Nanda Vishnu - PureData

Holy crap ok. The patch referred to in this thread finally got completed to a workable point. You have no idea how happy I am.

I'm posting screenshots of each page so you have an idea of what's going on.

Well, I'm gonna need to double post anyway so......

Ok, so here's what happens in this patch.

This patch was based on a load of research I did on Indian music. While the sources for the raga and tala that the piece is based on might not be totally legit (kksongs.org), its existence gave me a building block to start from.

The raga provides three major things to this piece. firstly, it provides the notes to be used. It also provides the probabilities for the markov chain to determine which note to choose. Thirdly, I treat the Swarupa as the gat, a recurring composed section, occuring at 80 seconds, 100 seconds, 120 seconds, 200 seconds, and 340 seconds.

The tala provided an initial basis for structure, but later only the length resembled the tala - 17*2*10sec=340, the length of the piece. However, the tala provides to the piece the probabilities for bol (stroke) choice.

The final piece, the overall structure, came from a book which went in great detail into Hindustani rhythm and structure.

pd structure controls the patch. it uses a 10-second (10,000 ms) timer to act as a general metronome for the piece, ending at the 35th tick. At the same time, a 3000ms metronome acts as the true tempo marking for the piece. This later become 750ms and 428ms. pd structure controls most parts of the patch, such as envelope, gate threshold, and tala speed.

The rhythm of the "melody" is derived from a hard gate with a changing envelope on a pink noise signal, which changes to give the illusion of speeding up. The gate bangs (triggers) a complex sine wave using info from this thread to simulate a pizz violin, a Bb clarinet, an alto flute with vibrato, and a martele stroke on a contrabass simultaneously and with timbre changes at various points of frequency.

Both the pink noise and the complex tone go through a quick reverb and EQ. The EQ page has a real-time effect over each step, cuz it looks cool.

Going on at all times is a drone of the tonic and perfect fifth of the scale, as well as a drone of both a M3 and a m3, since I found the inclusion of both highly unusual about the raga.

Starting at the first tempo change (to a 750ms pulse), the drums kick in and continue relatively constantly throughout.

The frontend is still being worked on, and will be a visualizer of sorts.

I don't think it is clear from the output, neither do I think it is important, but the website claimed that the raga I used is meant to signify joy entering into night.

The sound file is in mono, but the actual patch is in stereo. Space starts and stops, 1/2 starts and stops the drone.

I think that's it. :)

LINK! http://www.zshare.net/audio/17683562aae4e07b/

Well I have no clue whats going on in those pictures, but it seems very complicated and you obviously took a lot of time on it. So, why don't you tell us the basics of what I'm seeing.

It's some sort of synthesizing program, am I right?

Oh sorry, I was typing while you were typing the explanation.

.wav link - zSHARE - nandavisnu.wav

This is fantastic! I love it. (And kind of makes me wish I had a subwoofer :D)

Nice way of combining algorithmic composition with traditional elements very uniquely, but without sounding arbitrary (which algorithmic composition sometimes tends to). It has a very strong personal colour and works fine formally. And the sounds are much less clich

Thanks for the reply!

I actually may have cut off the end of this or something. at any rate, it is the general idea.

Yeah, I'm at a pretty conservative composition program, so I have to make sure it "sounds good" before I claim something like this is done. But that's what's so awesome about the Markov chain - its pretty effective at modelling note choice. I'd actually like the model to be tighter, but I'd need to define things very well and that's a lot of obscure reading or assertion that I don't want to do.

What do you do with Max?

Well, I haven't done any serious composing with Max so far, I've more used Csound for that. (Just a matter of personal preference. I prefer programming the music in text to dragging lots of tiny boxes around the screen and connecting them with cables. For lots of people it's just the other way round.)

What I love Max for however are live electronics, control mechanisms etc., which all are quite impractical in Csound. Right now I'm programming a control algorithm that turns 6 tape recorders on and off via a microcontroller for an installation in about two weeks. Fun stuff!

I've often felt a lot of music created with Max (or pD) sounds a bit similar, which makes it even better that your piece -doesn't- just sound like that. And you're probably right that one can still optimise some things about the formal structure there, even if it already works quite fine. I guess you can always improve things in any composition though :)

Yeah, text programming is a lot less tedious for sequencing and stuff. I just can't visualize the patch in text. I was taught about 2 seconds of ChucK - wish I learned more :(

Yeah I feel the same way about pD music - I went to the ICMC last year when it was at my school and saw the Max and Pd concert, twas less than impressive. Other parts were cool, though.

This patch actually could really easily be based from an input, come to think of it.

Ferkungamabooboo, since you prefer graphic programming why don't you try Reaktor? It's a NI software and as I can see from the wikipedia entry and NI homepage I think it works exactly like the program you use. I would try the demo version, but it's too complicated for my level and with the knowledge I have (I don't even understand how you created music from these graphs. All I can see is boxes containing numbers and connected with lines; lots of lines. :)).

Alexandros

I never looked at Reaktor before, but as with most things its a bit price-prohibitive and I really don't have any Native Instruments to use with it.

Looks like the same idea, though.

Alright, so, the WAV cuts off at 5:50. This is one of those things where I should read up what you did and look at it, but I decided to just listen to it instead of looking at the explanations or diagrams (though I DID look at them after listening.)

For one, I wanted to see if you work what you were saying musically rather than let the program do the talking for you. Sadly, the piece itself, at least the 5:50 mins I heard, had a rather gritty and nice electronic sound to them which I actually like, BUT composition-wise I really don't see much of the point.

I like the ideas, specially the thing with the Hindu mythos and so on. But, beyond what you're explaining they are not really something one is really able to hear at all. In fact, the entire thing sounded random-number-generatorish over a drone pedal.

I don't mean or want to undermine your work here since clearly you went through a lot to put this together, but the ultimate result (the actual sound) the whole thing generates was rather for me uninteresting. There is a drone characteristic, and it's clear that it's there to stay. On top of that there's other stuff going on, but there's a lack of clarity which together with the droning/pedal is simply a rather traditional construction with chance elements.

Understandably, it's difficult to step back and listen to what you're actually doing when doing it is so much work. Believe me, I've done the old fashioned analog 1 voice synth + tape + cutting + ARRGGHH, and it's very simple to become detached from the actual result because the means are tasking/complicated/fun(!), etc.

My question is, does this sound like you wanted it to sound from the start? Did you have a clear idea for how this was supposed to sound or you just had a procedural plan?

By the looks of it, it seems to me that the idea was to showcase the experiment, carry it out and see what comes out of it. However, beyond this I don't see a really clear musical objective. Of course I could be wrong, but that's the feeling I get.

Now, I don't mean that repetition, chance elements, droning and etc are "bad" musical elements and really that's not what my criticism is really about. It's the usage of these elements you picked and how much the process controlled you, rather than you controlling the process, that concerns me.

So, I'll offer a couple of ideas:

1: A more careful consideration of form, not because the piece does not have one or any of that, but because I feel this dimension of the work is left somewhat unexplored when CLEARLY you could do so much with the material you're using as base.

2: In relation to the above, consider putting some extra thought in how you present and choose the musical elements, though you clearly have an idea of what you want and how to get it done, think a little more about the big picture rather than specific punctual processes. How certain musical elements can be perceived as form-constituting elements such as the pedal, the chance elements, etc etc.

So, in conclusion, nice idea. I really think it's got a lot of room to be kickass, but hm, not quite there. I like the sound you get out of it overall, but it's just how it's all being used and the overall "whole" I feel isn't as solid as it could be so to speak.

I understand where you are coming from but I'd like to raise one objection to your review, SSC.

It's the usage of these elements you picked and how much the process controlled you, rather than you controlling the process, that concerns me.

I know this is very fundamental question of composition and a very controversial one. I, for one, don't believe it's a necessity to be in full control of the musical result. I think entering a dialog with your processes, and yes, even letting them control you to some extent can be very enriching to ones music.

I know the computer can do things I can't, like making thousands of complex calculations within split seconds and when I write music for the computer I want to be able to employ these capabilities the computer has. Imagining sounds and then just using the computer to model them is certainly a valid approach, but I don't think it's the most idiomatic one for the computer.

I love it when I can "confront" the computer with some basic musical ideas, then let it take over and create a result that comes from my ideas, yet adds a dimension that I wouldn't and couldn't ever have imagined myself. In a next step I might exert some more control on it, add more parameters, etc. then again see what the computer does with it. For me, it's like a dialog with a performer (or co-composer), where a piece of music slowly grows beyond my own musical imagination. As frankly, I don't trust my musical imagination to be so super-great and boundless, and I love hearing things that I don't already have in my mind. So I in fact often let myself be "controlled" by the processes I have set up (with a musical idea in mind of course) to see where I end up.

I've made the experience that when I just try to model the sounds I have in mind, it sounds much more bland and clich

It's a matter of CHOOSING it rather than it happening because you couldn't help it/were unaware etc.

I really don't oppose "being guided by the process" etc etc, or any of those ideas, so long as they are conscious choices and everything is thought about. Otherwise it's just a "lol whatever" and just as much the result. It develops no sense of musical consequence unless you take control at the very least in how you'll approach working from the start and with what attitude or reasons you do what you do.

But for me is also important that people actually have an idea of what they want, even if they end up with other stuff as consequence. The intention is important.

Fair point, I agree with that. Even though the idea of creating a piece called "lol whatever" is strangely tempting.

Way ahead of you, there. ;P

Damn you :(

Well, i had the intent for the synth for a while, but had no way to use it. And then I started really reading about Indian Music, and provided myself with a form.

Problem with lol whatever music being negative is that I rarely go into a piece with any sort of idea in mind. I take composition as an on-the-spot decision for where it goes next (which wouldn't work for a stylistic/historic piece, clearly), so the computer making that choice for me creates a base to work from. Reflecting this, I controlled the setting, but not the actual timing itself. This creates a problem, since computers aren't really random, my code isn't too hot so it sometimes loops or gets disjointed, and the systems I use aren't too exacting. So I'm treating the computer almost as an improvising musician.

But it does come down to this: does it stand alone, just the output? SSC had said it didn't, and I agree if I take out the "I did this" factor. But the concept - that works.

I'm thinking of adding a few overlapped soundfiles of street noise and modulating the drone by

I think the use of Markov change is well done as the note choice and timing created an interesting melody. The piece grew nicely from the initial tones and when the drums kicked in it definitely began to be noticeably Indian in nature, which is also evident from your explanation. On my initial listen I was concerned only with the timbre, but after putting on my headphones in lieu of my cheap Dell speakers I was much more impressed with the drone notes when they were properly amplified.

Very impressive project and a good idea. I hope to see the development continue, wherein the user would be able to play with the final product, or at least hear different versions of the same piece.

*applause*

Maybe this is obvious, but how is this synthesizing program different from others?

pD is sort of like a GUI for C, in a way. It's I guess technically a programming language. So the sequencing part is a bit hectic, but overall its more powerful than a sequencer.

UPDATED:

The levels are a bit weird on the recording. Apparently WYhearInotWYG. I could do more, but I'm lazy.

zshare

Is it a bit more cohesive?

Also: What free PC video-capture programs are there... there's a pretty (not really) visualizer :)

Nanda Vishnu Final

You know what I wonder about SSC's comments - how much control do you have in communicating your intent? As SSC is no longer here I must say I feel more confident saying this - but I think he contradicts himself when I look at his other writings here. For example, he and others agree that music communicates no emotion. Well emotion can be intentional - or an intent conditioned. Therefore why should a more calculated approach be more successful in achieving your intent. Maybe I misunderstood SSC's comments.

I find the more I compose the more I find that once the music is written our intent has little to do how cohesive listeners - or even ourselves after some time - determine a piece of music. Musical cohesiveness is matter of psychoacoustics rather than any inherent quality of the sounds we create.

Therefore Ferk you have done a wonderful job --- I wish I heard the earlier version for comparison but this quite fine. Strangely meditative ... reminds me of when you are in a forest far from 20th/21st century sounds and all you hear are the animals, the breeze through the trees and the sound of you nervous system and bloodflow in the late afternoon.

By the way I am a total noob at electronic music - would you define Markov chain" what the diagrams actually depict (I see some look like a set up of audio and tape equipment but that's it) and some of the terms Reaktor and what not - what are they?

this is pretty awesome