Partial Playground: Augmented Vocality Composing Tools #1
As part of the Augmented Vocality project, we have been developing various tools to support Edmund Hunt’s compositonal process. The first of these tools – Partial Playground – was developed in Max/MSP using IRCAM’s [iana~] external, as well as the HISSTools Impulse Response objects from Huddersfield University.
Edmunds compositon practice already draws heavily on the frequency analysis of recorded sounds, commonly using IRCAM’s standalone software, Audiosculpt. Partial Playground takes inspiration from Edmund’s workflow to create a faster-paced sandbox environment for exploring the frequency components of sounds, and the generation of harmonic material for the composition of new music.
While being far less powerful and feature-rich than IRCAM’s standlone, the Parisian institute’s [iana~] standalone forms the backbone of this Max patch, and allows a source sound to be broken down into discreet frequency components. In an attempt to bring together previously discreet parts of Edmund’s process, the patch allows for certain sections of a soundfile to be isolated, and a convolution reverb can also be applied before the sound is analysed. This latter feature is a device that Edmund has used to de-emphasise harmonic material, or to bring together charactersitics of two sources. The [iana~] section of the patch exposes parameters of the external’s analysis of the source sound, and can be used to resynthesise sounds that rance from close mimicry of the original, to slowly shifting complex chords that arise from a harmonic instant. Two additional views are accessible from the patch as well, that can aid in the transcriptions of partials’ frequency or note values, speeding up the transition from sound exploration, to the transcription of harmonic material for use in the compositon process.
If you would like to explore the patch yourself, the Max patch is available to use for free on GitHub here:
https://github.com/JoeWrightMusic/PartialPlayground
As mentioned above, the patch builds on existing Max externals from IRCAM and Harker & Tremblay, which are available to download via these links: