Man High Mixer

Last week saw the culmination of a great project we worked on with the fine folks at Music at the Brewhouse (the same team we did Love Music Festival with last year): the Man High Mixer.

In a nutshell, the Man High project centered around the amazing story of Joseph Kittinger, a US Air Force test pilot who in 1960 jumped from a balloon 19 miles above the earth and survived. He fell at a speed of over 600 mph for 13 minutes and 45 seconds.

To commemorate this amazing achievement, composers Stephen Deazley and Martin Parker teamed up with video artist Andy Macgregor to create and perform a piece of music with original documentary footage of the jump at Glasgow City Halls. As part of this event, Lucky Frame was commissioned to create a piece of software that would allow children to create their own soundtracks to the Man High videos, without any prior musical experience.

The Man High Mixer is the result, and you can download it for yourself and have a go.

It lets you create music for the video based on really simple decisions. For example, you can choose two colors, and have those colors control the speed or volume of a sound. Or you can use video analysis to control a bunch of effects, or use the amount of movement on the screen to playback a bank of sounds. The sounds are all from Martin and Stephen, so you’re basically remixing the piece to your own liking, by making a series of choices.

So last Saturday, the day of the performance at City Halls, a bunch of computers were set up all around the venue, which were manned by a brilliant team of helpers wearing snazzy Man High t-shirts. They all helped any interested children learn how to use the software and make a recording of their compositions. We’ve ended up with a giant library of soundtracks, which I am currently putting on YouTube. They will be up shortly on the Man High website for all to see!

It’s been a great project, and we’re looking forward to doing more like it with Music at the Brewhouse and Love Music.