Njb/MUS220a/FinalProject

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Chu-Ork-Estra: Strongly-timed, Concurrent, and On-the-fly Ork-estra

IDEA/CONCEPT

To implement a dynamically controllable set of ChucK programs for the purpose of live performance, synchronization, and orchestration of previously recorded short duration loop-able audio files. As an example of performance, human grunting sounds recorded from the home-brew microphone are used to create images of the underworld in the CCRMA 16-channel Listening Room. The grunting sounds of the audio files paint a clear image of orks marching around a desolate land working on medieval devices (similar to many scenes from the Lord of the Rings).

PROCESS

Thirty individual grunting sounds (10 short, 10 medium, and 10 long) were recorded into Audacity as a single stream. The files were then cut up into isolated events and saved with a numerical naming convection. Three folders were created to organize and store each class of recorded sounds (using folder names 1,2,3) as well. The naming convection allows for easy manipulation and access within the ChucK programing language.

Once all of the files are ready, the SndBuf command in ChucK can be used to playback the files. For variation, a random number generator can be used to pick a random file among the folders and set a random playback rate (slower for lower grunts, faster for higher grunts). The playback of a single sample can then be looped and added together with other samples, all in a synchronized fashion (similar to moe.ck, larry.ck, and curly.ck files found in the ChucK distribution). By varying the synchronization quantization, playback rates, tempo, volume, panning, and the number of simultaneous sample playback very interesting/exciting sounds result.

To paint the image of an underworld filled with Orks marching around, the 16-channels of discrete audio must be used intelligently with dynamic panning abilities. Within the listening space, four channels are spatially spaced below the listener, four above, and eight all around. The lower four channels are used for larger sounding (slower play rate) samples as in a dungeon, where as the upper four channels are used for the smaller (faster play rate) sounding samples. The middle eight channels are used for mid-range sounds. Occasionally, overlap occurs for the specific reason of sounding like an army marching around.

To simulate marching, each looping sample playback must gradually move from one speaker to the next, within its respective speaker range. To do this ideally, 16 individual gain values should be used to equal-power-pan a single sample playback. Unfortunately, this requires an array of 16 gain unit-generators for a single sample, limiting the overall number of voices allowed in ChucK. To avoid this issue and take advantage of the simple panning requirement of moving in a circle, only two gain values can be used with a dynamically updating assignment to which channel the output audio feed into using the chuck and unchuck commands. Once the panning problem is broken down using only two consecutive speakers, a equal-power stereo panning algorithm can be used to place the sounds anywhere in between the two channels.


RECORDED SOUNDS

Short Duration Grunts

Medium Duration Grunts

Long Duration Grunts


FINAL CHUCK FILES