Section outline

    • See Casey Conner's 42 Audio Illusions & Phenomena – Psychoacoustics

      There are plenty more in the multipart 42 Audio Illusions & Phenomena – Psychoacoustics playlist. Can you explore some of the ideas using p5.js or Pd? Which one of the audio illusions and phenomena would be simplest to start with?

    • Discuss the episodes of Composing with Process podcast production by Mark Fell and Joe Gilmore for MACBA RWM which you have listened to. Some of the episodes explore for instance looping, scales, time and other sonic/subconscious phenomena. Could some of the sounds even make you physically ill?

      If you like repetition check out one minute segment on ostinato, insistence, on Oscar from Underdog Electronic Music School video about music theory for techno.

      What other sounds – outside music – are bearable, ordinary or even pleasant because they are ostinato ie. insisting and repeating? Think about everyday sounds in your life.

      Algorave generation; we love repetition

      You can read about UK Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994, which targeted "repetitive music" and rave culture in Poppy Reid little article It’s been almost 25 years since the UK Government tried to ban raves or googling for something like "uk rave ban" or "repetitive music ban".

      Also discuss the paper Döbereiner, Luc. „Models of Constructed Sound: Nonstandard Synthesis as an Aesthetic Perspective“. Computer Music. Journal 35, Nr. 3 (2011): 28–39. https://doi.org/10.1162/COMJ_a_00067. It claims to address specifically "nonstandard" synthesis. What would you say is instead "standard" techniques?

    • First patch in Pd, simple FM File

      FM drone synth in Pd, corresponding to our first FM synthesizer we programmed with p5.js, called Synthesizer 3 above in section Let's build a synthesizer. Note the [vslider] which serves as a volume knob has range from 0 to 1. We can observe some strange (read: fun) visual artefacts with default volume values 0-127, while the oscilloscope array has range 0-1.

      FM drone program by Mace Ojala (GNU GPL v3), using Pure Data (BSD-3-Clause). Screenshot by Mace Ojala (CC BY-NC-SA)

      Can you read the p5.js and Pd versions side by side, and see how the objects correspond to one another.

      FM drone programs by Mace Ojala (both GNU GPL v3), using p5.js (left; GNU LGPL) Pure Data (right; BSD-3-Clause). Screenshot by Mace Ojala (CC BY-NC-SA)

      If you make the values the same in both programming languages, do you hear minuscule or obvious differences in their sound? Surprisingly, with this Pd program you can make the carrier and modulator frequencies as well as the modulator depth negative, < 0. Does this mean time flows backwards? What if you make the volume negative, will the universe collapse in a reverse Big Bang? Can you do this in p5.js?

    • Second patch in Pd, FM with amplitude envelope File

      The second program (Pd programs are called "patches"), a version of the simple FM drone this time with an ampliture envelope. Click the ⧇ object labeled trigger to produce sound. This corresponds to the Envelope FM synthesizer p5.js programmer earlier.

      FM drone with amplitude envelope by Mace Ojala (GNU GPL v3), using Pure Data (BSD-3-Clause). Screenshot by Mace Ojala (CC BY-NC-SA)

      The envelope generator is the [line~] object and it's parameters above it. The [1 100(, [delay 500] and [0 500( objects control the envelope attack, sustain (=note length) and release times. Try changing the values to produce a short sound, a long sound, a slowly appearing sound or a slowly disappearing sound. Can you connect the envelopes not only to amplitude but also to carrier and modulator frequencies? This is next level FM synthesis smile DX7 already had this feature, but you could expand the delay and message objects to produce crazy envelopes with more than three segments. How about six segments? Nine? What about 99?

      The Prophet-5 on that track is a very nice synthesizer, but since it is analog rather than digital, it's out of the scope of this seminar.

    • Third patch in Pd, with key input File

      This Pd program ("patch"), extending the two above. This one responds to keypresses and play notes. The functionality is implemented by the [keyname] object on the right, which is routed to different messages to change the carrier frequency.

      FM drone with amplitude envelope and key input by Mace Ojala (GNU GPL v3), using Pure Data (BSD-3-Clause). Screenshot by Mace Ojala (CC BY-NC-SA)

      You could explore parametrizing the keyboard further, perhaps some keys would produce shorter, longer or louder sounds, or change the modulation parameters? We use the same word keyboard for the ⌨️ and 🎹. Could you invent an entirely new keyboard? Or could you tune the above to a familiar (or unfamiliar) musical scale, knowing that musical notes are names for certain frequencies.

    • For exploration

      • Download and install Audacity. You'll find tutorials on YouTube if you want.
      • Listen to Nicole De Brabandere, Graham Flett (2016). Hearing on the verge Cuing and aligning with the movement of the audible. Seismograph. https://doi.org/10.48233/seismograf1603
      • Listen to Robert Willim (2019). Mundania. Just above the noise floor. Seismograph. https://doi.org/10.48233/seismograf2301
      • Watch (and listen!) to Hildegard Westerkamp Listening for the State of Our World, on World Listening Day 2021.
      • Listen to radio.earth for precisely 11 minutes. Listen attentatively, without using your phone or otherwise multitasking. Take notes, preferably on pen+paper and do all of causal, semantic and reduced listening (check Chion's Three Modes of Listening, or Karen Collins's Studying Sound chapter 1).
      • Watch (and listen!) PMTVUK TV piece with Hayley Suviste