jzabala@andrew.cmu.edu – 18-090, Fall 2019

jzabala – Project 2: Sample Draw

Mon, 09 Dec 2019 04:59:11 +0000

The initial concept of my project was that people would draw sound. So their pictures would be translated into sound but as my project developed it transformed into a way to edit samples as I think taking the color data into sound wasn’t very interesting. It uses a webcam to get the image that the user wants to track colors in and the max patch.

The beginning of the patch is a color tracker that the user can interact with. The user clicks inside the pwindows to choose the colors they want to track and the color data and location found using jit.findbounds is sent into the bottom of the patch.

I used the bottom of the image received from jit.findbounds as my control for pitch. I explored the groove object and controlling samples and I put that in this project to control not only the pitch but the delay and gain of a sample. While the bottom location controls pitch the rgb values control delay and gain. Initially, I also controlled feedback but when playing around with the comb object I found it gave more interesting results when I kept feedback high and changed gain and delay. Red and blue control delay while green controls gain. Below are examples of the difference using stems from a band named Pomplamoose.

Example of feedback, delay, and gain controlled by color.

Without feedback control.

The image used to produce the first examples

Another aspect of the project is that the sound is binaural using the top right of pictures to control the amplitude and phase of a cycle to control the path of the sound. Initially, I had the top right be where the sound existed in the soundscape but I thought it’d be more interesting if the sound was moving through space instead of being still since it is a still image.

Using the sounds in Max.

The image used for the last example.

The last example that I didn’t use a drawing to show that since it’s a color tracker it can be used both with images and moving pictures. So for this example, I used stock sounds of nature as my sample and a picture of my cat and Kirby plush that I moved around as my controls.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HrYdWD5CCZ6iBj7FTXnzaYILSPrvPsi2?usp=sharing

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jzabala – Project 1 – Time Stretching with Sensors

Wed, 06 Nov 2019 02:31:37 +0000

My project takes in data from two HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensors and using that distance data to change the speed and pitch of a sample.

External Input

This is the set-up of the two sensors connected to Arduino. Users would move their hands closer or farther from the sensors on either side to increase/decrease pitch or increase/decrease the speed/length of the sample. The sensor pointing left in the image controls pitch and the right controls speed. The data is read into the Arduino through the sensors using a sketch that reads two sensors that is based on a three sensor sketch from the Arduino new ping wiki (three sensor sketch).

Patching Mode

The data is then read into the “arduivis_Max7_model1_output-read _sensor” patch that was shared during class. Then the data is separated so that the int values are used to timeshift the sample using pitch and speed.

Presentation Mode

In the presentation mode, the user can start the update and choose the port and then press start to begin the communication. They would then see the distance values in the two number boxes and can put in their sample and turn on the audio,

Below are two examples of works creating this system. One using the drum loop inside of Max and the other using a song called Probably Up by Lawrence.

Drum Loop:

Probably Up:

Overall, this system can jazz up a track or make your favorite song sound like a part of a horror movie soundtrack.

Google Drive Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/19Q8pz2YbgpYe22K62rQPrKi3zzXBHEBV

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jzabala-Assignment 4: Spectral Disco

Wed, 16 Oct 2019 02:21:49 +0000

I created a system based on the noise gate patch and the cube patch we created in class. In my child patch, I created a noise gate in which I multiplied the original amplitude and gated amplitude. I passed that into in allpass filter and used that filtered amplitude multiplied by original amplitude to scale my shapes. I also plugged put in an fft out object so that I could hear the resulting audio signal.

I also added another plato object and changed the positions to create interesting shapes, one mimicking the logo of the band (Vulfpeck) who’s audio who I used to create the resulting signals. and another by the song’s name (Disco Ulysses) as Ulysses is the name of a space probe and the plato object resembles a planet to me. I also changed the color and shape of the objects and they were used to visualize the edited signal through the pfft object.

Resulting Signals:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1p8Lq7pKe6BDrPjvr9wZLdnQALbs8WAdR

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jzabala-Assignment 3: Probably Up

Wed, 02 Oct 2019 03:23:31 +0000

The original signal is a trimmed down version of the song “Probably Up” by Lawrence.

The two normal impulse signals I used to convolve the song with were popping a balloon in my bathtub and popping a balloon in the stairwell of my apartment which has twelve floors.

These are the convolved signals:

One of the experimental signals I used was the sound of my toaster going off which I pitch-shifted down, changed the reverb, added bass and slide stretched.

The original signal:

The edited signal:

This is the convolved signal:

The other experimental signal I used was a piano part in the song which I isolated.

This is the convolved signal:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1o1ZBsXJKKGF1x5LCSJs6exN6AXW1wT4j

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jzabala-Assignment #2: Girl

Wed, 18 Sep 2019 04:47:58 +0000

In this project, I created a time-shifting mechanism where the delay was made randomly as the sound went by with a qmetro object. Before the signal reaches the speakers the frequency is also shifted using the same randomly generated number. There is also a fixed feedback system that plays into the signal. I used this system on the Internet’s song “Girl” and this was the result:

I chose this song because since the drum and vocal are the most prominent qualities I thought it would sound interesting with time delay. The goal was to change the song from something less like RNB to something that would be heard more in electronic music. I wanted to see how easily music can change from one genre to the other.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VWjLOqnxYroFB-1XyolQyncOW1R8Vej4

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jzabala – Assignment 1: 4 Seasons

Wed, 04 Sep 2019 00:51:58 +0000

I ran one picture of nature and ran it through the Facebook filters Summer, Spring, Fall, and Winter separately until I saw that the image was sufficiently distorted. The filters are meant to bring out certain aspects according to the season and the reposting of the image on Facebook shows how skewed nature can become after so many posts.

I started off with the same original photo for each to really highlight exactly what the filters were doing to the picture. I would post the picture with the filter and then download it and apply it again. For the winter filter, the picture would become very distorted when I did this around 15 times but most filters took around 30 times to fully become distorted and abstracted.

I put together a video showing the evolution of each photoset and played the classical piece “4 Seasons” under each corresponding season to emphasize a difference in the classical presentation of the seasons and a more modern way of presenting them.

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