dolibeau, luthier in Amsterdam, I’d like to design and build a system of 12 resonance strings, which could be easily removed and installed on any doublebass. Similar to the instruments of classical Indian music, like the Sarangi and the Sitar, or the Baryton and Viola d’amore in the Western tradition, these resonance strings vibrate sympathetically on a set of predefined pitches.

 

c) Mixing and relation with the space: development of a control patch on MAX/MSP.
The way in which I would like to use it, and the relevance to my project, is based on the creation of a practical interface that would allow me to mix and select the sound sources of the different microphones, adding filters and equalization to adapt the aforementioned micro-amplification to different contexts.
I will also develop a digital external interface able to control the patch through MIRA (wireless Max/MSP extension) and a MIDI pedal designed and built by myself, with the help of Alessandro Baticci as external advisor. Finally the Max platform will allow me to work in real-time with the spatialization, deciding to which speakers to send a determined sound, also using the other- mentioned interfaces.

 

Future results of my research will be published here on my website. A final presentation of the project will be held in Amsterdam in the fall 2019.

IMG_20190319_113014 This is the first prototype of my resonance strings, developped together with Camille Dolibeau.