[sdiy] Wavetable info

[Henry Till]

Hey There,

Thought I might add to this thread, by adding another
machine to the list of "wavetablet" synths, in support
of Tom's project. Thought it was never a commerical
instrument, Iannis Xenakis (perhaps one of the
greatest 20th century composers, IMHO) devised a
concept for a synthesizer/computer-based composition
engine to "draw" music or to draw waveforms and
envelopes (for modulating amplitude and other
time-varying parameters).  It was known as the UPIC,
which was constructed at the CEMAMu (a French Research
Insitute for Mathematics in Music) in france in the
late 1970s.  He used it in some of his later
compositions (Mycènes Alpha, La Legende D'Er) to good
(read: noisy) effect.    

There is a good little writeup on the machine at:
http://membres.lycos.fr/musicand/INSTRUMENT/DIGITAL/UPIC/UPIC.htm


(watch the line wrap when trying the link)

Some of the concepts he used in the UPIC were extended
to his later computer-based synthesis program, GENDY3,
where I belive the user could draw the envelopes of
sound grains (as it was a precursor to today's
granular synthesis) as well as transformation
functions.  I might be wrong about this, but I think I
remember reading this somewhere 

I think it could be exciting stuff to experiment
with...there's some great tools for experimenting with
drawing envelopes and waveforms in the
computer/digital domain (I'm thinking primarily of
Max/MSP and Metasynth), but I think building a piece
of hardware to do this sounds cool (a lot of work, i
imagine, too).  And I myself am partial to inharmonic
sounds (no pun intended).  

-H

--- Tom Arnold <xyzzy at sysabend.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 01, 2004 at 12:50:55PM -0700, Scott
> Gravenhorst wrote:
> > Hi all, and Happy New Year.
> > 
> > I've often thought that it would be interesting to
> do waveform drawing,
> > but I've also wondered just how useful it is?
> 
> For me its more an exercise rather then anything I
> have a goal with.
> I have some ideas for morphing from waveform to
> waveform over time and the
> like but at the moment this is more a Blinkenlights
> kinda project.
> 
> It cant be that usefull or perhaps more synths would
> have been made to use it.
> Lets see, there was the Waveterm, a couple Roland
> units, cant forget the DSS1
> ( although I try to, but that huge mass is still in
> the garage ), and theres
> that beastie that keeps showing up on ebay.
> 
> I'm interested in the actual interface more then
> anything else.  The same
> code that can draw waveforms can draw envelopes for
> example....
> 
> -- 
> 
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  - Tom Arnold -       When I was small, I was in
> love,                  - 
>  - Sysabend   -       In love with everything.      
>                    -
>  - CareTaker  -       And now there's only you...   
>                    - 
>  --------------         -- Thomas Dolby, "Cloudburst
> At Shingle Street" -
> 

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