Groundbreaking developments in the world of music synthesis

ArthurDent · Joined: Nov 17, 2003 Posts: 2 Location: Scotland

Hello everyone,

I am currently a final year computing student at university in Scotland. I am currently working on a dissertation regarding state-of-the-art developments in music synthesis.
I have a healthy interest in sampling and VST instruments which i use to create my own music and this will form the basis of my disseration. However, i am very interested in finding out what others think are the most impressive / important / technologically advanced / useful developments in the synthesis world, be they hardware or software.

Do any of you guys have opinions or thoughts on this? I would be very grateful for your input!

Thanks,
Martin

p.s. nice forum b.t.w Smile

seraph · Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2003 10:12 am Post subject:

Hi Martin
You have come to the right place.
You could start with the links page plus there are many threads devoted to matters that should be of interest for your dissertation but anyway feel free to ask and you'll be answered (I don't recall who said that line) Very Happy

elektro80 · Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2003 12:14 pm Post subject:

Mr. Dent! Hello! Interesting question. I will have to get back to you on this. But.. I promise.. I will.

elektro80 · Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2003 1:07 pm Post subject:

Hmm.. you pose many questions.

Audio streams as such does not represent very advanced tech. So I think I will leave most DAW applications out of this. One might argue that DAW has revolutionised the industry, which is true, but DAW applications are nothing but tech convergence.

Audio synthesis is something else. It will take time and a lot of research in order to make a decent ist with the best candidates for the insanely great prize. In some ways, audio synthesis as a science is pretty far removed from music... so.. I will choose to go other places..

I think the best obvious candidate would be the DSP and the whole lot of implementations of DSP.. and advances since the initial designs.

The convergence is pretty much a result of the DSP. The math and programming work involved is pretty fancy too.

As an alternative candidate I will propose that the period from 1940 until 1980 will be awarded the big prize. This was a period of frontier work and musicians, composers and scientists worked together in order to create what we see now. It is all a joint effort. The promise of electronic and electro-acoustic music resulted in a revolution which changed everything.

The next steps in the revolution involves pretty much more of the same we have now. We know a lot of what will come.. and soon. -Ahh.. toolwise of course!

A field to watch is music psychology. Advances in computing will help progress and I suspect the surprises will come from this field in the next 20 years and not from the tech advances within the instrument industry as such.

Of scourse, there are so many great products around now. And it is too easy to proclaim the next clavia or waldorf product as the biggest thing ever. But I suggest you try my argument and see if it computes. I am not kicking the asses of all those great engineers and programmers who are making the excellent tools we are using right now... those are excellent clever dudes. -But the way you presented your question leaves only one answer:

Elektro 80 says: ..... and the winner is.... the DSP!

OK... You have a go at this one, Howard! Very Happy

elektro80 · Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2003 1:31 pm Post subject:

Some words about convergence.

Another one has been going on for a few years now. In the 80s the synth turned into a simple computer. The interfaces changed and went.. well.. calculator pad style. Later the softsynth apps started showing up together with the VA modelling tech. What you see now is tech allowing traditional synth designs to show up in another incarnation. This is convergence.

The next step in convergence would be the availability of very inexpensive and robust AD/DA parameter controllers.. like what we already see on control surfaces and on gear like the Clavia G2. There is nothing in the current and avaialable technology in this field that says that prices will stay as high as they are now. I propose that a few agreements on parameter controller protocols.. a few standards.. and like 2-5 years.. these small devices will show up all over the place and the part price for the vendors will be really really inexpensive. In the near future.. like 5-15 years we will probably see intergrated devices.. small bastards, that work as digitally controlled circuitry that do analog pot modelling. The basic tech is already there. The uses for these will probably be limited.. but.. I guess howard will upgrade his Moog using these... eh?

Anyway, most uses for the pots as we know it in consumer gear is these days completely stupid. A lot of low priced consumer gear uses for instance already VCAs and the stupid pots are out of the actual signal path. Ever wondered why some of those stupid inexpensive stereo amps with integrated radios and CD players and whatnot never have scratchy volume pots anymore..? This is the reason. They use VCAs and the pot just delivers a CV to the VCA.

Ahh.. what I am trying to say is that the next perceived revolution for muscians will be instruments that uses parameter control devices like the expensive control surfaces are using now. And they will also have "motors" andTor lights.. like the G2 has now. But.. these thing will show up big time all over the place.. like in your car radio, you bathroom, kitchen appliances etc. We already have it in the iPod.

Hmm... I need more coffee, excuse me guys! Very Happy

mosc · Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 7:09 am Post subject:

Hi, Arthur. Welcome.

I'd have to say I agree with Elektro80 about the tremendous impact DSP has made on music synthesis. DSP stands for Digital Signal Processing and Digital Signal Processor. The latter are specialized integrated circuits and they became available in the very early 1980's. The work done on DIgital Signal Processing was done mostly in the 50's and 60's at Bell Labs.

One can go back and repeat the history. The interesting thing to do is discuss what is happening now. For this I think you have to look at the Kyma system from Symbolic Sound Corporation. This a hybrid hardware/software system. The hardware is a box of excellent AD/DA and Midi I/O, with up to 27 DSP processors. The software runs on a PC or Mac and compiles DSP code from very high-level descriptions.

Advanced algorithms being routinely done on Kyma systems aren't yet available for conventional soft synths or dedicated hardware devices. For example you can do a 1024 point FFT and reverse FFT in real time on a Kyma system. In fact you can do dozens simultaniously. This leads to many synthesis applications using analysis and resynthesis techniques, format morphing, and many others interesting techniques. Kymas are widely used by people doing sounds for Hollywood. I suggest you check out the symbolic sound web site.

Other state-of-the-art synthesizer technology might include the addition of incremental control to the MIDI standard. This has been advanced by such companies as Doepfer, and some of the soft synth companies. Alesis and Clavia are joining the party lately. Look for this to make conventional Midi contoller boxes obsolete in the near future. The biggest impact this will have is on live performance.

Many people would claim that laptop music is state of the art. Check out the microsound web site and mailing list. don't think it is particularly significant, except that it is an indication of how much electronic music making capability one can get for relatively little money.

Perhaps you should consider the use of computers for music composition as a significant development in synthesis. Programs like MAX/MSP are merging composition and synthesis. This is pretty important in the evolution of synthesis, it seems to me.

ArthurDent · Joined: Nov 17, 2003 Posts: 2 Location: Scotland

Hey guys,

thanks for your help! Your information has been really useful. I will look into the different products and techniques you have mentioned.

The inclusion of Max/MSP is interesting. I am actually doing my final year project in the environment after christmas! The project title is 'An Interactive News Wall' so i will have to make full use of the sensor technology as well as multimedia and the new Jitter package for video. Maybe you guys have used Max/MSP for other things too?

Anyway, many thanks, and if anyone has anything to add please do!

Martin

elektro80 · Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 8:52 am Post subject:

DLF, Gideon that is, is a genius with MAX and the lot. ...... Gideon is a member here.

His profile:
http://electro-music.com/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=112

And.. we have that artist ... hmm... which thread was that.. he showed up and defened his work after he got bashed.. very nice guy. His next project was pretty amazing... hmmm.. but what was that thread called?? I posted the initial news item.. hmm