If you’re interested in generative and algorithmic music – music that evolves organically rather than being pre-composed in start-to-finish linear fashion – you won’t want to miss this site. Nodal is a free (for non-commercial use) app for developing generative musical systems and transmitting MIDI. You’ll need a Mac (PowerPC/Intel) to run the software, but even if you’re on Windows or Linux, you’ll find a number of interesting research papers on the site. vinayk writes:

The program is called Nodal – osx only, BEAUTIFUL interface, and FREE, it does a bit more sophisticated things but I basically plugged the output into sculpture – and it sounded amazing… well worth a look! And if anyone can tell me how to sync this to live or logic then i’d be much obliged!

Since it sends MIDI, it’d also be interesting to use this hooked up to visuals or triggering clips in Ableton Live.

Nodal Project Page, Tutorials, Examples, Research [Monash University]

I’ll be giving this a try soon. If you know of other generative software and research we should be checking out, perhaps we can put together a full round-up.

See also Noatikl / Mixtikl, from Intermorphic – developers who built the ground-breaking Koan generative system for Brian Eno. And we’re getting close to the release of the game Spore, which will feature a new generative engine and Eno’s composition.

noatikl: New Generative Music Engine, So You Can Rock Out Like Eno

Generative iPod? Deep Modular, Generative Music System Bound for iPhone, Phones, Windows, Mac

(Note that we learned this week that Mixtikl is not coming to iPhone in the immediate future. It’s available on plenty of other platforms, however, and if you’ve got a Mac for both, let the generative music making commence!)

Here’s a blast from the past — an algorithmic compositional blast from the past, that is. M is a unique piece of software for “interactive composition.” With patterns, cycles, and conducting options, you can create algorithmically-generated music, adjusting various parameters for sophisticated results rather than sequencing directly. It’s a totally different approach to working, something that’s easier to experience than to describe. M launched way back in 1987 and eventually support Atari, Amiga, Mac, and Windows; it was a big hit in the years afterward. The creators were David Zicarelli (now with Cycling ’74, and a sort of father to Cycling’s Max/MSP), John Offenhartz, Antony Widoff, and Joel Chadabe. (Check out the whole history.) I saw it for the first time at a summer program at Oberlin and loved it immediately. Now, with a computer stacked full of soft synths and the recurring desire to get out of my head, compositionally, I think I actually have more use for it in 2007.

It’s not very often that vintage software gets update
d with current tech while retaining its original interface, but that’s exactly what Cycling ’74 has done with M 2.7. Intel compatibility means it can run on your brand-new Mac Pro, but the angular throwback interface will make it look like a Mac II. (Got a good System 7 skin, anyone?) But the real story here is Core MIDI support. It allows you to plug M into your existing soft synths. Imagine M plus Logic’s Sculpture, or combined with a monster Max/MSP patch.

M 2.7 @ Cycling ’74

It’s great to see someone recognize that it’s not only about the upgrade that’s just around the corner. Virtual Console games are selling by the millions on Nintendo’s Wii. Hopefully creative technology, even in limited form, could be next. I’ll be testing M soon; I’ll let you know how it goes.

PC users/Atari lovers: See details in comments on the freeware Atari version. But what’s this about an emulator? Time to scour eBay for an Atari ST, I think.

It’s pretty stunning to watch Brian Eno, one the major pioneers of our time in terms of thinking about musical form, onstage with Will Wright, one of the major pioneers of our time in terms of thinking about game design. Here’s Brian Eno in conversation with Will Wright, chatting about the kind of generative systems that drive their collaboration in Wright’s upcoming game Spore. There’s plenty of Web coverage of the game itself: here, they go the classic generative model, cellular automata, and talk about how an unbelievably simple set of rules can yield immense complexity. CA was developed decades ago, but as we learn more about the power of DNA, that message seems even more powerful today. As Eno succinctly puts it, making art this way is about “seeds, not forests.”

Generative music is, of course, of great interest to game composition, because it makes the musical score as dynamic and unpredictable as the game itself, rather than simply a background of looping music. Whereas some composers are actually looking to more complex recorded scores, others are coming full circle to music more tightly tied to the game.

It’s great to see Eno and Wright return to the simplest of models as a conversation. I’m eager to learn more about the music specifically being composed — or engineered, depending on how you look at it — for Spore, and hope we can bring you more details closer to the release.

Thanks to Synthtopia for pointing this out; they’ve got additional videos with more coverage of Spore itself:

Will Wright and Brian Eno On Spore [Synthtopia]

Lots of other great stuff has been hitting Synthtopia of late, as well, so do check it out!

In other Eno-mania news, Apple has a profile of Eno as visualist, and his new digital painting project 77 Million Paintings. The model in visualism as in music is generative, working with seeds.

Profiles – Brian Eno [Apple.com]

77 Million Paintings [Official Project Page]

77 Million Paintings Interview [YouTube]

Eno’s background was in art, so it’s nice seeing the fusion of music and visuals — something we’re all about.

Anyone else with some good Eno stuff, Spore or otherwise, send them our way!

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The Musini began its life as an award-winning toy. The product description is hilarious:

A perfect gift for rambunctious toddlers, the Musini music box provides a constructive way for children to channel their physical and creative energy. While kids step, jump, turn, and tap, the Musini’s patented MusicSensor detects their every move and translates it into a totally unique musical response, teaching cause and effect. A Style Dial encourages children to explore the five different musical styles, ranging from jazz to classical, and musical variation buttons offer four different interpretations of each musical style.

(Some of us rambunctious toddlers here on CDM require decidedly more expensive toys into which we channel our physical and creative energy.)

Of course, the results are interesting, but not as interesting as they could be, so circuit benders have set about modifying the toys. A couple of weeks ago, we saw chronovalve’s ambient musini bend, alongside a very lovely, post-apocalyptic-looking keyboard. Jonathan Williams write in to share his own circuit-bent musinis. His designs may have inspired other benders’ musini hacks; even if not, he’s gone through several generations and added some powerful features:

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Play this track:

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Mike aka Chronovalve writes CDM to share two new projects: a circuit-bent keyboard called Debris and the Musini, a children’s toy turned into a surprisingly sophisticated ambient music generator.

Here’s the surprise: just because these are circuit-bent / DIY projects doesn’t have to mean they sound like glitchy chaos. One of the conversations I had with Reed Ghazala, the “father of bending”, was about his disappointment that benders weren’t exploring broader timbral and musical horizons, at least for his taste. Mike definitely gets some interesting sounds out of these. For instance, the keyboard can absolutely rock the glitch:

Debris Glitch

But it can also enter traditional synth lead territory, with some subtle twists:

Debris 1

The Musini enters an entirely different musical dimension with some wild sonic landscapes, all from an aleatoric children’s toy:

Musini Metamorph

More pics and sounds:

Musini
Debris