[sdiy] Music

[Scott Nordlund]

>>Good results, it's a really pleasant tone.  What's generating the
>>pitches?
>
> There are two FPGA instruments. One is a 56 string digital harp (phsyical model), the other is a
> 16 voice 8 operator FM bell synth. The bell synth has some of it's signal passed thru a lowly MXR
> Phase 100.

Are you following Julius O. Smith's stuff for the physical model?  I've looked into his work but only tried it in a really naive sort of way.  Very rich territory though.  

I'd love to see someone try  gong/cymbal/acoustic instrument resonator model, but I think that's still a little too crazy for right now.  My own not very well considered efforts all sounded like microphone feedback or defective reverb.

> They are both driven by a sequencer that generates semi structured phrases of notes. The scale is
> entered as a set of probabilities per chromatic scale note to play on any given beat. An array is
> initialized with random notes to play based on the scale probability table. The array is "played"
> through, one item per beat and then repeats. When the array has been completely played, one note's
> pitch value is changed based again on the table's values. This is done for two parts.

Shocking understatement of the century: algorithmic music is hard!

I got kinda tired of the diatonic/modal noodling type random stuff so I tried something different.  To get it not static but also not incomprehensible is really difficult.

Another idea that's been brewing for a few years: I came up with a chord progression generator based on an "increment sequence".  Imagine a mod-24 counter (spanning 2 octaves of chromatic notes) that is incremented by some sequence of intervals, and the resulting stream of numbers is split up into groups of 3 (or whatever) to make chords.  So a sequence of "0, 4, 3, 0, 3, 4" with each set of 3 notes forming a chord will play alternating major/minor triads around a circle of fifths over a 2 octave range.  Throwing in some more complex (but carefully considered) stuff can get something more exotic, sort of impressionistic sounding.  It's kind of like serialism but doesn't sound so rigorous.  I used to do this manually but it's way, way too tedious.  It also seems well suited (if not particularly intuitive) to the 19-TET scale, since you can make a "circle of anything" in that.

I kinda figured that since my music ended up turning into strange sounding chord progressions, if I can get something to do it for me I can sorta write myself out of the creative process.

> I'm still working on this sequencer - no doubt - I think it will likely
> never actually ever really be finished.

I know the feeling.  I've got a million ongoing things in PD and I'm always getting inspired to start more.  Everything I do can easily be re-purposed, though, so it works out.
 		 	   		  
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