In addition to the mp3's on this page, there's this: Images to Sound
los rhythm 01 (240 seconds, stereo, 5.5 MB mp3)
This track is generated with Csound and Perl scripts. I finally got around to writing a perl script that could look in a directory for samples, and create a csound orchestra file with one instrument for each sample. This makes it much less tedious to add samples to a piece.
In this track, I was going for a kind of Steve Reich/Esplendor Geometrico gradually changing tempre/rhythm kind of thing. I think it came out okay, but since it's all the product of code, it is forever tweakable, which is something I really like. (added 3/1/08, created during RPM 08).
100 tones (300 seconds, stereo, 6.9 MB mp3)
This is 100 sinusoidal oscillators with slowly, linearly changing frequencies, all spread across the stereo image. Kinda fun, I think. (added 3/1/08, created during RPM 08).
Simple Csound Quadrafuzz (26 seconds, stereo, 0.5 MB mp3)
For years I've wanted to try the "quadrafuzz" idea out in Csound. The Quadrafuzz is a device by Craig Anderton that splits the input signal into four bands, distorts each one, and mixed the four bands back together. This is very easily done in Csound, though here I've used pure clipping for the distortion, which some may find a bit "harsh". The example mp3 is the result of processing a sample of a "clean" electric guitar with this Csound instrument. Here are the orchestra and the score files (added 12/28/07).
Simple Csound vocoder example (48 seconds, stereo 1.1 MB mp3)
I've wanted for some time to make a simple "robot voice" vocoder effect in Csound. This mp3 contains an original sample, followed by a 40-band sine wave vocoded version, then a 40-band sawtooth wave version, then a 10-band sine wave verions, an upside-down version and then a 40-band filtered noise band version. The key to all of this is Csound's balance opcode. Here are the Csound orchestra and score files.
The output bands are split to the left and right channels, so though the original sample is mono, the output is quite stereo.
Beethoven Ends (63 seconds, stereo 1.5 MB MP3)
I always enjoy the last minute or so of Beethoven symphonies, so I made this piece: it's the last minute of Beethoven's 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th, and 8th symphonies, all played at the same time, ending simultaneously. I recommend headphones, or a subwoofer.(Uploaded 9/4/2007)
Rhythmic Noise 1 (147 seconds, stereo 2.2 MB MP3)
A "rhythm track" made with only filtered noise. There is no real intentional rhythm besides a basic quantization of time. The rhythms you might hear are all accidental, caused by the varying of the filtering according to sinusoidal functions.
Short Noisy Granular 1 (62 sec. stereo, 972k MP3)
A short, noisy bit of granular composition.
The score is huge: the sound file is made up of thousands of
tiny sound events.
I think the method has some potential.
Divisors, to 210 (81 sec. stereo, 952k MP3)
I was wondering what this would sound like for some time, and finally got around to making it. This is a sound representation of the small prime divisors (2, 3, 5, and 7) of the numbers from 1 to 210 (210 being the product and theorefore the least common multiple of these primes). It is essentially just counting, but instead of hearing the usual name for each number, you hear the names of each number's small prime divisors. Meh. (Recorded 8/18/03)
The Sound of Primes (60 sec. mono, 468k MP3)
This file was generated
to give an audio representation of the distribution of the prime
numbers. If p < 6000 is a prime number, then there is
a bit of sound between time p*0.01 and (p+1)*0.01 seconds.
Each bit of sound is a sine wave with frequency 100*k hz, where
k is the gap between p and the previous prime, with
a trapezoid thrown on to make sure there is no clicking.
Thus all the primes less than 6000 are represented.
I think the best thing about this piece is
that it gives a real feeling of
irregularity. We hear the unpredictability of the primes.
Brownian Tones (3 min. stereo, 3 meg MP3)
This piece was created by layering several random walks of tones. The tones are simple sine waves damped by trapezoidal envelopes. They each move randomly from their own starting frequencies to their final frequencies. These are not symmetric walks: some walks increase in frequency, some decrease. As the walk progresses, the tones overlap, and since the walk is slow and the frequencies similar, dissonance results.
Her Voluptuous Body (2.5 min. stereo, 2.3 meg MP3)
Listening to Steve Reich's 'Early Works' CD inspired me to make this piece,
and Csound made it very easy to do. I started with a sample of Maria de
Medeiros saying "her voluptuous body". This is looped and played over and
over for the entire piece. Let us say that it is played n times.
Then, another loop is made by taking that original sample and adding blank
space to the end of it so that, when looped and played for the entire
piece, it is heard n-1 times. Similarly, there are loops for n-2, n-3, n-4
n-5 and n-6. Each loop has its own stereo position.
The end result of all of this is that at the start, all of the samples
are "in phase" with each other. As the piece progresses, they fall out of
phase, and then, in varying combinations fall back into phase with each
other, creating interesting timbres and rhythms. At the end, the samples
all come back into phase again. I wrote a Perl script
to generate the Csound score for this, so it's very easy to create thicker,
or thinner pieces with any samples, and of any length.
Natural Thing (3.5 min. mono, 1.6 meg MP3)
An old audio piece (original made 8-bit, 22khz, on a Mac Quadra), edited together from a 50's sex education record and a plumbing installation flexy-disk. I've discovered in the process of this that record crackle sounds really bad in mp3 format - oh well. Recorded 1995 or 1996.
Back in the late 80's, I recorded some stuff under the name "Bop Apocalypse".
Going Around the Block (3:53 stereo(?), 5.3 meg MP3)
Recorded in 1989 on 4-track cassette, and released on the RRRecords compilation "Art is the Handmaid of Human Good" (on vinyl!). This was a compilation of songs about Lowell, Massachusetts, where RRRecords is located, and where I was a student at the University of Lowell. So, I had to make a song somehow about Lowell. This is what I came up with.
Exploited (6:13 stereo(?), 8.5 meg MP3)
Recorded in 1990 for a four cassette RRRecords/Statutory Tape compilation, "The Lowell Plan (Planned Obsolescence)" (Statap 015), of songs by Lowell artists (though not necessarily about Lowell). I can't remember the motivation for this one.
Clapping (2:39 stereo, 3.6 meg MP3)
Recorded in 1989 or 1990 on 4-track cassette. Samples from Vanna White's autobiography, and lots of rhythm and noise.
The Most Popular (6:18 stereo, 8.7 meg MP3)
Recorded probably in 1989 on 4-track cassette. Nice samples from a Disney record about Isaac Newton that I still have. My favorite part: a little girl says "I've never been in a cave before" with two different inflections.
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