Reptilian brain fully engaged…
strange and marvelous turtles of happiness
My last newsletter led with news from neural goldberg, a noisy electronics collaboration with fellow autonomous system-builder J. Soliday, and our August release doppler doppelgänger. What I didn’t mention then is that we had recorded enough material in June and July for two albums. This week, the other shoe drops, with strange and marvelous turtles of happiness.
Our duo continues to pursue the idea of “supervised generative music.” J. devises extraordinary modular synth patches, using cybernetic principles and feedback loops to create self-modifying audio systems. Meanwhile, I write software using a variety of randomization and pattern-variation techniques to create algorithmically-driven digital instruments. We connect our setups via network audio (the trip from Chicago to Philly is a long schlep for a Monday night rehearsal), listen and record while our systems interact, and adjust, tweak, and intervene as the need arises. I’m proud of the incredible variety in sound, rhythm, and form documented in strange and marvelous turtles of happiness, and I hope you’ll find yourself intrigued by its Chelonian qualities.
At the workbench
As part of continuing work with neural goldberg, I am developing a new software instrument based on the high-speed, cyclic repetition and variation of simple and not-so-simple curves and shapes which can be applied to almost any aspect of the audio synthesis. For instance:
(I tend to think of my work on the engine that traces out these shapes as “teaching the computer to draw,” though the cartoonist whose work appears below need not fear replacement). To give another example:
Each of these shapes can gradually “morph” into any other - making for satisfyingly continuous and slippery transitions - and the instrument draws more than a thousand new curves (according to the rules I’ve supplied) each time it launches. Up until now, the generative systems I’ve designed for neural goldberg have used algorithmic techniques to make intermittent (albeit frequent) changes to the audio stream. With this new approach, virtually every aspect of the sound changes continuously, at the speed of the audio waveform itself. There’s still lots of implementation work left to do, but I’m quite excited about the potential for future audio mayhem.
Nonce
This Sirkut SNB features custom modifications by J. Soliday, and very custom modifications by cartoonist John Granzow. Thanks for reading and listening -
Yours,
Christopher
Christopher Burns
http://sfsound.org/~cburns