Technical Advice - David Merrill MIT MediaLab

Last week we contacted David Merill, an MIT PhD student who Dave met on a visit to the MediaLab Boston in March. We asked him for technical advice on implementing our prototype.

He advised that for interfacing percussive sensors to a computer, we could probably get by with multiple Arduinos if we sample quickly enough, or build a little pulse-stretching circuitry for our sensors. There is a growing community of Arduino users out there, so we'd likely be able to find someone who's already done something like what we're after. He advised that there are commercial interfaces that are designed specifically to detect impacts, such as the DM5 from Alesis ,but those would probably be more expensive.

He advised also that we'd be better off using Piezos rather than FSRs to detect impact, since they are more sensitive to percussive gesture. FSR might be better suited to aftertouch, or more long time-scale actions.

He also recommended we only use one sensor per bar because if we have a rigid bar, we're likely to get a similar signal from each sensor if we place multiple piezos on it, so a single one may be enough. this is worth testing to see what works best.

In terms of sound, he advised that mapping gesture to sound is where the real "art" of making a musical interfaces comes in - it's simultaneously the most important element of the design, and the one that is the most difficult to offer good advice about.

His final piece of advice was try lots of different possibilities, work with other people to get feedback along the way (especially musicians), and make sure the instrument remains nimble. ( i.e. able to start and stop sounds quickly, and able to expressively shape sounds in some way)

Thanks to David Merill!

Chris H

User Requirements - Oyvind Brandtsegg

Last week we contacted composer and musician Oyvind Brandtsegg to gather his thoughts and advice on our thesis. Oyvind's interest is in the dsign of custom musical instruments with computers using sensor technology. He's also a vibraphone and marimba player, among other things. He was very keen to lend his advice.

He currently uses a Marimba Lumina(http://www.buchla.com/mlumina/index.html), and he's quite happy with it. He has it customized for lower latency but the only things he's not quite happy with is that it doesnt allow for heavy hitting. He feels that the marimba doesnt always need to be hit hard but he would like to sometime use the full dynamic range. Myself and Dave feel that heavy hitting is not something we are very concerned with in our prototype.

He then went on to describe his Marimba Lumina in more detail, describing the customisation of the 4 mallets.
" * I let each mallet send on a separate midi channel, and I let each
mallet send a midi control change message (I use contr numbers
1,2,3,4, but it could be any control change message).
* The control change is sent on relative movement along the tone bar,
much like a midi fader. Relative movement is most comfortable for me,
as I can hit the tone bar in any location and move from there to send
control change. All midi are routed to Csound in my laptop, I will
tell more about how the controller messages are used later.
* I have also set up the ML so that the length of the midi note event
is longer if I hit the tone bar at the end far away from me, and more
staccato if I hit the end of the tone bar closer to me.
* The ML has 5 pedal inputs, and I use one for sustain (normal midi
keyboard sustain). I use another as a regular midi expression pedal,
sending midi control messages on ctrl no 7. I use a third pedal to
transpose mallet 1 down one octave, and at the same time mallet 4 up
one octave (this greatly extends the pitch range of the instrument and
also is nice when playing chords with a "bass note" and a "melody
note"). I use a fourth pedal as a "mono" switch: setting mallet 1 to
be monophonic, mallet 4 to be monophonic, and mallets 3&4 to be
"combined monophonic". Is the mono mode I can then play only 3
simultaneous notes, but I do not have to worry at all about damping.

Csound:
I use csound as my only sound source for live applications and I have
a collection of instruments (vibes, marimba, clavinet, mellotron,
analogsynths etc). Normally the control change from mallet 4 will act
as pitchbend up (but only on the notes played by mallet 4, all notes
played by other mallets are not bent). Control change on mallet 3 are
pitchbend up for all notes regardless of what mallet did play them.
Control change on mallet 2 act as pitchbend down on all notes, and
control change on mallet 1 act as a "expression" parameter (e.g.
filter cutoff frequency, ringmodulation amount, or other timbral
variation).
The ML also has some extra "pads" that can be used as midi notes. I
have assigned these pads to different control functions, e.g. start or
stop recording, start or stop a sequencer master clock, turn on/off
algorithmically generated voices and so on.
I use an assortment of extra expression pedals (5 or 6) to control
effect sends etc, these pedals are connected to a Roland FC200 (I
think that's the model number, I do not have it here right now) which
I also use for patch change (instrument change).

I have experimented with using different timbres on the different
mallets, but I do not use that a lot."

Also added that he doesnt know of any cheaper instruments. As far as alternatives to the ML goes he mentioned the MalletKat and the Xylosynth but these dont differentiate between mallets like the ML.

Thanks to Oyvind for more than enough information.
He hopes to be over in November for the Sounds Electric Conference.

Chris H

Robert Moog

Today I watched 'Moog' a documentary film by Hans Fjellestad. An excellent film that looks inside the mind of Robert Moog - 'the godfather of synth', best known as the inventor of the Moog synthesizer.

The first Moog instruments were modular synthesizers. In 1971 Moog Music began production of the Minimoog Model D which was among the first widely available, portable and relatively affordable synthesizers. Through his involvement in electronic music, Moog developed close professional relationships with artists such as Don Buchla, Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, John Cage, Gershon Kingsley, Clara Rockmore, and Pamelia Kurstin. In a 2000 interview, Moog said "I'm an engineer. I see myself as a toolmaker and the musicians are my customers. They use my tools."

In the documentary, Mood defines the Minimoog's users as experimental musicians, but also quite often, producers of commercials. He explains how he began making interesting sound sequences, the general public got used to evocative commercial sounds, and keyboard instruments.

He defines synthesis as to put together something whole from all of its parts.
He questions whether a electronic musical instrument needs to take the form of a keyboard. He also stresses that all his instruments are designed for performance to play live for an audience - forming a community between musicians and audience.

Documentary ends in Japan where Moog meets many fantastic graphic designers. Moog talks about the interactive properties of musical instruments. 'Why do you feel at one with your musical instrument'. He mentions the communicative property of musical instruments and hints that this could be taken further through graphical representations of sounds. (something we hope to achieve in our prototype)

Force Sensing Resistors

Force Sensing Resistors use the electrical property of resistance to measure the force (or pressure) applied to a sensor. A force sensing resistor is made up of two parts. The first is a resistive material applied to a film. The second is a set of digitating contacts applied to another film. The resistive material serves to make an electrical path between the two sets of conductors on the other film. When a force is applied to this sensor, a better connection is made between the contacts, hence the conductivity is increased. Mikael Fernstrom recommended these over Piezo, due to greater sensitivity.

WebRef: http://soundlab.cs.princeton.edu/learning/tutorials/sensors/node8.html

Ryuichi Sakamoto - MPI X IPM - "Music Plays Images X Images Play Music"(Bibo no Aozora (Live '97) )

Ryuichi Sakamoto (pf),Toshio Iwai (images).at The Yebisu Garden Hall,22th December,1997.

NIME(New Interfaces for Musical Expression)

The International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression is currently in its 5th year. Researchers and musicians from all over the world gather to share their knowledge and late-breaking work on new musical interface design. The conference started out as a workshop at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) in 2001. Since then, international conferences have been held around the world, hosted by groups dedicated to research on New Interfaces for Musical Expression.

Website: http://www.nime.org/index.html
Defintaley worth exploring in finalising our concept!

Øyvind Brandtsegg

Øyvind Brandtsegg is a composer and musician. His field of interest lies in the use of compositional techniques for improvisation. This has led to the design of custom musical instruments with computers and sensor technology. Musical knowledge or intelligence is implemented as part of the computer instrument, this is sometimes referred to as Compositionally Enabled Instruments. Sound installations have a natural place in his work, and he views an installation as an autonomous musical instrument. Øyvind has performed with the groups Krøyt and Motorpsycho throughout Europe. He has written music for interactive dance, theatre and TV, in addition to the writing of compositional frameworks for improvisation and composition for sound installation.

Evelyn Glennie

Dame Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie, DBE (bornJuly 19, 1965 in Aberdeen) is a Scottish virtuoso percussionist. She was the first full-time solo professional percussionist in 20th century western society. She will be coming to the Gleneagle Hotel,Killarney for conferences on the 12th, 13th abd 14th July

Website: http://www.evelyn.co.uk

Gary Burton

Gary Burton (b. Anderson, IN, January 23, 1943) is an American jazz vibraphonist and composer who peculiarly credits jazz pianist Bill Evans as a main inspiration for his approach toward the vibraphone

Check his website at http://www.garyburton.com/

John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer, philosopher, writer and printmaker.[1] He is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4'33", whose three movements are performed without playing a single note.
Cage was an early composer of what he called "chance music"—referred to by others as aleatoric music—where some elements are left to be decided by chance; he is also well known for his non-standard use of musical instruments and his pioneering exploration of electronic music. His works were sometimes controversial, but he is generally regarded as one of the most important composers of his era, especially in his raising questions about the definition of music.
John Cage put his Zen Buddhist beliefs into practice through music. He described his music as "purposeless play", but "this play is an affirmation of life—not an attempt to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we are living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and desires out the way and lets it act of its own accord." Hence comes his favorite saying nichi nichi kore kōnichi or, every day is a good day.
Cage was also an avid amateur mycologist and mushroom collector: he co-founded the New York Mycological Society with three friends and his mycology collection is presently housed by the University of California, Santa Cruz. He was a long-term collaborator and romantic partner of choreographer Merce Cunningham.
Cage is also known as the inventor of the mesostic, a type of poem.

Acousmatic Music

Acousmatic music is a specialised sub-set of electroacoustic music. It is created using non-acoustic technology, exists only in recorded form in a fixed medium, and is composed specifically to be heard over loudspeakers. The musical material is not restricted to the sounds of musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as 'musical' (melody, harmony, metrical rhythms, and so on), but rather admits any sound, acoustic or synthetic, and any way of combining or juxtaposing sounds, as potentially musical.
The term acousmatique was first used by the French composer Pierre Schaeffer, in his book Traité des Objets Musicaux (1966). It is said to be derived from akusmatikoi, the outer circle of Pythagoras' disciples who only heard their teacher speaking from behind a veil. In a similar way, one hears acousmatic music from behind the 'veil' of loudspeakers, without seeing the source of the sound.
Acousmatic composers use this invisibility of sound sources as a positive aspect of the creative process, in one of two ways. The first is to separate the listener from the visual and physical context of the sounds being used, in order to permit a more concentrated and abstract form of listening unencumbered by the real-world associations or 'meaning' of the sounds. This form of listening is known as reduced listening (Schaeffer), and it allows both acoustic and synthetic sounds to be used to create an abstract musical discourse the focus of which is the detail of individual sounds, and the evolution and interaction of these sounds. The second approach is to deliberately evoke real-world associations by using identifiable sounds (real world objects, voices, environments) to create mental images in sound.
Although these two contrasting approaches are in some ways diametrically opposed, they may nevertheless be combined in order to exploit the tension that exists between them.

Max Matthews - Radio Baton

Max Vernon Mathews was a pioneer in the world of computer music. He studied electrical engineering at the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, receiving a Sc.D. in 1954. Working at Bell Labs, Mathews wrote MUSIC, the first widely-used program for sound generation, in 1957. For the rest of the century, he continued as a leader in digital audio research, synthesis, and human-computer interaction as it pertains to music performance.
"Starting with the Groove program in 1970, my interests have focused on live performance and what a computer can do to aid a performer. I made a controller, the radio-baton, plus a program, the conductor program, to provide new ways for interpreting and performing traditional scores. In addition to contemporary composers, these proved attractive to soloists as a way of playing orchestral accompaniments. Singers often prefer to play their own accompaniments. Recently I have added improvisational options which make it easy to write compositional algorithms. These can involve precomposed sequences, random functions, and live performance gestures. The algorithms are written in the C language."
The software package Max/MSP is named after him.

Keyboard Expression, Velocity / PressureSensitivity, Aftertouch

Keyboard expression often shortened to expression is the ability of the keyboard of a keyboard instrument to respond to the dynamics of the music.
For example, the piano responds exceptionally well to the force with which the keys are initially pressed; It is velocity sensitive. Several of its predecessors, such as the harpsichord, were less velocity sensitive than the piano, which is one of the key advantages of the piano.
The clavichord and some electronic keyboards also respond to the force with which a key is held down after the initial impact; They are pressure sensitive. This can be used by a skilled clavichord player to slightly correct the intonation of the notes, and/or to play with a form of vibrato known as bebung.
There is some confusion relating to the term pressure sensitive, with some using it as a synonym for velocity sensitive. To avoid this confusion, pressure sensitivity is sometimes called aftertouch.

Pure Data

Pure Data
If one is controlling anything from simple sign wave to an audio device. It has been argued that Pure Data is most effective software.Pure Data used to trigger events between devices.

GEM
"GEM" stands for Graphics Environment for Multimedia and is an external (plugin) for the computer-music software PD.

Flash.
Serial Proxy (XML Socket server) a small program that runs on your Mac/PC and keeps a live connection between the serial port and Flash. Flash sockets to read or write to Arduino.

Max/MSP Jitter
A graphical environment for music, audio and multimedia. Jitter extends the programming environment to support real-time manipulation of video, 3D graphics and other data sets within a unified processing architecture.

VVVV
vvvv is a toolkit for real time video synthesis. It is designed to facilitate the handling of large media environments with physical interfaces, real-time motion graphics, audio and video that can interact with many users simultaneously.