ELECTRONIC MUSIC TECHNOLOGY
From DIMA
author: Ciprian Gabriel Pop
Contents |
INTRODUCTION
Since the introduction of the first information technologies composers tried to take advantage of new possibilities offered by this new development. The rapid development and innovation make sometimes difficult to use this technologies in music [1]. Like in other artistic areas, there was a certain reticence but there was also enthusiasm. The new trends offered by discoveries and inventions with potential in music art have encouraged original music creations. Of course, the authors of those creations had a real talent in all that technology means. Apart from music education they had a solid training in other domains like mathematics, physics, or architecture. An eloquent case in this matter has been Xenakis. The relation of technology with music belongs to the past. Every technological age has been reflected immediately on creation and on performing music through more various and sophisticated outfit, elaborated due to the discoveries in the technical domain, and to innovations. Today we assist to a mutation of all vectors to an intangible but rich in possibilities climate – the virtual environment. It is naturally for these vectors to exert influence on music creation. From the moment of the computer evolvement, as a main tool in many areas, there was a need for software application development to simulate the behavior of some feasible systems. Thus, everything has become more flexible. There has been the possibility of experimentation of new situation and systems that could have been more expensive on every aspect in case they differed from construction viewpoint. We will try now to take a quick glance at the way computer is involved, and at how its virtualization influences in a positive way the music domain.
ELECTRONICALLY GENERATED SOUND
The mechanical wave has correspondence in electronic oscillators found in electronic systems. These are making the electric currents to oscillate with less or more complexity. These oscillators are amplified and transformed in sound waves with amplifiers and speakers.
The advantage of using electricity as main source for sound building lies in the fact that it can be obtained a sound purity never reached before. Anyway, none of the acoustic instruments can emit or get close to a sound composed from sinusoidal or square waves almost perfect. On the other hand, the production of electronically generated sounds can be a real logistic challenge. There is a need of an electric current source (battery or electric network), an electronic device for generating the electronic oscillations, an amplifying system, one or more speakers and a lot of cables (often irreplaceable). Connecting all together requires strong attention; one fault connection may generate disastrous consequences. Often, the outfit of electronic music concert can exceed tens of kilograms. The first true electronic musical instruments (used or copied as operating principles even today) has a very clear pattern by which sound can be synthesized: - one or more oscillator - that generate independent oscillations with various waveforms on specific frequencies chosen by the user (by choosing frequencies we understand even the simple using of a MIDI keyboard type piano) - a mix of oscillators system - through which the user choose the input of the signal the oscillator plays; - filter - the user decides which frequency components of the signal will be heard and in what quantity; - low frequency oscillator – applied by the user to periodically modulate the signal with a frequency (20 Hz below), with a certain amount and form; envelope generators applied to sources (oscillators, filters and modulators) - by which the user can influence how the attack, decay, sustain and release affect the quality of the played.sound.
With the emergence of the possibility of storing digital information, (initially containing the text, then images and sounds), there are more and more possibilities offered by computer in artistic creation. Since then, the content of the art, "immortalized" in a digital format can be manipulated in specific ways. Benefits began to make more attractive the interference of arid area of technology with art. For example, in architecture, the simulation geometry, plans, computer-aided design (Cumputer Aided Design - CAD) replace the board and the slide rule, providing unexpected opportunities, and help in the implementation of any project of any scale. Everything can be controlled now by the lowest details, and all errors can be now recovered faster and with significantly reduced energy loss. In music, the transition to new technology is manifested in at least two parallel plans. The first concerns the system of sound recording (still analog - on magnetic tapes), which opens new doors for the creation, and the second refers to the only use of electronic sound generation. When the digitization of content becomes available, the two plans merge, creating virtual instruments, which today serves the electronic communicable sound world (from the sound recordings of a concert by TV commercials). The sound recording system was a boom in the music industry when the tape recorder appears. On this device sounds are stored as changes in the magnetic variations strip of the active substance (chromium dioxide or iron oxide). What does the music have in common with magnetic recording? An element of play and innovation: the tape can be cut, joined with other segments of the tape, read the tape in both directions and at different speeds. All these elements can be recorded on another tape, which in turn can be manipulated in the same way, while mixing with other bands. In this way, it could be created an unprecedented sounds full soundtrack the acoustic instruments should have never done . In this context, between 1958-1995, there was on BBC Network, a whole department (BBC Radiophonic Workshop) which used the tape manipulation served as a main tool in soundtrack generation. [BBC Four, The Alchemists of Sound, 2003]. In parallel, there was a development of the analog sound. The first music analog synthesizers have been built as pilot projects in higher education institutions: RCA Mark 2 - the first programmable synthesizer at Columbia University. It also contained a sequencer - the main attraction for composers who wanted a very high accuracy in the interpretation of very difficult music they wrote for this synthesizer. Later, more accessible synthesizers were invented and perfected. A living legend in this series is Moog synthesizer model, a very versatile instrument, with a reasonable price for most musicians interested in electronic music creation.
SOUND VIRTUALISATION
Electronics “invades” all kind of musical production [2]. Digitization of sound represents the next level of electronic music creation. Instead of tapes, where the sound signal is present as permanent magnetic oscillations read by playback head of tape machine there are digital media devices, where sound signal is converted into character strings (1 and 0). This transformation is done by computer or by specialized devices (DAT - Digital Audio Tape, MD - MiniDisk etc.).
Computer using specialized software usually performs manipulating the digitized sound material. What advantages brings this way of work? Firstly, you can an endless number of copies of the same material without affecting the quality of the original one. This way, the musical work can be edited in its minute details, the user may apply on it ambient, temporal or distortion sound effects in a very fast and versatile way. User can combine multiple instances of the recording of the same work to achieve the best possible version of the musical creation. There can be stacked and handled several instances of a record in a much simpler way, the workflow being significantly improved. At this moment users start to feel that the boundaries that had greatly restrict or at least slowed down the process of music creation and production are being overcome. More specialized and upgraded software evolved each year on the market, targeted mainly on the creative musician, have contributed substantially to the user’s proficiency. Accordingly, the need for the knowledge of technical concepts related exclusively to computer interaction decreased significantly. The graphical user’s interface programs begin to resemble more and more to what in reality does exist: the design of virtual modules that control the sound parameters is a copy of reality. There are even virtual functional cables, which, like in a real studio, can be moved, connected or disconnected, everything related to animation that increases the immersion in the virtual machine space. The reality is moving towards the computer processors, reflecting the idea that wherever there is a computer, there may be a music studio. Moreover, the virtual environment creates new patterns of thought "visual" interface by the appearance notion of "sequencer" type, which revolutionizes the concept of sound creation manipulation.
With minimal training, often autonomous, a contemporary composer can use the computer's virtual space and access sources of enormous creative potential.
Virtual Synthesizer
The concept of digital synthesis occurs when questions result from the reverse of the process of digital recording, where the mechanical waves are converted into electrical oscillations, then digitized into binary codes. The solution consisted in how the sound became digitized material. Thus, each second of sound is divided into a number of samples (slices) - audio frames- that contains information describing that sound at a given time. Like in the film technique, where in a second are played between 23 and 30 frames per second, in the playback process by sound digitization are played thousands of samples (frames-slices) per second (a very common standard is 44,000 Hz); they are converted into an electric signal, amplified and transmitted to speakers (speakers) to be perceived. Logically, the computer can create new binary codes with implemented algorithms in specialized programs that are converted into electrical oscillations, amplified and played back on speakers in the form of mechanical oscillations of the audible sound spectrum. In this way, the concept of digital sound synthesis has been born. By the use of programming it was possible to emulate all modules contained by an analog synthesizer provided with many advantages of which we list a few: - oscillators’ sound wave patterns are perfect thanks to the programming; - diverse produced types of tones can be stored anytime on any digital device, by "one click away", as compared to the analogue synthesizers, where for obtaining the desired resonance it takes time to adjust and calibrate the modules; - there can be used any number of virtual synthesizers to create very complex, multitimbral works works, depending only on the computer processing capacity - unlike analog synthesizers where the user had to record every single instance, and then, by successive duplication of records to obtain the desired work - due the sequencers, virtual synthesizers can play "impossible" scores As a result of this approach, new sounds are created bringing innovation and originality in the context of the sonority "crisis". Of course, there were already electronic sounds produced by analogue synthesizers, but they had one major drawback that will be explained below. The front panel of an analog synthesizer contains linear and circular potentiometers that control oscillators, filters, low-frequency oscillators and envelope modulators. To obtain a single electronic patch (a timbre), it takes time to adjust each component to this assembly of electronic modules. To generate a new patch all the work has to be started over. The flexibility of moving from one patch to another is extremely low. In addition, the user's hand cannot adjust two times the potentiometer’s precision. Moving a button with one part of an inch above or below, operation with a high degree of probability in the conditions of a concert, can lose the finesse and subtleties of a sound once obtained. The invention of virtual synthesizers concept (and, in general, the virtual machine), solves these problems by storing patches in the format of digital files containing all the parameters of a patch or set of patches (the so-called "presets" - applicable to any virtual machine). With a single click or press of a button on the controller, once designed, the sonority is achieved instantly, the shifting to another being accomplished rapidly. Thus, the work invested to generate a patch will be never lost. The patches may be stored on any digital storage medium: computer hard disk, USB flash, optical disk of any kind, online storage, etc. This might also provide enhanced user’s interactivity. Virtual synthesizer operation is identical to that of an analogue synthesizer. All analog synthesizer modules are virtualized, often the appearance being copied for a greater visual impact. However, there are invented modules that will be never implemented on a hardware synthesizer. Virtualization does not stop only on copying the real synthesizers. There are models of virtual synthesizers which have no correspondent in reality, using types and manifold combinations of types of synthesis wave. A famous site in the world of virtualized electronic music is kvraudio.com which lists thousands of models of virtual synthesizers with their brief descriptions. Not only analogue synthesizers have been emulated by computer but also the different room effects (reverberation, speaker emulation), temporal effects (echo, chorus, flanger) and distortion effects that can be applied to sound material, digital synthesized or digital recorded. Reviewing, we have digital sound recording systems, digital sound synthesis systems (virtual synthesizers), and digital sound effects for manipulating a system containing a score for the control of the entire ensemble - software sequencer. All these together constitute what we call a virtual audio studio.
Samplers
The samplers are tools that store and play recorded sounds from real sound environment, more or less edited. For example, a unique Stradivarius violin can be replicated using samplers. They allow the recording of the techniques of attack, of different intensities, heights, everything that can be imagined on a real instrument; subsequently, by programming, this technique makes possible the interpretation of any music score with all prerecorded sounds. In the case of virtualization, there is the possibility of using the tool named sampler player. It has huge libraries of sounds, and can be emulated by a single instrument to full orchestra. The film industry is fully benefiting from this facility. For using the sample player the score is programmed in a sequencer, which controls every track sound (instrument), resulting in the interpretation of a score with varying composition (solo, chamber and orchestral complex).
Virtual Effects
Virtual effects are very popular among users due to their flexibility and ease of use. In a studio or a live recording requiring hardware audio effects, users are obliged to handle sensitive equipment, most often heavy and difficult to install, with sensitive connections. There are situations in which an imperfect contact of the cable may compromise the complex ensemble of hardware equipment. Therefore, stages of the preparation work environment when using hardware instruments are made with the utmost care for avoiding damages that may be irreparable.
Virtual effects are very popular among users due to their flexibility and ease of use. In a studio or a live recording requiring hardware audio effects, users are obliged to handle sensitive equipment, most often heavy and difficult to install, with sensitive connections. There are situations in which an imperfect contact of the cable may compromise the complex ensemble of hardware equipment. Therefore, stages of the preparation work environment when using hardware instruments are made with the utmost care for avoiding damages that may be irreparable.
Music Score Writing in virtual environment
The process of writing a paper sheet music was initially difficult, the working methods being different from the traditional printing. One of the most popular methods used a thin metal plates engraved with special chisel staves, notes and all the necessary signs. In case of an error occurrence, the whole process had to be resumed. Nowadays, the music score releasing is performed in virtual environments by developing programs such as Sibelius and Finale, the composer having versatile writing instruments easily manipulated. The work to achieve good scores is significantly easier. Because of the possibility of transposition, copying and modification of musical text in a various ways the creative process goes in the foreground, and the score writing falls in background. Traditionally, the composer using the pencil and paper writes a score with (for example) 32 instruments whose rhythms are very difficult to coordinate in terms of graphics. In this sense, in the virtual score writing environment there is an obvious advantage: automatic score layout, readability being another very important factor in the act of creation
CONCLUSIONS
New technologies have invaded almost all areas. They are invaluable aid in all points of view. The flexibility gained by using virtual tools is a major criterion in favoring music creation. The composer has no hindrance to build sound textures, ensembles of instruments, sheet music and in the end, the whole music production. It only takes a relatively minimal investment to purchase a mid-range performance computer, an adequate sound module, a suitable controller and a required software suite. The investment is minimal as compared to what needs to be spent when using tools and hardware equipment, interpreters, studio recordings, etc., in terms of time and money spending. An additional advantage is a highly reduced transportation, handling and maintenance costs. In case of virtualization the composer only have to devote the necessary time to familiarize with the desired software. It is worth mentioning that many programs, in addition to the intuitive interface, have similar functionalities and approaches, making easy the switching from one program to another. Timbre offer is huge, constantly stimulating composer. The wide range of possibilities of the audio editing has a huge impact on the construction of musical production. Besides, there is a major advantage: the composer can hear the work in "real time", and at any moment of creation due to computer virtualization.