Slides, Code

Feb 10

• Sampling
• More FM
• Listening: Michel Waisvisz, The Hands (Movement 1)

Feb 12

• Discuss Projects. See the projects page for more information on projects. Each student is required to create a project.
• Granular Synthesis
• How it works.
• Generating random parameters
• Saving envelopes as variables
• Variations
• Time stretching with overlap/add
• Pitch shifting with overlap/add
• Using signal to modulate parameters and time-stretching
• Listening: Project 4

 

Project 5 due Feb 18, 10pm

Make a composition lasting at least 1 minute and no more than 5. Use your FM behavior from the last homework assignment. (You will probably want to augment this with other sounds.)

	Details: All of the comments for Project 3 apply (except length) and may help you to plan your work. You do not have to work exclusively with Nyquist. You may use other programs including audio editors (Audacity or other) to manipulate, organize, and mix sounds. You must, however, feature your FM instrument (from Project 5) and submit the Nyquist code that you use for this piece. You may not use sounds that you did not create with Nyquist. You must also submit a short narrative description of your piece: what are you trying to achieve, how did you use FM (and AM), and what other software (if any) did you use?
	Grading: In grading the homework, we will be looking for the development and organization of sounds. In general, a composition that shows evidence of effort will do well. If you simply string together a bunch of sounds with slight modifications and without much thought for the overall composition, you will not do as well. You should think about changing the pitch, duration, timbre, etc. For ideas on how to vary your sounds, take a look at the code examples. In addition, your Nyquist code should be clean and easy to read. Comment your code. If you do not use Nyquist for the final product, you should indicate what the code actually generates and how it was used in the piece.
	Some examples: I made the comment in class that I want students to try to create rich, interesting sounds. For example, this sound is made with FM, but there's no timbral variation over time, the tones are all at the same amplitude, there are no envelopes to give an interesting evolution of amplitude over time. In short the basic tones are boring. This is not good. In contrast, this sound uses exactly the same score, but the tones themselves have some character, there are more than one type of "instrument," and I've applied some chorus and reverb. I hope you agree these sounds are richer and more interesting. (This is an excerpt from a sound track I did for a planetarium show. It is entirely generated with Nyquist, although I trimmed it down to about 30 seconds in Audacity. I extracted code that at least comes close to regenerating these sounds and put it here). You can also read about this in the Algo. Comp. book. Please check to make sure that your files are submitted and that they are the right sizes. The deductions for missing parts are listed below. If you are unsure about how to submit your homework, please contact one of the TAs. Missing sound file = 70 points Missing SAL file = 15 points Missing text description = 15 points
	Submitting your homework: You need to submit three things: -Your text description, named project05.txt -Your SAL code, named project05.sal -Your resulting wav file, named project05.wav