Chromatic Currents Part I

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s a segment of sound from another GMS video I produced yesterday called Chromatic Currents. Once again I was letting the visuals drive the piece, while I controlled parameters in the GMS. On Sound Globules I used the circle of fourths with probability distributions so that C was the most frequent note followed by F, Bb, Eb and so on. I really liked the rare dissonant pitch making its way into the sequence, so I tried a similar technique for Chromatic Currents. The scale was strongly C minor pentatonic, weighted with the Dorian mode by adding less-likely probabilities for D and A. However, every note that was not part of the scale still had a small possibility of occurring. This led to occasional blue or dissonant pitches in the stream of notes. The possibility of having any note within a chromatic scale occur in the stream led me to the title.

Chromatic Currents

GMS Videos and Interface

Posted on by
Reply

Today I made two more videos with the GMS using a different technique than in Dodger of Red Lights. This time I wanted to explore what could be produced using visual input that I wasn’t directly controlling. The obvious, albeit cheesy, lava lamp came to mind, so I turned it on and went to work.

I connected a separate video camera via firewire, leaving a screen with all my interface controls available for me to tweak while recording. I recorded the video to MiniDV on the external camera, and as before recorded the output onto my PCM-D50 to free up the CPU for Reason and the GMS. Since I was recording the video on the external camera I had to the flip the video so that the image corresponded properly with the sound. This led me add a feature for toggling the mirroring in the GMS.

Click the image to see a full sized screen shot of the interface. All three videos are available on the Unearthed Music Vimeo account. Here’s an excerpt of audio from the piece titled Sound Globules.

GMS: Sound Globules

GMS Piece: Dodger of Red Lights

Posted on by
1

Today I decided to see if I could create a version of what I performed at the MAW outing last night, as a streaming video with good quality sound. I opted not to use screen capture software so that all the processing on my Macbook Pro could go into rendering the images and sound. The imagery was created by manipulating a red, LED, bike light near the lens of the camera. The screen was then shot with a second camera while the audio was recorded externally using my PCM-D50.

I built a pentatonic scale using the note probability distribution feature in the GMS. The most likely note was a C followed by D, G, G#, and then B natural. I also used the probability distributions on the durations to get some stumbling rhythms centered around sixteenth notes.

Dodger of Red Lights from Unearthed Music on Vimeo.

MAW Kids on Bikes

Posted on by
Reply

Thursday was my first outing with Minneapolis Art on Wheels (MAW) and my first opportunity to project my work on the GMS in a public space. The sheer scope of the event was impressive. My friend Kevin could hardly believe all of the equipment that was transported by bicycles to the location. There was some really good work on display, some bizarre random events, and exhaustive video documentation that I expect we’ll see on MAW soon.

After the outing, on the ride back to base, everyone was giddy from the nice weather. We get a bit cooped up during the long Minnesota Winters. In not one of my finest cases of judgment I decided to dig out my PCM-D50 from its protective case and record the proceedings while riding my bike. I don’t necessarily recommend this sort of behavior, but I held on tight and threw caution to the wind. Here’s a segment of audio from the bike ride back.

MAW Kids on Bikes

GMS Probability Distributions

Posted on by
Reply

The most recent addition I have made to the GMS is probability distributions for note pitches and durations. The way this works is that the user adjusts sliders from zero to one-hundred for each note in the twelve tone (chromatic) scale.

When note probability distributions are enabled, the randomness is weighted so that notes set to zero will never play while at one-hundred the note has the maximum probability of playing. This way the user can setup any sequence of notes in a scale or chord, then toss in a small (or large) possibility for an altered or dissonant note.

The same is true for duration probabilities except that I have the dotted durations as a separate possibility that is applied to the duration determined by the weighted random function. Here’s an example of the note and duration probability distributions in action with the settings as shown in the image.

GMS Probability Distributions