Music Technology Masters - Thesis Proposal Time

hey all,


was hoping to get some input from the wise here ! :d


the question is near the end of the post, so skip all the intro if you like !!


i'm currently trying to come up with a proposal for my final thesis in my music technology masters at the moment.


it's due next week

(the proposal that is, the final thesis is for the end of august)




anyways... having been pigeonholed as 'only listening to d&b' all year i'd hate to disappoint, so i was thinking about doing something d&b related for the thesis


... with a difference !



dunno how familiar any of you are with the concept of spectral music ?


only found out about the form myself recently.



anyways ... basically it's a style that concerns itself with the sound spectrum of musical events and the possiblilities associated with altering or emphasising certain partials (or harmonics) within these sounds.

the overall movement of a piece is generally slow and if several instruments are playing - it sounds like there is only one source.



for example : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb8uipc2fwy

that's gerard grisey - "partiels"





annnnnnnyways !


my idea is to try to make a spectral version of a d&b tune.


so, take drum and bass samples and try to alter their sound spectrums so that they 'fuse' (or not quite fuse but interact seemlessly, rather than being 2 seperate sound events). so, if a bass note sounds first and then a snare, the bass sound will be stretched and it's specrtrum gradually altered so that it transitions smoothly (i hope) to the snare (which will also be altered so as to help with the transition)


okay, so how is this gonna sound anything like a d&b tune ??!

yeah... well, here's a secondary idea.


i was thinking i could give a rhythm to the piece by using frequency modulation.



and here is my question :


would it be possible to modulate the finished piece on a wave of a certain frequency so that a certain rhythmic pulse would be heard ???! and to make that pulse such that it would be distinguishable as being @ 160 bpm or thereabouts ?


the tempo isn't the problem really - that's just choosing the appropriate frequency and i can invisage a 4/4 (techno style) pulse using a pure sine wave to modulate... but to make the rhythm 'choppy' - d&b style ... will that work if i use a more complex wave than just a simple sine ?






thoughts ????


and thanks for reading this far, if you have !!!!






oh, and wish me luck !

[Macc]

This is all rather technical isn't it Conor? Sure you don't want to pick something a little more ambitious?

I've had a few thoughts but I'll cogitate a little more and write a proper response (hopefully this arvo ).

So, take Drum and Bass samples and try to alter their sound spectrums so that they 'fuse' (or not quite fuse but interact seemlessly, rather than being 2 seperate sound events). So, if a bass note sounds first and then a snare, the bass sound will be stretched and it's specrtrum gradually altered so that it transitions smoothly (I hope) to the snare (which will also be altered so as to help with the transition)

i thought about doing that ages and ages ago but never got anywhere

as an idea its nice but there might be a problem in that part of the reason a kick and snare sound the way they do is there dynamics (and the way their 'spectrum' changes over time), so change that into one constant sound and they aren't kicks and snares anymore.

theres also the question of whether despite all the spectral stuff it basically just comes down to being a simple crossfade between two different sounds (like sine -> white noise). to make it not like that you'd have to come up with some way of 'morphing' the spectrums which is a bit tricky and kind of subjective as to how to do it.

i'm not sure about the FM thing

you could cheat and use a granular thing and just crossfade between two sources

I defo think that a great Drum and Bass tune could be made from these techniques. We had to do a spectral piece last year also for composition. Its great tuning banks of samples all to resonant harmonics rather than the equal tempered scale. All the sounds build into great cacophonies or walls of sound. Real dense. Have a look for a program called Spear. It breaks sounds down into its partials. Think its free. Also get a copy of native instruments vokator for doing cross synthesis. I used that for my piece cross synthesizing Knife and saw sounds with a piano. Great horror sounds . You could design all your atmospherics, bass and other tonal elements using layers of spectrally tuned samples and then modulate them with your breaks using vokator. It would take a bit of playing around with to get it all to work properly but give it a go.

And best of luck man I'm in the middle of mine at the moe!
Why did I promise to solder 1000 LEDS together!!!!

ere ya go!!!

http://www.klingbeil.com/spear/

Oh yea are they proposing that you write a score? Or are ya headin down the electroacoustic "tape piece" route?

as an idea its nice but there might be a problem in that part of the reason a kick and snare sound the way they do is there dynamics (and the way their 'spectrum' changes over time), so change that into one constant sound and they aren't kicks and snares anymore.

yes, true - but then I don't mind that.

that's the reason why I was thinking of using modulation to supply the rhythm

Been talking to Jason oS on aim and he tells me LFO is the way to go. So, using LFO I should be able to generate rhythms without the presence of obvious drum hits or percussion

theres also the question of whether despite all the spectral stuff it basically just comes down to being a simple crossfade between two different sounds (like sine -> white noise). to make it not like that you'd have to come up with some way of 'morphing' the spectrums which is a bit tricky and kind of subjective as to how to do it.

yes.... this is a good point and something I need to research into

This is all rather technical isn't it Conor? Sure you don't want to pick something a little more ambitious?

I've had a few thoughts but I'll cogitate a little more and write a proper response (hopefully this arvo ).

..... given my capablilities ?!!


yeah, yer probably right.


but I have the whole summer to do it - better to be ambitious I think !
even if I fail completely

I defo think that a great Drum and Bass tune could be made from these techniques. We had to do a spectral piece last year also for composition. Its great tuning banks of samples all to resonant harmonics rather than the equal tempered scale. All the sounds build into great cacophonies or walls of sound. Real dense. Have a look for a program called Spear. It breaks sounds down into its partials. Think its free. Also get a copy of native instruments vokator for doing cross synthesis. I used that for my piece cross synthesizing Knife and saw sounds with a piano. Great horror sounds .

Yeah, we have Spear on our Mac's in college - have heard it's useful for analysing sounds like you mentioned


Cross-Synthesizing Knife and Saw with Piano ?! Deadly - would love to hear that

You could design all your atmospherics, bass and other tonal elements using layers of spectrally tuned samples and then modulate them with your breaks using vokator. It would take a bit of playing around with to get it all to work properly but give it a go.

So, you mean use the waveform of the break loop as the modulating wave ?

And best of luck man I'm in the middle of mine at the moe!
Why did I promise to solder 1000 LEDS together!!!!

feck !

another interesting phenomenon in acoustic is called 'beats' or beating - pretty appropriate for dnb

its when you get two sine waves of similar frequency, you get a volume envelope based on the difference in frequency. like a tremelo effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/beat_%28acoustics%29

so for a say 170 bpm tune, 170bpm = 2.83 hz

so take two sine waves with a difference in frequency of 2.83hz and youll get a tremolo type effect at 170bpm

you can obviously play with multiples thereof and try other sources than a sine wave - ive not tried but ive always meant to give it a go

another interesting phenomenon in acoustic is called 'beats' or beating - pretty appropriate for dnb

its when you get two sine waves of similar frequency, you get a volume envelope based on the difference in frequency. like a tremelo effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/beat_%28acoustics%29

so for a say 170 bpm tune, 170bpm = 2.83 hz

so take two sine waves with a difference in frequency of 2.83hz and youll get a tremolo type effect at 170bpm

you can obviously play with multiples thereof and try other sources than a sine wave - ive not tried but ive always meant to give it a go

yeah, we covered that phenomenon in our phychoacoustics module.

good idea ! will look into the possibilities

"So, you mean use the waveform of the break loop as the modulating wave ? "

Exactly. I set it up with 2 tracks going into the vokator. One with piano and the other with the knife sounds and a few rhythms. Then depending on the pitch length and rhythm of the piano I would drop in sounds accordingly.

Example of process:

Piano - Sounds Lending Spectral Shape

High sustained notes - Sharp long scraping Knives
Faster rhythm sections - short stacato knife sounds with transients
Bass Chords - Timpani drum sounds
etc etc....

So the piano sounds themselves are modulated with the changing spectral rhythm of the other input signal.

You could do a vokator for each freq band High Low mid etc. and then send different polyrhythms filtered to each band to modulate them.

The piece i did was very rushed I might throw it up on me virb so you can have a listen if i get a chance. (i'm procrastinating so I prob will )

If I get any more ideas I'll let you know... Havent use the technique since. Cant wait till colllege is over and I can put some of these techniques into action before I forget em all!!!

yeah - very interesting stuff !


So, this Native Instruments Vokator ... is that anything like the Clavia Nord Modulator + software ?

Our college has one of those alright, maybe I could use that instead.


Def put up the piece - would love to hear

[Macc]

jason would be the man to talk to, that's for sure

anyway, i'll have a go here... god damn you use the enter button a lot

dunno how familiar any of you are with the concept of spectral music ?

for example : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb8uipc2fwy

that's gerard grisey - "partiels"

i'll have to check this later - any mp3's about though?

my idea is to try to make a spectral version of a d&b tune.

here we go

so, take drum and bass samples and try to alter their sound spectrums so that they 'fuse' (or not quite fuse but interact seemlessly, rather than being 2 seperate sound events). so, if a bass note sounds first and then a snare, the bass sound will be stretched and it's specrtrum gradually altered so that it transitions smoothly (i hope) to the snare (which will also be altered so as to help with the transition)


okay, so how is this gonna sound anything like a d&b tune ??!

yeah... well, here's a secondary idea.


i was thinking i could give a rhythm to the piece by using frequency modulation.

i think you mean that you intend to modulate the amplitude of the (long, droney, atmospheric morphing) sound you create, to give a 'beat'. frequency modulation won't do it.

that is, fm is am (amplitude modulation), but where the modulator freq is of a similar order of magnitude to the carrier. this results in the signal 'splitting' into mathematically-defined sidebands, resulting in spectral/harmonic content that we associate with fm sounds (ie the 80's ). as far as my very rusty theory in this area goes, below a certain cutoff you're not doing fm any more.

using frequency modulation as defined here means your tune would be at i dunno, 3000 beats a minute, essentially fming your whole tune, resulting in sidebands of your tune and bizarre fm'ed harmonic some shit something

i'm not 100% on the theory there though - i think i am right but it's been a fair while since i went in deep on fm theory.

would it be possible to modulate the finished piece on a wave of a certain frequency so that a certain rhythmic pulse would be heard ???! and to make that pulse such that it would be distinguishable as being @ 160 bpm or thereabouts ?

piece of piss - amplitude modulation done by a square wave with a frequency of 2.6666666666666rec hz (160 bpm / 60 = 2.6666 bps).

you could make this a little more elegant by adjusting the waveform, either by lowpassing it (for a smoother, throbbing rhtyhm), or biasing it in such a way that the leading edges are sharper, with tails.

but yes, as you say below, all this would be a 4/4 rhythmic pulse.

the tempo isn't the problem really - that's just choosing the appropriate frequency and i can invisage a 4/4 (techno style) pulse using a pure sine wave to modulate... but to make the rhythm 'choppy' - d&b style ... will that work if i use a more complex wave than just a simple sine ?

to do this strictly using amplitude modulation by a waveform is very tricky indeed. you need to modulate the modultor (say, to turn the 1/4 note rhythm into an 1/8th note rhythm). the modulator's modulator may also need to be modulated (to make it a 1/16th)... after that my head starts to hurt

^ that model isn't unworkable - i need to think about that. that is, if you strictly wanted to do it by making your morphing long droney soundscape jobby then am'ing it for rhythm.


however, there are other alternatives... that might be considered cheating :d

- make beat in a sampler, then use that as the modulator in a vocoder with the droney sound thing as the carrier (or is it the other way... whatever). someone mentioned using vokator, i think it is flexible enough for this, if not there's a few other ways to do it.

- program your beat for the whole tune and mix it down, then convolve your final droney sound file with it.

- possibly others.


have a think, see if any of this helps.

in the time it has taken me to write this you've probably written the bastard and handed it in

Eh not too sure about the Nord Modulator, i'm guessing its the vocoder section of a Clavia Synth? I've tried using the vocoder on my virus similarly but doesnt come near the adaptability of vokator. Its out of production now I think so getting a crack wont keep you awake at night over the hungry families of native instrument employees.

Ok heres the piece I did using these techniques. I used it for a video narrative assignment also. You get the best idea of the vokator technique at about 1 min 45 and after. Like I said its a bit rough but hoe you enjoy anyways.

http://www.virb.com/kachanski/videos/42357

ok heres the piece i did using these techniques. i used it for a video narrative assignment also. you get the best idea of the vokator technique at about 1 min 45 and after. like i said its a bit rough but hoe you enjoy anyways.

http://www.virb.com/kachanski/videos/42357

thats wixxed conor

Nice one jay!!! I must go back and tidy it up a bit. Learned a lot since then.

I think you mean that you intend to modulate the amplitude of the (long, droney, atmospheric morphing) sound you create, to give a 'beat'.

yes - that's what I mean

The tempo isn't the problem really - that's just choosing the appropriate frequency and I can invisage a 4/4 (techno style) pulse using a pure sine wave to modulate... but to make the rhythm 'choppy' - D&B style ... will that work if I use a more complex wave than just a simple sine ?

To do this STRICTLY using amplitude modulation by a waveform is very tricky indeed. You need to modulate the modultor (say, to turn the 1/4 note rhythm into an 1/8th note rhythm). The modulator's modulator may also need to be modulated (to make it a 1/16th)... After that my head starts to hurt

^ That model isn't unworkable - I need to think about that. That is, if you strictly wanted to do it by making your morphing long droney soundscape jobby then AM'ing it for rhythm.


However, there are other alternatives... That might be considered cheating

- make beat in a sampler, then use that as the modulator in a vocoder with the droney sound thing as the carrier (or is it the other way... whatever). Someone mentioned using vokator, I THINK it is flexible enough for this, if not there's a few other ways to do it.

- program your beat for the whole tune and mix it down, then convolve your final droney sound file with it.

- possibly others.

I'm all up for cheating !!


Yeah, the beat in a sampler thing is definitely the opinion I need to pursue I think. I mean trying to generate a waveform from scratch is beyond (me) the scope of the thesis really!

In the time it has taken me to write this you've probably written the bastard and handed it in

Not quite ... I just got an extension !!


thanks Bob, you cleared up a few important things about FM for me anyway

Nice one jay!!! I must go back and tidy it up a bit. Learned a lot since then.

yeah, deadly !


I could hear the effect of the timpani on the bass chords - sweet !


Video was cool too... who was that with the mop, they look handy. Any chance of them doing my kitchen ?

Yea he's gone full time into the architecture biz now but still mops the odd evening. i'll let him know ur interested

Well, it's 3 weeks since my final exams but it's only now that I'm finally admitting I have a final thesis / project to do !!



by the way, they loved my thesis proposal, 95% I got for it!!!
musta been in the delivery


anyways, thanks everyone here who answered questions etc, was a great help.


Just got a demo of Vokator runnin' here - yer right Kanchanski, this should do nicely

[Macc]

Let us hear it when it is done!

let us hear it when it is done!

i should post up some of my other projects the way ye could have a laugh ! :d

[Macc]

I can't believe your 'thesis' (ha!) consists of vocoding a pad with a beat

I can't believe your 'thesis' (ha!) consists of vocoding a pad with a beat

... and composing an original piece of music


I'm going for a Masters of Arts rather than a Masters of Science award (too right says you )


there is a little technical stuff in the project but it's mainly a compositional thing.