Beware The Flood... (Part II)

Now with official moon.

I'm Going To Call My Son 'Adobe'

Or perhaps 'Gaussian Blur' for a more exotic twist.

The Battalion

177KB JPEG

Beware The Flood...

Creative Computing - Major Project

The inspiration for my Creative Computing major project came primarily from two
places; a vocal Spectral Freeze bidule that I created in Plogue about 3 months ago
(posted on this blog) and an interest in live computer controlled synthesised
accompaniment. I found several CDs in Elder Library which attempted this,
particularly Richard Teitelbaum’s Concerto Grosso, in which a pianist plays a piano
that is connected to a computer, which then controls two other pianos for
accompaniment. The result was quite, uhh, objectionable, but the idea was solid.

I decided to use a grand piano as the sound source for my Bidule creations, as I had
an idea to place microphones in such a way that each mic would pick up different
frequency bands (low notes, mid notes, high notes) and my bidules could be customised
for each mic signal. The OmniGraffle plan helped me to realise the physical
limitations of the Recording Space, and I deduced that I needed to use Studio 1 in
conjunction with the Space for the performance due to the number of microphones I was
using.

Bidule creation consumed my life for 2 weeks, and I was quite pleased with the final
6. Detailed descriptions of each bidule and sub-bidule have been entered into the
“***** Explanation…” boxes scattered throughout my Plogue session file. I created the
score for my piece after creating my bidules, as the score would be used for the
performance rather than the aesthetic design, plus I wanted to discuss it with the
performer. My original performer dropped out, but thankfully Jake Morris was
interested in being the guinea pig. My score has three parts; the main form, the
piano score and the computer score. The main form was chosen by Jake and I to be
ternary form, best described as |A|BA| (similar to sonata form). We kept our opinions
on how we should proceed from each other, knowing that the overall form would allow
our interpretations to coincide in the performance. Jake’s score consisted of a piece
of paper with a theme progression, namely “autumn leaves > nightwalker > autumn
leaves2 “, (which I jazzed up in Photoshop afterwards of course). My score consisted
of an effect group order, in which the ternary form controls the change between
direct sound manipulation and sound synthesis/Live. Effect nuances like Decimation
were improvised.













I believe the performance was a success. I connected the K5000 MIDI controller to
gain controls plus some of the effects controls for each of my bidules. This allowed
me to affect the piano sound as I saw fit, adhering to my score. I really did not
want to use Live, however the loops I built on-the-fly in the mix came out quite
nice, and right when they stopped Jake changed his playing style in a twist of
improvisation (there‘s that word again). Rather than audition the spliced sounds for
Live through headphones I patched them straight into the rear speakers in Studio 1
for some ‘surround DJing’. The only issue I had regarded the 'synthesised
accompaniment' going schitzo instead of actually accompanying, but that seems to be
related to the instrument I chose. Oh, and lets not forget that a G5 Mac runs my
bidule at 50%+ dsp, yet my very cheap laptop pulls off 20% max.


If you have some time, pilfer through my Plogue patch, there’s plenty of instructions
and explanations inside each bidule which may be of interest. If you want to try them
out, most of them work best with a microphone. At least check out the Delay Time Proportionate Attenuator in the Devine Delay GUI.


CC Major MP3 7.13MB

Bidule File

Johannes' Ultimate Fantasy

Mmm, plastic...

SWOT BAD! PHOTOSHOP GOOD!

AA - Week 7 - FM Synthesis

Ding. I matched the frequencies to the sonogram exactly but it still sounds higher than
the original. If only I had a sonogram thing on my laptop, I could compare. MP3 23Kb

Sans Video

I would have my complete Sans video up already but the Cubase file is corrupted and
it isn't worth syncing all the sounds again. Cut my losses. Anyway, here's a zip of
all the sounds (728Kb)
and an abstract list of everything I did with the paper to make them.

Wind - (Shake - Nothing)
Shovelling - (Monster chew - Pitch down)
Furnace roar + fire - (Monster chew- duplicated and phased x4, slowed down by about 70%)(slow
screw - pitch up, 2 layers out of phase)
Tram wheel rattle (mosnter chew- speed up, looped, retimed)
Tram Bell (whistle- slowed down, amplitude envelope for quick attack and slow decay)
Traffic noise -(ocean- amplified, slowed down, duplicated+reversed x4, panned)(motobike-
deamplified, fade in/out, panned left)(whistle- slowed down, pulsated, fade out, panned left
- horn1)(whistle- slowed down, pulsated, fade out, panned right - horn2)
Truck engine (Motocycle- doubled up, pitched down)
Footsteps on metal ladder (tappy- pitched up)(whistle- clipped, fade in/out, pitched
up/down, timed with footsteps)
Electricity hum (whistle- slowed down about 140%)
Metal clunk of big switch (big rip- duplicatedx3 and sped up)
Electricity buzz sound (02.blowing- sped up, looped)
factory noise - (ocean - pitch down)
metal squeal sound from turning handle (blowing-fade in/out)
pressured air release hiss (ocean-duplicate+offsetx3)
lever clunk (mosnter chew- duplicate+layerx4, attack and decay fix, pitch down)
engine ignition sound (friction)
Vibration buzz (02.Blowing)
Whizzing machinery (shake- sped up by 500%)
Machine hum (whistle- slow down 98%)
Spools rattle (ocean- snippet, loop)
Engine hum noise (02.blowing- slowed down)
Gear clunk (Chew- clip, slowed down by 96%, fade in/out)
Cog spin acceleration (02.blowing - speed slowed by 90%)
Tool box click (Chew- clip)
Sewing machine sounds (slow screw- loop clip and speed up)(chew- loop clip)
Fabric movement (ocean- fade in/out)
scissor cutting (bite- clip, pitch up)
footsteps with echo (tappy- duplicated, retimed, pitched up, faded out and panned)
hissing air valves (ocean- duplicated, amplified)
pulsing piston hiss (shake- clip, loop)
oil dispenser click (chew)
heavy cogs rumbling (ocean- slowed down 95%)(moto blowout- slowed down 95%)
person moving sound (ocean- fade in/out)
switch (shake- clip, slowed down 45%)
whizzing machinery II (02.blowing, looped, sped up by 400%, duplicated and panned)
air hiss (ocean- clip, loop, amplify, slow down)
idle machine hum (whistle- slowed down 99%)

Week 9 - AA - Tone Wheel Patch

This tone wheel started off as Luke's, but considering I'm always after an excuse to
not do my own I work I started helping. We ended up making a very intricate bidule, as
the pics attest. Attest? Attest. Anyway this was a very good learning experience for
me in Plogue, as I had not done much with multiple layer grouping. I am running out
of download memory so I can't attach the sound file, however it can be accessed on
Luke's blog.


Nevermind, I just compressed it. MP3 446Kb



Main Drawerbars

Harmonic Controllers









Harmonic Bidule

All The Harmonics

AC - Week 8 - No Particular Reason

I made a piano synth in plogue for no reason. So I'm trying to give it purpose in its
existence by blogging it. You may recall this is the one that sounds like a marimba.
I hate marimbas. MP3 129Kb

CC - Week 7 - Realtime Processing (3)

Grouping and polyphonication. I like polyphony. Can you name the tune?

MP3 73.1Kb


Outside view


In the Super Fun Happy Slide

CC - Week 6 - Real Time Processing (2)

Ooh, fun. Well I laughed at the ID3 tag when I found this sound file again.

MP3 103Kb.

CC - Week 9 - RT Network Control

Well I was busy screwing around in Photoshop (surprise) when Dave was creating 'our'
OSC network- luckily he gave me a shout before he started so I could take some
credit. We did some quick finishing hacks to the connected computers and started the
party, with these results MP3 128Kb. (actual size, not kbps)

Good times, good times.

Bidule Patch

CC - Week 11 - Workshop

This is my OmniCrapple diagram, complete with piano and lines and arrows.
Aren't you excited?

AA - Minor project - MP3

Indeed. I did a bus. The squeaking sound in this was supposed to be the rubber of the
bendy part of the bus squeaking, but it didn't come off too good. The stereo mix seems
to have dropped out a couple things too. But I don't care. Here it is in all of its
96kbps glory. MP3 2.08Mb