SuperCollider

[Negative Spectrum]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperCollider

has anyone heard of this or used it? i've seen a few musicians mention it lately so i downloaded it today but havent messed with it yet.

[Toaster]

It's a fairly complicated object oriented language (depending on your exposure to such things). But you can produce neat things with it with very few lines of code; I'm just getting my feet wet with it myself (because I need to learn another sound creation tool, apparently). The introductory help files bundled with it will let you know very quickly if it's for you.

[Negative Spectrum]

cheers, i had a wee play around with it and indeed found it pretty complicated, i guess these things just arent my gift, i'm also playing around with audiopaint which is very cool and nice to use

[Ahornberg]

the last week i did a track using randomly generated pitches.

the idea that came up in my mind is letting all the tunings and scales behind and choose the pitches of particular notes by some algorithms (even digital random values are generated by an algorithm too).

yesterday i tried out something in this manner and i was running against the walls of common DAWs.

so now i have a real good reason to dig into supercollider, even too i am interested in setting time-positions of notes based on algorithms rather than on a given raster.

i know it will take some time to put something on the ground in supercollider (even max4live would be an option ... i will see).

[Negative Spectrum]

I prefer Max/MSP, I just couldn't get the process of Supercollider wrapped around my brain.

[Ahornberg]

yesterday I tried out some tests in supercollider, established a midi-connection to a DAW (the audio-routing didn't work, maybe depending on my soundcard) and played around with randomly generated picht-variations.

everything worked fine and I think I can get to the point (not now, there is much to learn in using supercollider) to create that sounds I have in my mind.

one thing popped up very quickly: supercollider has a relative high cpu-load and multicore-support is not supported directly. there is an add-on for multicore-support, but with a lot of nuts and bolts.

I'm going to dig deeper into supercollider. if I discover mentionable things then I will post it here ...

[Ahornberg]

and here it is :thumbsup:

my first track played live in supercollider

http://soundcloud.com/ahornberg/supercollider-experiment-1


I used this code from the supercollider-tutorial and changed some parameters over time while recording the output:

(
{
    var n = 12;
    Mix.arFill(
        n,
        {
            SinOsc.ar(
                [53.0.rrand(300), 67.0.rrand(2001)],
                0,
                n.reciprocal * 0.41
            )
        }
    )
    *
    EnvGen.kr(Env.perc(11, 6), doneAction: 2)
}.scope
)

so the code reflects the last tone in the recording. everything else before is lost and cannot be restored. this is an interesting aspect that makes working in supercollider so fresh for me. it is not a daw where you can record every fader movement ...

[Sky High Diamonds]

That is really interesting. I'm not sure I understand (without further research) the process you went through but am liking the results. Seems like a fantastic starting point for more experimental layers.

[Ahornberg]

i think i found "my tool".

[Ahornberg]

7 Times 7th Root Of 7

generative music created using SuperCollider:

[windspace]

So, I downloaded SuperCollider again...I hope to get further with it this time. I am inspired now to experiment further with granulation after reading "Microsound" by Curtis Roads. I want to explore disintegration/coalescence in soundscapes.

I have not tried it, but I am wondering if Melda MMorph might work for that? I don't know, but I do know that SuperCollider has the right price point! :lol:

I have achieved something similar to what I want by using a combination of Melda MMulti Band Granular & Valhalla Shimmer and parameter automation in Reaper. But it seems to be very dependent on the source material to achieve good results.

Anybody ever played with granulation in SuperCollider?

[Ahornberg]

Anybody ever played with granulation in SuperCollider?

I haven't but I highly recommend The SuperCollider Book which also covers this topic with code examples.

Alternatives to SuperCollider at the same price level are Chuck or PureData ;)

[windspace]

Anybody ever played with granulation in SuperCollider?

I haven't but I highly recommend The SuperCollider Book which also covers this topic with code examples.

Alternatives to SuperCollider at the same price level are Chuck or PureData ;)

Thank you! I have seen the Super Collider book on Amazon and will likely get it sooner than later! I have PureData and am beginning to explore granular things in it as well, but have not seen anything in PD yet that seems to do what I want to do to a sound. I will look into Chuck, I've never heard of it.

Another possibility, that also now shares the very affordable price level of SC and PD is the Composer's Desktop Project, available to download from their website:

http://www.composersdesktop.com/index.html

[Ahornberg]

Something new from SuperCollider

I'm diving deeper into SuperCollider and here's my latest creation (effected by Adaptiverb):