FORMS - Espectres. Live Algorithmic Improvisation.

Подробнее о видео

21/01/2024

As all other works of the FORMS series, this is about image sonification.
I synthesize image spectrograms in Processing, and sonify the resulting PNGs using an additive synthesizer (a bank of 1080 sinusoidal waves).

All the sounds are product of this image synthesis. A lot on research on sound synthesis to come up with bass, snares, bells, and the myriad of possible timbres you can sculpt when you understand a little bit about Fourier, harmonic series and acoustics and start piling up partials to come up with cool sounds. The main mantra: create images which sound good.

Harmony, rhythm and effects (except for the mastering reverb) are also encoded in the image. I have implemented lots of generative algorithms (probabilistic sequencing, euclidean beats, multiperiodic rhythms, beat-repeat, arpeggiation, random generation of chords, melodies, dynamic contours, perlin noise...) to have ever-changing but controlled randomness, which brings the complex mashup character to the resulting music.

On this video, an improvisation i did today by making some preset jumps here and there. There's still a lot of work to have the different behaviors "know" each other and make smart transitions. But still, i wanted to share the exercise to show the flexibility and richness of the system. Looking forward to have this ready for a live audiovisual gig!