I plugged my Doepfer + Cwejman + Plan-B analog synth into Csound to get a sense how to better integrate the two systems.

In a nutshell, I created a simple Csound granular synthesizer that emits snippets of an acoustic guitar recording. Csound takes two inputs from the modular synth. The first input triggers a new grain, for which I use the unipolar pulse wave from the Doepfer A-146 LFO2; This allows me to control the rate in which grains are fired. The second input determines where in the audio recording the grain playhead begins. To move forward through the audio, a I use a saw up wave. A saw down wave moves through the soundfile in reverse. A sine or triangle wave ping-pongs. Noise randomly selects a start position. Etc…

Download: analog_mod_control.csd

Listen at SoundCloud

There’s definitely some potential here, though I’m learning it takes quite a bit of setup time to get right, and getting it right has yet to be achieved. I’m determined to stick with it, because the potential of getting these two things talking to each other will be well worth the effort.

(click here for hi-res image)

The Csound Blog now has a twitter account. So if RSS isn’t your thing, you can alternatively get all new Csound Blog updates there. I’ll also be retweeting any interesting Csound twits that I come across, along with anything relevant to computer music, DSP and synthesizers.

I also made the graphic above for promotional purposes. Do what you want with it.

This is my second Csound piece, composed while I was enrolled in Dr. Boulanger’s Csound class at the Berklee College of Music. The code has been cleaned up and slightly refactored, though I left all the audio/synth characteristics in tact.

Download (csd + samples): NuclearEnergy.zip

Listen at SoundCloud

What can I say about this piece. The title is a reference to a pro-nuclear movie shown by Waylon Smithers in an episode of The Simpsons (Homer’s Odyssey.) I picked the name last minute on the way over to the ‘Over The Edge’ concert where the piece premiered. The code became the foundation for a Csound tutorial I wrote as part of my Berklee senior project, Exploring Analogue Synth Techniques. The sequencer riff is more or less *borrowed* from Nine Inch Nail’s “Head Like a Hole.” The drum samples were recorded off of my Roland MC-303 Groovebox. I also heard through the grapevine that there were some traditional computer music composers at the time that were none-to-happy to see a sophisticated computer music program like Csound being used in such a way. Back in 1998, it took a good 10-15 minutes to render.

I woke up this morning to an excellent interview with Csound composer Steven Yi about his graphical composition environment Blue. The interview is rich with technological details about the software, including bits about its development history. If you are unfamiliar with Blue, will get you up to speed about what it is and what it can do. If you haven’t played with it, do yourself a favor and give it a try.

Get ready to cancel your afternoon appointments because editors James Hearon and Steven Yi have released issue 13 of the Csound Journal. There’s a little bit of everything, ranging from using the Csound API, to music, to MIDI, and more.

Articles

• Letters from the Editors
• Basic Lua with Csound by Jim Hearon
• Using the Signal Flow Graph Opcodes by Michael Gogins
• Emulating MIDI-based Studio Setups with Csound by Steven Yi
• Working With Strings As Arrays in Csound by Joachim Heintz
• SOLO_MV_10.1 by Enrico Francioni
• Add_Synth by Jacob Joaquin

Pacman is the Google logo for today. If you wait a moment, the game starts up and you can start chomping ghosts and power pills. I have in my personal library an audio recreation of a ghost being eaten by Ms. Pacman. So I thought today would be the perfect day to share.

The Code: blue_ghosts_are_fine_fixins.csd

Listen at SoundCloud

“If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.” — Marcus Brigstocke

Modulation works. Barely. I modified the Sine class to accept objects of type UGen as input. Though I think it might be possible to modify class UGen so that all child classes automatically support modulation by default. That’s probably my next step.

Since only the Sine class supports modulation, what better way to test it than to generate some classic FM tones. I created @Instr SimpleFM, which is just that, a simple FM instrument with one modulator oscillator being fed into a carrier oscillator. Here’s the file: fm.py. And here’s the code:

from slipmat import *

@Instr
def SimpleFM(dur, amp, pch, env, index=1, ratio=1):
    freq = cpspch(pch)                            # Convert pch to Hz
    env_1 = RiseFall(dur, env) * UVal(index)      # Index envelope
    env_2 = RiseFall(dur, 0) * UVal(amp)          # Amplitude envelope
    m = Sine(env_1, freq * ratio)                 # Modulator
    c = Sine(env_2, UVal(freq) + UVal(freq) * m)  # Carrier
    return(c)

s = ScoreEvents()
s.event(0, 2, SimpleFM(2, 0.5, 8.03, 0.125, 4))
s.event(2, 2, SimpleFM(2, 0.5, 8.07, 0.5, 16, 2))
s.event(4, 4, SimpleFM(4, 0.3, 7.00, 0.125, 16, 3))
s.event(4, 2, SimpleFM(4, 0.3, 8.05, 0.5, 4))
s.event(6, 2, SimpleFM(2, 0.3, 8.03, 0.5, 4))
ScoreEventsToWave(s, "./fm.wav")

Listen at SoundCloud

Clearly, this audio example is no Stria.

The URL http://csoundblog.com/ now takes you, well, here. I registered this awhile ago, and just learned that Noisepages supports domain mapping. So I’m taking it out for a spin.

The big question mark is whether or not people subscribed to the old RSS feed will continue receiving updates or not. I guess this post will serve as the test.

My first Csound piece, composed in the Spring of 1998 while enrolled in Dr. Boulanger’s Csound class at the Berklee College of Music.

Download: Electronic_Bubbles.csd

Listen at SoundCloud

For the record, any audio resemblance to a bong is purely coincidental. I was first made aware of this comparison as Electronic Bubbles played during my senior recital when an audience member gestured at me. I almost lost it on stage in front of a fully packed recital hall.

I just invested into a SoundCloud Lite account, which allows me to put up all the Slipmat audio examples online for our listening pleasure. Okay, so it’s going to be a lot of boring sine waves for awhile. Though I’ll sneak in the occasional interesting track from time to time.

If you look in the right hand column, you’ll see the Slipmat set play list. I’ll also embed individual tracks into blog posts from here on out.

Slipmat by jacobjoaquin