Alogrithmic Composition

[The Divide]

Hi, nice forum

I’m basically stuck and a little stressed out with a joint university project/personal interest of mine. Sorry if its in the wrong section

My situation is, I have created a midi sequencer in MSP as I’m doing is an experiment to see if you can generate aesthetically pleasing music through pure mathematical functions. I am in the middle of doing a literature report and I have looked into geometrical aspects and curiousities in art and how they influence aesthetice beauty (fib, golden ratio, etc)

The thing is I have already made midi sequencer and basically I used a formula that was already in an example patch. What I did is added a few things to it, I’m pretty good with logic and I know what the formula does. I just cant explain in proper mathematical terms (I know this would be classed as a function or something)

The way the system works is I have a counter going from 0 to inf. Every number outputted from the counter goes into a C like expression box which is then manipulated by this formula and sent out as a new number…

int($f2 x pow ($f1/$f3\3) x sin (8 x atan(1) x $f4 x $f1/$f3) + $f5)

Each $f in that formula is connected to variable faders which output various numbers….


$f1 = input value, it counts up from zero (from counter)
$f2 = Range
$f3 = Rotates??
$f4 = Root note (0-127) ( basically I can transpose the whole thing via a midi kebd.


If say my input from the counter counts up from 0-1000 I would end up with a midi sequence like this...

http://www.thedivide.co.uk/MSP/MSP%20MATH%20BANG%203.JPG

if i change the parameters...

http://www.thedivide.co.uk/MSP/MSP%20MATH%20BANG%201.JPG

or if i switch the sine for tan I get

http://www.thedivide.co.uk/MSP/MSP%20MATH%20BANG%205%20SHATTERED%20CHOAS.JPG

Basically my problem is im not brilliant with maths (I wish I was tho), I did try to figure bits of it out

For example..

(44 x pow (530/1000\3) x sin (8 x atan(1) x 480 x 530/1000) + 4 = 51

8 x atan(1) = 360, so thats got something to do with rotation

as 530 counts up the output number modulates probably as a result of x sin (blah). I dont know where to start when it comes to explaining all this to accademic standard, although im sitting a music tech degree, it would be great if I can explain it in the correct terms

http://www.thedivide.co.uk/MSP/Examples.JPG

And if you want to hear this thing played live (not pure maths, im looping and transposing the $f4 value)...

http://www.thedivide.co.uk/iiiath/IIIATHMSP.mp3

http://www.thedivide.co.uk/iiiath/IIIATHMSP2.mp3

Any help would be much appreciated

Dan

[The Divide]

btw this things in its beta stage so dont laugh at the demo's

[mosc]

Very intense demos. I actually like this stuff. I prefer keeping these kinds of things clean; loopers with this stuff seem to cloud it up. Fortunately, you don't seem to use the looper very much.

I am not a math wiz myself, but I have studied calculus and differential equations in school. My guess is you have developed some arbitray functions that produce results that you find musicially interesting. Why not leave it at that? That you adjust some parameters in realtime is a big plus, IMHO.

[blue hell]

I found your examples interesting to listen to. Also I tend to agree with mosc when he says that you'd maybe better leave it a that.

I don't mean at all that you should quit doing this kind of work, but I do not think there is "mathematical gold" to be found here. It's more that you found functions that work for you to make music with (and that work for me as well to appreciate the music you make with it) - othererwise the functions seem quite arbitrary to me (although the pictures seem to almost have a certain fractal like quality, with intersting symetries in it).

Thanks for posting this (and I could be wrong of course :-)

[The Divide]

Thanks for the responses, im into the next phase of this now...

http://electro-music.com/forum/topic-10867-0.html&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

[franzrosati]

wow, that's amazing!
I'm using the Litter Pack by Peter Castine, to do something near to algorithmical composition.

cheers