I tried to make a sort of chiptune quality TB-303 emulation.

It's all done in PD. I sometimes do a mixdown in a DAW, but that's really basic. I still do all the effects and everything in PD.

I may just be unreasonably stubborn.

..Shure one could use some kind of musicmaker-software where you combine some predefined sound-slices, add a little "britney-bitch"-stuff and sell it to the masses, -well more or less.. but that's not art I'd say.
In Pd you have more control over the details, but that takes more time, right?! But it seems to be worth it. Your music sometimes reminds me of the early works of AFX.

And is it all automated, or do you interact with it while it's playing?
When I made some music, that was before I started with Pd...now I just make test-sounds..;), I used to use some fonkey drums. Going in the Dnb-direction. I've had some vst-plugins, which could slice and rearrange eg. drum-loops with some nice but unknown (to me) algorithm. The results were quite good with the right configuration.
So to cut it short.., did you try to use some algo on beats with success?? ..I guess you do use some sort of algorithm in general..

I presented this at Notacon 10, which conveniently forced me to update everything. Here's the complete patch: http://acreil.wordpress.com/2013/04/20/algorithmic-composition-of-acid-house-with-lo-fi-timbres/

@Flipp said:

And is it all automated, or do you interact with it while it's playing?
When I made some music, that was before I started with Pd...now I just make test-sounds..;), I used to use some fonkey drums. Going in the Dnb-direction. I've had some vst-plugins, which could slice and rearrange eg. drum-loops with some nice but unknown (to me) algorithm. The results were quite good with the right configuration.
So to cut it short.., did you try to use some algo on beats with success?? ..I guess you do use some sort of algorithm in general..

I totally missed these questions before: it's all automated, but I do some manual editing and mixing. Usually I set it to record 20 minutes or so, then look for some good portion to excerpt.

I used Euclidean sequencers for the drum patterns (I stole the abstraction from another thread and added some stuff to it). I think the drum patterns in this one aren't the most successful thing ever, but it worked out ok. What also seems promising is switching at various points between several pre-programmed patterns. Certainly there's other stuff to try here...

Still working on the "britney-bitch" and selling to the masses parts.

I just fixed some bugs and updated it; try downloading it again if you want to actually use it.

hi acreil,
Thanks for posting this abstraction. Really great stuff!!! and sounds beautiful.
I was wondering how you build up the sound from scratch. So far I was mainly learning how to work with Pd. But now I'd like to go deeper and make my own sounds, like you did. And now, honestly, I have no idea how to do it or where to begin. I can start looking into other people's patch and try to figure it out myself, but it's quite difficult. Do you have any references or resources to recommend? I guess this question also goes for designing an algorithm sequencer: where to start?
Thanks again for any help here.
And - of course - if any of you guys can share something as well, that would be awesome.

ymotion

I have a pretty good understanding of many types of synthesis, and I've studied a lot of commercial implementations, so there's a large base of ideas that I can just sort of combine arbitrarily, by trial and error.

For example, the bass sound is partly an arbitrary piecewise linear waveform generator (sort of inspired by Xenakis's GENDYN work, but also Juergen Haible's interpolating scanner and the Oberheim Xpander's tracking generator) and partly a sort of fake resonant waveform (inspired by the Casio CZ synthesizers, VOSIM, etc. and also wavetable synths like the PPG Wave and the additive synthesis mode of the Fairlight CMI). The waveform resolution is reduced so that it resembles chiptune-like sounds (similar to the triangle wave of the NES or the arbitrary waveforms of the Turbografx 16/PCEngine, or again certain wavetable synths), and I also did special things to reduce aliasing... The end result isn't styled after anything in particular; it just combines elements of a number of ideas that I thought would be interesting.

So I do far too much reading, then come up with novel ways to combine or modify various ideas. There are also a number of new things in here also that I'll have to describe in detail for them to make any sense. I tried writing some papers on them earlier this year, but didn't have enough time to finish.

The sequencing, etc. is again just a combination of different things I'd tried previously or read about. It's really a lot simpler than what I usually do.

I'd recommend reading DAFx and CMJ papers, Curtis Roads books and also more theoretical stuff, keeping lots of notes, and experimenting.

Hi acreil,
thanks for the info!!! It seems like a huge topic to explore

ymotion

fantastic! love it

wow acreil that reverb patch youve shown in post # 3 is unreal. is this by chance a patch youve published?

@nepalnt21 said:

wow acreil that reverb patch youve shown in post # 3 is unreal. is this by chance a patch youve published?

It was an early version of the same one I used in the main patch here: http://acreil.wordpress.com/2013/04/20/algorithmic-composition-of-acid-house-with-lo-fi-timbres/

that is amazing. thanks for posting.