LO-10 Computer Sound

Star Wars Blaster Sound Effect

Ben Burtt, who did sound design for the original star wars movies, also made the class blaster sound effect. A combination of digital & analog techniques, it has been remade and remixed countless times over the years as the franchise is adapted and updated.

As demonstrated in the video, the sound was originally recorded using steel cable under tension (or a slinky, in this case) & a wrench. The classic PEW PEW was then saved, isolated from background noise, layered with other sounds, and edited into the movie. In the same way that Star Wars has defined what a good sci-fantasy movie SHOULD be, its iconic blaster sound has also cemented into our cultural consciousness what a laser gun SHOULD sound like. That iconic sound would not be possible without a combination of analog & digital processes.

-Robert

LO 10-Computational Music

The computational music project I looked at was begun by American bandleader, engineer and inventor Raymond Scott, and reimagined by Yuri Suzuki, a Japanese inventor. The machine is made to display an instantaneous performance-composition through the use of Google Magenta’s AI software, which connects neural networks from all the Bach chorales to code, thus creating a harmonic relationship between sounds and generates new situations with AI intelligence. The machine itself aesthetically displays a sequence and rhythm, which brings the performance a layer of visualization while it is playing. I think it is fascinating to see symphonic music composed and displayed in such a way, with all of its components on a screen light up to curate the performance. 

LO 10 – Computer Music

For this week’s Looking Outwards, I decided to take a look at the work of British singer-songwriter and audio engineer Imogen Heap. I specifically looked at her “MI.MU gloves” (2014) and the various ways that she uses this innovative computational musical instrument to compose and perform her music. MI.MU gloves are a wearable instrument that utilizes mapping technologies to translate hand movements into musical compositions. For instance, specific hand movements trigger changes in pitch, filters, and scales. The technical elements of the gloves include flex sensors, orientation sensors, a wifi device, and software that uses MIDI and OSC to coordinate movements and sounds.

I find this project fascinating and admire Heap’s work because of how revolutionary it is in bridging the gap between the analog and the digital through creating a more natural relationship between the artist and the computer. The gloves completely transform musical performance and experience, allowing artists to incorporate sound and movement seamlessly. They are also somewhat accessible, as they are available for purchase online, and many musical artists have used the gloves in their music/performances.

MI.MU gloves
how MI.MU gloves were developed
Imogen Heap performance; at 9:05, she describes and gives a demo with the gloves

LO-10

Badlands by Don Ritter is a sound art project that pairs sound with images of the Canadian Badlands. The image aspect of the project is controlled by live music; the speed at which the image moves is based on the tempo and pitch of the music being played. I was very interested in this project because the music controls the image, not the other way around. Most projects that I have looked at up to this point are based around the image first. In order to do this, Ritter uses a software called o8, which is based on Orpheus. The software is made to interpret and analyze the music that is being played in order to control the image. This also allows for artistic interpretation: Ritter (or anyone with the proper set up) could set the image to any music that he wanted and the project would be different than it would be with any other musical selection.

A link to a diagram that shows the technical requirements and setup, along with other information about Don Ritter’s Badlands project (2001)

Don Ritter’s website

LO 10: Computer Music

American Folk Songs Album

Benoit Carré is a french musician who created Skygga, his avatar alias, for AI-generated music. The Album “American Folk Songs” was released in 2019, using Flow Machines tools developed by Sony CLS. In this playlist, Carré “revisits American traditional folk songs with a prototype of an AI harmonization tool.” It takes acapella recording from many classic American folk singers and uses AI “to flesh out the melodies and the lyrics of the songs, enriching them with lush harmonies and sounds generated by AI that have never been heard before.” I really admire Carré’s work as it is an intriguing marriage of old folk music and modern electronic music. One song that I really enjoyed from the playlist is “Black Is the Color,” featuring the voice of Pete Seeger, a legendary folk singer. I was first introduced to Seeger during high school as he was a proud alumnus of the school. Hearing his voice with a new twist, therefore,  is very cool and interesting to me.

Creator: Benoit Carré

Year: 2019

Link: https://open.spotify.com/album/6NbX54oOpEZhSOjfdSYepw?si=qh6e45bQTMSh1LC4IX-R6w

Looking Outwards 10 : Computer Music

Charli XCX in performance

Charlie XCX, also known as Charlotte Emma Aitchison, is a professional singer, songwriter, music video director, and record producer. She was born in Cambridge and her music focuses on the musical styles of gothic pop, synth-pop, dance-pop, electropop, pop-punk, and alternative pop. During her early career, her music possessed a mix of darkness and witch-house styles. Most of her songs contain a technical or computational aspect to it and her work remains very consistent. I admire how consistent Charlie XCX has been with her musical styles. Her work presents a clear idea of how passionate and interested she is in computational music. Even in the music industry, technology seems to have a very powerful role. I am curious about what is to come in the future as technology continues to advance, and how that advancement would impact its role in many fields.

Looking Outwards-10

The project I am discussing this week is called “Weather Thingy–Real Time Climate Sound Controller.” Weather Thingy is created by Adrien Kaeser and is a sound controller that uses real time climate related events to control the settings of musical instruments. The device has two main parts–a weather station connected on a tripod microphone and a controller connected to the weather station. This machine has three climate sensors which includes a rain gauge, wind vane, anemometer. The interface of the machine displays the date from the 4 different sensors. This project is super interesting to me because it took a real life issue at hand and translated it into sound. I liked how the music can change based on the data it collects and it was really nice to see how the creator was able to take a musical approach towards this topic.

Looking Outwards 10

Jae Son
Section C

Looking Outwards 10: Computer Music

For this LO-10, I looked at Laetitia Sonami’s Magnetic Memories. She created this new instrument “Spring Spyre,” with Rebecca Fiebrink’s neural networks. According to the Stanford University’s CCRMA stage brochure, in which she performed, “the audio signals from three pickups attached to springs are fed to the neural networks, which are trained to control the live audio synthesis in MAXMSP.” So, with the performer’s real-time performance, somewhat chaotic set of sound is produced. I admire how a random, real-time physical performance produces sound that sounds chaotic but is within the programmed pattern. I like the intersection of installation, performance art, and computer art come together.

LookingOutwards-10: Sound Art

The project I will be discussing is The Egg by Fedde ten Berge. This work is egg-shaped with textured ridges on the side which are used to to play vibrations and sound. It is a very hands-on type of installation/project, and despite its egg-shape, appears quite alien-like. It is made out of a block of wood. The artist likes to combine ceramic with another object of another material (left in their true natural form), which in this case is wood. I found this project interesting because when I think of sound art, I typically imagine technology and computers that an audience would not be so openly allowed to touch or fidget with. I was interested in how these slight ridges would produce sound, and was fascinated to find out that with wet hands, or a smooth surface like a mallet, The Egg will give off vibrations that translate to acoustic vibrations, which also makes it accessible/welcoming to those who are hard of hearing. Overall, I was most impressed with the shape of The Egg, because it is very obvious that it was likely a tedious process to hollow out a large block of wood, but keep it strong enough to hold its shell-like structure. The creator’s artistic sensibilities are manifested in the final form in many ways. When you look at the creator’s past works, they all have a few things in common. His projects are very touch-reliant, and prompt the user/audience to interact with it physically. Additionally, the artist utilizes how water and wet surfaces can produce an interesting vibration. On top of this, the artist seems to really enjoy working with natural materials, such as wood, and often tries to leave it in its most natural form without changing the medium too much.

http://www.feddetenberge.nl/het-ei

This is what The Egg looks like, with its natural wood material and usage of ceramic ridges.
Here are some of the artist’s previous works that show his focus on natural materials like wood, and how he incorporates hands-on interaction with his sound art.

Project 10: Sonic Story

nighttimeDownload
var my=270;
var mdy=1;
var windowOpen=true;
var star;
var monster;
var windowSound;
var clock;
var fr=0;

function preload(){
    clock=loadSound("https://courses.ideate.cmu.edu/15-104/f2020/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/clockticksound.wav");
    star=loadSound("https://courses.ideate.cmu.edu/15-104/f2020/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/star.wav");
    windowSound=loadSound("https://courses.ideate.cmu.edu/15-104/f2020/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/window.wav");
    monster=loadSound("https://courses.ideate.cmu.edu/15-104/f2020/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/growl-1.wav");
}

function setup() {
    createCanvas(480, 480);
    useSound();
    frameRate(1);
}

function soundSetup() {
    clock.setVolume(0.5);
    star.setVolume(0.2);
    windowSound.setVolume(0.5);
    monster.setVolume(1);
}

function draw() {
    background(38, 39, 59);
    drawStatic();
    //monster
    fill(0);
    if (fr>7 & fr<=17){
        monster.play();
        ellipse(260, my, 80, 60);
        rect(220, my, 80, 300-my);
        fill(255, 0, 0);
        triangle(235, my-13, 255, my-10, 245, my-5);
        triangle(285, my-13, 265, my-10, 275, my-5);
        //claws
        for (var i=0; i<3; i++){
            fill(0);
            quad(175+(i*10), 300, 180+(i*10), 295, 185+(i*10), 300, 180+(i*10), 330);
          }
        if (fr>8 & fr<=12){
            my-=5;
        }
        if (fr>12 & fr<=16){
            my+=5;
        }
    }

    //clock
    clock.play();
    push();
    translate(355, 40);
    scale(0.22);
    drawClock();
    pop();

    //star
    push();
    if (fr<5){
        star.play();
    }
    switch(fr){
        case 0: translate(290, 100); scale(0.05); break;
        case 1: translate(280, 105); scale(0.2); break;
        case 2: translate(260, 110); scale (0.3); break;
        case 3: translate(240, 115); scale(0.2); break
        case 4: translate(220, 120); scale(0.05); break;
        case 5: translate(200, 125); scale(0); break;
        default: scale(0); break;
    }

    noStroke();
    fill(255);
    drawStar();
    pop();

    //windowPane
    drawWindow();
    if (fr>6 & fr<=16){
        windowOpen=false;
    }
    if (fr==7){
        windowSound.play();
    }
    if (fr>16){
        windowOpen=true;
    }
    if (fr==17){
        windowSound.play
    }

    fr++;
    if (fr>=22){
        fr=0;
    }
}

function drawClock(){
  //from https://p5js.org/examples/input-clock.html
  var cx;
  var cy;
  var secR;
  var minR;
  var hrR;
  var cD;

  var radius=width/2;
  secR=radius*0.71;
  minR=radius*0.6;
  hrR=radius*0.5;
  cD=radius*1.7

  cx=width/2;
  cy=height/2;

  noStroke();
  fill(15);
  ellipse(cx, cy, cD+25, cD+25);
  fill(200);
  ellipse(cx, cy, cD, cD);

  var s=map(second(), 0, 60, 0, TWO_PI)-HALF_PI;
  var m=map(minute()+norm(second(), 0, 60), 0, 60, 0, TWO_PI)-HALF_PI;
  var h=map(hour()+norm(minute(), 0, 60), 0, 24, 0, TWO_PI*2)-HALF_PI;

  stroke(0);
  strokeWeight(1);
  line(cx, cy, cx+cos(s)*secR, cy+sin(s)*secR);
  strokeWeight(2);
  line(cx, cy, cx+cos(m)*minR, cy+sin(m)*minR);
  strokeWeight(4);
  line(cx, cy, cx+cos(h)*hrR, cy+sin(h)*hrR);

  strokeWeight(2);
  beginShape(POINTS);
  for(var i=0; i<360; i+=6){
      var angle=radians(i);
      var x=cx+cos(angle)*secR;
      var y=cy+sin(angle)*secR;
      vertex(x, y);
  }
  endShape();
}

function drawStatic(){
  //window
  noStroke();
  fill(64, 65, 90);
  square(25, 25, 300);
  fill(12, 13, 42);
  square(50, 50, 250);
  //bed frame and mattress
  fill(55, 34, 26);
  strokeWeight(3);
  stroke(32, 17, 11);
  rect(240, 375, 240, 105);
  rect(240, 350, 25, 130);
  noStroke();
  fill(192, 157, 167);
  quad(270, 400, 480, 400, 480, 480, 300, 480);
  fill(120, 82, 93);
  triangle(270, 480, 270, 400, 300, 480);
  //moon
  fill(248, 216, 8);
  ellipse(100, 100, 60, 60);
}

function drawStar(){
    //same code as star example from arrays lecture
    var starX=[50, 61, 83, 69, 71, 50, 29, 31, 17, 39];
    var starY=[18, 37, 43, 60, 82, 73, 82, 60, 43, 37];
    var nPoints=starX.length;
    beginShape();
    for (var i=0; i<nPoints; i++){
        vertex(starX[i], starY[i]);
    }
    endShape(CLOSE);

}

function drawWindow(){
    stroke(64, 65, 90);
    strokeWeight(10);
    noFill();
    if (windowOpen==true){
        line(175, 30, 175, 320);
        line(30, 175, 320, 175);
    }
    if (windowOpen==false){
        line(175, 30, 175, 320);
        line(30, 175, 170, 175);
        line(210, 80, 320, 40);
        line(210, 80, 210, 360);
        line(210, 360, 320, 320);
        line(210, 220, 320, 180);

    }

}

For this project I wanted to have a scene where someone goes to bed and wakes up in the middle of the night to see a monster for the spooky vibes. I struggled a bit trying to figure out all of the objects I was going to animate so I added a shooting star in the beginning.

I got the clock from the p5.js reference site and I used the same code for the star that we had in our Arrays lecture previously in the semester.