Creative Music Technology: REAL
TIME SYSTEMS - 2023
Monday 11 September: Basil Jones Orchestral Hall
Lina Castellino, Alicia Dark, Luke Barbour Title: Spaceships and Aliens
The concept of this piece was inspired by the recent claims that the United States had recovered and concealed spaceships and “non-human biologics”. Our intention was to create a performance that reflected an experimental 90s Sci-Fi feel, while also exploring the world of electronic sound creation and experimentation.
Miller Puckette, developer of Pure Data, states in his lecture ‘Design choices for computer instruments and computer compositional tools’, that we can take our already existing musical skills and, with technology, 'hijack’ them to control and create something completely new. Each member of our group has endeavoured to challenge themselves to do just that within this concert.
When piecing this performance together, we considered the roles of each member and decided to allocate each of us a specific focus:
Luke dedicated his patch to focusing on the lower frequencies to fill the role of a bass instrument. Using two wavetable oscillators and effects such as LFOs and pitch modulation, Luke can take his droning synth and manipulate its’ tone to create a sinister feel and intensity. During the performance, Luke controls the balance of the effects and the oscillators to create different timbral sounds and to bring a menacing tone to the lower end of our performance.
Alicia is exploring the higher, more textural frequencies; the intention behind her patch was to create a synthesizer that could be either comforting or eerie, depending on how it was played. This patch features reverb and delay, which are both used heavily for texture and ambience. You will see Alicia manipulating the dynamic balance of each element, as well as the effect level to explore layering and spatiality.
Using controllable parameters such as frequency and audio modulation, reverb and delay, Lina has created an instrument that can alter the sound of her voice within a range of frequencies and timbral sounds. The intention with this patch was to create an instrument that altered the tone of Lina’s speaking voice to have a digital and sometimes jarring and unsettling tone. Throughout the performance, Lina can be seen manipulating the effects on her instrument to slowly lure the audience into a sense of unease with her experimental and unsettling effects.
Daniel Celegato, Hugh Barton, Nicholas Rosetti-Cleary Title: Polynth
Our piece 'Polynth' explores the co-dependant relationship between chaos and order. The initial inspiration for this composition stemmed from a photograph capturing a graffiti artist at work within the confines of a church, his artwork spread across a 10m wall of canvas. In this single image, we witness the disorder and raw energy exhibited by the graffiti artist juxtaposed against
the intricate, purposeful, and divine ambiance of the church. It is this inherent duality that imbues the photograph with its undeniable power— the coexistence of chaos and order, light within darkness. Our objective in 'Polynth' was to translate this relationship between chaos and order into a musical performance, aiming to vividly paint our interpretation of this photograph through our music.
Hugh’s patch offers a pleasant, warm sound to the piece. It’s soft attack time coupled with its prolonged reverb and delays is the foundation for the chordal harmony throughout the performance. However, to stick with the theme of chaos and order, this patch has been designed to go beyond its function as a warm synth pad and to delve into a volatile and jarring sound world as the piece continues. The control of these elements will be evident within Hugh’s interactions with the volume faders, turn-knobs and MIDI keyboard.
"8am FM" is a performance that emerges from our deep exploration of the world of FM synthesis, culminating in a rich tapestry of soundscapes. Rooted in the influence of the pioneering electronic duo Autechre, renowned for their intricate soundscapes crafted using the software ‘Max’, our artistic intention is to pay homage to their principles of pure abstraction and experimentation.
Autechre's intricate sound design principles profoundly influenced our creative journey. We found their dedication to abstraction to be a catalyst for our desire to craft a performance that defies predictability and embraces the abstract. Our artistic vision hinges on the use of FM synthesis, a technique that opens doors to uncharted auditory realms, enabling us to forge entirely new soundscapes.
To realize our vision, we harnessed the power of Pure Data (Pd) by merging our two distinct FM synth patches into a unified patch. This shared Pd patch empowers us to manipulate a plethora of parameters, granting us control over every part of our instrument. These parameters encompass volume, filter cutoff, release rate, FM frequency, FM depth, wavefold, delay feedback, delay rate, and reverb dry/wet. Through precise manipulation of these variables, we can morph any note, chord, or melody into something entirely unprecedented.
The performance of "8am FM" commences with a deliberate pace, offering listeners a glimpse into the simplicity of sound. As the performance unfolds, we initiate a transformation of our instruments, dynamically altering these parameters over time. Gradually, the performance veers toward abstraction and chaos, all the while maintaining a minimalist approach to chords and melodies. Instead, the crux of our track evolution centres on our deftness with the MIDI faders, which control the intricate changes of these variables. One of the most striking aspects of our performance is the contrast between its commencement and conclusion, despite the minimal changes in our MIDI inputs. It is in this evolving soundscape that "8am FM" truly thrives, challenging conventional musical paradigms and asking listeners to journey with us.
Luka Ison & Gabriel Beier Title: 8am FM Lachlan Myatt, Joshua Wiggins, & Kaleb Blackwell Title: A Distorted AbstractionA Distorted Abstraction takes a selection of calm and relaxed sounds, and corrupts them and “distorts” them through clipping, modulation, and FM.
In creating this work, we were heavily inspired by the noisy production of experimental hip-hop trio Clipping. Our percussive sounds were modelled on their track All Black, where aggressive tones sound at random times across the stereo spectrum. Clipping’s use of harsh, noisy timbres was also a significant inspiration in creating our more processed, aggressive sounds. Clipping was a great source to draw from for our performance because the sounds they use are sounds that Pure Data absolutely shines in creating.
Many of our uncorrupted sounds were based in the sound design of Aphex Twin. This is evident in the delayed percussive synth in Lachlan’s Pd patch; a sound which would fit snugly on Selected Ambient Works 85-92.
Lachlan’s patch combines this sound with an FM modulated sine wave. The FM ratio and depth can be controlled in real time, and amplitude envelopes are updated by control from the mod wheel. These sounds act as the primary voice in the uncorrupted sections. Additionally, there is also the Clipping-inspired percussion, with random noisy clicks being spaced randomly, and a controllable delay between the left and right channels. The range of the unpredictable durations between clicks can be controlled, and when turned down they blur into a noisy texture.
Joshua’s patch is a versatile that starts as a clean sinewave, but is made more intense with bright oscillators and our own unique processing. When adding a filter we accidentally patched incorrectly, but it creates a unique aggressive noise that provided the starting point for our creative direction. This sound acts as the primary voice in the “corrupted” sections.
Finally, Kaleb’s patch grounds the performance with a rumbling bass, that builds in aggression with clipping and FM. Modulating the FM depth while clipping the signal creates a fabulously harsh, aggressive growling sound with the bass. This is combined with more clipping inspired percussion, this time with controllable reverb, randomised panning, randomised FM and unquantized
microtonal pitch. Again, the rate can be increased to blur them into one noisy texture. This patch also features some simple band-passed noise which can be modulated to create transitions and effects.
Jorja Scott, Harry Maynard, & Oscar Richardson Title: Scripted Remarks of Cold Interest20th century music genres, such as minimalism from the 60s, and musiqué concrete inspired us when composing and creating the instruments for Scripted Remarks of Cold Interest. Stochastic works from John Cage, and Pierre Henry’s Interpénétration C influenced the sound and style we were aiming to compose, with sustained drones and percussive interjections occurring throughout.
The piece The End and Cat from composer C418, most notable for his ambient music compositions used in the videogame Minecraft, also influenced our work, especially the overall form of our piece. We hope some of the textures, synths, and general compositional qualities present in C418’swork is evident in our performance. The intersection of genres from
minimalism, musique concrete and ambient music established a sound world we wanted to explore in our Real Time Systems performance.
We compose using a line/graph contour, which we could follow and that provided a general form, denoting periods of “tension” and “release”. A quote from ‘Audio Culture: Readings in modern music’ guided our initial train-of-thought when composing our instruments in Pure Data: “We want to give pitches to these diverse noises, regulating them harmonically and rhythmically. Giving pitch to noises does not mean depriving them of all irregular movements and vibrations of time and intensity” (Warner, 2017).
For the performance, Jorja and Oscar programmed monophonic synthesizers in Pd which would drive melodic information in the piece. Jorja’s patch is comprised of two droning oscillators with noise. The oscillators can be manipulated with filters and crossfaded between to create a dynamic and fluid sound. Reverb and delay on both the sounds allows Jorja to control and manipulate space with her instrument.
Harry used bright oscillators and noise to sculpt percussive elements, imitative of drum-kits, with underlying synth elements. Through the implementation of metronomic randomisers, delays and reverbs, a patch with sporadic percussive elements was created.
When listening to Scripted Remarks of Cold Interest we hope our influences come through, and our instruments are intriguing to listen to.
Chat is this Real takes an atonal and improvisational approach to performance using randomisation within Pure Data as well as MIDI mapped parameters.
Matt’s patch is a frequency generator replicating a bass instrument. It uses pitch modulation and a comb filter to manipulate the timbre of the sound. The frequency is run through a sine wave LFO automation to create a pulsing effect set at a slow rate, thus increasing the baseline cutoff frequency without the need for manual alteration. A minimum of three different MIDI controls are assigned to manipulate the reverb, comb filter and filter cutoff to achieve the desired effect. This patch is based on the idea of a futuristic engine that harvests sound waves for energy and is inspired by synth lead instruments used by Benjamin Wallfish for the score of IT Chapter 2.
Louis’s patch is based on different modulation strategies including frequency modulation and ring modulation, as well as the manipulation of delay, reverb, and wave folding in order shape the sound and create musical feedback. The reverb feedback will be used to create a wall of noise. Most of these effects are mapped to the faders on a MIDI controller, however the sequencing of events in this patch is left up to Pure Data’s random function. Along with this modulation-based synth, Louis has included some simplistic percussion elements. This patch was inspired by the sounds of Merzbow and Aphex Twin, and mixes features of both artists’ style. Inspired by Robin Fox & Anthony Pateras - live 2009’, Kayden’s patch is centred around a frequency and amplitude modulator with two sample-and-hold LFOs which generate random notes at speeds mapped to sliders on his MIDI controller. The main idea for his patch is to create adjustable atonal sounds and noises which can be turned into harmonic tones. Throughout the
Louis van Winden, Kayden Clarke & Matt Rabbas Title: Chat is This Real?performance Kayden will adjust his instrument’s volume, frequency, and amplitude modulators to compliment the improvised composition.