Sound Design

What: Sound Design When: 2008-2017

Sound design and music composition is a fundamental part of Playmodes work.

In most of our signature projects we create original soundtracks or sonification algorithms which play an important role in the creative process and the final result.

We are 50% audio and 50% visual, therefore sound design must be understood as a key element in our projects and not just an accompaniament to visuals. We feel comfortable with the idea of “visual music”, and most of our works integrate this element of music visualization (or visual sonification), working with high precision synchronization and using the music language as part of non-musical processes, such as script-writing (using the score metaphore) or even when conceiving visual software tools (integrating concepts from electronic music such as phasors, oscillators, BPM locked time control…)

partitura_2

Music Composition

We compose original soundtracks for our own projects or as commissions for theatre and audiovisual productions.
We love researching new compositional techniques and styles, as well as collaborating with instrument interpreters.
Although we have a long background in the electronic music / techno scene, we opened our creative range to all kind of contemporary music. Nowadays, we compose for all kind of formations and instruments, from pipe organs to string quartets, and in all kind of styles, from groove-jazz to computer-aided contemporary experimentation.

partitura-abril

Software development

Software development plays a key role in the music and sound design composition process. Because we create our own tools, we are not bounded into the limits of commercial software possibilities, allowing us wider freedom in the field of sound exploration. We love DSP design, algorithmic composition, sound synthesis… We explore these concepts creating tools in environments like Reaktor, Max/MSP or PureData, and we share them with the community.

Check out some of our instruments!

Sound design

We also enjoy sound-design and messing around with synthesizers, granular samplers or fx chains. We own a good bunch of microphone sets and recorders, so we also dig into the field recording universe. All this world of sound becomes part of our soundtracks and experiments

Audio engineering

At the same time, we love playing with engineering and conceiving non-conventional audio setups. Multichannel audio, sound spatialization, hardware development, acoustical engineering… we enjoy inventing new ways of hearing and pushing the limits of auditory perception..

Plegat EP

We released an EP on Discontinu Records Label.
The EP, called “Plegat”, unfolds some of the tools and concepts we developed for the audio side of the “playmodes” installation.
You can download the digital album here: http://discontinurecords.bandcamp.com/album/plegat