[sdiy] Music

[cheater cheater]

Hi guys,
I really like the two tracks!

The nice low mids cutting through in the FPGA sounds and on the other
hand the organic sounding distortion in the Pd track, really cool!

As far as sequences mod n... you can change n by dividing it up and
down while not changing the sequence itself. So you have, say, a list
of pitches. There are n of those pitches and you keep on advancing in
the same pattern no matter what n is. By dividing and multiplying n
you can explore different 'branches' of your sequence while being able
to return to previous points in non-obvious ways. So you start out
with n = 24, divide by 3 -> n=8, divide by 2 -> n = 4, multiply by 3
-> n = 12, multiply by 4 -> n = 48, divide by 2 -> n = 24. At the end
you get a similar (but not necessarily the same) harmonic structure.
This works best if total the length of your progression is a large
prime number, larger than any value of n you'll want; if it's not
relatively prime to one of the n's it wil only traverse a partition
made out of n/gcd(n, L) notes, where there are gcd(n, L) such
partitions, but then maybe that's what you want. Such 'mode locking'
with numbers that are not relatively prime can be very interesting at
audio rates for generating timbre.

Cheers,
D.

On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 11:02, Scott Nordlund <gsn10 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>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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