Lapalu - Viola and Live Electronics

Here is the live recording of Lapalu, a composition for viola and live electronics.


Garth Knox, viola - Jean-François Charles, live electronics - Bert Van Herck, sound diffusion.
February 14th, 2009, Paine Hall, Harvard University.
You can also listen to the track on last.fm.

Spectral Sound Processing in Performance Time

In this composition, all of the electronic sounds are generated live, processed during the performance out of the viola sounds.

Garth Knox Viola Jean-Francois Charles Live Electronics

The instrument that I developed for this piece is an implementation of many of the graphically-based audio techniques I described in the article "A Tutorial on Spectral Sound Processing with Max/MSP and Jitter". For instance, you can hear some transient-aware time stretching as soon as 00:28. The live electronics are playing back the first viola arpeggios considerably slower. Details of the vibrato in the initial pizzicato chords become audible.

Sonic transformations that used to be done in studio can now be realized during the performance of a piece. That is what I call performance-time sound processing.

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