Think it's time to shift this to a new thread…

All this nostalgic talk has got me thinking about the influence of  
the technical resources available when we start out on the type of  
music we eventually create.

I my case, my first contact with a computer was an old Commodore PET  
4032 (kids - ask your grandparents) which had precisely zero musical  
applications, but I did learn to program in BASIC.

A few years later I was able to get my hands on the then state-of-the- 
art BBC Model B - with FOUR mono sound channels. The limited  
programming skills I possessed, coupled with the limitation of three  
part polyphony (the fourth channel was a noise generator) tended to  
lead me to experiment with integral serial ideas - the machine was  
perfect for generating streams of notes in completely independent  
rhythmic configurations, even randomly choosing row forms and  
transpositions. Moreover, it had microtonal capabilities, which  
allowed me to explore untempered tunings and so forth.

Today, I STILL tend to start from a more-or-less serial process  
(though I normally abandon any strict system by the time it's  
generated enough material). I'm sure this is directly attributable to  
those early experiments.

So - what about the rest of you? It would be interesting to see if  
there's any correlation on a "generational" basis - I started out  
with eight-bit processors, cassette drive, 32k RAM (no, honest -  
there really WAS a time when RAM was measured in kB!! Youngsters  
today - they don't know they're born… ;-) ) and very basic sound  
generators (the Beeb basically produced a sort-of square wave). Later  
generations take sampling and real-time capabilities for granted, but  
it's not really that long since composers were still taking razor  
blades to half-inch tape. Does greater ease of working necessarily  
produce more good music? Works like Konakte, Gesang der Jünglinge and  
Poème électronique were produced using test equipment and tape- 
splicing, after all.

Joe

email:	info@joeofarrell.com
web:	www.joeofarrell.com

skype:	joeofarrell

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80's (70's?)
i learned BASIC on a TRS-80, and some Z-80 on a friend's 
Exity Sorcerer back in high school.  i remeber the PET. the VIC and the 64 
were the ones to have for sound.

I recall a friend doing something like pulse density sampling through the 
parallel or serial port with a simple capacitor charging -> amplifier -> 
voltage triggered discharge circuit. some pretty ugly music there. for the 
most part, his playback i could not desern the source from. later others 
friends rolled with amiga mod players. at this time i was cutting 1/4" 
tape and hacking walkmans. low bling for the wretched.

90's
It wasn't until Pentium I machines were making their way into the 
dustbin (with sound blaster 16!) that i was able to cook up RedHat 5 / 
win95 on a machine that i owned myself. QBASIC -> hand written scores for 
a while, then C -> midi files. Then csound, python, lisp, c++, java, 
envy24 interface.

2009
Now i'm beyond my depth in CPU power at home and at work 
with access to hpcs and multicore! (and waist deep in electronic waste ;P) 
It seems so overkill, perhaps you'll discover some subtle intractibility 
and need it some day but I find my brain to be the biggest obsticle / 
mystery in this devination of computer music science art. Sadly, most of 
those CPU cycles go towards computer distraction and not computer music.

kelly


On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 7:56 PM, Joe O'Farrell  wrote:
>
> Think it's time to shift this to a new thread…
>
> All this nostalgic talk has got me thinking about the influence of the
> technical resources available when we start out on the type of music we
> eventually create.
>
> I my case, my first contact with a computer was an old Commodore PET 4032
> (kids - ask your grandparents) which had precisely zero musical
> applications, but I did learn to program in BASIC.
>
> A few years later I was able to get my hands on the then state-of-the-art
> BBC Model B - with FOUR mono sound channels. The limited programming skills
> I possessed, coupled with the limitation of three part polyphony (the fourth
> channel was a noise generator) tended to lead me to experiment with integral
> serial ideas - the machine was perfect for generating streams of notes in
> completely independent rhythmic configurations, even randomly choosing row
> forms and transpositions. Moreover, it had microtonal capabilities, which
> allowed me to explore untempered tunings and so forth.
>
> Today, I STILL tend to start from a more-or-less serial process (though I
> normally abandon any strict system by the time it's generated enough
> material). I'm sure this is directly attributable to those early
> experiments.
>
> So - what about the rest of you? It would be interesting to see if there's
> any correlation on a "generational" basis - I started out with eight-bit
> processors, cassette drive, 32k RAM (no, honest - there really WAS a time
> when RAM was measured in kB!! Youngsters today - they don't know they're
> born… ;-) ) and very basic sound generators (the Beeb basically produced a
> sort-of square wave). Later generations take sampling and real-time
> capabilities for granted, but it's not really that long since composers were
> still taking razor blades to half-inch tape. Does greater ease of working
> necessarily produce more good music? Works like Konakte, Gesang der
> Jünglinge and Poème électronique were produced using test equipment and
> tape-splicing, after all.
>
> Joe
>
> email:  info@joeofarrell.com
> web:    www.joeofarrell.com
>
> skype:  joeofarrell
>
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe
> csound"

Hi,

I learned to program on an Atari 600XL, but always liked my neighbor's
Commodore 64, which could do 3 seconds of "Kung foo fighting"....
My Atari had 4 voice polyphony, but it always sounded out of tune to me....

Cheers,
Andrés

On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 7:56 PM, Joe O'Farrell  wrote:
>
> Think it's time to shift this to a new thread…
>
> All this nostalgic talk has got me thinking about the influence of the
> technical resources available when we start out on the type of music we
> eventually create.
>
> I my case, my first contact with a computer was an old Commodore PET 4032
> (kids - ask your grandparents) which had precisely zero musical
> applications, but I did learn to program in BASIC.
>
> A few years later I was able to get my hands on the then state-of-the-art
> BBC Model B - with FOUR mono sound channels. The limited programming skills
> I possessed, coupled with the limitation of three part polyphony (the fourth
> channel was a noise generator) tended to lead me to experiment with integral
> serial ideas - the machine was perfect for generating streams of notes in
> completely independent rhythmic configurations, even randomly choosing row
> forms and transpositions. Moreover, it had microtonal capabilities, which
> allowed me to explore untempered tunings and so forth.
>
> Today, I STILL tend to start from a more-or-less serial process (though I
> normally abandon any strict system by the time it's generated enough
> material). I'm sure this is directly attributable to those early
> experiments.
>
> So - what about the rest of you? It would be interesting to see if there's
> any correlation on a "generational" basis - I started out with eight-bit
> processors, cassette drive, 32k RAM (no, honest - there really WAS a time
> when RAM was measured in kB!! Youngsters today - they don't know they're
> born… ;-) ) and very basic sound generators (the Beeb basically produced a
> sort-of square wave). Later generations take sampling and real-time
> capabilities for granted, but it's not really that long since composers were
> still taking razor blades to half-inch tape. Does greater ease of working
> necessarily produce more good music? Works like Konakte, Gesang der
> Jünglinge and Poème électronique were produced using test equipment and
> tape-splicing, after all.
>
> Joe
>
> email:  info@joeofarrell.com
> web:    www.joeofarrell.com
>
> skype:  joeofarrell
>
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe
> csound"



-- 


Andrés


Send bugs reports to this list.
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I guess I might consider myself lucky: my first prolonged encounter  
with a computer was on an Atari with
CDP software, soundstreamer (+sony PCM dac/adc)  and Csound. Could do  
44.1Khz, but took longer,
so I contented myself with 22.05K. I was a PG student then, so it was  
not a very early thing at all.



On 7 Dec 2009, at 19:43, Andres Cabrera wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I learned to program on an Atari 600XL, but always liked my neighbor's
> Commodore 64, which could do 3 seconds of "Kung foo fighting"....
> My Atari had 4 voice polyphony, but it always sounded out of tune to  
> me....
>
> Cheers,
> Andrés
>
> On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 7:56 PM, Joe O'Farrell  > wrote:
>>
>> Think it's time to shift this to a new thread…
>>
>> All this nostalgic talk has got me thinking about the influence of  
>> the
>> technical resources available when we start out on the type of  
>> music we
>> eventually create.
>>
>> I my case, my first contact with a computer was an old Commodore  
>> PET 4032
>> (kids - ask your grandparents) which had precisely zero musical
>> applications, but I did learn to program in BASIC.
>>
>> A few years later I was able to get my hands on the then state-of- 
>> the-art
>> BBC Model B - with FOUR mono sound channels. The limited  
>> programming skills
>> I possessed, coupled with the limitation of three part polyphony  
>> (the fourth
>> channel was a noise generator) tended to lead me to experiment with  
>> integral
>> serial ideas - the machine was perfect for generating streams of  
>> notes in
>> completely independent rhythmic configurations, even randomly  
>> choosing row
>> forms and transpositions. Moreover, it had microtonal capabilities,  
>> which
>> allowed me to explore untempered tunings and so forth.
>>
>> Today, I STILL tend to start from a more-or-less serial process  
>> (though I
>> normally abandon any strict system by the time it's generated enough
>> material). I'm sure this is directly attributable to those early
>> experiments.
>>
>> So - what about the rest of you? It would be interesting to see if  
>> there's
>> any correlation on a "generational" basis - I started out with  
>> eight-bit
>> processors, cassette drive, 32k RAM (no, honest - there really WAS  
>> a time
>> when RAM was measured in kB!! Youngsters today - they don't know  
>> they're
>> born… ;-) ) and very basic sound generators (the Beeb basically  
>> produced a
>> sort-of square wave). Later generations take sampling and real-time
>> capabilities for granted, but it's not really that long since  
>> composers were
>> still taking razor blades to half-inch tape. Does greater ease of  
>> working
>> necessarily produce more good music? Works like Konakte, Gesang der
>> Jünglinge and Poème électronique were produced using test equipment  
>> and
>> tape-splicing, after all.
>>
>> Joe
>>
>> email:  info@joeofarrell.com
>> web:    www.joeofarrell.com
>>
>> skype:  joeofarrell
>>
>> Send bugs reports to this list.
>> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body  
>> "unsubscribe
>> csound"
>
>
>
> -- 
>
>
> Andrés
>
>
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body  
> "unsubscribe csound"



Send bugs reports to this list.
To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe csound"

On Sat, 2009-12-05 at 19:56 +0000, Joe O'Farrell wrote:
> Think it's time to shift this to a new thread…
> 
> All this nostalgic talk has got me thinking about the influence of  
> the technical resources available when we start out on the type of  
> music we eventually create.

I believe it is more relevant to consider what kind of music have you
already heard, and thus the expectations you set on your music. I
remember when I first started playing with electronic/computer music
(about 3 or 4 years ago), I found it really hard to really know what I
was doing, since all tutorials/guides start with a single (usually sine)
wave, which is a very boring sound if you have ever listened to the
radio. I eventually took a course in my university which finally made me
learn csound.
So for me the limiting factor was (and still is) that with my knowledge
of the tools I have available, I have a hard time creating sounds which
I find pleasing. This is specially true with csound, which requires you
to really know what you are doing (as opposed to, say, Reason, where you
just move a few knobs around and get fairly decent sounds right away).


-- 
Saludos,
Felipe Sateler

This actually got me thinking. I believe my first foray into computer 
music was circa 1998. I took an introductory programming class in high 
school and remember sequencing Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People" 
in BASIC. Right around that time (and cooler/nerdier) I found out that 
you could take those TI-82 graphing calculators and write a program that 
was really a bunch of nonsensical strings. But if you held it up next to 
a radio set to a static and ran the program, you could hear tones 
depending on what characters were used in the strings! I also programmed 
Pong! on that thing...I'm still kind of proud of it :-) .

It all comes full circle, I guess.

.mmb

kelly hirai wrote:
> 80's (70's?)
> i learned BASIC on a TRS-80, and some Z-80 on a friend's Exity 
> Sorcerer back in high school.  i remeber the PET. the VIC and the 64 
> were the ones to have for sound.
>
> I recall a friend doing something like pulse density sampling through 
> the parallel or serial port with a simple capacitor charging -> 
> amplifier -> voltage triggered discharge circuit. some pretty ugly 
> music there. for the most part, his playback i could not desern the 
> source from. later others friends rolled with amiga mod players. at 
> this time i was cutting 1/4" tape and hacking walkmans. low bling for 
> the wretched.
>
> 90's
> It wasn't until Pentium I machines were making their way into the 
> dustbin (with sound blaster 16!) that i was able to cook up RedHat 5 / 
> win95 on a machine that i owned myself. QBASIC -> hand written scores 
> for a while, then C -> midi files. Then csound, python, lisp, c++, 
> java, envy24 interface.
>
> 2009
> Now i'm beyond my depth in CPU power at home and at work with access 
> to hpcs and multicore! (and waist deep in electronic waste ;P) It 
> seems so overkill, perhaps you'll discover some subtle intractibility 
> and need it some day but I find my brain to be the biggest obsticle / 
> mystery in this devination of computer music science art. Sadly, most 
> of those CPU cycles go towards computer distraction and not computer 
> music.
>
> kelly
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 7:56 PM, Joe O'Farrell 
>  wrote:
>>
>> Think it's time to shift this to a new thread…
>>
>> All this nostalgic talk has got me thinking about the influence of the
>> technical resources available when we start out on the type of music we
>> eventually create.
>>
>> I my case, my first contact with a computer was an old Commodore PET 
>> 4032
>> (kids - ask your grandparents) which had precisely zero musical
>> applications, but I did learn to program in BASIC.
>>
>> A few years later I was able to get my hands on the then 
>> state-of-the-art
>> BBC Model B - with FOUR mono sound channels. The limited programming 
>> skills
>> I possessed, coupled with the limitation of three part polyphony (the 
>> fourth
>> channel was a noise generator) tended to lead me to experiment with 
>> integral
>> serial ideas - the machine was perfect for generating streams of 
>> notes in
>> completely independent rhythmic configurations, even randomly 
>> choosing row
>> forms and transpositions. Moreover, it had microtonal capabilities, 
>> which
>> allowed me to explore untempered tunings and so forth.
>>
>> Today, I STILL tend to start from a more-or-less serial process 
>> (though I
>> normally abandon any strict system by the time it's generated enough
>> material). I'm sure this is directly attributable to those early
>> experiments.
>>
>> So - what about the rest of you? It would be interesting to see if 
>> there's
>> any correlation on a "generational" basis - I started out with eight-bit
>> processors, cassette drive, 32k RAM (no, honest - there really WAS a 
>> time
>> when RAM was measured in kB!! Youngsters today - they don't know they're
>> born… ;-) ) and very basic sound generators (the Beeb basically 
>> produced a
>> sort-of square wave). Later generations take sampling and real-time
>> capabilities for granted, but it's not really that long since 
>> composers were
>> still taking razor blades to half-inch tape. Does greater ease of 
>> working
>> necessarily produce more good music? Works like Konakte, Gesang der
>> Jünglinge and Poème électronique were produced using test equipment and
>> tape-splicing, after all.
>>
>> Joe
>>
>> email:  info@joeofarrell.com
>> web:    www.joeofarrell.com
>>
>> skype:  joeofarrell
>>
>> Send bugs reports to this list.
>> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe
>> csound"
>
>
>



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>     I found out that you could take those TI-82 graphing
>     calculators and write a program that was really a bunch of
>     nonsensical strings. But if you held it up next to a radio set to a
>     static and ran the program, you could hear tones depending on what
>     characters were used in the strings! 

amazing.

Stef




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wow, I used to make short animations on my TI-85 graphing calculator
(you could draw graphs, save them, and call them up in sequence) but I
had no idea you could get sound with one! Any samples?

2009/12/15 Stéphane Rollandin :
>>    I found out that you could take those TI-82 graphing
>>    calculators and write a program that was really a bunch of
>>    nonsensical strings. But if you held it up next to a radio set to a
>>    static and ran the program, you could hear tones depending on what
>>    characters were used in the strings!
>
> amazing.
>
> Stef
>
>
>
>
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe
> csound"
>


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wow, I used to make short animations on my TI-85 graphing calculator
(you could draw graphs, save them, and call them up in sequence) but I
had no idea you could get sound with one! Any samples?

2009/12/15 Stéphane Rollandin <lecteur@zogotounga.net>:
  

   I found out that you could take those TI-82 graphing
   calculators and write a program that was really a bunch of
   nonsensical strings. But if you held it up next to a radio set to a
   static and ran the program, you could hear tones depending on what
   characters were used in the strings!
      

amazing.

Stef




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csound"

    

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