how hard can step-sequencing a filter be?
by lsd on Mar.08, 2010, under Music, Technical
Yesterday I had a suggestion to add a “woody” sound, like a bowed string instrument, to my “daybreak” track, and while I don’t think I’ll be editing that track now, it did inspire me to grab some instrument samples and see what I could do with them. One effect I wanted to try was running sound through a filter that has it’s cutoff frequency controlled by a step sequencer, which gives the sound a bit of a rhythmic, glitchy feel. Short of buying an Evolver, was there a way I could do this under Linux?
I tried a few approaches, and did actually get this working in a couple of ways, but none exactly to my liking yet:
- JACK Rack can control plugin parameters using MIDI, so I set it up with a Calf Filter, configured the cutoff for MIDI control, and created a sequence of parameter changes in Qtractor. This was quick to set up, and it kinda worked, but the timing wasn’t stable — I’m not sure if JACK Rack’s MIDI support is meant to be used this way.
- The next idea was to use a modular synth. I tried AlsaModularSynth, but I’m not sure that its step sequencer is generic enough to use for modulation, instead of playing notes — I had it all hooked up but just couldn’t get it working. Ingen looked a bit more promising, but it’s still very alpha, and crashed too often for me to be bothered dealing with.
- Following that line of thought, I fired up Pure Data (“Pd” to its friends) and tried to get to grips with it. Pd is one of the many programmatic audio/music synthesis environments available for Linux, and I’ve been looking for an excuse to check one out; this seemed to fit the bill pretty well. Pd is a bit like a modular synth, but much lower-level — it doesn’t have a step-sequencer, but I was able to build one! I got a working setup, but the resonant bandpass filter I used didn’t sound ideal to me, and I had hassles trying to pull in a better one, either as a Pd add-on or through LADSPA. I could’ve actually built a better filter, but that wasn’t something I was interested in doing today.
- Moving on from Pd, I had another crack with SuperCollider, another synthesis environment. Unlike Pd, which is graphical, SuperCollider is based around writing code, which should mean that it’s more to my liking. I can get sound out of it, and it has some good filters, but the sequencing stuff is gonna take a bit of work to get my brain around.
new track: daybreak
by lsd on Mar.06, 2010, under Music, Releases
It seems a bit odd to post a new track called “daybreak” in the middle of a sun-blanketing thunderstorm, but here we are! This is the slowly evolving ambient soundscape from my last sketch, but polished up in to a finished track. It’s not actually vastly different to the sketch (it still runs the same full length), but I’ve smoothed over some rough edges, and added a tiny sprinkling of extra interest; not too much, though, since I didn’t want to spoil that zen-like mood.
It’s obviously very different to the beat-driven video-game-esque tracks I’ve posted so far, but hopefully it’ll find some fans!
html5 audio problems
by lsd on Mar.04, 2010, under Rants, Technical
For my last few sketches now I’ve used HTML5’s built in “<audio>” tag to handle embedded streaming of my audio files, rather than using a Flash component. It’s a convoluted solution right now, due to a lack of ubiquitous support — I need to post Ogg Vorbis files for Firefox and Chrome, MP3s for Safari, and then a Flash-based MP3 fallback for other browsers — but it’s worked pretty well for the most part.
Unfortunately, it came a little unstuck today, when I checked my web server logs and saw that there’d been more than 100 downloads of my latest sketch — far more than I expected from seven minutes of abstract wank. I did some testing, and saw that every time I opened the page, it was downloading the entire track, rather than downloading just the headers. As it turns out, it looks like the transparent proxy at the office is to blame; I guess it has problems with partial content downloads.
For now, I’m just gonna fall back to ye olde Flash player for my audio posts — it’s not pretty, or elegant, but it works, and it doesn’t have these kinds of problems. I’ll keep an eye on HTML5 though, and on the office proxy. Here’s hoping for a future where I can post just a single audio file and have it streamed seamlessly everywhere without a need for plugins!
sketchbook: ambient exploration
by lsd on Mar.02, 2010, under Sketchbook
After that Tunestorm bit I’ve been keen to try something different and experiment more with ambient sounds, and this sketch is definitely ambient! There’s no rhythm or melody — just a simple held chord, evolving over time. You won’t walk away humming it, but if you’re after something relaxing, it might fit the bill.
It’s essentially a seven-minute filter sweep, but there’s a tonne of little variations bubbling away inside that sound, so I gave it the time I thought it needed to explore the how the sound changes with every step of that filter. I had it running through my VM1 analogue delay pedal, too, so I turned some knobs on that for good measure as well.
the misadventures of p.b. winterbottom
by lsd on Mar.02, 2010, under Games
Can you believe it’s been nearly a month since the last post I made that didn’t have an MP3 attached? I blame the convenience of Twitter, which lets me dispense with random thoughts and witticisms without all that harrowing long-form writing business. Nevertheless, I’m back, and with a perfect topic — a delicious little Xbox Live Arcade game called The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom.
Winterbottom, as it will hereon be known, is a time-travelling puzzle platformer, so comparisons to Braid spring to mind immediately. Really, though, it’s more like The Incredible Machine games, or Bill’s Tomato Game, an old Amiga game that I’m sure no-one’s played. In Winterbottom, you record yourself performing actions, and then watch as clones of your character are brought to life to play through your recordings.
The aim is to collect pies — a very worthy goal — and there’s often a limited time that they must all be collected within, so completing a level often involves setting up complex, choreographed sequences, where clones run around flipping switches, jumping on levers, or even kicking the player or each other, so that you can get to every last pie in time.
Winterbottom started life as a student project at the University of Southern California, and it’s a perfect example of the kind of game that there’s now a place for in the market thanks to the likes of XBLA, PSN, and WiiWare. It’s 2D through-and-through, though like World of Goo and Braid it has a highly developed art-style, taking its black-and-white cues from early silent movies. The sound design is similarly silent-era, with honky-tonk piano tunes and few sound effects.
It’s definitely not as cerebral as Braid, and I don’t think it’s quite as fun as World of Goo, but it’s unique, it’s beautifully presented, and it’s refreshingly challenging — some of its levels are really quite taxing. Unless you’re easily frustrated by precision platforming, I’d highly recommend it.
Partners in Lag Podcast, Episode 4
by lsd on Mar.01, 2010, under Partners in Lag
Episode 4 of the Partners in Lag podcast is up, over at its very own site!. In this episode, we talk about controls and movement in games. If you’re interested, head on over and check it out!
tunestorm 01
by lsd on Feb.23, 2010, under Music, Releases
The guys over at the Open Source Musician Podcast recently ran a little challenge, called “Tunestorm01″, which called for people to record a track built upon a bass part playing a descending major scale — here’s my entry. Some people did some very clever musical work around that bassline in their entries, but I took the cheat’s way out and went abstract.
Partners in Lag Podcast, Episode 3
by lsd on Feb.17, 2010, under Partners in Lag
Episode 3 of the Partners in Lag podcast is up! Asz and I dig in to the price of gaming — Steam sales, the iPhone, where digital distribution on consoles falls down, and the trials and tribulations of gaming in the land of Oz.
Partners in Lag Ep 3: 2010-02-14 — 50MB, 1:12:35
mars at opposition
by lsd on Feb.05, 2010, under Astronomy
I should’ve blogged about this a bit earlier, but what can I say? I blame a combination of general slackness, and being totally addicted to Mass Effect 2. Anyway, on with the show!
Last Friday night, an event occurred that I’ve been looking forward to ever since the day I bought my telescope — Mars came in to opposition. In simple terms, that’s the point at which Mars and Earth come closest to each other in their respective orbits, which means that Mars is far bigger and brighter to look at than at other times. Oppositions with Mars happen only every 26 months or so, but it was definitely worth waiting for!
Even though this was a fairly bad opposition (some oppositions bring Mars and Earth closer together than others), I got a far better view of Mars than I’ve ever had before. Usually it’s just a very small, fuzzy, red disc — clearly not a pin-point star, but too small to see any detail on. On Friday, though, I could clearly see one of the polar ice-caps, a small bit of dark red banding below the cap, and larger areas of dark banding across the rest of the otherwise bright red surface.
The next opposition, in 2012, won’t bring Mars any closer than this one did, but a few after that, in 2018, Mars will be almost twice as close as it was this time. I’ll have to make sure I’m ready for it!
Partners in Lag Podcast, Episode 2
by lsd on Feb.02, 2010, under Partners in Lag
Episode 2 of the Partners in Lag podcast is up! Asz and I check out the news and discuss trends in mobile gaming — the rise of the iPhone, prospects for Palm and Android, and our thoughts on the iPad:
Partners in Lag Ep 2: 2010-01-30 — 47MB, 1:07:40
Links:
Partners in Lag Podcast, Episode 1
by lsd on Jan.24, 2010, under Partners in Lag
Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Partners in Lag Podcast, where my good friend Asz and I discuss the games and other gaming-related things we’re looking forward to in 2010. You can grab it here:
Partners in Lag Ep 1: 2010-01-16 — 61MB, 1:27:31
The podcasts will live here for now, but you can already get an RSS feed of just the podcast posts, ready for use in a podcast downloader, here.
looking back on 2009
by lsd on Jan.15, 2010, under Music, Rants
Around this time last year I said (not on my blog, but on my LJ, for those that are reading this there) that I wanted to do a bit more with myself in 2009, rather than just wasting time online. I can’t say that I spent a lot of time reading or writing (probably a lot less time writing, in fact), and I didn’t spend a whole lot of time outside with my telescope, but I did play a good few games, watched some new TV, and spent a lot of time cooking lunches for work.
Most importantly, though, I actually did something productive musically. Until 2009, the best I’d managed since high school was a couple of minutes of generic techno, but in 2009 I produced two complete tracks, both of which I’m still pretty happy with. My dalliances with music in the past have usually ended in frustration, but this year, through a combination of new hardware, much-improved software (mad props to the Ardour guys), and perseverance, I got over the hump. I now feel like I have the tools I need to make whatever I decide to make, and perhaps most importantly, my desire to make music is just as strong as it was a year ago.
I’m usually not one to set hard goals, but if there’s something I’d like to make this year, it’s a proper song — lyrics, singing, and all of that good stuff.
sketchbook: stylophone!
by lsd on Dec.23, 2009, under Music, Sketchbook
I had a surprise knock on the door just before I left for work this morning — the delivery of a mystery package. The excitement only grew when I ripped open the satchel to reveal a surprise Xmas present: my very own Stylophone! They went back in to production a few years ago, but apart from a few minor additions it’s virtually identical to the classic units of the 60s: it works identically to the old models, and it definitely sounds just as cheesy-good.
In honour of my new toy, here’s a brief bit of Stylophone-infused doof-doof. I couldn’t help but put a filter sweep on the bass line, but apart from that, and copious echoes, the Stylophone sound is untouched. Enjoy! Let me know if you can’t play it, too — I’ve changed the streaming setup a little for this one.
driving miss silvia
by lsd on Dec.14, 2009, under coffee
Here’s the obligatory post about my new coffee machine and grinder, and here’s the obligatory pic:
I’ve had them for about a week and a half now, and I’m super-happy with both — as you’d expect, they’re both nicer to use, and produce better results, than my old Saeco machine and Lux grinder, even though they’re fundamentally fairly similar machines. They’re both built like tanks, and the Silvia has a nice big brass boiler, so its temperature stays quite constant during brewing and it has a tonne of pressure while steaming milk.
The other great thing about the Silvia is that it has a standard 58mm group, just like a commercial machine — indeed, a number of the Silvia’s parts are shared with Rancilio’s commercial machines. That means that, in future, I can look at getting myself a naked portafilter, which I’m sure would be a lot of fun to play with.
more podcasting
by lsd on Dec.11, 2009, under Linux
Episode 28 of the Open Source Musicians Podcast is up, and as I mentioned yesterday, I’m once again on it! Skype garbled me a bit, but overall it turned out surprisingly well quality-wise, and it was great fun to record. I’ll have to be a bit more careful if I podcast again, though — at one point I got up for a few seconds, and while I thought to mute my mic on my mixer before I did, I must’ve dropped my headphones on my synth keyboard, which was still patched in, so everyone got a few seconds of synth sound action.
