ABCDEFG...

Example (With Beat): http://www.mediafire.com/?m4amlmxa4bcdv01
Example (Raw): http://www.mediafire.com/?uud6i2wlzu89evd

Fun little experiment that popped into my head while listening to/studying the opera  "Einstein On The Beach" by Steve Reich. Utilizes a phasing effect in a manner a bit different than Mr. Reich's. It will be detailed here:

First, a simple rhythm is chosen. It could be anything, but it will work best with asymmetrical beats: a 4-to-the-floor beat wont work very well. Due to this, I selected a common reggaeton beat:

OxxOOxOxOxxOOxOx

O = Beat
x = Rest

Now, I look at the number of beats (here there are 8 on each bar), so I chose, to create the phase, a sequence of the first 7 letters on the alphabet (ABCDEFG), which would create a phase of 1. I then "mapped" each the letters onto the beats. It is hard to explain, but simple in concept:

Beat: OxxOOxOxOxxOOxOx
Sequence: ABCDEFG
Results: AxxBCxDxExxFGxAxBxxCDxExFxxGAxBxCxxDExFxGxxABxCxDxxEFxGxAxxBCxDx

And so on. This results in a pattern which repeats every 128 objects. In order to add even more variation, I associated each letter with a pitch in my audio example above, to create an interesting phasing melody. By the way, I didn't mention earlier, but both of the above audiofiles should loop seamlessly.

This technique seems very adaptable/expandable, and I encourage you to try it if you'd like! Here is shorter example (no audio), using syllables of words instead of letters:

Beat: OxOOxx
Sequence: POSS-IH-BLEE-MAY-BEE (Possibly Maybe)
Results: POSSxIHBLEExxMAYxBEEPOSxxIHxBLEEMAYxxBEExPOSSIHxxBLEExMAYBEExx

A bit silly, but it may have possible applications in the future. Enjoy :)

kilobeat

Another ChucK experiment! This one is more interesting, I think, and as a bonus, I kept the source code this time to share! :D

Here is the source: http://pastebin.com/nDAkvSKj

Yes, I know, it is terribly written code, but give me a break, I have been learning for less than a day :P

And, in case you do not have ChucK installed, here is an .ogg file recorded directly from ChucK, with no post-processing or edits: http://www.mediafire.com/?4w1g89x7g7i7pb7

There are five main ugens being utilized here: 3 Kaplus-Strong string synths, a pure Sine bass, and a low Sawtooth wave with a short release and a resonant low pass filter. Harmonics are where the pitches are generated, there is no midi or western pitches utilized here. It is called "kilobeat" because there are exactly 1024 beats in the entire piece. It generates sound for several minutes, and then ends with a droning sine wave, though technically, it is not ended but instead halted for a one week (!) period of time. So, if you are VERY patient, then there are more than 1024 beats ;)

The piece runs through many time signatures, with bizarre "swings" not possible for a human to play in time, as far as I know... Maybe Mike Patton could do it? :P

ChucK!

Link: http://www.mediafire.com/?1k7t3se32d24r9c

Just experimenting with ChucK, an experimental audio programming language which is quite different from Supercollider, from what I have seen so far. Feels a lot more low-level and experimental, not that either of those are a bad thing! :P

Now, on this particular piece: it sounds very random at first, but it's neat to hear the pitch and rhythm patterns start to emerge over time (there is no midi, and it's not on any one scale, it's mostly relying on the harmonics of other harmonics of a modulating fundamental). I let it run itself for a minute, then replaced the code with a modified version (in real time! yay livecoding!) which added another variable, s, which was increased slightly every time a note was played. This variable was added to the amount of time between note changes, which resulted in a piece which eventually slowed down to a near halt. Very fun :)

rd(prog)

Here I am furthering the concept of ring modulation in conjunction with the Karplus strong synthesis method. It's a non-interactive patch, so everything you hear is being randomly generated. The supercollider code changes the length of the delay buffers at steady regular intervals and amounts to create a rudimentary "progression" of notes, though they aren't perfect and are definitely microtonal, if you have the ear for that. The progression is happening rather slowly though, so you may have to speed up the file to hear it better. Luckily, I did that for you!

normal speed: http://www.mediafire.com/?hyi2erl9nryb9e7

300~ percent speed: http://www.mediafire.com/?bdx4pbianmozad3

Enjoy! :)

humanoidvocalstudy04

Though I can't really go into depth, I will say that this required only a single 1 second buffer, with about 10 different play-heads moving along it at various speeds, as the buffer was being recorded to live, with feedback through an open speaker loop. Since almost everything you are hearing was made through processed live recordings of my voice, I must say that I will NOT be doing this again for a bit. It hurts your voice a lot :X

What is neat about this is that it was done entirely live, no post-processing, which means that this kind of buffer-based processing would work well in a concert setting; I should look further into this in the future :)

link: http://ge.tt/93l08iH/v/0

Still Here

Surprise! Not dead!

Link (lossless .wav format): http://ge.tt/9E0ITPH/v/0

Here we have a slightly modified version of the classic Karplus-Strong string synthesis, one of my favorite non-basic synthesis methods because of it's simplicity and flexibility. I incorporate a ring modulator into the initial impacts, and allow the impacts themselves to become more sustained and pronounced. I used no interpolation in any of the UGens, which caused many high up harmonics, which were later filtered out. There are four "strings" ringing, proportional to 200/300/400/600. A low pass filter was utilized. This was created entirely in Supercollider, with myself controlling ring modulation frequency and impacts (using a midi keyboard), but then the resulting file was edited in audacity, dropping the overall speed around 50 percent, so that the higher up harmonics would make themselves more known, and also filtering out the excessively high harmonics in order to make room for the lower drones.

Anyways, that's about all, sorry I haven't posted for a while, been very busy, but don't think I have forgotten about you! :D

<3 ac

BOTB

Hey, just checking up and saying I am still here. Recently I joined a neat site called "Battle Of The Bits", it's pretty neat! Check out my account here.

And to see my latest submission, an experimental lofi drone piece using only the amen break and a sine wave sample (using supercollider), click here!

Enjoy! :D