During a Spring 2007 special topics course, I oversaw a group of eight students in the production of a CD/DVD package entitled The Invention of the Wheel for Mobile Performance Group. The material was based on pieces that had been developed during our visits to San Jose for ISEA and Brooklyn for Conflux. The overriding goal was to develop a document that conveys the essential elements of an MPG performance. The results are a symphonic collision of electronic styles with elements of techno, ambient, house, soundscapes. This audiovisual material has been made available to the public through the following links:
By far the most popular download on this website. This set of externals and abstractions developed using several granular synthesis concepts. Effects available in this download include pitch shifting, spatializing, “clouds”, chord production and looping.
A paper about this software that was presented at the SEAMUS 2002 National Conference at the University of Iowa. Later, an article version was published in Journal SEAMUS. It is available in this separate post and a recommended read for those using the GTK.
The Mac version is Universal Binary. Mac and Windows versions should work for Max/MSP 4.6 and 5.
Special thanks to Tim Place of Electrotap for the windows port of the externals.
Performed on the Spring 2007 Faculty Composers Recital. Held at Elizabeth Hall Auditorium, Stetson University in DeLand, FL.
Since 2004, I have made a series of recordings capturing familiar water sounds and used them as inspiration for my work. This piece musically recreates gestures that evoke the patter of a moderate rain and waves crashing upon the shore. These two ideas are set in contrast with one another, yet the resulting blend betrays the classical element that inspired them both: water.
This piece is also featured as part 3 of an audiovisual collaboration between myself and Matt Roberts, collectively known as Events.
This object implements the same reverb algorithm found in my Griesinger VST plug-in. It is a pretty good stereo reverb at a low CPU load. It currently allows the user to change the decay time and not much else. More parameters (like those in the plug-in) will be available in future versions. Available for Max/MSP 4.x and 5.
ABSTRACT – The performing ensemble has a firmly established role in music education. In the music conservatory model, conventional acoustic groups such as the chamber orchestra provide students with the opportunity to apply musicianship skills that are taught in the classroom. These skills typically encompass subjects such as theory, analysis and aural skills. Traditional ensembles also have long-standing conventions about how their membership should be balanced based on instrumentation or range. When extending this ensemble tradition into the domain of technology-based music, certain questions commonly arise: what instrumentation is most effective in a technology-based music ensemble? What is the primary intellectual focus of the activity (code, learning software, performance skills)?
Institutions of higher learning produce diverse answers to these questions. Historically, there have been some general trends. Early technology-based ensembles were centered around the synthesizer, and leveraged its timbral variety. Repertoire usually consisted of arrangements or commissioned compositions tailored to an ensemble’s membership. As computer hardware has become less expensive and more portable, the laptop computer has begun to unseat the synthesizer as the instrument of choice.
The transition from synthesizer to laptop has created exciting creative and pedagogical possibilities. The use of general computing hardware makes it easier to explore intermedia, and enables students to more directly participate in the compositional responsibilities; this in turn raises the question of aesthetic antecedents and direction. As a teaching tool, technology-based music ensembles facilitate experiential, problem-based, collaborative learning in ways that complement and extend conventional classroom teaching. This panel will focus on the ability of laptop ensembles to enhance the development of artistic and technical skills in music students.
Fall 2006 Faculty Composers Recital @ Elizabeth Hall Auditorium, Stetson University in DeLand, FL.
In June 2006, I traveled to Ontario to participate in a symposium on the legacy of composer Iannis Xenakis, in addition to doing a little sightseeing with my family. Acoustic materials for this piece are drawn from recordings I made during this visit to Canada. These are juxtaposed with sonic elements that merge my existing style of gradually changing textures with techniques pioneered by Xenakis. The end result is a unique document of the trip, fragmented through memory and adapted by the process of composition.
This piece is an artifact, evidence of a day spent in the studio avoiding mundane tasks, reconnecting with an artist who at the time felt neglected, forsaken and buried beneath an Everest of to-do items and checklists that for just one day had to be put on hold so that he could remember how much fun it was to play for a bit, to create new sounds out of nothing and then sculpt them with these fascinating machines. This piece is an artifact.
ABSTRACT – In Formalized Music (1963/1992), Iannis Xenakis proposed a method of using sonic grains to synthesize original sounds. His musical application of Gabor’s (1947) theory of “acoustical quanta” has since spawned a variety of electronic and computer music techniques chronicled by Curtis Roads in Microsound (2001). The most well known among these techniques are granular synthesis and granular processing.
In developing his proposal, Xenakis gave consideration to the limits of human auditory perception. He wanted to ensure the grains would not fall below the minimum duration and intensity that a listener could perceive. Xenakis also employed Fletcher-Munson equal-loudness contours as the basis for his screens. Although future research and development of granular techniques would continue to demonstrate an awareness of perceptual issues, direct empirical study of how listeners perceive granular sounds is missing from the literature.
The current author designed a series of three experiments to investigate how listeners perceive differences between granular processing examples. The findings were used to inform the design of a new graphical user interface (GUI) for granular processing. The resulting GUI helped to verify this study’s conclusions by successfully demonstrating their practical application to software development. The author will demonstrate the GUI’s unique controls for managing randomization and its feedback display for monitoring differences between the control input and audio output.
The author will conclude by addressing future directions in which this research may continue. Processing differences for the current experiments were limited to grain duration and grain period in order to provide a necessary focus. Additional parameters for testing in future experiments will be identified, as well as experimental methods besides MDS that may be used to approach this same inquiry and strengthen the current study’s findings.
This panel discussion on presenting music in unusual contexts was sponsored by the Canadian League of Composers. I was asked to participate as a panelist based on my position as Music Director of Mobile Performance Group. I spoke about our early performances of Parking Spaces from inside of automobiles, roaming the city and making the laptop ensemble mobile.
This is my dissertation that was completed to fulfill the requirements of my PhD at Northwestern University. The findings informed my later plug-in design work for Hipno, a set of plugins published by Cycling74. The chapter 2 contain a primer on granular methods that many people have told me they found useful. Chapter 3 reviews granular research to date and many of the earlier software that implemented these techniques. Even if you don’t dive into the actual experimental data, these may of interest.
ABSTRACT – Granular processing is a computer music technique that manipulates “grains” of sound to produce a variety of effects. Grains are produced by multiplying short segments of digital audio, typically lasting between 10 and 50 milliseconds, with an amplitude envelope of equivalent length. Software designed to produce granular processing effects often requires the user to manage multiple parameters that lack a clear connection to the audio output. A better understanding of how listeners perceive the processing output should yield insights into how the user interface could be simplified.
A series of three experiments was designed to investigate how listeners perceive differences between granular processing examples. Stimuli were produced using specific program settings to process two distinct sound sources. In each experiment, at least twenty participants were asked to rate the similarity of each possible pair of stimuli including identity pairs that existed among these stimuli. The author then used multidimensional scaling (MDS) to develop a graphical representation of the perceptual organization exhibited by participants.
Differences between stimuli included the processed sound source and settings for the grain duration and grain period parameters. Visual analysis of the MDS solution showed that participants clearly distinguished between the two sound sources. Processing descriptors based primarily on the review of literature were tested for correlation to the MDS dimensions. This analysis revealed the significance of three processing features: (1) a base-2 logarithmic scaling for differences in grain duration, (2) the minimum and maximum boundaries for randomized grain durations, and (3) the mean value and total deviation for randomized grain periods.
Between-subject variables relating to experience with electroacoustic music were also examined. However, the results of this secondary inquiry were deemed inconclusive overall based on the relationship between participants’ responses to pre-experiment questions and a priori operational definitions.
The findings were used to inform the design of a new graphical user interface (GUI) for granular processing. The resulting GUI helped to verify this study’s conclusions by successfully demonstrating their practical application to software development. The GUI features unique controls for managing randomization and a feedback display for monitoring differences between the control input and audio output.
