Music 256a / CS 476a | Fall 2016
Music, Computing, and Design I: Art of Design for Computer Music
Romain Michon (Instructor) and Tim O'Brien (TA)
Course Information
Class: MW 3:30-5:20pm
Labs/Office Hours: Mondays (starting Oct. 3, i.e. week 2), 6:30pm - 9:30pm, CCRMA Classroom (the Knoll)
Location: CCRMA Classroom (the Knoll)
Prerequisite: prior programming experience
Creative design of computer music software. Programming, audiovisual design, as well as software design for musical tools, instruments, toys, and games. Provides paradigms and strategies for designing and building music software, with emphases on interactive systems, aesthetics, and artful product design. Course work includes several programming assignments and a "design+implement" final project. Prerequisite: experience in C/C++ and/or Java.
Course topics include:
- design principles and patterns for audio software (C++)
- experiential design and aesthetics of audiovisual software
- interactive system integration (audio, graphics, networking, etc.)
- essential data structures and algorithms in audio programming
- C++ sound synthesis and processing fundamentals
- audio plug-ins design (AU, VST, RTAS and AAX)
- music controller and hardware integration (MIDI)
- toy + game design for music; artful product design
- building real-time software systems for computer music
Assignments
There will be assignments every week until week 6 after which students will be able to focus on final projects. Assignments are due the following week on Wednesday before class. Students are allowed 4 late days throughout the quarter after which 15% per day will be removed to the grade of the related assignment.
Grading
- Assignments: 50%
- Final project: 50%
Schedule
Week 1
Lectures
- Presentation of the Course
- Lecture 1: Overview of the World of Music and Audio Softwares
- Lecture 2: Acoustics and Digital Audio Basics
- Lecture 3: Audio Software Architecture Basics
- Lecture 4: Digital Lutherie - Designing "Modern" Musical Instruments
Homeworks/Assignements
Resources
- What is "sound"?
- Amplitude of a sound
- Human perception of loudness
- Frequency, period and wavelength
- Sine Waves
- White noise
- Inharmonicity
- Harmonics
- Fourier series
- Digital audio theory
- Shannon sampling theorem
- Audio bit depth
- Aliasing
- Audio Clipping
Starter/Example Codes
- Basic audio application: a simple sine wave oscillator
- Basic audio plug-in: a simple audio plug-in generating a sine wave
Week 2
Lectures
Homeworks/Assignements
Resources
- ADSR envelope
- Additive synthesis
- Re-synthesis
- Amplitude modulation (AM)
- Frequency modulation (FM)
- More on FM
- Waveshaping synthesis
- Subtractive synthesis
- Granular synthesis
- Mass/spring physical modeling
- Modal physical modeling
- Waveguide physical modeling
- Karplus-Strong algorithm
- Vocal synthesis
- Sample-based synthesis
- Synthesis Tool-Kit (STK)
- Faust website
- Faust documentation
- CCRMA Faust summer workshop
- CCRMA Faust online course
- Faust cheat sheet
- Faust playground: web app to play with Faust
- Faust online compiler
Starter/Example Codes
- Amplitude modulation (AM) JUCE demo application
- Frequency modulation (FM) JUCE demo application
- Synthesis ToolKit (STK) demo application
- Faust sound synthesis examples
- Faust synth in JUCE demo application
- Faust stereo effect in JUCE demo application
Week 3
Lectures
Homeworks/Assignements
- Homework 3: MIDI Synth (Due Oct. 24, 2016)
Resources
- CV/gate
- Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI)
- MIDI Specs
- Multidimensional Polyphonic Expression(MPE)
- Open Sound Control (OSC)
Starter/Example Codes
- FMReverb: Shows how to add a Faust reverb to the FM example from week 2.
- MIDIPolySynth: JUCE based application demonstrating how to make a polyphonic synthesizer.
- JUCE MPE Tutorial
Week 4
Lectures
Homeworks/Assignments
Resources
- JUCE Processing Audio Unit Tutorial
- Ring Modulation/Amplitude Modulation
- Distortion Effect
- Echo Effect
- Wah Effect
- Flanger Effect
- Phaser Effect
- Chorus Effect
- Vocoder
- Pitch Shifting
- Reverb
Starter/Example Codes
- Faust Sound Effects: a collection of common sound effects implemented in Faust
- Faust stereo effect in JUCE demo application
- 2D visualization application example (spectrogram and spectroscope)
Stanford Design Challenge: Audio and Education - October 23
More informations about this event are available here. Any of the students of Music 256a / CS 476a who will attend to this event will get an automatic A+ to that week's homework! Check out the flyer too.
Week 5
Lectures
Homeworks/Assignments
Resources
- Last year's projects, for inspiration.
- OpenFrameworks (Download | Documentation | learning & how-tos | github)
- OpenFrameworks Addons: ofxFft, ofxStk, ofxAddons.com
- Faust Sound Effects: a collection of common sound effects implemented in Faust
- Making C++ DSP Modules with Faust
- Faust stereo effect in JUCE demo application
- JUCE 2D visualisation application example (spectrogram and spectroscope)
- SndPeek
Starter/Example Codes
- ofxPlanets.zip, an OpenFrameworks project with simple graphical manipulations.
- ofxWaveformWaterfall.zip, an OpenFrameworks project which plots input audio waveforms in a waterfall, like in sndpeek.
- ofxFaustExample.zip, an OpenFrameworks project which uses a Faust-compiled reverb. Very similar to the previous JUCE starter code
- ofxBokehExample.zip, an OpenFrameworks project which draws "bokeh" textures which are activated by the frequency content of incoming audio. NOTE: requires the ofxFft addon. See here for more info on addons and how to install them.
- JUCE: Faust Sound Effects: a collection of common sound effects implemented in Faust
- JUCE: Faust stereo effect in JUCE demo application
- JUCE: 2D visualization application example (spectrogram and spectroscope)
Final Presentation
December 6, Tuesday, at 6:30pm on the CCRMA Stage
Mailing List
- Please feel free to email instructors Romain and Tim individually.
- Upon enrollment, your @stanford.edu email is automatically added to the music256a-aut1617-students@lists.stanford.edu mailing list. This list is updated every night, so recent changes may not take effect until the next day. You can also chat with your classmates by emailing the list. If you have trouble, be sure to send from your @stanford address.
Piazza forum
- This term we will be using Piazza for class discussion. The system is highly catered to getting you help fast and efficiently from classmates and instructors.
- Our forum is at piazza.com/stanford/fall2016/Music256aCS476a
- If you are not yet a member of the forum, you should be able to sign up with your Stanford credentials.