Dave Linnenbank
Writer/Educator | System Designer | Musician
work@davelinnenbank.com
Résumé





Portfolio Sections:Music Writing System Design Video Sound Programming
Music Albums and other compositions.
Love Songs for Strangers - These are love songs for people you don't know. Perhaps this is the best way to be honest. Guitars & mandolin, synth poop poops, lyrics, all of it. For you, dear listener. Visit site
Wonderlust - There is a joy in discovery. Even when it's winter and the cold gets in. Just take a breath and see that all the dirt and noise is actually made of something shimmering. Visit site
Rapture - A 38-minute improvisation that draws on the ecstasy of wonder, excitement, and doubt. Ceremonial structures and dreamlike vistas, of things present and things to come. Visit site
Luster - Album that crosses between structured ambient and film score — "process music" performed, bent, and reshaped. Sonic scenery for wherever your day leads. Visit site
Ante Meridiem - 20-minute EP of two electronic compositions that became improvisations. Systems were precisely tuned, then loosed as instruments. Visit site
The Problem is Last Year - Album of rainy-day electronic pop. Also produced a visual version of the album, with a different artist creating a music video for each track.
Watch “Trep“
View booklet Visit site
Turm - A cue for full orchestra. I also orchestrated and conducted this. View score
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Sketches - A two-movement piece for solo piano. I performed this as well. View movement 1 View movement 2
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Bansa (반사) - An electroacoustic piece for bass clarinet. Bass Clarinet performed by Neil Leonard; electronics programmed and performed by me. View score
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Partly Cloudy - Opening cue for a short film by Travis Johns.
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Jeru - A cue for flute, violin, piano, and electronics.
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Uncooth Logo Themes - Four logo themes for Uncooth Entertainment; one tasteful, three 80s themed…
NY Version
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1980s Atari Version
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1980s Loveboat Version
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1980s Hero Version
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Writing These examples demonstrate mastery of music technology topics, teaching, communication, and documentation production.
Bitwig Studio Manual - I write the manual for Bitwig Studio, a professional audio sequencer and workstation. I am also a product manager for this software. View manual Visit bitwig.com
Organelle Manual - I wrote the manual for Organelle, a musical instrument from Critter & Guitari. View manual Visit critterandguitari.com See the announcement
ETC Manual - I wrote the manual for ETC (The ETC Television Center), a video instrument from Critter & Guitari. View manual Visit critterandguitari.com
Reaktor Introduction - An introduction to working from scratch in Native Instruments’ Reaktor that also explains synthesis fundamentals to newcomers. Includes an appendix (page 54 onward) showing a patch in Reaktor recreated in several other platforms. View PDF
ScreenFlow Video Feedback Documentation - A set of technical instructions to guide Dubspot Online teachers through making video feedback for their students. (Another document provided the method and expectation for these videos.) Goes from installing and configuring Telestream’s ScreenFlow to the process of making and uploading each feedback video. View PDF
Room Configuration - A document explaining the normalling procedure of a particular computer workstation at Berklee College of Music. Includes some rationale because of the odd nature of the setup. View PDF
Video Basics - A primer of digital video concepts and terminology for audio people. View PDF
Logic Synth Deconstruct - A recreation of four simple, integrated synths in Apple’s Logic with Clavia’s Nord Modular G2 platform. Was a core curriculum addition that I developed for Music Synthesis at Berklee to get early students to connect the modular world they learn in with the integrated world more common to production. The PDF was one contribution of mine to a core curriculum class’s “Teacher’s Guide,” co-authored with Tom Rhea. View PDF
Logic Quick Start - A quick start guide to using software synthesizers in Apple’s Logic. Made to assist the Logic Synth Deconstruct, above. View PDF
System Design These examples demonstrate a variety of integrated systems that I have designed and built.
Max For Live Development - Max For Live is a collaboration that incorporates Cycling ‘74’s MaxMSP technology into Ableton Live. I have done extensive development in this environment.
MainBrain System - I made a system for Billy Jay Stein of Strange Cranium that allows a musical theater conductor to easily control, adapt, and rearrange prerecorded audio. The system was originally developed for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and is used nightly to control audio playback in this show and others. A write-up follows. View product page View user guide
Max Fuel series - Max Fuel, the First was originally released on puremagnetik.com in 2010, quickly becoming one of their top-selling products. (Additional Max Fuel installments are in development.) I programmed all of the devices and made both the product video and the tutorial video.
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Diesel Confession Booth - Using a combination of MaxMSP, Jitter, AppleScript, and shell scripting, I did the interactive programming for this installation piece at the 5th Avenue Diesel store in New York. Created for Fashion Night Out and running for several months afterward, the piece invited customers to enter the booth, interface through a touch screen, and record a video of their “stupid” confession. The videos were then cycled into rotation on 30+ televisions in the storefront, automatically converted and uploaded to Diesel’s server, and then emailed to the customer. The following are some documentation, pictures, and media coverage. Visit website 1 Visit website 2
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“Levitation” Installation Piece (Dornbirn, Austria) - I created the audio system for this architectural installation piece by the artist Thilo Frank. As the object slowly rotated, sounds that were recently recorded were played back through resonators in the object itself. Gradually, the sounds of the visitors blend into the resonance of the space. See photos of the piece View program notes
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Classroom/Multimedia Systems - These various software projects were made with audio classroom/lab situations in mind, but the concepts are fully adaptable to any lab or multi-room campus environment and beyond.
Informatics - This system gets local computers to automatically post information about themselves (e.g., machine serial numbers, software versions, hardware configurations, battery levels for Bluetooth peripherals…) to highly formatted webpages. The purpose of Informatics is to make sets of information available to various stakeholders, and to make the critical data evident at a glance. [This system uses JSON, AppleScript, file sharing, shell scripting, Google Forms, and heavily scripted Google Sheets.] View One-page Explainer
Triple RCA - Using shell scripting, AppleScript, and MaxMSP for the user interface, this system allows a “teacher” station — any computer with a projector and speakers connected — to receive both the video and audio output of any “student” station. The interface for the teacher is graphical, with each student station displayed at its physical location within the room. When properly configured, one click initiates audio and video sharing. View One-page Explainer
Enigma - Software updates can’t always be done cleanly; sometimes a new version must live alongside the old one for a while. Using shell script and AppleScript, Enigma is an application that parses any Ableton Live session file to determine which version of Ableton Live made it, finds the best versions of Ableton on the local machine, and then asks the user which version they would like to use. (And when the user chooses to open an older file in a newer version, warnings are provided before their file is irrevocably updated.) View One-page Explainer
Wormhole - This applet allows the quick and simple distribution of files to other computers in the same room. Wormhole also keeps track of which stations failed to receive the files, allowing the user to retry only those that had an issue. This elegant tool saves a great deal of time for running classes or other types of presentations. View One-page Explainer
JavaScript Amusement - Beyond web programming, I have used JavaScript extensively in MaxMSP, Adobe programs, and other environments. On a subway advertisement a while back, a technology company posted a challenge: Write out all the numbers from 1 to 999,999,999 as words, and then determine the 51 billionth letter. This is a JavaScript solution. View webpage
Video Some various video pieces and live performance systems I have made.
“Seed” - A video piece I made for a composition by Fabio Fonda. The source material was a single still image. View source image
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“Usually Around Me” - A video piece I made for a song by Fernanda Ulibarri. I basically used Cycling ‘74’s Jitter to make a performable iTunes Visualizer.
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Live Performance Systems - Here are output examples of two video performance systems I made using Jitter. The two video clips are examples of feedback and scaling (with sound by an improvisatory ensemble). The webpage takes stills from the performance and randomly overlays them (hit reload on that page to see different results). View webpage
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Generative Systems - These five images are stills from a generative video system made in Jitter that obeys certain architectural rules with an amount of interaction. A variation of this system was made to visualize Micah Frank’s installation, “Tectonic,” a piece that sonifies realtime earthquake data for a 319 Scholes group show, “The Shift.” View image 1 View image 2 View image 3 View image 4 View image 5 View “The Shift” show page
Senator Linnenbank - Script written by Travis Johns and myself. I also did sound, music, and an approximation of acting.
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Get Out! Of The Closet! - The pilot of a web series by Travis Johns. I mixed the audio, did some music arrangements, and worked on the story lines.
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It’s For Her - A short film by Travis Johns. I mixed the audio and contributed to the story.
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Sound Programming These examples demonstrate a variety of audio programming and sound design skills.
Plug-in Programming - The following are plug-ins that were made with MaxMSP and its Pluggo technology. Each has a sound clip and then a processed version of the same clip, along with a description of the plug-in…
Multiband Distortion View description
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Delay Matrix View description
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Filter Dropout View description
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Synthesis Sound Design - The following patches were all created from scratch with Clavia’s Nord Modular (G1). Each has a brief, raw sound recording and a brief description and picture of the patch....
Happy Square View patch & description
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Bad Bass View patch & description
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Flat Tire Wurly View patch & description
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Sunset View patch & description
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Passing Vessels View patch & description
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