Troels Folmann is one of our favorite composers at CDM. The fact that he’s a game composer both incidental and essential — it’s not that he’s scoring a Tomb Raider title that matters, it’s that game composition requires a new, fluid way of thinking about form, and Dr. Folmann (he did a dissertation topic on the subject) is up to the challenge.

Digging through recent entries on Troels’ blog is definitely a source of weekend inspiration. I’m fond of found samples, but I tend to record sound making things around the house up close with a mobile recorder for a more intimate sound. Troels drags them over to a concert hall and uses the natural reverb to turn a candle light holder and Coke bottle into something that sounds like massive, tribal percussion. To keep himself disciplined, he limited himself to objects in a random photo. Here’s what it sounds like:

To add to the ambience, he uses the Timefreezer plug-in ($99 for Mac, Windows, Mac Intel, the lot). As the name implies, it “freezes” samples of sound as an effect or instrument. I’ve done some similar things as DIY patches, but it sounds like they’ve done a nice job of implementation.

This approach to sampling percussion with natural reverb, and making an art of the samples, is part of why they pay Troels the big bucks. Be sure to hear his percussion demo for more of the sounds. Little wonder that he blogs the meditation on autism that’s been making the YouTube rounds: sampling sounds requires an almost extrasensory focus on the world around us that we spend most of our time shutting out.

So there you have some fiddling with household objects. What about this “future of adaptive music” business?

Soundscape #1 from Umcorps on Vimeo.

Tired of waiting for Spore, the upcoming Will Wright game that will feature organic, generative music by musical legend Brian Eno instead of … looping … the same 8 bars of audio … over and over again? Want to explore your own oblique strategies in music making and create evolving generative compositions? noatikl could be for you.

Co-creator Pete Cole, who evidently found us by googling Eno, wrote us last week with the details:

intermorphic (http://www.intermorphic.com) yesterday launched the noatikl generative music engine.

You can think of noatikl as a "spiritual successor" to the (no-longer available) Koan generative music engine, which of course was used extensively by none other than Brian Eno; who you mentioned a while back in the context of Spore. Brian created his seminal "Generative Music 1" with the Koan system back in 1996.

As you’ll see from the site, noatikl has been created from scratch, is Windows and Mac compatible, and is available in a variety of plug-in variants. There are also quite a few demo and tutorial videos available on both myspace and vimeo.

noatikl Overview

umcorps Videos on Vimeo (tutorials + musical examples)

Pete Cole Videos on Vimeo (still more tutorials + musical examples)

The price tag is set at US$179 (standalone) to $249 (suite) US$99 (standalone non-commercial) to $199 (suite commercial) under a new pricing scheme, with academic pricing available. I have to say, even if you’re not interested in buying a new tool, anyone with a passing interest in the possibilities of generative music will want to spend a little time with the videos — some fascinating ideas in there.

Windows and Mac tutorials (in HD, no less) after the jump. Thanks for the couple of tips I got on this; back from Australia and catching up now!

Previously:

Brian Eno, with Wright on Spore and Generative Systems, Sound, and Paintings

Brian Eno to Create Generative Soundtrack for Spore; Algorithmic Productivity Busting Follows

(I think CDM should issue a "Seeds, Not Forests" t-shirt.)