notesdontmatter

Creative Computing 2 Week 1 – Music and Sound Processing 2

Creative Computing 2 Week 1 – Music and Sound Processing 2

Djd-volumesmoother:

The Volume smoother was a straight forward exercise to a degree. I feel that it could be smoother in its transient cutting action but have exhausted all of my ideas to rectify this. I had copied down the exact pattern of objects disclosed in Thursday’s lecture, so I’m not sure why it doesn’t run perfectly smoothly. All will be revealed in time I’m sure.

I have discovered some inconsistencies with the Max file preference system across both platforms. It seems that a chosen pathway for .help files will not always be seamlessly accessed by Max upon option/alt clicking an object. I am yet to find a universal solution to this. I decided to go with a L+R pair of inputs for the on/off toggle, leaving it up to the user if they want independent channel control.

Djd-amplitude-enveloper:

I was thankful to have gone through tutorial no. 2 before getting stuck into this one. The tricky part was the information list to be sent to line~ for producing the envelope. In a rare moment of programming success, I actually got it to work first time – even with the user specified argument in the correct position (I think).

So there you have it. Not the most exciting instrument in the world, but I did get some joy out of listening to some low frequency amplitude modulation…

Click here to link to online folder containing Max patches and help files.

Reference:

Haines, Christian. “Creative Computing 2 Week 1 – Music and Sound Processing 2.” Lecture presented at Tutorial Room 408, Level 4, Schultz building, University of Adelaide, 26^th July, 2007.

posted by David J Dowling @ 10:39 PM 0 comments

Audio Arts Week 1 – Introduction to Game Sound

Asteriods - Classic space blasting action

Asteroids, while not the most graphically spectacular of Atari games, is an addictive and memorable experience nonetheless.

After following the link above and having a play on the emulator, you’ll see that this is one of those ye-oldie two dimensional masterpieces that follows a ‘wrap-around’ screen format. I suspect that this is less processor intensive for the computer, as it doesn’t need to keep making pseudo-random calculations to create new asteroids once they move out of the viewable area of the screen.

It’s hardly a game that warrants a long descriptive analysis, but to summarise:

- Players spaceship sits in the middle of the screen to begin with.

- Approximately eight large asteroids float around the 2-D space and often toward the ship.

- The ship can either shoot the asteroids, breaking them into smaller, faster rocks or use a thruster to travel forwards or reverse to avoid them (or both of course).

- Every so often an annoying enemy UFO streams past and attempts to shoot your craft, but its aim is very poor.

- Once all the asteroids and their smaller parts are destroyed a new bunch replaces them. They get bigger, more plentiful and start moving faster the further the player gets in the game.


The music consists of two low frequency staccato (around F#0) electronic sine waves one tone apart that pulse back and forth between each other and get faster as the rocks get smaller, thus providing a sonic compliment to the action on screen.

The sound effects consist of a white noise like hiss with a sharp initial transient for the ships explosion when it is destroyed. A similar sound is used for the exploding asteroids but in a lower frequency for the big ones and becoming higher as they get smaller.

The ships laser gun is treated with a little frequency modulation to gain that ‘Peeuww!’ effect that we all know and love. The same is used for the enemy ships laser, but these also emit an ominous police siren effect which is higher or lower in frequency depending on the size of the ship.

All in all, the sound brings what is essentially a visually boring game to life. The increase in pace of the background tones induce a mild panic that kicks into overdrive when the smallest of enemy ships approaches with its grating siren shrieking. Given the technology that game developers were working with at the time of Asteroids release, 1979, it’s surprising how much sonic detail the game contains.

Forgive me now, I just have to try and beat my last score (one more try only I assure you).


Reference:

Haines, Christian. “Audio Arts Week 1 – Introduction to Game Sound.” Lecture presented at Tutorial Room 408, Level 4, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 24th July, 2007.

posted by David J Dowling @ 8:07 PM 3 comments

Forum Week 1 – “Electronics , Instrument Building and Improvisation” – 26-07-07

Forum Week 1 - “Electronics , Instrument Building and Improvisation” – 26-07-07

The Victorian Synth:

You wont find one of these at the Allan's stock take clearance..

The first extension that came to mind regarding the V-synth concept was to increase the number of speakers. I ducked into an auto accessory retailer on Saturday and purchased a pair of reasonable quality 4” car stereo speakers for the ludicrously cheap price of twenty dollars (Electronic hardware wasn’t anywhere near this affordable when I was young enough to be wasting money on car audio…).

I then set about the task of reconfiguring an underutilised effect pedal holding structure, into a temporary workstation for fun with electronics at home. The logic behind restricting myself to a 0.7m x 0.6m workspace is that I will hopefully try not to think on too grand a scale with regard to my project.

I placed the speakers in part of the cardboard box that they came in, to simulate an actual speaker cabinet (poorly) and get some more bottom end from them. After attaching some alligator clips and wires, and creating a circuit with a nine volt battery, the art of noise awaited. I tried all of the suggested tricks from forum in some way or another, before settling on the positive to negative paper clip inside the cone idea. This seemed to offer me the most control for shaping sound from the device, even if the required ‘light’ touch took some getting used to. The resulting sounds emitted from bigger speakers of sturdier quality than what I worked with on Thursday were much more rewarding. The MP3 for this blog should be testament to that.

And to think, I was going to use this piece of wood for organising guitar pedals...

I’m thinking I may adopt this approach for my final instrument. Ideas at this stage are leaning toward attaching some moveable arms, which can be fixed in position for holding on to numerous specific and desirable timbres. Once the arms are all in place, then the user could turn them on and off at will via some switching devices. There would also be scope for further manipulation of the emitted sounds as well, but I’ll wait for future weeks of forum to see what may or may not be possible in regard to this.

Till next week, enjoy my latest glitch offering…

Click here to link to online folder containing Mp3 of this week’s effort.

Reference:

Haines, Christian. “Electronics, Instrument Building and Improvisation.” Workshop presented at EMU space, Level 5, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 26^th July, 2007.

Tomczak, Sebastian. “Electronics, Instrument Building and Improvisation.” Workshop presented at EMU space, Level 5, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 26^th July, 2007.

Whittington, Stephen. “Electronics, Instrument Building and Improvisation.” Workshop presented at EMU space, Level 5, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 26^th July, 2007.

posted by David J Dowling @ 7:30 PM 1 comments

Creative Computing - Major Project - Semester 1, 2007

Markov the Serial Killer

David J Dowling

04’ 49


This is an experimental piece, which utilises either the principles of Serialism or 1st order Markov probability for the selection of MIDI data.



The premise is simple, assuming the reader has a basic understanding of the two schools of thought. A tone row is selected at the beginning of the piece. Under the control of Markov selection to begin with, the tone row does not play back in its serial order, but in a random order selected via a Markov probability map. Around the one minute mark the playback control is handed to a serial function and the notes play back in the order of the initial tone row.


The midi values of each tone in the row are mapped and scaled to various MIDI controllers in the synthesiser used for the piece. This causes random sweeping and other erratic controller behaviour, which varies the timbre of the piece significantly.


The aesthetic goal is to create an atmosphere of a struggle between the two potential control functions.


Passage 1 “The Stalking”:

The piece begins quietly, in the low frequency register, as the Markov control goes about its business.

Passage 2 “The Intervention”:

The control is hijacked by Schoenberg and it becomes Serial.

Passage 3-4 “The Return” and ”The Struggle”:

Things progressively become frantic as the control is switched between Markov and Serial. The note values are raised and lowered in frequency to increase and decrease the range of control sweeping.




Passage 5 “The Aftermath”:

Eventually Markov wins the epic battle and the sound scape reverts to a peaceful drone.


Click here to link to online folder containing an MP3 and project documentation.


Reference:

Haines, Christian. ‘Creative Computing – Major Project – Semester 1, 2007.’ Project undertaken at Audio lab 408, Level 4, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, June 2007.

posted by David J Dowling @ 1:51 PM 1 comments