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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Generative Music Demo
| Author | Message | ||||
| William Leue Guru  Joined: 03/07/2020 Location: United StatesPosts: 405 |
I feel a bit shy about posting this one. For one thing, lots of people hate algorithmic so-called "music", and I fully understand this opinion. For another, my specific choice of a demo composition is understandably not to everybody's taste, although I kind of like it. In any event, this composition is a passacaglia over a 4-note ground bass obligato, with 3 treble voices singing pretty much same same rising scale, but with varying note durations that get mixed by a little state machine. There is no ending; it just keeps playing until you get bored and throttle it. -Bill GenMusic1.zip |
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| William Leue Guru Joined: 03/07/2020 Location: United StatesPosts: 405 |
It's interesting: my el cheapo speakers have horrible intermodulation distortion and resonances all over the place. For some reason, this distortion actually makes the music more interesting (to my ear), unless I turn the volume up too high, in which case it degenerates into a very unappealing mess. Like the man says, your mileage may vary. If I can find them, I am going to try changing from square-wave tones to sampled piano keys; it should make things sound better. -Bill |
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hitsware2 Guru Joined: 03/08/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 719 |
Your piece is delightful ! ....  > algorithmic so-called "music" Can definitely be quite musical . Since music is in the ear of the beholder , algorithms can become what I would call " artificial musical intelligence " > I am going to try changing from square-wave > tones to sampled piano keys To me it is not the wave squareness , but the lack of any envelopes that is the main lack . Samples would be one way to overcome that for sure . my site |
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Sasquatch Guru Joined: 08/05/2020 Location: United StatesPosts: 377 |
This is really interesting! I agree about the distortion on small cheap speakers. I find that using Sine or Triangle waves have much less distortion, this makes sense as the sharp rise and fall time of the square wave have tons of harmonics. -Carl |
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| William Leue Guru Joined: 03/07/2020 Location: United StatesPosts: 405 |
Square waves have tons of harmonics too. The difference is that triangle waves have only odd harmonics. If you look at the fourier transform of a triangle wave, you will see a series of peaks starting at 3 and descending in amplitude as the harmonic number gets higher, but the peaks are only add odd harmonic numbers. The situation with square waves is harder to describe neatly. The fourier transform of a square wave is a 'sinc' (sine(x)/x) function. I agree with you about the need for an envelope. The computer-generated tones seem lifeless because they have no attack or delay; they just suddenly start and suddenly stop with no amplitude variation. Pianos have a ton of harmonics as well as an envelope, and the timbre depends a lot on how hard the note is struck. So far I have not been able to find a full set of royalty-free piano note sound clips online. If I get desperate I can probably make my own from my digital piano. -Bill |
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| William Leue Guru Joined: 03/07/2020 Location: United StatesPosts: 405 |
I found a couple of minor bugs in GenMusic1.bas after posting it. The attached version has those fixed. I also split the voices into left and right channels, which helps the intermodulation distortion a little. -Bill GenMusic1.zip |
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| hitsware2 Guru Joined: 03/08/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 719 |
How ' bout this ? my site |
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epsilon Senior Member  Joined: 30/07/2020 Location: BelgiumPosts: 255 |
I've heard about generative music but this demo illustrates the concept more clearly than most of what I came across online. It's great stuff like this that I was hoping for when I bought my Maximite 2. I'm not disappointed. Very cool!  Epsilon CMM2 projects |
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| hitsware2 Guru Joined: 03/08/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 719 |
'''''' Island ''''''' dim c(3),m(7),p(7),v(7) for i=0 to 3: read c(i): next i for i=0 to 7: read m(i): next i for i =0 to 7:read v(i): next i for i=0 to 7: read p(i): next i data 8,6,9,6, 2,2,4,4,3,3,4,4 data 1,0,1,0,1,0,1,0 data 4,0,2,2,9,0,2,2 do: for x=0 to 3 play sound 1,b,t,16*c(x),5 play sound 2,b,t,24*c(x),5 for y=0 to 7: n=(c(x)*m(y)) play sound 3,b,s,1024,p(y) pause 10: play sound 3,b,o select case int(rnd * 3) case 0: play sound 4,b,q,4*n,9*v(y) pause 120: play sound 4,b,o: pause 10 case 1: play sound 4,b,w,8*n,9*v(y) pause 70: play sound 4,b,o: pause 60 case 2: play sound 4,b,q,16*n,7*v(y) pause 20: play sound 4,b,o: pause 110 end select: next y: next x: loop my site |
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thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4311 |
Hey Bill, What are your thoughts on me including this on the "Welcome Tape" distributed under the "Unlicense" - it is more than a little short on sound demos. Best wishes, Tom Edited 2020-10-01 20:12 by thwill MMBasic for Linux, Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
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| William Leue Guru Joined: 03/07/2020 Location: United StatesPosts: 405 |
Tom, you are welcome to add GenMusic1 to the Welcome Tape! As always, I am honored to be considered. BTW, I have a newer version coming out in a day or two; a couple more bug fixes and some tinkering with the timbre for better-sounding output. I will post when it is ready. -Bill |
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| William Leue Guru Joined: 03/07/2020 Location: United StatesPosts: 405 |
Attached is version 1.0.2 of GenMusic1. I found out that Sasquatch was correct: triangular waves generate less intermodulation distortion on cheap speakers than square waves, so I changed to triangular. There are also some minor graphics warts fixed. I did try generating MIDI from this composition by outputting a text file in CSV format and then using csvmidi.exe to convert the output to real binary MIDI. But the result just did not sound good, so I gave up. This will likely be the final version of GenMusic, although I may try other algorithms. -Bill GenMusic1.zip |
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Herry Senior Member Joined: 31/05/2014 Location: AustraliaPosts: 261 |
Fourier would say infinite! Senior?! Whatever it says, I'm a complete and utter beginner... |
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