mysterybear: tag

Drone Instrument/Sruti Box: New Version

Posted 14 November 2010, 08:47

Latest release: version 2.8, 14-Nov-2010 (see release notes below).

In 2005, I made a drone instrument. It’s been in the back of my mind for a long time to revise it, and I have finally done so. Here is a substantially rewritten version, one that has better sound quality and more sonic possibilities. Hopefully it is also easier to use.

You are welcome to use this instrument in your own music. If you do, I’d love to know about it and hear the recordings (if any).

Before I explain how to install and use it, I’d first like to thank Andrés Cabrera and his collaborators for QuteCsound, the excellent new authoring and performance front-end for Csound. I made this instrument in QuteCsound, and QuteCsound is required to play it. Andres and Joachim Heintz generously helped me to get this right, fixing bugs and offering useful suggestions.

Thanks also to David First, from whose article The Music of the Sphere: An Investigation into Asymptotic Harmonics, Brainwave Entrainment and the Earth as a Giant Bell comes the Asymptotic Sawtooth Wave, which is a new waveform choice in this version of the instrument.

For background information, please see the original article for background information on the drone box, much of which still applies.

Click for a full-size image.

Installing

Download Csound5 from here – here is the link to the Windows installer. There are Mac and Linux versions as well, and they should all work, but I have not used them myself.
Run the Csound5 installer you just downloaded.
Download the Sruti/Drone Box and save it somewhere that you’ll remember, such as the desktop.

Running

Run QuteCsound: on Windows, go to the Csound menu from the Start button and then click “qutecsound”).
Open the Sruti/Drone Box in QuteCsound: click the Open button, find the Sruti/Drone Box file you downloaded above and double-click it (the filename is SuiteDrone-2.8.csd).
If you don’t see something that looks like the image above, click the Widgets button in QuteCsound.
When you see the Sruti/Drone Box, click the Start button.

Playing

There are two different approaches to setting the base pitch (i.e., the pitch against which the individual drone ratios are measured):
- Set it as a raw frequency in hertz (i.e., cycles per second) in the *Base (Hz)” field
- Set it as using pitch class notation — a number like 5.11, where the number on the left is the octave and the number on the right is a note number ranging from 0 to 11 (based on standard equal temperament, with 12 notes to the octave, where 0 equals C, 1 equals C#, etc.). You must have the “Pitch Class” option checked for this to work. If you use this method, you may also use the drop-down menu to set the note by name as an alternative to remembering note numbers.
There are four different drones, each with its own pitch ratio and octave (relative to the base pitch, which is also settable). To play a drone, click its On button. Each drone has a green “LED” that lights up to indicate that it’s playing. Click Off to stop the drone. You can start or stop all drones at once using the “All On” and “All Off” buttons.
Use the Wave button to select a waveform; this is applied to all four drones. The Wave setting will not change any drones that are already playing. If you change it, you must turn the drones off and on again.
There are three different effects: Risset harmonic arpeggio, binaural beating, and reverb. You may change any of these settings at any time, even when the drones are playing, and your changes will take place immediately.
With the exception of the Wave setting, you may change all other settings, such as the pitch controls in real time, and the changes will take effect immediately.

Effects

The harmonic arpeggio effect is most effective (for the way I most often use it) at small values around 0.01, but you can get some interesting sounds at higher settings.
Binaural beating: the BPS (beats per second) setting determines the beating rate; the Level setting determines how loud the beating signal will be (in addition to the regular drones).
Reverb: you should probably keep the Feedback setting at least slightly below 1.0, otherwise the signal may get out of control.
To disable the harmonic arpeggio effect, set its level to 0.
To disable binaural beating, set its level to 0.
To disable reverb, set the slider all the way to “Dry”.
You may change all of the effects settings in real time.

Recording the Output

As of version 2.8, you may specify the name of a file to which the sound output will be recorded as a 16-bit, 44.1 kHz WAV file. If you leave this field blank, no file will be made.
- Caveat 1: if you use this option, it is likely to cause the realtime sound output to glitch; however, the soundfile itself should contain a clean recording.
- Caveat 2: you should specify the output file using a complete path, otherwise you may not be able the file (although it will probably be located in the same directory as the CSD file). Likewise, you should name the file with the extension “.wav” (e.g., “mydrone.wav”), because an extension will not be added automatically.
You should set the filename before you click the “Start” button. If you change it after you click “Start”, the change will have no effect.

Presets

QuteCsound has a preset features that allows you to save your settings, including multiple variations of setting. This is very handy if you come up with different tunings and effects configurations: just save them, each with a different name, and you can recall them at any time (without having to do something tedious like writing them all down and painstakingly reentering them).

If you right-click on the Sruti/Drone Box, you will see three items at the end of the menu called “Store Preset”, “Recall Preset” and “New Preset”. Use Store to save your current settings, either to an existing preset name or to a new one; use Recall to use a previously saved preset; use New to make a new one.

I have established a few presets to give you some idea of the possibilities.

Tuning Ratios

I use ratios because I prefer the sound of intervals tuned in just intonation, and ratios are the simplest and most precise notation for describing them.

Here are some commonly used ratios for a diatonic scale in just intonation (the note names are for reference only):

C D E F G A B C

1/1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 15/8 2/1

There are many other possible ratios, even for a diatonic scale. See Tuning Systems and follow the links if you would like to know more.

For an Indian classical music perspective on tuning and just intonation, see Shrutis in Hindustani Music.

Sample Drones

Sruti/Drone Box samples by mysterybear

Updates & Release Notes

version 2.8 (14-Nov-2010)
- option to record session (WAV file)
- use vco2 for higher-quality saw, square, and (new) triangle waves; still using poscil3 for other waves
- add a fifth drone
- add “All On” and “All Off” buttons to activate/deactivate all drones at once
- rename “Notes” to “Pitch class”
version 2.7 (09-Oct-2010)
- always play primary oscillator for each tone, independent of harmonic arpeggio or binaural beat output
- made all pitch controls (Ratio, 8ve, and Base) changeable in realtime
- add option to tune base frequency to conventional (Western) pitches, using pitch-class (8ve.note) or note name
version 2.6 (26-Sep-2010)
- add level control for Risset effect (now labelled Harmonic Arpeggio); this allows the use of binaural beating by itself
- line up all effects horizontally
- use SpinBox for Harmonic Arpeggio Offset and Binaural Beats BPS, for finer control
- normalize level controls to use 0.0-1.0 range
- change multiplier for BB level from 5x to 4x, seems to match HA level better
- layout tweakage
version 2.5 (12 -Sep-2010)
- base freq. now has greater precision to make it easier to tune to other instruments, thanks to David First
version 2.4 (12-Sep-2010)
- fixes a bug in the binaural beating code, thanks to Mark Van Peteghem for pointing it out
version 2.3 (12-Sep-2010)
- first release of the new version

Download Links

Tags

csound, david first, drones, just intonation, qutecsound, realtime, sruthi box, sruti box

Sublimation (Realtime Version)

Posted 11 March 2006, 12:52

Description

A live performance version of my piece Sublimation, as arranged by Art Hunkins. Requires Csound 5.0 and a MIDI controller with 6-8 sliders or rotary pots.

Duration: 12 minutes.

Background & Technical Details

This is Art’s fourth realtime arrangement of one of my pieces. This one pushes the envelope — the sheer number of simultaneous oscillators along with the reverb processing makes this a very processor-intensive piece. Art made two variations, one using precision oscillators (as in my original version) and one using lower-precision interpolating oscillators, and also explains how to adjust the sampling rate if necessary to achieve a smooth performance; this is all explained in his performance notes.

Thanks again to Art for his dedication, time and energy. I appreciate his hard work not only on a selfish level, but also because of his tireless efforts to promote Csound as a viable and powerful tool for cross-platform realtime musical performance. To other Csound composers, I recommend reading and studying his code to learn some great techniques. Please visit Art’s site to check out his own beautiful and contemplative music.

Files

Performance notes (9KB)
CSD files and performance notes, as a zip archive (9KB)

Tags

art hunkins, collaborations, combination tones, just intonation, la monte young, midi, realtime

Drift Dhikr Interactive

Posted 26 July 2005, 17:55

Description

A live performance version of my piece Drift Dhikr, as arranged by Art Hunkins. For realtime versions of Csound, with or without MIDI controllers.

Background & Technical Details

See the Drift Dhikr page for background. Art’s arrangements (there are actually twelve different variants) make it possible for the performer to control several aspects of the piece, including the duration, the choice of starting interval, and more. Several of the variants are designed specifically for people with hardware MIDI controllers. See Art’s performance notes for all the details.

This is the third collaboration so far for Art and me, and as before I thank him for his interest and his energy. Please be sure to check out Art’s own music. It’s great stuff.

Copyright & Licensing

Files

Performance notes (10KB)
CSD files and performance notes, as a zip archive (44KB)

Tags

art hunkins, collaborations, combination tones, just intonation, midi, realtime

Gemini Nebula Live

Posted 9 March 2005, 08:30

Description

A live performance version of The Gemini Nebula, arranged by Art Hunkins for realtime versions of Csound. Several variants are included: with or without MIDI controllers, stereo or quad.

Background & Technical Details

For details on the original version of the piece, see the Gemini Nebula page. In this version, Art Hunkins has taken the primary compositional elements and put them under control of the performer, using either graphical controls on the screen or MIDI controllers (sliders or knobs). He has also, in the quadraphonic variants, added an additional spatial element that is not present in my original piece.

Thank you, Art, for seeing new possibilities in this music and making them real! Please see Art’s site for many more beautiful and fascinating works of realtime electronic music.

Copyright & Licensing

Files

Csound unified score files (21KB)
Performance notes (text, 8KB)

Tags

art hunkins, collaborations, midi, realtime

Cloud Dragon

Posted 7 December 2004, 17:56

Description

A live electronic piece; a series of swelling sustained chords built from the combination tones resulting from just-tuned dyads, over an optional drone.

Duration: variable. Requires a performer, a PC, one or two banks of eight continuous MIDI controllers (optional) and certain versions of Csound (see below for details).

Realized for live performance by Art Hunkins.

Background & Technical Details

This is a live-performance (i.e., real-time) Csound piece based on Combination Study 1, made in collaboration with Art Hunkins. It was Art’s idea to transform CS1 into a live piece. I did a little work on the visual appearance, and came up with some ideas for opening up the possibilities of the piece, but Art is responsible for all the hard work of designing and coding the performance arrangements, as well as writing the performance notes — he really drove this project. There are several different versions of the piece included, as explained in the performance notes, excerpted below:

There are three major versions of Cloud Dragon – indicated as v1, v2, and v3. They differ by performance instrumentation: v1 uses only computer mouse and monitor; v2 requires a bank of 8 MIDI (continuous) controllers – either pots or sliders; v3 requires 12 (or 14) controllers, configured as a bank of 8 and a bank of 4 (or 6).

There are three variants of each version as well – indicated as a, b, and c. Variant a is the most basic, offering preset Chord Ratios; its fixed six-chord sequence (and suggested performance order) is 8/5, 7/5, 6/5, 7/6, 9/8 and 5/4; eight-chord sequences add a final 4/3 and 3/2.

Variant b allows the performer to select his/her own Chord Ratios; the choices (numerator and denominator) are integers between 1 and 1500. Default settings are the fixed ones indicated above. In addition, the performer can select a single Chord-to-Drone Root Ratio – a kind of global transposition factor for all chords. (Default is 1/1 – no transposition.) Again, integers up to 1500 are allowed in numerator and denominator. All these ratios may be varied during performance, but doing so is not encouraged. Any change takes place with the following chord.

Variant c permits the performer, in addition to the above, to specify Chord-to-Drone Root Ratios independently for each chord (all defaults, 1/1). This variant encourages you to explore the wide-open possibilities of tuning systems referenced by Dave Seidel on his Combination Study 1 webpage (see above).

Versions 3b and 3c have the highest degree of flexibility and will hopefully be interesting and fun for anyone who would like to experiment in realtime with complex ratios that are not necessarily anchored to the “root” (1/1) established by the drone.

Because this is a live performance piece that employs a graphical user interface, only certain versions of Csound are suitable. See the performance notes (available below as a separate download) for details.

For more information on the underlying musical/acoustical concepts, see the notes for Combination Study 1. The title comes from an image I get when listening to the piece: a winged serpent weaving in and out of the tops of the clouds, sinuous and gleaming in the sun.

My sincere thanks to Art Hunkins for envisioning this project and making it happen. “Cloud Dragon” is also listed on his site, along with some of Art’s other compositions (electronic and otherwise, most of them realtime), which are lovely and well worth checking out.

Copyright & Licensing

Files

Performance notes (text, 8KB)
Csound unified score files and performance notes (zip, 42KB)

Tags

art hunkins, collaborations, combination tones, just intonation, midi, realtime