From: Giles Bowkett <gilesb@...>
Date: 2006-05-13T04:58:09+09:00
Subject: Re: Tab Player (#79)

On 5/12/06, Ross Bamford <rossrt@roscopeco.co.uk> wrote:
> On Sat, 2006-05-13 at 01:52 +0900, Giles Bowkett wrote:
> > On 5/12/06, Shane Emmons <shane.emmons@ffgrp.com> wrote:
> > > This is really cool. Now what would be even cooler is if someone could
> > > modify their Markov Chain program to read tabs and generate new songs to
> > > be played.
> >
> > I've actually done that already, or at least, something reasonably
> > similar. I had a class on serial music and implemented it in Ruby
> > generating MIDI files for Reason. Then I expanded the original code
> > into an only slightly bigger script I think of as the texturizer,
> > which generates ambient soundscapes via midilib, a Fibonacci sequence,
> > a Feigenbaum function, and ReDrum (Reason's internal sample-based drum
> > machine).
>
> Very cool! I've just been having a browse with my ears, and I have to
> say I'm pretty impressed with some of the sounds you've generated with
> this thing. I'm definitely going to be studying your code - although
> I've always played, I've only recently gotten interested in
> computer-aided composition so this stuff is very new to me.

muchas gracias! although I have to tell you, the sounds are only
partly programmatically generated -- they come from synths in
Propellerhead Reason. (a very large proportion of the parameters
defining the sounds which the synths played were automated in
real-time programmatically, however.) I generate the MIDI file
directly with Ruby and midilib and then pop into Reason. and I'm not
above adding a little distortion and reverb to sweeten the overall
sound.

also, the stuff that's online, I'm very glad you like it, but it
probably is fairly easy to recognize as computer-generated. the new
thing I'm working on, you can't actually tell the computer-generated
texture is computer-generated. it sounds pretty much like your
standard cinematic texture in dubby dance music. take out the drums
(non-programmatic) and it sounds like seven minutes of very pretty
ambient music.

(I think the computer-generated groove-maker will (when complete)
display similar versimillitude to "human" music, but don't quote me on
that.)

this new stuff works by triggering samples at times determined by a
function almost identical to the function in the code on my site.
(I'll put an mp3 and a code sample online soonish.) the Markov chain
stuff is very interesting to me because it would be a huge quantum
leap for my stuff if I could generate melodies programmatically.
Markov chains could be a good method. the other idea I had for doing
this, actually, was A*, which is the pathfinding algorithm favored in
video games -- the idea being that you define a melody as a path from
note A to note B, and create arbitrary "obstacles" in that path to
encourage more or less complicated melodies. haven't really got that
part started yet but it is a neat idea.

-- 
Giles Bowkett
http://www.gilesgoatboy.org