Fractals, those wacky self-similar, rough geometries that resemble so many patterns in nature, were once all the rage. Ravers and digital artists embraced them, only to get bored with them, apparently. To billions of years of evolution and natural phenomena, they’re still cool. And to me, there’s still plenty to talk about when it comes to thinking how fractals might be all the rage.

Composer Terran Olson, a musician with a long resume that includes work with the Ives Quartet and Quartet San Francisco, takes on the idea of fractals in a new article. Writing for our friends at Rain Pro – makers of music and visual pro PC laptops – Terran explores how fractal patterns could be applied to sound.

Exploring Audio Fractals

The results are fascinating: they’re a kind of fractal synthesis. Of course, that gets at the heart of the question: just how do you map a visual pattern like a fractal – or anything else visual – to music? The answers aren’t always intuitive. The biggest question is whether to work at the scale of sound (Terran focuses on individual samples and impulses), or to deal with musical patterns. I knew I had read a fractal article in Electronic Musician; sure enough, in 1999 EM did a story on fractals that focused instead on pitch mappings. (Bonus: Bach even comes up.)

Fractals and Music

Composer Gustavo Diaz-Jerez penned that story, and the results tend toward algorithmic music. Many of the tools are now gone, though some survive (Csound) and other tools (Max/MSP, Pd, SuperCollider, Reaktor, ChucK) could certainly fill in.

And, of course, for a truly high-level musical approach to fractals, skip the individual sounds or individual notes and write a whole song, like Jonathan Coulton’s brilliant fractal ode, “Mandelbrot Set.” (It should also help anyone needing to, erm, brush up on their fractal theory.)

Sadly, neither of these articles is especially useful as how-to – great on theory, but not so practical if you haven’t tried these things before. That begs for a new tutorial. Are you working with fractals these days? I’d love to hear what you’re doing.

Composing music is not unlike programming – and either, at their best, can be expressive. In the early days of IT (before “IT” was even a term), many computer programmers came from a musical background. (And even early in the computer age, there was more call for software than symphonies – and more pay.)

But what if you could program music easily, using musical syntax in a programming language? That’s the question asked by languages like Velato. The commands actually aren’t as esoteric as you might expect; they include references to standard pitch and commands like “Change root note.” The language expresses notes, mapped to the alphabet, a bit like teaching the computer solfege. Using additional expressions, you can transform notes and generate musical materials.

The results sound a bit like an academic-sounding ragtime. And yes, they do sound as though they were generated by a computer. (Have a listen to a .MID file.)

For more on Velato:
Velato wiki page @ Esoteric Languages
A compiler built in .NET (Windows-only, though if you really wanted to I imagine you could quickly port to Mono or other environments)
An introduction [Rottytooth blog]

Creator Rottytooth is Daniel Temkin of New York. Along the same lines is Fugue, which specifies notes as intervals (oddly, the same way I learned atonal sightsinging, but that’s another story).

So, what use is all of this? Creating languages for music could be a first step to being able to write compositionally-useful generative music algorithms. That could allow composers writing for games, installations, performance, or software to create interactive music that generates itself without sounding like a bunch of random notes. And having an elegant, musical language to do so could allow you to sketch ideas with just a few keystrokes.

In fact, I’d argue that sitting with a big, monolithic music editor, you might actually spend more time and effort than a reduced language, once you learn it. I’m not sure these are mature enough to use yet, but the idea is fascinating. And who knows, maybe you’ll someday see this as a scripting option in the sequencer you already use.

Previously:
Code Your Own Sequencer? Archaeopteryx Generates MIDI with Ruby

Thanks to Grant Michaels, via Twitter, for the tip. (Grant’s Twitter feed includes lots of other goodies, too.)

I’m going to make this a minimalist post because I’ve said what I’ll say about Kodu, the one really cool part of Microsoft’s keynote yesterday, on Create Digital Motion. (Am I the only person who wishes Sparrow had just done the whole keynote?)

But have a look at the shot above. One of the complaints about generative and algorithmic music software (and music software in general) is that the interface has been so complex. Clearly, there are many other ways to design these interfaces, and in turn, to shape the way we use these to compose and perform music. Forget for a moment that games are “games,” and this this thing is “for kids,” and I think you’ll agree – there are lots of areas to explore, and lots of potential.

It doesn’t even require some futuristic music software. Imagine more complex rules in Ableton Live’s follow actions, made graphically.

Excuse me, I’m going to pick up some Tinker Toys to think about interactive design.

You Know, For Kids: Game Design, World Creation as Microsoft Research Previews Kodu [Create Digital Motion]

PS, I believe now more than ever that Music and Motion deserve separate sites, but have a look and I think you will find some overlap.

Better support for music and audio is still evolving (as well as lots of stability and compatibility improvements), but I have faith open-source coding tool Processing [site | on cdmu | on cdmo ] could yield wonderful new visual interfaces for music. Daniel Piker has the latest addition, inspired by a recent post here:

FizzyNumberMusicMaker at Open Processing, a site for sharing Processing sketches – warning, makes sound immediately!

Built on the Game of Life ideas from our friend wesen (of ruin & wesen), this project uses colored cells to trigger elaborate washes of piano sound. He writes:

If the cell’s state is not just simply on or off, but a number in a range then you get all sorts of interesting musical runs and trills. You can also clearly see the connection between the colours and the sound.

The headline sums up the experience of using it. Ah, I remember countless hours spent with a desktop Yamaha GM unit and my old Roland Sound Canvas SC-55. But even if the sound of a thousand attacking General MIDI pianos makes you hide under your desk, you ought to be able to see how a simple interface can yield lots of different results. I can’t wait to see what’s next. Previously:

Build Your Own Game of Life Sequencer in Processing: Video Featuring rwmidi

Since then, I’ve gotten to hang out with wesen in Berlin. Basically, rwmidi has a little ways to go. The biggest issue is how to schedule events. Processing is set up to base timing on framerate, which doesn’t work all that well for music applications, which require greater accuracy. There’s also the tantalizing possibility of figuring out a way to slave Processing sketches to MIDI clock – so you could have Ableton Live running, then pull up a Processing sketch, for instance. wesen is working on those problems, but if you’ve seen good solutions outside the (somewhat limited) Java APIs, let us know.

Bloom is a new generative musical application for iPhone and iPod touch, created by Brian Eno and software designer Peter Shilvers. It’s quite simple, but if you’re looking for some soothing musical strains to float out of your mobile Apple device, this is your ticket. At launch, you’re given a choice of either using a pre-determined set of rules, or tapping in your own parameters and patterns. The touch interface lets you use your fingers to add note patterns, which then repeat and mutate. If you make your own composition, you’ll start those patterns from a blank slate, but even if you choose an existing composition, you can tap solos over the top. The taps turn into patterns that transform themselves when the system is “idle,” rather than repeating indefinitely.

The results aren’t terribly deep – everything has a more or less similar ambient vibe, and tapping patterns in feels only barely interactive. It’s tough to predict the results and the patterns generally mutate on their own. The app is clearly geared for casual users, though it’s pretty wonderful for that audience. If you want depth, I’d stay tuned for the launch of RjDj; its generative apps, built in the open-source modular multimedia software Pd, are virtually unlimited in their musical capabilities, and they make use of the iPhone’s mic and sensors. (More on RjDj coming later this week.) See also full-featured generative software on PC/Mac, including the free Nodal, the excellent and deep Intermorphic offerings (from a team that has collaborated with Eno in the past), or even the game soundtrack for EA’s Spore, led by Eno as composer.

But that said, the compositions here are really beautiful, and it’s fantastic to watch the Apple mobile morph from simple playback devices into generative, interactive computers. Any fan of Eno or generative music will definitely want to snap this up for US$3.99.

Bloom @ iTunes App Store

Here’s what the app sounds like:

Bloom generative sound sample 1

Bloom generative sound sample 2

Let us know what you think. Any other similar apps coming out on iTunes?

What’s in for this season in music software? Cellular automata. You may have been exposed to a cellular automaton in the classic Game of Life; it’s basically a very simple biological simulator exposed as an intuitive, 2-dimensional grid of squares. If tic-tac-toe, Charles Darwin, and a petri dish of bacteria got together in one wild evening, you’d come up with something like this as a result. The Game of Life has been around since mathematician John Conway invented it in 1970, but lately it’s been cross-bred with music software to help patterns escape the rigid, boring repetition of traditional sequencer grids.

Cellular automata is in fine form on the beautiful, strange homebrew sequencer for the Nintendo DS, GlitchDS, which has had ongoing updates. It’s still fun as ever in Reaktor 5’s Newschool preset (old news, but enjoyable nonetheless). But in what’s so far the most anticipated plug-in release of the fall, CA takes on particularly powerful sonic possibilities in the first “experimental” release from beloved plug-in boutique Audio Damage:

Automaton [Product Page, Mac AU/VST; Windows VST]
Cost: US$49.99

Since the cellular automata grid can control anything, it’s what you hook it up to that matters — and that’s especially important, because it means instead of a set of knobs or sequence grid doing the same thing over and over and over and over again, CA “evolves” on its own, bringing much-needed change to your music. Automaton is a combination of a flexible CA sequencer with four effects:

1. Stutter (modulates a buffer, so you can combine Automaton with existing beat loops and patterns)
2. Modulate (a self-modulating ring modulator)
3. Bitcrush (which includes AD’s own “error” setting)
4. Replicate (based on their Replicant effect, which goes even further in the beat slicing realm a la Ableton’s Beat Repeat)

I’ve been playing around with the beta, and it’s just fantastic. I hope to finish off some special CDM presets and share them with you, though I’m a bit behind — let’s see if I can top the presets that come with the tool. One of the hallmarks of Audio Damage’s software in VST format is lots of MIDI learn support, and since it supports VST automation I anticipate some fun combining this with Kore. Either way, think easy tweaking and live performance control.

Now, question math geeks: any other cellular automata aside form the Game of Life that work well with music? I’m sure there are some experimental music projects out there that have used other CA, so link away.

Here are two tutorial videos of the tool in action, in case you haven’t seen them already:

Automaton Overview Pt. 1 – Sequencer… from Audio Damage on Vimeo.

Automaton Overview Pt. 2 – Effects… from Audio Damage on Vimeo.

What could a pocket-sized computer be? It could be a new kind of album extra (yawn), a new kind of generative musical format that samples and responds to the world around it (whoo). It could be a more effective controller (fun), or an Indian drone (really). The Apple iPod touch / iPhone, as always, brings both wonder (potential as an art platform or recording device) and trouble (respectively, restrictions on who can see your art and problems actually getting mic input or transferring files). So here’s this week’s snapshot of what’s happening on Apple’s micro-sized pocket Mac phone mediaplayer thing.

First, some quick updates that I’m genuinely pleased about:

Controller Updates

A lot of you have been having a great time with OpenSoundControl and the OSCemote tool released last week. It’s worth noting that even if you don’t have an OSC-compatible app, you can use a tool like OSCulator (Mac) or GlovePIE (Windows) to use this as a controller.

But here’s some more good news: the iTouchMIDI apps are making their way onto the iTunes app store, now under the name “iTM.” You no longer need Leopard to run the Mac client that receives MIDI over wifi, and creator Nonnus says a Windows client is coming soon, too. iTM MCU, the all-in-one software controller, is available now (pictured above), as are a number of apps including the free iTM MidiLab. Well worth giving these a try; I expect to post hands-on information soon.

Version 1.3 has made improvements in reliability (see Palm Sounds for more). By working with Mackie Control, you can integrate more tightly with software like Ableton Live, Apple Logic, and the like.

i, Art Platform?

I’m hearing a lot of speculation that Apple’s mobile devices could be a platform for artwork. I certainly like the idea of having a mobile palette to create intimate digital performances; I wondered this aloud on Create Digital Motion after seeing a mock-up of a sensor-driven, faux 3D animation. With tiny devices, tiny screens, and tiny projectors, the idea of creating something personal has some appeal. But as I hear more word of people making this kind of work, I wonder: if exclusively targeting Apple’s gadgets, isn’t there a danger not only of limiting the audience to gadget owners, but becoming overly tied to Apple’s proprietary platform?

With that caution in mind, here’s a very interesting app called RjDj that makes use of the accelerometer to respond to surroundings and even samples sounds via the mic:

And here are some folks playing with it:

(See coverage on Making Music, and screen shots and lots of info on the RjDj blog.)

The idea is not just a single work, but a collection of works by different artists which you can manipulate — work that’s never the same twice.

Most interesting, the RjDj team is using Pd (Pure Data); not only is it open source and multi-platform, but Pd’s scenes structure is perfectly suited to this kind of generative, interactive music. (No accident that Pd was also used in the creation of the generative Brian Eno soundtrack for the upcoming game Spore.) I’m quite eager to hear how he’s able to make Pd work and get this approved on the App Store, but we’ll see. Expect more detailed coverage soon, as I’m really looking forward to having a conversation with the developers about the possibilities of non-linear, generative, and interactive musical works, on mobile devices and beyond.

While on the subject…

He tends more toward the visual side, but Chris O’Shea reflects on the possibilities of software art. So far, Andreas Muller and Golan Levin each have works coming, though interestingly just ports of previous works, not actually new stuff for iPhone.

Snow Patrol and More

MusicRadar reports that SnowPatrol are planning an iPhone app release with their album. Wired’s Listening Post reports that this is just the tip of the iceberg; expect iTunes releases to have accompanying apps with interactive album extras.

Okay, I’ll say it: this sounds actually pretty dreadful. The iPhone and iPod touch already have online connections, yet I imagine many of these “apps” will simply duplicate existing content. If these really extended the album artistically in the way that brilliant album cover art did, that’d be one thing, but it’s hard not to be skeptical. And everyone seems to forget that this idea has been tried before, with various takes on “enhanced CDs.” I owned quite a few of these back when we are all buying CDs. I don’t think I ever saw the feature used in an interesting way, and the storage capacity wasn’t actually all that different.

That said, I’d love to prove me wrong. Speaking of Brian Eno, maybe a fully generative EnoApp? Or perhaps Laurie Anderson releasing some cool interactive experience? (Anyone remember the Puppet Motel CD-ROM from Voyager, or was I one of the only owners?)

Still, here’s my bet: the really smart artists will unshackle themselves from Apple distribution altogether, and release “content” on formats that allow a more expansive experience. Think DVDs or Blu-ray discs in hand-crafted cases, or limited prints, things that are the tangible counterpart to the digital realm.

A Visualizer

I wondered if someone would figure out a way to do this: iQualizer is a visualizer for your phone. I imagine this won’t do wonders for your battery life, but having spent more than my share of time blissing out at my computer monitor when the first mass-market visualizers appeared in the 90s, I can see the appeal.

iQualizer, via Palm Sounds

Next step: an easy tool for developing your own, so you can use the video out jack of an iPod or iPhone to add live visuals behind your band.

Recording

It’s kind of silly that Apple leaves out recording to begin with, and even skimps on including a mic at all on the iPod touch. But filling the void is Plum Amazing’s Plum Record:

Plum Record Page | iTunes Download Link

Now, that leaves only two problems. First, there’s the mic. I spoke to Plum’s Julian Miller, and he confirmed that you should be able to use the app on an iPod touch by buying a third-party mic (which could theoretically improve upon the iPhone mic’s quality, as well). But Plum hasn’t personally tested these, and neither have I — anyone out there gotten one of those mics?

Second, there’s the issue of how to get the files to and from your computer. In their infinite wisdom, Apple has decided you shouldn’t have any way to get files on or off their device outside of iTunes. Plum has a “server” app that you run on your computer to make this happen — Mac only for now, but with Windows and Linux coming soon.

All in all, it’s anything but an ideal recording situation, but if you just want to make a quick recording of a musical idea or practice session, it could do in a pinch. And I love the interface. This could be a fantastic way of keeping an audio “diary” of sorts, if we could just solve the mic problem.

Let us know if you try any third-party mics.

Go Indian: Sruti Box

Finally, here’s an app that’s actually unique: Sruti Box emulates the drone used in Indian music and spiritual practices. Creator Henry Lowengard writes, “It’s pretty simple: 12 virtual reeds, four interval scales, chorus, random interval perturbation, timbre adjustment. In this case, simplicity is good.”

US$2.99, available now:

SrutiBox Product Page | iTunes Link

Update: There’s a new release that came out as I was writing this (there’s a bit of lag as updates head over to Apple, before they get posted). Henry writes:

version 1.0.1 is available in the AppStore.
SrutiBox 1.0.1 is a minor update from 1.0:

• less off-centered icon (can’t tell from the store, but trust me)
• slower chorus speeds available
• lower base frequency now: 10 HZ (you can get some interesting beating with a low frequency mixed with high harmonics)
• changes to the Instructions.

Known annoying thing: I left in an extra ‘<' in the Instructions page's tuning description table. That is gone in the next version, which may be called 1.1.0, since it's got a lot of changes.

That’s it for this week’s round-up. Releases are settling down a bit, which means time to actually use this stuff and make some music. iPod/iPhone owners, let us know how your experience with these and other apps we’ve mentioned on CDM are going. Non-iOwners, we’re curious to hear what mobile apps and tools you’re into, so let us know that, too.

More iPhone/Touch Music Stuff

Last week’s round-up: iPhone/Touch Roundup: BtBx Acid Bass, iDrum Workflow and Babies, OpenSoundControl App

Mobile Music Platform Survey Results, Plus Beatmaker MIDI Export

iPhone News: iDrum, BtBx In; Mixtikl Out Citing Apple Rules

Pro Tools Controller for iPhone, iPod Touch Available; More DAWs Coming

Noise.io, “First” Synth for iPhone/iPod Touch, Will Bring Gestural FM Synthesis Control

BeatMaker for iPhone: Upcoming Features Q&A, Video Review

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!)

The clever musical gems for the Nintendo DS just keep coming. Nintendo’s handheld game console, in my mind, wins hands-down among mobile platforms in terms of sheer choice, even though the homebrew development is entirely unsanctioned by Nintendo.

The latest entry: glitchDS, a clever sequencer that uses a cellular automaton (a simple, grid-based model of the evolution of cellular structures). CA, particularly John Conway’s Game of Life rendition from the 70s, has been applied to music before; there’s a powerful version in the Newscool preset in Reaktor 5. But this happens to be particularly well-suited to a touchscreen, and to having something you can stick in your bag and fiddle with on the go.

Features:

• Customizable Cellular Automaton sequencer


• Create your own “trigger points”


• Load in your own sounds


• Save and load your work


• BPM settings, or “strum mode” for controlling tempo


• Up to 6 sounds can be loaded at once


• Each sound has its own 32 step frequency modulation sequencer


• Global Distortion setting

And the price is free. There’s even a series of free soundpacks to go with it.

The only catch is, of course, that whole “unsanctioned” bit: the preferred means of loading this is an R4DS card, though DSLinker, DSTT, CycloDS Evolution, Acekard 2, EDGE, and some others work. Be sure to check the documentation.

The design is really clever, potentially inspiring for other projects even if you don’t have a DS. One especially unique twist: “strum” mode lets you strum a sequence like a guitar, something I haven’t seen before. Thanks to Ronnie of the awesome rekkerd.org for sending this in.

Want more cellular automata? It just happens that a video synth using CA, coupled with a patch bay and optical sensors and packed in a lovely case with an LCD, also happened into my inbox this week for Create Digital Motion:

Circuit-Bent Cellular Automata Video Synth Toy with Patch Bay

A few moments of your playing, and nothing could possibly convince me that you didn’t grow up on the streets of Jamaica, banging oil drums you salvaged and hammered into shape.

Whoops, sorry — had to snap out of that for a second.

So, okay — it seems the beamz laser harp we saw last week comes with special algorithmic software that makes music play basically regardless of what you do. The problem with laser harps in general is they tend to the button-pressing variety: that is, you’re waving your arms around like crazy, but really the laser sensor is either off or on. (There are ways around that, but … well, not here.)

Watch closely as someone leaves their hand in front of the harp and does nothing. And this, of course, is what real instruments have going for them — that you have to work hard to play them, and that’s actually kind of the fun of it. It’s like basketball: if you just held down a button the entire game and a robot played for you, it would be easier, but that wouldn’t necessarily be better. Even as a computer game, we expect multiple buttons, and actual difficulty. If you waved your hands around and wore sunglasses and had a $600 gadget from Sharper Image and pretended to play basketball, that wouldn’t be much of an improvement, either. I’m not sure why music is excepted from this rule, but then, many things about this world provide amazement and confusion.

Yes, technically Guitar Hero / Rock Band does the same thing. Except that it has actual difficulty. And has real songs. And is fun. Whereas this is painful. And it’s about as expensive than Rock Band plus a PS3.

That leaves two questions.

First, there’s the academic question of how generative musical algorithms could be controlled via more expressive input devices — so that generative music felt creative, and not just holding down a button and letting the computer figure out what to play. I’m not sure you’ll find the answer in the Euro-Pop-imagical beamz, but I’m just saying.

Second, how come this girl is getting totally dumped on?

Oh, sure. I see how this works. The “everyone sounds great!” caption just happens to go with this poor young woman.

The entire video is nothing but dorky white dudes (yeah, I know — takes one to know one). We’re supposed to believe that by wearing aviator glasses and cheap headphones and pretending to be totally into their own playing, these guys are really rock stars enjoying the new frontiers opened by Sharper Image laser gimmickry.

But the young girl in the penguin-emblazoned vest? It’s sheer technological wonder that she can produce the same crap as the rest of them.

I think the video captions have it backwards. I mean, she has a robot dog and stuff. She’s going to tire of the beamz and go back to programming the Game Boy tracker she coded herself.

Give Penguin Girl a break.