Full disclosure: I love waves. Analog, digital, acoustic, we’re talking vibrations in sound (and other substances, as well — and light). I don’t think you get into this area without having a certain wave addiction. If you love waves, you could easily get lost in exploring videos of vibrating guitar strings and pondering the physics of the string.

This story begins not with how guitar strings actually vibrate, but a curious phenomenon when combining the regular oscillation of the string with the rolling shutter of a CMOS digital camera — namely, the iPhone’s. To accurately capture motion, you need to record an image all at once (or at least come close). Rolling shutter or line scan as exhibited in a CMOS camera sensor like the iPhone is a side effect of the capture being scanned from top to bottom, so the bottom portion of the image is saved later than the top. That causes motion to skew across the image. (Long before digital, people played around with the same effect in analog video and even using film photography – all you need is something moving and a way of capturing the image that moves gradually in a different direction.)

When the regular oscillation of the scanning combines with the oscillation of what you’re filming – as with a vibrating guitar string, or the rotating propeller on an airplane — the two frequencies effectively phase, causing some curious distortion. In the case of the guitar, this means seeing the appearance of standing waves that, while they can occur in nature, don’t occur on any conventional guitar. (You can also think of the basic effect as aliasing, as seen optically when video shutters capture the frequency of rotation of a rotating car wheel in such a way that it appears to move backwards.)

As with many concepts in physics, it’s all easier to see than explain, so I’ll turn it over to some terrific videos. I’ve contrasted two at the top of the story; here are more examples.

Below, a high-speed camera operating at 600 and 1200 frames per second, played back 20x and 40x, respectively, slower than you’d see with your naked eye.

And here’s another example of how that might appear on a camera like the iPhone:

Of course, that means – fodder for our sister site Create Digital Motion – potential for more creative abuse, beyond the mere novelty.

What’s also amusing is the heated discussion this triggered as the iPhone video went viral. Read some angry comments – and some solid science among them — at Reddit:
Guitar string oscillations captured on video [reddit.com]

I’m glad people don’t behave (yet) in person the way they do on the Internet.

In person: “Excuse me; I think your fly is open.”

On the Internet: “That guy’s fly is open. He doesn’t even know his fly is open. That’s bullshit. I mean, what kind of person leaves their pants just *(&$#ing open like that? Look, look, look at his open fly. I’m never talking to him again. I’m not even going to wear pants from now on.”

(Seriously, happily, many of the comments are perfectly polite and well-informed!)

School’s out for just about everyone, but I’m going to remember to file this away for the next time I have to explain sound vibration. Now, back to the beach, or wherever you’re relaxing.

Thanks to Alexander Chen, from whom I lifted this via Google+. (See his own work on CDM here and here. Alex is just the kind of person I want to see this, as he’s been working with the aesthetics of vibrating strings! So, hurrah, Google+…

It’s not in any way digital – we’re in paper and needle territory – but clever design transforms packaging and notecard into playable music device. Create Transducer Music, anyone?

Designer Kelli Anderson concocted a novel approach to the wedding invitation for her friends Karen and Mike: turn the paper invite into a playable sound device. The couple even made and recorded their own song for the occasion. (The story of the individuals is worth mentioning – Karen advocates for the rights of makers and coders and Mike is a Grammy-nominated engineer.)

The device itself plays music without electricity or circuits. You may recall the FlexiDisc, the inexpensive records (normally made of vinyl, not paper), as seen in magazines, books, and comics. Here, a sewing needle is the entire playback mechanism, amplified by the paper and the kinetic energy of a person using their hand to rotate the disc. Working with her partner and music podcaster Daniel, Kelli turned to the power of geometry. (And I never miss an opportunity to work geometry into this site.)

A major breakthrough came when we realized that the ideal sound was produced when the tented page created a perfect right triangle with the flexidisc. The needle needed to be perfectly perpendicular to the flexidisc. (@Pythagorean theorem: at long last, you are an ally!) We also discovered that the “tent” needed two loosely-swinging bends to allow the record needle to travel as freely as possible. By creating two parallel folds, we essentially made the angle at the peak of the tent variable as needed. At the beginning of the track, the ideal angle of this peak is about 15 degrees. By the end of the track, the arm needed to stretch further towards the center of the flexi, with an ideal peak angle of about 35 degrees.

If you do want to play the results on a proper turntable, you can drop the same flexidisc on your (electrically-powered) record player for better sound.

Details on Kelli’s (beautiful) blog:
A Paper Record Player

And listen to the song the couple wrote for everybody

Aside from being a chance to nerd out about sound, I’m going to take this as yet another example of inventive packaging for musical objects. I’ can also imagine it as the way we’ll listen to music should environmental catastrophe mean that we don’t have access to electricity on Earth any more. File this away for your next post-oil-crisis sci-fi short story, a la the (excellent) book on that theme, The Windup Girl.

Thanks to Howard Shin for this great tip – and Howard, Kelli, Daniel, Karen, Mike, and Pythagoras, I owe any one of you a drink if I see you.

As for music, the Pythagorean Theorem and Trigonometry are always your ally.

Previously: Reclaim the Album’s Soul: Tips for Handmade CD Artwork

Last Days of Compact Disco: Album Lovers Hand-Make Musical Objects

Whether your trade in audio is in soundtracks for screens and games, or you’re just exploring strange, new worlds and seeking out new life and new timbres in your music, the discipline of sound design is as rich and deep as cooking. It’s something you can do every day.

Okay, now just put that “cooking” metaphor out of your mind and steel your stomach. Sound maker and dirt bike rider Jim Stout of Austin (Roland, Sound Ideas, The Hollywood Edge) does some ungodly things with raw barbecue chicken and dog food. For more on Jim Stout, check out the exclusive Designing Sound interview, and then submit your own questions to Jim before the end of the month on the site.

If you haven’t been following the blog Designing Sound, you’ve been missing out. After a merger with Jake Riehle’s Filmsound Daily, the site has been on fire with interviews, history, and tutorials and techniques. I’m not normally one for “top ten” lists, but this seemed the perfect time to help us catch up: I asked editor Miguel Isaza to assemble ten of his favorite, must-read stories from recent months.

Best of all, the site is producing all-original, free stories from some of the biggest names in the sound design art. It’s not just a set of links (as I’m about to do here).

Film and television music has made composers household names, but a lot of sound designers haven’t gotten the same recognition in wider circles. But some of these names are legends — a secret that has been too well-kept too long. Here’s why:

1. Animation. Erik Aadahl Special: Animation Sound Design (Kung Fu Panda, Monsters vs Aliens, Shrek: Forever After)

Choice quote:

“For Panda, making things musical became our central strategy. This is not new to the Kung Fu genre. Kung Fu films are all about rhythms, beats and hyper-expressive, often musical and tonal sounds. Sound effects editor P.K. Hooker put together a collection of Kung Fu movies, from classics like “Iron Monkey” to newer films like “Hero” and “House of Flying Daggers.” What these films all have in common are intricate rhythms, where punches sound like percussion, most impacts have a WHOOSH leading into them, and the sound effects are often indistinguishable from music.”

2. Guns. Lots of guns. Chuck Russom Special: Gun Sound Design, Gun Recording Guide (Game sound design, Medal of Honor, Dante’s Inferno, God of War)

Choice quote:

“Guns are loud. Try to reinforce that in your sound design … Don’t forget the gun tail/decay. The first few hundred milliseconds of a gunshot have very little character. If you neglect the gun tail, your guns will sound less powerful and they will all sound very similar.”

3. Cars. Charles Deenen Special: Car Recording Guide (Need for Speed, EA … and yes, there’s an internal Car Recording Guidebook at game giant EA, portions of which the folks at Designing Sound have published)

Choice quote:

Before booking the car, make sure you like the “Tone” and character of the car, especially if the fee involved is high.

4. For the mix. Erik Aadahl Special: Editing for the Mix (Transformers and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Monsters vs. Aliens, Valkyrie)

Choice quote:

It’s interesting how in recent years the lines between editing and mixing have become more blurred, to some people’s consternation and others’s joy. But ultimately, it’s all about “how it sounds” and we now have better tools enabling us to bring things closer to the end product much, much earlier than we have in the past.

5. Sound for transformable robots. Erik Aadahl Special: The Sound Design of “Transformers”, including washer/dryers and stove ranges turned into killer robot sounds.

Michael [Bay] has said many times that sound is 50% the movie-going-experience. He told a story about Spielberg telling him it was “30%”, and Michael countered, “Well, we have room to negotiate”.

6. Staying healthy. Andrew Lackey Special: Surviving the Crunch; Being Healthy Sound

Stress while recording a lion is good. Weeks of stress during a crunch is bad.

7. Physics and game audio. Audio Implementation Greats: Physics Audio with Kate Nelson from Volition (Red Faction Guerrila, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed)

Choice quote:

In games we’ve reached the point where the granularity of our physics simulations are inching closer and closer towards a virtual model of reality.

8. Books. Essential Books to Read

9. Film sound design legends and dragons. “How to Train Your Dragon” – Exclusive Interview with Randy Thom, Jonathan Null and Al Nelson

Choice quote (Jonathan Null):

I kinda don’t want to jinx it, but I haven’t worked a day since I started at Skywalker Sound in ‘93. Yeah, I come to work and spend my days cutting sound and hanging with my friends whom I am closer with than many of the people in my extended family.

And one more choice quote (Randy Thom):

Purring is a sound that humans respond to very emotionally. I guess it’s some sort of primitive, brain stem thing that gets passed on through the genes.

10. Lord of the Rings design in video. The Sound Design of “The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” and “The Two Towers”

Bonus – producing a community, Randy Thom on sound for mixing. One of the weak points of the Internet since its early days has been the notion that, in order to create productive communities, somehow beginners and advanced practitioners can’t coexist, that you have to dumb things down. On the contrary, at Designing Sound the level of detail, technical accuracy, and advanced discussion appeals even more to pros and beginners alike. None other than sonic master Randy Thom himself comments on Designing Sound, however. Here’s what he had to say in comments in response to Erik Aadahl talking about preparing for a mix:

Almost all of my projects in recent years have been structured as “in the box” premixes, meaning that all or virtually all of the editing and premixing has been done in ProTools, keeping it all virtual. We record predubs only as a delivery requirement, but don’t use the recorded predubs in the final mix. In the final each individual sound is funneled through virtual six channel premixes coming out of ProTools that then go through a DFC. Typically there are two ProTools systems carrying effects, backgrounds, and foley. Often all the effects are on one system, and the backgrounds and foley are on the other system. My personal preference is to not use a ProTools “mixing console” control surface, but I know I’m in the minority. I like to make adjustments within ProTools with a mouse rather than knobs and faders. I do use the knobs and faders on the DFC, but most of the work is being done in ProTools.

We can get away with this approach, given the limited number of sounds ProTools can play at one time, because we are very disciplined about making editorial decisions before the final mix. In other words, we come to the final with fewer sounds than would be typical on a more traditional mix, where it’s assumed lots of alts will be needed. One reason this approach works is that on all these projects we spend a lot of time presenting sounds to the director before the final. That way we are pretty sure we know what’s going to make everybody happy before the final starts.

To me, this kind of reality check for how music technology is actually used is utterly invaluable for both artists and technologists.

And yes, Designing Sound is proudly hosted by Create Digital Music and Noisepages. Speaking of not jinxing it, I’m not going to talk about what the Noisepages part is about for another few weeks, but stay tuned. In the meantime, kudos to this site for creating such a terrific community.

http://designingsound.org/

If you think culture has become too disconnected from the Earth, “Harvest” and the Terrafon instrument surely count as a shock to the system. A traditional ensemble picks up an enormous tone arm and transducer and, through back-breaking labor, drag it across arable fields. It’s part sound art and performance, part agriculture. But it certainly counts as a gramophone – it’s just a really big one that reads the grooves of the earth.

Beat juggling with two of these I’m guessing is largely out of the question.

One half of the artistic creative team, Olle Cornéer, writes with a description:

Harvest (2009) is a new art piece for the new instrument terrafon, traditional ensemble and cropland – by Olle Cornéer and Martin Lübcke.

In this performance Alunda Church Choir, conducted by Cantor Jan Hällgren, plays the soil of northern Uppland (in Sweden) on terrafon. Harvest by Alunda Kyrkokör was exhibited at the Volt Festival in Uppsala the 6th of June 2009. Terrafon is a large agricultural version of the horn gramophone, amplifying the sounds in the track it ploughs.

There is more to come. There are still many croplands still untouched by terrafon. The only thing needed is a powerful local musical ensemble that can sweat it out. This is indeed a demanding piece.

Video illustrates what this all means in practice:

Harvest by Alunda Kyrkokör (2009) from Olle Corneer on Vimeo.

The artistic duo behind the work is a fascinating collaboration. Olle is a producer and musician, while partner-in-crime Martin Lübcke has a PhD in theoretical physics, specializing in superstring theory. That has been the grounds on which their other work, Bacterial Orchestra, explores ideas both of biological epidemics and multi-celled organisms and neural networks. Of course, to make it truly multi-celled, they’ve made the piece an iPhone creation. (I think some folks have found the iPhone phenomenon to be viral as is, so this seems somewhat appropriate.)

Public Epidemic No 1 from Olle Corneer on Vimeo.

Every cell listens to its surroundings and picks up sounds, trying to play together in a musical way. The musical material comes from the background noise, people talking or sounds played by other cells.

Every cell has a unique DNA. Only the ones that are musical fit enough survives. If
the surroundings doesn’t meet up to its conditions – too noisy, too quiet or no distinct
pulse – the cell dies and is reborn with a new, hopefully better, set of DNA.

The result is a musical organism adapting to and changing its environment, growing and evolving with other cells and spectators.

More on that piece:
http://www.bacterialorchestra.com

It’s nice to me that, while these works are both conceptual, you might not guess they came from the same team. I wonder what will come next.

As an addendum to the last story, Ivica Ico Bukvic sends along an example of the [myu] Max/MSP + Unity game engine combination in action. Here’s the surprise: Unity isn’t generating visuals. Instead, Unity simulates ripples created by movement in the space, and builds physical models that are sonified and spatialized by Max/MSP.

Speaking of work involving art museums and the combination of Max and Unity, VJ Anomolee notes in comments his own work with the pairing. Lightbent Synth is an in-progress piece with alternative controllers and sensors that produces sound with a novel visual representation (sound’s very quiet in this preview — more hopefully once it progresses):

Lightbent Synth from VJ Anomolee on Vimeo.

Ivica explains the top work:

This past fall [myu] had seen its first real-world implementation in an exhibit that was a part of the grand opening of the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, VA (http://www.taubmanmuseum.org/). The exhibit utilized [myu] as part of an interactive aural installation titled "elemental." An online tech
demo video of the installation, including written synopsis is available also via Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA-9BOgc1gk. Below is a brief synopsis of the installation:

"elemental" interactive communal soundscape premiered in November 2008 as part of the Revo:oveR collection commissioned for the grand opening of the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, VA. The Youtube video focuses primarily on the technical aspects of the installation. Using Max/MSP/Jitter, a homebrew IR webcam with fish eye lens and a LED-based IR spotlights, entire 24×36-foot exhibit space is converted into an aural sandbox giving visitors an opportunity to generate and shape the
ensuing soundscape. Positional data of up to 20 visitors is forwarded to Unity3d using [myu] Max-Unity interoperability toolkit developed at DISIS (http://disis.music.vt.edu). Unity is used for physical simulation of ensuing ripples and the resulting data is sent back to Max for spatialization across a 12-channel (4×3) ceiling-mounted speaker array. Driven by communal interaction, virtual ripples refract from each other spawning an algorithmically generated aural fireworks. The exhibit ran non-stop for approximately 5 months until March 2009.

Bonus video below: an early prototype that did include visuals. After days of looking at emulated knobs and faders, it certainly does speak to some of the possibilities for musical interface and expression.

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.

Hans writes:

tiction – early prototype 1 from Hans Kuder on Vimeo.

tiction is a sequencing / performance application that tries to bridge generative music with live improvisation. With it you can create looping (or one-shot) sequences whose pitch and controller values change based on screen position. When a node fires its event, subtle or not-so-subtle physical interactions take place, giving life to the system.

Tiction v0.1 is now available as a free download for Mac, Windows, and Linux. I’ll be adding updates over the next couple weeks, but most of the useful features are already in place.

This is just a graphical interface; actual sound happens elsewhere, via MIDI. (Hans includes instructions for inter-app MIDI on Mac. On Windows, you should try MIDI-Yoke or Hubi’s MIDI Loopback.)

The video above is slightly older than the release you get, so there’s an extra reason to go grab it.

Free software + code + description/instructions for Mac, Windows, Linux. Version 0.1; expecting more soon!

Tiction @ Tink Thank Software

Before someone else says it, no, the idea here isn’t entirely new. It’s especially reminiscent of the work done by Toshio Iwai, best known recently for his Tenori-On hardware and ElectroPlankton DS software, who had experimented with similar interfaces — though generally minus some of the physics here. But then, we got a lot of mileage out of simple step sequencers, and they’ve evolved a lot. It’ll be interesting to see what new interfaces people can cook up.

Those of you Processing users, one tip. Hans is using the ProMIDI Java library, but there’s a better library evolving called RWMidi from our friends over at Ruin & Wesen, plus a driver that will fix problems with MIDI support and Java on some Macs — check out OSXMidiSPI for OS X (direct download).

Brilliant work, Hans! Readers with feedback, please pipe up since Hans asked for it; otherwise, I’ll be interested to see how this evolves!

One more video:

tiction – early prototype 2 from Hans Kuder on Vimeo.

Imagine this: you have a real-time interface that must be responsive and satisfying, simple enough to be approachable, but sophisticated enough that you’ll want to finely hone your skills over time. You’ll juggle a variety of elements to control with split-second accuracy, but even with elaborate mechanics under the hood, the whole thing, above all, has to be fun.

Sound familiar? It’s a description that’s equally apt for traditional music instruments and modern music software, as much as it is for games. The fact that, once they’re done, a game is often very not like familiar music software and instruments suggests the range of possible solutions to these design challenges. And suddenly, after years in which the games industry clung conservatively to tied and tested models, indie game designers with oddball game designs are grabbing the headlines. Some continue to tackle the meeting point of game and music making. Others offer inspiration for what futuristic 3D musical interfaces might look like.

I unfortunately didn’t make it to the game developer pow-wow that is GDC, but our friend Josh Randall at Harmonix tipped us off with these top picks. Given the blog buzz they’re earning, you may have seen some already, proving great independent game design may not be constrained to obscurity any longer.

Some games are playable on Windows now; Mac users may want to hit up Boot Camp, or watch for release on a console near you. (The pattern seems to be, prototype on PC but ship on consoles where better money can be made.)

Fez, pictured above, is here for two reasons. One, it promises some brilliant game mechanics. The Wii addition to the Paper Mario series from Nintendo suggested some of the game play mechanics of switching from 2D to 3D. Most of the actual execution only hinted at the possibilities. Fez goes further, with mind-bending shifts from two to three dimensions. Rather than see the lack of depth perception in imagined game worlds as a limitation, it makes it part of the game play — and reminds us of the gap in perception in 2D and 3D worlds, something that should raise the attention of anyone doing interface design (musical, sonic, or otherwise). The second reason is simple — the retro-tinged music score, apparently from producer/musician Jason DeGroot, sounds brilliant. Follow the game’s development at Kokoromi’s site:

Fez @ Kokoromi

Audiosurf perhaps got the most attention in the music games category. Pop in music from your collection, and race through a score generated by the music. It’s tough to resist this one at US$9.95 from Steam, especially for game music fans — the soundtrack from The Orange Box is included. The game is described thusly:

Audiosurf is a music-adapting puzzle racer where you use your own music to create your own experience. The shape, the speed, and the mood of each ride is determined by the song you choose. You earn points for clustering together blocks of the same color on the highway, and compete with others on the internet for the high score on your favorite songs.

And it’s got lots of extras: characters, strategy, and Steam Acheivements support. My only disappointment in this game is that the actual gameplay mechanic doesn’t deviate much from games we’ve already seen — though, then again, if you miss the design of Harmonix’s earlier Amplitude or Frequency from the days before Guitar Hero and Rock Band, this brings back the fun “interactive racer.” But I do hope that as indie developers come up with a truly interactive music remixer for the age of Ableton Live — and perhaps some fly mechanics that don’t come straight out of Wipeout XL. Not that either of those is likely to stop me from playing with Audiosurf, mind you.

Audiosurf @ Steam

PS – Audiosurf wins major extra points for being available now, which a lot of this other, tantalizing stuff is not.

With so many games focusing on making music into games, Fret Nice takes a different approach: it’s a platformer that allows you to play the game “as if it was a rock song.” Currently in prototype phase, it already looks terrific visually. Unlike Nintendo’s somewhat flawed attempt to do platformers with its bongo controller, the physical movement looks satisfying. And back to what this could mean for musicians, it is evocative of what could be possible with futuristic, interactive music scores.

Fret Nice

Available now in an early-ish build for Windows, the frenetic Synesthete is perhaps the most ambitious of the games here as far as mechanics. Yes, some of the conventions of rhythmic music games are there — synchronized motions and falling bricks. But rather than resist that convention, Synesthete explodes it onto an isometric-projection gameboard, with power-ups and magical charm blasts and … well, have a look at the video. It looks as though you’ve jacked into the brain-powered computer system in Ghost in the Shell.

Synesthete

Crayon Physics is not a music game, but I’ll close on it because, like Fez, it’s notable for its soundtrack and its gameplay / interface design. The design has you solving puzzles by drawing physics-driven illustrations, as the name suggests — if you enjoyed our look at new music interfaces built in Processing, you’ll draw (ahem, sorry) plenty of inspiration from this. And, of course, it’s very possible to do stuff like this in Processing, Flash, and the like, and make a game that’s a musical or sonic interface. The music in question in this game demonstrates the potential of Creative Commons music, making use of a non-commercial license for the lovely Lullaby by _ghost on open music site ccMixter. Think that’s just giving your money away? Think again: many bands actually pay for exposure in big-budget games. In this case, the artist just got a load of publicity along with the game — and since it’s a non-commercial license, such things could lead to commercial collaborations in the future.

Oh, and most importantly, the game is fun. (The prototype is available, but a higher-quality game is forthcoming)

Crayon Physics @ Kloonigames (original prototype)

Crayon Physics Deluxe (the version shown at the Independent Game Festival)

Got some indie — or vintage, or otherwise — games that inspire you musically / interactively? Let us know.

It’s the music of the spheres. Or at least, the music of the various, floating geometric shapes, bouncing around a virtual galaxy with gravity simulation. Kepler’s Orrery is a (newly) open-sourced generative music maker, based on a gravity simulation algorithm. As bodies collide, they make sound; it’s a bit like what would happen if you crossed a music box with a snow globe. Different worlds represent different songs. You can reach in and grab some of the objects, so it’s possible to “perform” with the project.

The application runs directly in a web browser (assuming your Java is up to date), and since it’s open source, digging around in the code could inspire your own Java-based musical environment.

Kepler’s Orrery Project Page, with notes, source code, and a live applet
Creator Simran Gleason Talks About the Project on java.net in a podcast (MP3)

And yes, there are some similarities here to the generative music of Brian Eno (soon to be heard in the upcoming Will Wright game Spore) and sound artist/composer Toshio Iwai’s ElectroPlankton game. Perhaps we have a whole genre of musical creation in the works here.

Related:

• Flash-Powered, Animated Musical Painting: Visual Acoustics
• NuSofting’s Collide and Play plug-in uses a similar, physics-inspired interface
• Videos and more featuring Nintendo ElectroPlankton and Tenori-On creator Toshio Iwai
• Why ElectroPlankton is wonderful — but falls short of being the music tool it could have been
• Brian Eno, with Will Wright on Spore and Generative Systems, Sound, and Paintings

pmpd, free external for Pd

Johan Strandell writes:

It’s not physical modeling in the usual sense; pmpd simulates things like friction, acceleration/deacceleration etc.; i.e., more useful for control of parameters rather than synthesis in itself. Some of the examples are really intriguing, but I’ve only scratched the surface on it. An article about it would be great, to see what other people are doing with it.

Consider your challenge accepted. May take me a while, but I’m doing some other work modeling physics, so this could segue nicely. As you can see in the visual below, you can use this to model fluids, matter, particles, and other substances. That could be easily applied to sound synthesis (and they include a number examples) as a way of making control less mechanical and more dynamic and organic. Since environments like GEM run 3D visuals on your graphics card, there’s nothing stopping you from dedicating your graphics card GPU to visual feedback while the CPU plugs away on the sound.

To run this, you’ll need the free Pure Data (Pd) environment for visually programming sound and multimedia. There is a Max/MSP port for OS X, and since he’s included source code I’ll try to compile for Windows, but since Pd is free and the examples and illustrations are in Pd, you’re better off starting there and worrying about porting to Max later.

There’s also a library for SuperCollider; I know there are some SuperCollider-using readers out there so let us know how this works out for you. Visual below.

Yeah, I know, it’s summer vacation — so, music technology faculty, I fully expect you to give us some examples, since you’re out in your summer cabin with no students to bother you. (I had a teacher once who said the one that would make teaching a perfect profession is if there were no students.)