Fractal music

I started playing around with treating pictures as spectrographs, with time on the x-axis and frequency on the y-axis. I ended up writing a computer program that converts png files to wav files with a good set of options and such. I've found that images with sharp contrasts, and either mostly either black or mostly white (which my program inverts) give the best results. The following recording was made with a rendering of the Mandelbrot set (a fractal):
Mandelbrot.mp3

Here's my Reason composition. I was going to mix in a reversed recording of me saying "crush the skulls of kittens" and stuff like that (sent through filters to make it sound extra creepy) to add to the evilness of the composition, but ended up leaving it as is.
Scary composition

New composition

All right, this one's kinda simple, but I did put a bit of effort into writing computer programs to split up, mix, and crossfade large amount of data to create it.

I ripped all 12 CDs of the Norton Anthology, and concatenated them into one really big sound file. I wrote a program that split this file up into 30 minute chunks (30 of them in total), and split each of those into 30 second samples. Each sample in a chunk was mixed together so you hear them at the same time. The chunks were then cross-faded together (with a 5 second overlap). The result: 15 hours of music condensed into about 13 minutes, allowing one to hear western music evolve over time.

InformationOverload.mp3

It's kinda a comment on how we're zipped through centuries of western music history in such a short period of time. We never cover anything in great detail---sure we get snippets of information, but mainly it's just broad overviews. It all goes by so fast that nothing really sinks in, and it all blends together. There's simply too much information. That's a good comment on more than just music history in today's society.

I think I'm going to end it crossfading into itself mixed together (which just sounds like noise), and then crossfade into actual noise and fade out. I kinda want to add something to it that makes it my own, but am not sure how to do that in a way that would ruin the effect.

Bad music, take 3

The sounds I made for this composition were generated via computer programs. The short samples were created by plotting a math function, say BesselJ0 function over some range, doing a few modifications, then taking the Fourier Transform, which makes a periodic function (waveform) that provides me with a specific tamber. The longer samples were all created with a program that prints sine waves at increasing frequency over time. Once the frequency is over 22.5kHz, aliasing occurs, which causes the pitch at first to go down, then start behaving erratically. By making various modifications to the program, I was able to obtain different sequences of sounds (some quite painful to listen to). Enjoy.
MathTrack

I can't stop making bad music

Almost all these sounds were recorded from a viol da gamba. There are a couple voice tracks, a MIDI track, and a rebec (mideaval violin) track, but mostly gamba noises. I still can't let go of the western chromatic scale and embrace the total spectrum of sound...maybe if I do another recording I'll make it a point not to use any identifiable pitches.
It's music technology time!

Signal Damage, part 2

I ended up using Garage Band for most of the work, but used SoundHack to transform some recorded sound into several bloops and bleeps that became my rhythm tracks, and Audacity to generate a sort of distorted chime sound (in a couple pitches). Against this, I recorded the sound of gurgling water in one of the aquariums in my office, and applied some filters, then played improvised on my cello for three tracks, and sent that through quite a few filters to make un-cello-like sounds (but still mostly pitched). I then recorded myself speaking (distorted to the point you can't tell what I'm saying). To top it all off, I made use of a MIDI keyboard to add some ethereal background. Ten tracks in all. I must say, computers make it extremely easy to make (really bad) music.
Signal Damage

Signal damage

There's a construction sign at the intersection of Balaine and Farmer's Loop that simply says "Signal Damage" (obviously referring to the street light), and every time I read it, I think of how that term might apply to music/sound. Since the first assignment is involving creating a composition using hackup up audio signals, I've decided to title my piece "Signal Damage". Now I just need to apply the title to create a piece...