Spectral Sound Processing: A Graphical Approach With Max/MSP/Jitter

A sonogram (also called spectrogram) represents graphically the distribution of energy of a sound through frequencies, in function of time.

It may be funny or useful to transform the data graphically before resynthesizing the sound. This is made easy by a development environment like Max/MSP/Jitter, which allows to work in real time with sound and video.

In this video, I show a few graphical treatments one can apply to a sonogram:

If you wish to realize similar sound processing, here are Max/MSP/Jitter patches for spectral sound processing.

Update: Computer Music Journal Tutorial on Graphical Spectral Sound Synthesis

Read more explanations about this type of graphical sound synthesis in the free pdf article: A Tutorial on Spectral Sound Processing with Max/MSP & Jitter.

Arc-en-ciel cycle: a formula composition

In 2001, I composed the Arc-en-ciel Formula. It is both a musical work for Bb clarinet and double bass, and a "musical formula" on which I have based the Arc-en-ciel cycle. Here is the score:

Page 1: red, orange, yellow	Page 2: green, blue, indigo, purple

A cycle in seven parts

The Arc-en-ciel cycle is based upon the above formula. At the time, I was very interested in the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen and in his technique of Formula Composition, as well as in Fractals (Formula Composition is an application of fractal thinking to musical composition).

Red

• Magma for contrabass clarinet, stones, and live electronics (2003)

Orange

• Wu jú sè for clarinet, percussion (5 chinese gongs), double bass, and dance (2002)

Yellow

• Zygomatic for voice and live electronics (2005)
• Risorius for six voices (2005-2006)

Green

• Rêver for singing dancer and dancing clarinetist (2004)

Blue

• Aqua for solo double bass, aquaphon, clarinet, and live electronics (2004)
• Aqua Solo for solo double bass (2004 / 2008)

Indigo

• Passage Libre for drums and live electronics (2005)
• Passage... not yet composed

Purple

• ... not yet composed

Related posts

• Magma - volcanic music
• Zygomatic - Laughter Music
• Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart perform Risorius
• Risorius: more musical laughter to listen to
• Rêver - Music in Movement
• Rêver - dancing musician and singing dancer
• Aqua in Florence
• Aqua Solo - Composition for solo double bass
• Aqua Solo by Alex Tarbert - live recording
• Benedictus - first sketch

Prisma - Summer 2008 Meeting

I am just back from Montbéliard, France, where I took part in the July 2008 Prisma Meeting.

Prisma is an international group of composers and researchers founded in 2001 at the initiative of Jacopo Baboni Schilingi. Prisma stands for "International Pedagogy and Research on Assisted Musical Systems." I joined in 2003 at the invitation of Jacopo Baboni and Hans Tutschku. The group meet regularly to exchange and build musical knowledge.

This time, the schedule looked like this (original untranslated program):

Saturday 07/05

• Générations musicales temps-réels de populations d'agents neuromimétiques (Frédéric Voisin)
• Rules for controlling Energy Profiles (Orjan Sandred)
• First steps towards Klangpilot3, a realtime system for learning sound synthesis (Johannes Kretz)
• Six hermeneutical models (Jacopo Baboni Schilingi)

Sunday 07/06

• PWGL - News (Mikael Laurson, Mika Kuuskankare, and Kilian Sprotte)
• More PWGL News (Jacopo Baboni Schilingi and Orjan Sandred)
• Practical workshop on PWGL

Monday 07/07

• New tools for sound spatialization (Hans Tutschku)
• Approaches for controlling the musical form in constraint problems - Models for controlling the pitch structure - Realtime constraint programming (Torsten Anders)
• Spectral Sound Processing with Max/MSP/Jitter (Jean-François Charles)
     I presented a set of patches designed to teach Phase Vocoder and Freeze techniques.
     Download the Max/MSP/Jitter patches.
• Practical workshop

Tuesday 07/08

• Integration and confusion - The use of live electronics in "Einst mit dir" for soprano, clarinet, violin, and electronics (Hans Tutschku)
• Why you would use Ableton Live for live electronics (Jean-François Charles)
• Practical workshop

The group addressed many thanks to the Montbeliard Conservatoire of Music and his Director Jacques Clos, who made this meeting possible.