Month: November 2023

I decided to learn a technology that we may use for the installation. I’m inexperienced with Pure Data (PD) so, I decided I’d start.

I’m going to create a timer to get time divisions:

This gives a metronome at 60 BPM. I send this to the multiplier. This then divides the number to give me whole, half, quarter, and 16th notes. 

I want the Bass to move between the tonic (I) and subdominant (IV). I’ll keep this simple and do two measures of each. To do this I utilise the modulo (%) operator. 

This sketch doesn’t make sound yet. So, we a sound object. For the bass I’ll use a [phasor~].

The “Chord” is sent via an output of 0 or 1 it selects the frequency that I’m looking to play and into the [phasor~]. The right-hand side of the sketch uses a [vline~] to adjust the Amplitude, Decay, Sustain, and Release (ADSR). At the end I send this for output to the DAC.

I wanted to do a melody and do a randomisation of notes in a sub-patch. So, I used the [inlet] and [outlet] objects. I wanted to create the scale notes and just cycle randomly.

The next two patches look similar, but sound different as I swapped the [phasor~] for [osc~] and made the bleeps to be three octaves higher.

This then leads to the final output.

The instruments use reverb (freeverb) where I mix the levels to taste. It’s taken hours to do something I could do in a DAW in minutes. However, I can’t use a DAW with sensors easily. 

The final output sounds like:

Is this great? Not compared to using a DAW. The sounds are basic, and the progression limited. However, it’s the beginning of a journey and opens the possibilities of using physical computing and sensors. 

Bibliography:

Floss Manuals (1991) Pure Data. Available at: https://archive.flossmanuals.net/pure-data/ (Accessed: 24 November 2023).

Puckette, M (2011) Miller Puckette MUS171 Videos. Available at: http://pd-la.info/pd-media/miller-puckette-mus171-videos/ (Accessed: 25 November 2023).

Really Useful Plugins (2020) Pure Data Tutorials – Rich Synthesis. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqJgTfn3kSMW3AAAl2liJRKd-7DhZwLlq (Accessed: 25 November 2023).

After sitting with Olly I’ve come up with a list of Music Cues that should work. I may need to revise this after I’ve had a chance to see this in-situ and may also need to extend some of the “blocks” to make it less repetitive. I have a feeling that the Maze Area Theme loop will be a bit too boring.

To make the Cue List I’ve copied the list template from “Composing Music for Games – The Art, Technology and Business of Video Game Scoring” (Thomas, 2016). Even though for this I’m the “client” so it’s not all needed, but it will be good practice to have the columns and to fill them out as needed.

Cue List

Music Cue	Date WIP Sent	Client Feedback	Date Revisions Sent	Date Approved
Starting Room Theme (30 sec loop)
Room 2/3 Theme (30 sec loop)
Ramp Loop (10 sec loop)
Boss Theme (15 sec loop)
Maze Area Theme (30 sec loop)
Altar Loop (10 sec loop)
Guitar One Shot (Triggered)
Siren One Shot (Triggered)

I’ll also go through the instructions to the developer (thanks Olly) for each of the cues and how I want them to trigger.

Instructions to the developer:

Starting Room: A loop of the Starting Room Theme (File name: StartRoom-v1.aif)

Rooms 2 and 3: A loop of the same Theme (File name: Room2_and_3.aif), if possible, overlay the Guitar (File name: GuitarOneShot-v1.aif) when first entering the room)

Ramp to Boss Level: Fade out the Room 2/3 music over 2 seconds and have the Ramp Loop run (File name: Ramp-v1.aif).

Boss Level: This needs to be spatial audio. The sphere needs to completely cover the boss room and half of the ramp. Have a linear fall off so that as you come up to the boss area you hear the music for the boss level fade in (File name: BossFight-v1.aif). As you go into the Boss Room you can stop the Ramp loop.

Maze Area: Loop the same theme (File name: MazeArea-v1.aif). Trigger the siren, if possible, on entry (File name: Siren-v1.aif).

Altar: This needs to be spatial audio. It should fade in over the top of the Maze Area Theme and not replace it. It should loop (File name: AltarLoop-v1.aif) and have a linear fall off that allows it to fade in as the users goes up the stairs.

Final thoughts after playing the game with sounds added:

I think that the music works, but I’ll want to swap the Rooms 2/3 and the Maze areas so that the build-up is better. I may also try to get a little more differentiation in the cues in terms of build-up, so they are more different from each other. I also think that the triggered one-shots will also help.

It was interesting playing the game. As a player, it’s difficult to listen to the music rather than hear the music. In a way I think that it heightens the experience of the music. You hear the music, and you respond to the emotional overtones. You don’t listen to it as you may if you were being passive while the music is being played. I think I may need to listen to rather than play a few of my games to better understand how they have impacted on the gaming experience.

References:

Thomas, C. (2016) Composing music for games: The Art, Technology and Business of video game scoring. London, UK: Taylor & Francis Group. 

After looking at the three games we had for class I decided to score for the FPS game. I felt that scoring the RPG would be a little close to the more traditional orchestrations that I have done for the first two parts of the assignment.

For a genre I chose to do electronica/hardcore. My first step was to look for a few guitar samples. I was after something that was heavy and distorted but had a good metal riff. Not quite Djent, but also not 90s metal, I couldn’t find it so, I picked up my guitar and plugged it into my effects unit and dialled in a tone and came up with a quick riff. 

I had in mind that I needed a cue for the main boss and at least two levels of different energy. One for the start room and one for the rest of the rooms. I wanted to have a break between the main rooms and the boss room. 

I also wanted to include some glitchy, more electronic sounds, to make it feel game like. Think 80s video games on Commodore64. There are several 8-bit like effects when the music is going full-on. While at odds with the heavy guitars, but the synths being full spectrum support the guitars limited frequency range, so it works from a timbre perspective.

I used a 909 for the kick as I wanted this to be EDM-like. It didn’t feel aggressive enough, so I added a very distorted drum sample. It may sound like overkill, using both kicks resulted in a better attack but also had the aggressive distortion that I was after.

I’m going to revisit this in a few days’ time to make sure that it’s right, but overall, I’m very happy with it.

This week I decided to extend the in-class learning with generative music in Ableton Live.

Here is the finished project:

I started with the techniques from class, like the arpeggiator set on random. I wanted to see how far I could push creating an identity for a piece that had no set length while being non-linear.

I wanted to keep the bass going almost the entire time. I used a C minor triad with an additional C above. I selected the notes and changed the “Chance” value to 29%. This means that every time it loops there is a 29% chance that each note will play. 

To give variety I set up a Drum Rack that played samples randomly. Using the same idea as the bass part I set all the drum pads to a 12% chance to play every loop.

For more variety, I made a few blank clips in the Session View utilising “interior pathing” between blocks within a track:

The main “melody” is interesting. I decided that to create theme and variations by manipulating the “Chance” value to allow notes to play or not.

I used another feature to generate more interest, this patch uses physics to generate keyboard presses. By adding this we created more interest outside of the main melody line.

I used randomness in the filtering and effects to create tension:

While I’ve used lots of randomisations, it is within a few defined rules, so it’s familiar yet different with each iteration. I can see value in creating versions with different start values. 

I feel that this type of composition would be suited to RPGs because it can create an infinite track, and you never hear the same thing twice. Good for a genre of game that can have 80+ hours of gameplay.