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Max/MSP visionary David Zicarelli is fond of saying that Max/MSP is really about numbers. You might hear music, but it’s number crunching that makes it all happen. Understand how to make the numbers work, and you can make your music and visuals do what you want. (Happily, this does not require a whole lot of math acuity, or I wouldn’t be able to do it. Instinct and imagination seem to be the best hallmark of Max masters.)

Lest you believe numbers can’t really make music, though, there are always bizarre and unusual examples of sources for Max projects. The latest comes to us from reader Stanley Ruiz:

Here is a clip of my audio-visual work presented at the 4th Asia-Europe Art Camp in Helsinki, Finland (June 2006).

I used the Philippines’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP per capita) as source to create sounds and manipulate video. GDP values were converted to MIDI data using a gesture-based sensor interface (the data is being sent as I move my hand). Converted MIDI values are then processed in a custom program written in Max/MSP. I used MIDIsense as sensor interface.

The output is an algorithmically composed music, as well as manipulated video (in this instance the video’s frame rate and contrast were manipulated).

… from Stanley’s blog.

(For more on sensor interfaces and MIDIsense, see our previous story.)

Okay, you can’t quite sing along, but Stanley is working on sonifying the GDP of other countries. Eventually, it should make the differences in affluence come alive in a way they might not on a bar chart. Got some unusual ways of working with numbers for music and motion? Let us know.

Hearing over the din of noise is something that humans do a lot better than computers. A new mathematical technique promises to provide highly accurate models of sound, even with broadband noise in the picture. Why does this matter, aside from mathematical curiosity? For one, better sonic analysis could mean more realistic models of instruments and more flexible sound editing tools, inspiring a new generation of music software.

From our friend kokorozashi:

‘In a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Marcelo Magnasco, professor and head of the Mathematical Physics Laboratory at Rockefeller University, has published a paper that may prove to be a sound-analysis breakthrough, featuring a mathematical method or “algorithmâ€Â? that’s far more nuanced at transforming sound into a visual representation than current methods. “This outperforms everything in the market as a general method of sound analysis,â€Â? Magnasco says. In fact, he notes, it may be the same type of method the brain actually uses.’

Full article:
New mathematical method provides better way to analyze noise [Physorg.com]

This certainly wouldn’t be the first time new algorithms yielded scientific advances and musical advances alike. Even the famed (or infamous) AutoTune plug-in benefits from data processing techniques used in oil exploration. (Lesson: it takes a lot of science to make Jessica Simpson sing in tune. Sorry, couldn’t resist.) Of course, the converse is true, too: better sound processing can be very useful to a broad range of sciences, because, well, sound is just about everywhere.

[Updated] Tom Duff has managed to hunt down the actual paper so you can get this straight from the source:

Sparse time-frequency representations,
Timothy J. Gardner and Marcelo O. Magnasco [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences]

While I wouldn’t normally say this of academic papers, it has really pretty pictures. (Seriously: visual renderings of the analyses not only illustrate the point, but also happen to look gorgeous.)

In answer to my earlier question, yes, people are using circuit simulation software to develop music software. Chris Randall of the very cool plug-in development house Audio Damage writes us:

We use SPICE when we’re modeling for Audio Damage products. We recreate the circuitry of whatever unit we’re modelling in order to better understand the signal flow; we also do some analysis using the SPICE model. (By “we” I mean Adam, of course. I sit in my office and play Rise Of Empires until he sends me a build to test.)

To which I say — hey, Rise of Empires sounds great! I’m sure you CDM readers can find something to do (like learning electrical engineering and circuit simulation software); I’m off to teach Chris how powerful my Persian Army is.

In all seriousness, I can’t wait to see Audio Damage’s upcoming recreation of the Mutron Bi-Phase effects pedal. (Warning: Bi-phase goodness, MP3s, and nostalgia after that link.) Any chance you’re busy simulating those circuits right now, Audio Damage?

And while we’re on the subject of geeky software meets cool musical applications, reader m15a spots this fantastic add-on to MatLab for analyzing and visualizing MIDI files. Can you say: slick visuals for your doctoral dissertation? (Oh, yes, I must be getting back to that one of these days. After one more Rise of Empires game, anyway.)

MidiToolbox: MIDI Analysis / Visualization for Matlab

Anyone got some nifty MIDI visualization images? Send `em in!