NO LATE DAYS ARE ALLOWED

Important dates

• December 3, 11:59 PM: Deadline for music submission (source files, wave file, program notes, and answers to the questions below).
• December 8, 5:00 PM: Concert. Hunt Library Media Lab [HLA10a]

Description

Project 7 will be an ambitious computer music composition that you create by combining techniques we have explored during the semester. Your goal is to create a composition that is technically ambitious (combining at least four major techniques in Nyquist), and is a compelling listening experience (revisit our Spotify playlist for inspiration). As always, you may optionally use DAWs such as FL Studio, Ableton, Logic, etc. to mix, edit, master, etc. — but we expect you to focus your work on Nyquist programming techniques covered in the course. Your piece may of course be created using Nyquist alone.

Your composition will be presented at the December 8 concert in the Media Lab. The Media Lab has support for up to 8 channels of surround-sound audio and video projection. If you wish to create a multichannel or multimedia piece for P7 that would be excellent and your extra effort will be considered in grading. Please coordinate with the teaching team via Piazza to help us understand your piece’s requirements if you wish to pursue these options.

Assessment will based on:

1. Completeness – Audio requirements are fulfilled, code, slides, and text are included according to specifications below.

2. Code – Code is included and compiles.

3. Composition quality – Your piece should demonstrate effort exploring musical and technical possibilities and should present an interesting listening experience.

4. Mixing – The various sounds created for your piece should be mixed with intentionality. You should control the amplitude of all sounds over time so that they are balanced and the listeners’ attention is focused to aspects of the music which you wish to highlight. Your piece should contain no common mixing errors such as clipping or clicks. If you wish to include these types of sounds intentionally for artistic effect please explain this in your program notes and explain your reasoning for why this decision was made.

5. Significant use of Nyquist – Your piece must include at least four major techniques explored in the course, for example: granular synthesis, FM synthesis, spectral processing, pattern generation, physical models, sampling/looping, etc,

Audio Requirements

Submit your audio file in ANDREWID\_p7\_comp.wav. It must adhere to these requirements:

• Stereo or multichannel file
• WAV format
• 16 bits, 44.1 kHz
• No clipping
• Must be normalized
• Must not contain long periods of silence
• 60-120 seconds long

If you compose a longer piece and feel that cutting it down to 120 seconds significantly reduces its quality, you may also submit an extended version, which will be taken into consideration in grading.

Slide

In ANDREWID\_p7\_slide.pdf, submit a slide, in the form of a one-page landscape PDF, to be projected while your piece is played. You should include an image in the slide that relates to your music and include the title of your piece, your name, and any additional text you wish. The image can come from anywhere, and does not need to be original work. Keep in mind that text in slides should be large to be legible from the back of the hall. Your complete program notes will be printed in the program, so you do not need a lot of text on the slide. Hopefully, the slides will add an engaging visual aspect to the concert, so please strive for an aesthetic, artistic presentation.

Questions

Include the answers to the following questions in ANDREWID\_p7\_answers.txt:

1. What is your motivation in this work? Give a short summary.
2. What special efforts did you make in composing this piece?
3. What mixing techniques you use in this work? Try to be concise.
4. What Nyquist programming techniques did you use in this work?
5. Do you have any additional comments for the graders?
6. Do you give permission for your piece to be made available online?

Program notes

You should also submit the following in ANDREWID\_p7\_notes.txt:

1. On the first line: the title of your composition.
2. On the second line: the name by which you would like to appear in the program.
3. After that: your program notes. You may use LaTeX syntax if you want to include any formatting.

Submission

Please create a zip file containing the following files (in the top level, not inside an extra directory):

1. Your composition sound file: ANDREWID\_p7\_comp.wav
2. Your composition source files: in the folder ANDREWID\_p7\_source
3. Your slide: ANDREWID\_p7\_slide.pdf
4. Answers to the above questions: ANDREWID\_p7\_answers.txt
5. Program notes: ANDREWID\_p7\_notes.txt

Deliver your zip file via Box at:

P7 submission

Fade In, Fade Out, Cross-Fade
You should be familiar with the terms fade in, fade out, and cross-fade. As a reminder, here’s a schematic to illustrate these terms. Remember that, when incorporating sounds into compositions, any sound without a “natural” beginning and ending should be edited with a fade in and fade out to avoid clicks and pops at the beginning and ending. When joining sounds together, one often overlaps the fade out of one sound with the fade in of the next sound, creating a cross-fade.

Instructions

• Obtain one or more sounds from freesound.org. (You may also record sounds of your own, including voice.)

• Using a sound between 3 and 5 seconds long, make a 1-second-long cross-fade from the sound to a copy of itself. Then, operating on the combined (spliced) sound, fade out over 2 seconds.

• Using the same sound, make a 20-ms-long cross-fade from the sound to a copy of itself. Then, operating on the combined (spliced) sound, fade out over 100 ms.

• Use Audacity to manipulate your sounds using splicing, mixing, and any effects you wish. The final mix should have a duration of 30 to 60 seconds. Your sound should either be a soundscape — layers of sound with different amplitude, panning, and effects — or a “beat” — a rhythmic sequence that loops. In either case, you should construct something original rather than using a ready-made sound. Use the envelope controls in Audacity to shape the loudness contour. E.g. you can fade in and out, ramp up to a climax, or create rhythm with amplitude change. Some form of loudness control should be obvious in your result. Your composition may be mono or stereo.

• Short answers in a text file:

  • What was your intention in the design/composition of your sound?

  • State the duration of your sound from part 3. To help our autograder, type a string exactly in the form: DURATION=37S (Note: all caps including “S”, no spaces, state the decimal integer number of seconds – rounded from the true duration – followed by capital S. The string “DURATION=” should appear only once in the file.)

  • Compute the size of the sound file assuming you save the file as a single-channel .wav file with 16-bit samples and a 44kHz sample rate. Does the number match the true size? To help our autograder, type a string exactly in the form: SIZE=180MB. (Again, all caps, no spaces, state the rounded-to-integer decimal number of megabytes – 1,000,000 bytes = 1MB – and “SIZE=” should appear only once with your answer.)

• Submit files in a zip file to Autolab. The following files should be at the top level in your zip file (you may use .aiff sound files instead of .wav sound files):
      sound0.wav: original sound used in Part 1 and Part 2
      sound1.wav: cross-fade/fade-in/fade-out sound, 1s cross-fade, 2s fade
      sound2.wav: cross-fade/fade-in/fade-out sound, 20ms cross-fade, 100ms fade
      origin/: a folder that contains the all the original sound files for your composition; if you have more than 10MB or 1 minute of sound, include representative sounds, keeping the total data in origin/ under 10MB.
      comp.wav: your composition
      answers.txt: short answers
      comp_README.txt: optional additional info on your composition
      origin/README.txt: optional credits and info on your source material

• Getting the right files in the right place is crucial. Unzip your file into a fresh location and check the resulting directory for each of the files and directories above. For example, your submission could contain the following:
      sound0.aiff
      sound1.aiff
      sound2.aiff
      origin/sound.aiff
      comp.aiff
      comp_README.txt
      answers.txt

• Grading is based on the following points:

  • Your submission should be anonymous.
  • Your cross-faded sounds should be correctly constructed.
  • Your answers for duration and size should be correct.
  • Your composition should not have any clipping.
  • Your composition should use the Audacity envelope tool or equivalent to make obvious loudness contrasts.
  • Your composition should show other editing or processing techniques.
  • Your composition should engage the listener.

Install Nyquist on your computer.
Play some sounds with the Sound Browser (find Browse button or menu item). Report any problems on Piazza!
Install Audacity on your computer. Record and view a sound. Try the spectral view. Report any problems on Piazza!
Make a sound on Nyquist by executing the following command (type in the input window, upper left):

play pluck(c4)

Look carefully at the output window and you will see that Nyquist saves the computed sound. Find that sound on your computer and rename it to p0.wav.

Create a plain text file named p0.txt. You can put any text in it.
Combine p0.wav and p0.txt in a zip file named p0.zip and submit this to http://www.music.cs.cmu.edu/icm-atutor. Submission instructions are here.
Read and sign the Academic Integrity Policy form and return it in class next week.
Grading: You will receive full autograde credit if p0.wav is correctly computed and handed in with p0.txt. If you fail to get Nyquist or Audacity running without telling anyone immediately, you will suffer enough sooner or later.
After the grading deadline, you will be asked to grade 3 submissions from your peers. This should be very easy, but if there are any problems, get help on Piazza so Project 1 will go smoother.