Week 1 (12/01/12)

Hi all, I'm Sam Lovett and I'm gonna use this blog to keep a learning journal for my Computer Music course at sussex uni, in which we'll be learning the music programming language Supercollider.

In class this week we looked at some basic synthesis techniques, how to initiate an oscillator etc, as well as control rates, and controlling modulation with the mouse, or with a line generator over a set time. I made this neat sub drop/white noise uplifter in class, sounds like some house to me!

{HPF.ar(WhiteNoise.ar(0.1),Line.kr(500,15000,7))
       +
       SinOsc.ar(Line.kr(160,80,7),0, 0.1)}.freqscope;

.kr = control, and the Line takes 3 parameters - the first two are the frequency range, and the third is time - so the Sine oscillator SinOsc drops from 160Hz to 80Hz over 7 seconds.

Here's the result:

http://soundcloud.com/samlovett/white-noise-uplifter-sub-drop

I like the logical way that plugins are nested inside each other - so the Line controlling the SinOsc is nested inside it.

As stated we also looked at modulation using the mouse. This is done by using the mouse to control 2 parameters of modulation, in this case frequency modulation. This is an example from Nick Collins Supercollider tutorials that I altered:

(
{
var modfreq, modindex;

modfreq= MouseX.kr(1,440, 'exponential');
modindex=MouseY.kr(0.0,10.0);

LFPulse.ar(SinOscFB.ar(modfreq,1,modfreq*modindex, 120),0,0.5)*0.1
}.scope
)


Here I modulate the a square wave (the LFPulse Ugen with a width of 0.5 to make it square) with a Sine oscilattor - as you can see the parameters of the SinOsc are the modulation frequency and modulation index. It is the modulation index that gives the sound the feeling of stepping over rates of modulation as you move the mouse across the screen.

Here's an example of what it sounds like:

http://soundcloud.com/samlovett/frequency-modulated-square

Nice. More geeking out next week.