Jrowell 220D

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Collaborative Drum/Synth Instrument


The project is a collaborative two person instrument which integrates inputs from a keyboard and an electronic drum set to create a single pitched but highly rhythmic output.

The basis for the sound of this project is the observation that the basis of much of modern electronic music (e.g. Bangarang by Skrillex) is a string of highly rhythmically varied, filtered, and processed single notes rather than a polyphonic texture. As a result, I often find live performance uninteresting as it is not significantly varied from the recorded version. One of the reasons for this is that the sequencing and controlling of the music is being controlled only by a single person at once and a person can only interact and control so much at once. To expand on the live performance aspects of this music I would like to see new control interfaces built which allow for greater collaborative playing; This project is one such attempt.

Hardware- The keys are being controlled by an Akai Keyboard MIDI controller; the drum input is being controlled by a Yamaha DTX400K electronic drum set.


Software- Pd is being used to integrate MIDI inputs and perform the synthesis. The model that ended up working most successfully was to have continuous generation of several complex tones with filters and parameters controlled by the keyboard knobs, and ADSR envelopes controlling output keyed by the drum input. The pitch of each tone is assigned by the keys pressed on the keyboard with the pitches being assigned from bottom to top to the kick, snare, hat, toms and cymbals in that order. In the event of insufficient keys being pressed to assign all pads, the higher pads are assigned the root and the fifth in varying octaves.