Early description about my Generative music mood machine

Here is the very early words about my next iOS machine.
This will be my 3rd application on App Store after:
- Mobile Particles
- Digital Collisions for iPad & iPhone/iPod
- The Droner

Best way to keep informed: http://julienbayle.net/contact-subscribe

I’m still developing some parts but the main core is totally ok and I’ll make you hearing a bit asap.
The main purpose is to make the most amazing & efficient mood machine ever.

Because Less is More, I worked and removed progressively a lot of features to keep only the main interesting from an aesthetic & zen point of view.

It includes around 7 moods and more are coming.
Each mood can play (or not, as you’d prefer) unique soundscapes  designed especially for this application by me.

Mobile Mood Machine is one of the strangest iOS application amongst a lot of music application for iPad.

Mobile Mood Machine provides a playground you can touch with your fingers.
Rules are really easy and minimalistic:
- touch the screen to create spherical creatures popping out sine waves sounds
- the more the touch is made at the top, the more the creatures pop out high pitched sounds
- choose a Mood which consists in color gradient, sequences rules, scale
- choose to listen especially designed soundscapes in the background or not
- adjust the delay and the effect of time over the age of those digital creatures
- enjoy !

Minimalism, Zen & Quietness are the main words that could describe this iOS application.

The Mobile Mood Machine ‘s engine works with circular buffers recording til 8 sequences represented by 8 colors.
Each sequence is repeated according to specific rules related to the current chosen Mood.
Some Moods are minor, some are major with a lot of time between sequence repetitions, some are hypnotically repetitive.

You can choose to make creatures becoming old. In that case, they will progressively disappear and their sounds will have a bigger attack til their end, when they will completely disappear.
Some Moods make them to be old faster, or slower.

Here are some possible uses:
- walking in the street
- being in the train
- beginning to try to sleep
- before going to an hardcore meeting
- together with your loved one relaxed

This promising system have already a nice roadmap for the next months.
Especially, The mode Near Sleep Experience will provide a nice way to enter in sleep progressively with a VERY long fade out from the moment when you set up the global time of fading and the last notes played.
This is a nice digital creature holding your hand til the dreams’ world.

Polyphonic Synthesizer w/ poly ADSR

Currently designing the next generation generative music machine for mobile (especially iOS), I needed a way to trigger not only the pitch & velocity of a note to a polyphonic system, but also the amplitude envelope.

I’ll use libPD for this one too.
So yes, I’m using Pure Data too and not only max6 .. but it is the same family, even if there are many pure data nerd trolling a lot about max6.
Let’s prefer to spend time on using and making beautiful things instead of dividing people.
So, yes, I LOVE both pure data & max6 (and even reaktor!)

Why a need of polyphonic synth with an adsr for each event triggered ?
If the usual polyphonic stuff implement a way to trigger multiple note to may voices, each note having its pitch & its velocity, how can we do if we want different amplitude envelope for each note triggered ?
It is absolutely not native in the poly object in pure data (and in max6)

In my generative music machine, I need to send an event including pitch, velocity, attack, decay, release & sustain.
That way, I can control the whole sound triggered, firing some events more percussive, some other more smooth with a longer attack.

How I did that ?
So, after to have questionned here & there if there wasn’t something more native, more efficient, I designed mine which is quite efficient and indeed, it does the job well.
Even if I didn’t use their ways, I want to thank fp from the Cycling 74 forum and mod from puredata.hurleur.com forum.

One schematic is better than 100 words.
Here it is :

You can download it here
I packaged all in order to make an easier way by copy pasting the objects, but, of course, you’ll have to save the patch inside the orange square as voice.pd, then, to reopen the main one.
You’ll also need the adsr abstraction. Mine is inspired by the one here

Digital audio vs Vinyl !

A very nice metaphor
The waveform design with all those discs is very amazing !

myUniverse

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Because every makers/creators/artists have their own universe, it is obvious that, at a particular point of their lives, they want to make the big equation of everything in order to describe it.

Indeed, we (artists), are strange people.
We want to show you everything of us, sometimes nothing, oscillations being a huge part of our work, if we can consider we are working, because I’d prefer to write we are living, instead working.. our life being our work or vice versa.

Building an universe from nothing seems to be hard.
But there are already many parts we just have to stick, to agglomerate, to join.

In my case, I’m just multiple which doesn’t mean mentally ill!

The multiple parts of myself – working together

Art takes its sense with the word technic.
Indeed, even if some doesn’t agree with that, we know art is also relatic to skill.
Britannica Online says Art is “the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others.”

How to separate skill & imagination ?
Indeed, it seems hard, but education, societies, and globally jobs & bosses tend to make you using right & left parts of the brain absolutely not at the same time, which breaks absolutely our bunch of super-powers being inside of us.
My great friend Laurent (Boghossian) agrees 100% with that and it means a lot for me as he’s one of the most accurate to explain that kind of global human theory through his books about management, self-improvement.

Indeed, you have to notice that: each Continue reading »

Digital Collisions 1.2 released

The latest version’s change log is:

What’s New in Version 1.2
- audio record NOW possible
- file sharing through iTunes to use the audio samples on your computer (win or osx)

 

iPhone version is here
iPad version is here

Miller Puckette at Stereolux 2012

Thanks to my friend Beryann (Parker) to have pointed me to this video of Miller Puckette (one of the brain behind the core of Max & Pure Data, and specifically developping Pure Data branch)

Worked on this noise/drone machine for iPad

Here is an audio sample of the iPad application which would be finished in 1 or 2 days.

I hope you’ll like the render.

More infos soon, but a very early view of the GUI:

Digital Collisions 1.1 new features

I remixed a lot of things in Digital Collisions:
- totally remixed user interface
- sound engine improved
- multitouch balls grabbing & interactions possible & efficient
- now compatible with iOS 4.3 to the latest versions
- help included

Still available ON APP STORE FOR IPHONE & IPOD & FOR IPAD

I have been VERY happy and proud that Jordan Rudess the keyboardist of Dream Theater made this nice & short video of Digital Collisions 1.0
Apparently, the background being dark, Jordan played it late at night

I listened a lot Dream Theater ; I’m really proud.
I know Jordan designs iPad music applications with some designer/developers. I’d be very happy to explore & collaborate on an application with him.
At least, he’s free to contact me if he sees that post. I will propose him something.

Exploring real life use of applications/tools for artistic & musical expressions is one of the most efficient way to make the best applications ever.
Indeed, I’m currently (STILL) designing my 2D sequencer. Still no teaser or anything, I’m in the lab with it.
It would drive protofuse (my alter ego in case you didn’t link those 2 names) to perform, compose on an UNIQUE way you didn’t see ever.
It isn’t to be proud why I’m writing it, just because it is true. That way will make a revolution. At least, Protofuse will Continue reading »

Teasing The Granulizator for Live

You know me.. I’m one of those never really happy with tools I found before.
As a huge diy guy, I decided (again) to build my own granulator machine.
This one has that grain I wanted, I needed for my own music.

RELEASED HERE
I named it The Granulizator because it sounded & sounds fine, no?
My friend (and almost partner) Tristan Heau suggested Sound Blender. I loved that too.Though, I wanted to keep a reference to the grain, this small element you’ll love to manipulate with this device for Ableton Live / Max for Live.

Here are 2 sound records I already publish in a previous post

Here is the video I made.

I have to say something too.
I will compose an ep exclusively with it.
I really like textures I can make and it deserves to be explored further.

It would be released soon, probably as usual on saturday evening.
Stay tuned on the newsletter & twitter.