Game|lan:Co-Designing and Co-Creating an Orchestra of Digital Musical Instruments within the Fab Lab Network

This paper presents an ongoing project focused on the co-design and co-creation of a small orchestra of digitally fabricated digital musical instruments (DMIs) based on the Bela board, an open-source embedded computing platform. The project took place in Fab Labs, an international network of digital fabrication laboratories1. The orchestra, named Game|Lan, is inspired by the traditional Indonesian Gamelan ensembles, their music and philosophy. The project aims to explore the capabilities of the Fab Lab network which runs on an open-access, open-source and open-hardware ethos, for a distributed project of this type. The aspiration is to create an original orchestra for non-musicians, which offers the rich collective experience of being in a music group and explore it as a medium for social interaction. This paper presents the first results of the research project which took place is three Fab Labs in South America and it focuses on the process and the development of the project

Digital audio effects and physical modeling

International audienceThis article describes a research oriented in creating physical models that would transform and process sounds using the CORDIS-ANIMA formalism. Basically the idea was to explore for the first time systematically the capabilities of this physical modeling language and more precisely the GENESIS environment for the creation of Digital Audio Effects. This presentation introduces some elementary signal processing operations and properties using the compositional blocks of CORDIS-ANIMA. Also two physical models will be described that they behave like some classical filters and time varying filters. The idea and the challenge is to give a physical meaning to these widely used algorithms

Designing and synthesizing delay-based audio effect using the CORDIS-ANIMA physical modeling formalism

International audienceThroughout this paper, several CORDIS-ANIMA physical models will be presented to offer an alternative synthesis of some classical delay-based digital audio effects: a delay model, two comb filter models, three flanger models and a sound spatialization model. Several of these realizations support a control scheme based on the ''Physical Instrumental Interaction''. Additionally they provide several sonic characteristics which do not appear in the original ones. Especially the flanger model, for certain parameter values may give a new digital audio effect between flanging and filtering

Tangibility, Presence, Materiality, Reality in Artistic Creation with Digital Technology

International audienceThe democratization of Computer Arts and Computer Music has, due to dematerialization (virtualization) consequence of digital technologies, considerably widened the boundaries of creativity. As we are now entering a second phase that has been labeled “post-digital”, we are called to reconcile this openness with notions such as embodiment, presence, enaction and tangibility. These notions are in our view inherently linked to creativity. Here we outline some approaches to this problem under development within the “European Art-Science-Technology Network” (EASTN). Several areas of artistic creation are represented (Music, Animation, Multi-sensory Arts, Architecture, Fine Arts, Graphic communication, etc.). A main objective of this network is to establish common grounds through collaborative reflection and work on the above notions, using the concept of tangibility as a focal point. In this paper we describe several different approaches to the tangibility, in relation to concepts such as reality, materiality, objectivity, presence, concreteness, etc. and their antonyms. Our objective is to open a debate on tangibility, in the belief that it has a strong unifying potential but is also at the same time presents challenging and difficult to define. Here we present some initial thoughts on this topic in a first effort to bring together the approaches that arise from the different practices and projects developed within the partner institutions involved in the EASTN network

Multisensory instrumental dynamics as an emergent paradigm for digital musical creation

The nature of human/instrument interaction is a long-standing area of study, drawing interest from fields as diverse as philosophy, cognitive sciences, anthropology, human–computer-interaction, and artistic creation. In particular, the case of the interaction between performer and musical instrument provides an enticing framework for studying the instrumental dynamics that allow for embodiment, skill acquisition and virtuosity with (electro-)acoustical instruments, and questioning how such notions may be transferred into the realm of digital music technologies and virtual instruments. This paper offers a study of concepts and technologies allowing for instrumental dynamics with Digital Musical Instruments, through an analysis of haptic-audio creation centred on (a) theoretical and conceptual frameworks, (b) technological components—namely physical modelling techniques for the design of virtual mechanical systems and force-feedback technologies allowing mechanical coupling with them, and (c) a corpus of artistic works based on this approach. Through this retrospective, we argue that artistic works created in this field over the last 20 years—and those yet to come—may be of significant importance to the haptics community as new objects that question physicality, tangibility, and creativity from a fresh and rather singular angle. Following which, we discuss the convergence of efforts in this field, challenges still ahead, and the possible emergence of a new transdisciplinary community focused on multisensory digital art forms

Transforming sound by Cordis-anima physical models

Since the early days of computer music, a variety of algorithms have been developed and dedicated to the processing of musical signal thus providing an important workbench for musicians. Although most of them were inspired from natural phenomena like the delay effect from the reflections on a cliff or the variant filtering effect from the modification of the vocal tract when we pronounce different vowels, they were designed using techniques based on signal manipulation with mathematical operations as the domain of signal processing claims.This divergence from the physical phenomenon and the simulation algorithm may be a barrier for the conception of new effects and mostly for their efficient control. Based on this remark, we were motivated to explore the simulation universe CORDIS-ANIMA, a physical modelling language dedicated to reproductions of physical objects of the real world, for a research in the domain of digital audio effects. This article introduces some elementary mathematical operations and several classical signal processing models for filtering designed with the CORDIS-ANIMA formalism: a high pass filter, a band pass filter and a time variant band pass filter. Furthermore some general concepts concerning their control will be presented

Music, Art Installations and Haptic Technology

This paper presents some directions on the design, development and creative use of haptic systems for musical composition, performance and digital art creation. This research has been conducted both from an artistic and a technical point of view and its ambition, over the last decade, apart from the artistic outcome, was to introduce the field of haptics to artistic communities based on an open, do it yourself—DIY ethos. The five directions presented here are not in any sense exhaustive and are based principally on a series of collaborative works and more personal open-ended explorations with the medium of haptics and, more specifically, force-feedback interaction. They will be highlighted along with information about the interaction models and their application to artistic works created by the author and other colleagues. Those directions are (i) Haptic Algorithms and Systems; (ii) Performers Intercoupling; (iii) Haptic Interfaces as Part of the Artistic Practice; (iv) Electromechanical Sound Generation; and (v) Media Art and Art Installations. The interdisciplinary field of musical haptics still has a relatively minor position in the sound and music computing research agendas and, more importantly, its artistic dimension is very rarely discussed. The findings of this research aim to indicate and clarify potential research pathways and offer some results on the use of haptics and force-feedback systems in an artistic context

Théorie et pratique de la transformation du son musical à l'aide des modèles physiques : une approche instrumentale des effets audio-numériques fondés sur le système CORDIS ANIMA

Η παρούσα διατριβή προτείνει την χρήση των τεχνικών φυσικής μοντελοποίησης για την σχεδίαση αλγορίθμων ψηφιακής επεξεργασίας ήχου προορισμένων για μουσική δημιουργία. Η βασική ιδέα στην οποία στηρίχτηκε είναι η παρουσίαση ενός νέου και καινοτομικού τρόπου ελέγχου αλγορίθμων επεξεργασίας ήχου βασισμένου στο πρότυπο αλληλεπίδρασης με τον όρο: αλληλεπίδραση οργάνου (instrumental interaction). Αναζητήθηκε ένας φορμαλισμός φυσικής μοντελοποίησης ο οποίος να επιτρέπει άμεσα την έρευνα για νέα ηχοχρώματα μέσω τεχνικών επεξεργασία ήχου. Συνεπώς η παρούσα έρευνα έχει σαφέστατο μουσικό προσανατολισμό.Η εργασία παρέχει νέα αποτελέσματα και θέτει νέα ερωτήματα σχετικά με τη επεξεργασία ήχου για μουσική δημιουργία και για την σχεδίαση ψηφιακών ακουστικών εφφέ (digital audio effects). Καινοτομία αποτελεί η εισαγωγή χειροvομιών οργάνου (instrumental gesture) για το έλεγχο των αλγόριθμων επεξεργασίας ήχου. Η ίδια ιδέα εφαρμόστηκε και στον αλγόριθμο σύνθεσης ήχου διαμόρφωσης κατά συχνότητα FM (frequency modulation).This thesis proposes the use of physical modeling as a mean of designing musical sound transformations under the concept of instrumental interaction. We were seeking for a physical modeling paradigm that permits straightforwardly the exploration for new sonic possibilities based on sound transformation techniques. Hence the present essay is clearly oriented and devoted to musical creation.This work provides new results and new discussions in musical signal processing and in the design of digital audio effects. The novelty is the introduction of the instrumental gesture in the audio signal processing algorithms. The same concept has been applied to Frequency Modulation (FM) synthesis algorithm.Cette thèse étudie l'utilisation des modèles physiques comme moyen de réaliser des transformations musicales du son selon une approche en termes d'interaction instrumentale. Nous avons recherché un paradigme de modélisation physique qui permette l'exploration de nouvelles possibilités sonores fondées sur les transformations techniques du son. Ce travail est résolument orienté et consacré à la création musicale. Il apporte de nouveaux résultats et objets de discussion au traitement musical du signal et à la réalisation des effets audio-numériques. L'innovation est l'introduction du geste instrumental dans les algorithmes du signal audio. La même approche a été appliquée à la synthèse numérique par Modulation de Fréquence (FM)