Deep algebra for deep beat: beautiful sounds of musical programming

Pop musicians have spent centuries flirting with technology, from there to mid-century tape experiments, pushing the boundaries of art. Despite this fascination, there has been only a small place to produce music from program code. Over the course of almost a decade, few who have done so have had van diagrams of pierced programmers and avant-garde musicians.

The results are the opposite of what you’ve ever heard – and the most ambitious music to mix the realm of analog and digital sound.

I’ve talked to people who are using code to create a variety of music, from sample mangling to live algorithms, to teaching the Marxist virtues of open source software. Despite the technical complexity and deep deep algebra involved, they are all seeking something much simpler: a creative sandbox bound by time and principle conventions.

“The way of thinking suggested by the program”

Carl Stone has been a mangling pattern since 1973 (“mangal” is the agreed verb between sound manipulation). They borrow them from commercial music, tear them up, and vaguely re-glue them, the result being everything from pop. The song played behind the rapid shelling made of human sound. So when I discovered (after a sonic attack in February 2020 where older people cut off their ears) I was not surprised that it only uses Max, the favorite programming language for music and multimedia. It’s a visual workspace with musical commands. Is presented as a modular bass that you can chain with a virtual wire.The open-end design allows for free-flowing experiments.

Stone says, “You start every coding experience with a completely blank slate. “It’s unlike any other business program that has built-in hypotheses and optimization. Like a program. [Ableton] Live – which I respect very much – tends towards the way of thinking suggested by the program. “

Stone compositions without that structure are extremely surreal. He likens the work based on his sample to anagram: “It has a sign of meaningful meaning, but it is strange.”

A native of Los Angeles and a graduate of Calarts with a low coding background, the 67-year-old has been making music on computers since 1986. He worked with mathematical music software from the ’80s, such as Jam Factory and Laurie Spiegel’s impressive music mouse. He has described his’ 80s computers as “luggage” for the road, and has been traveling with the Mac Kintosh Plus for years.

Don’t copy that floppy?

Stone discovered Max (named after computer music pioneer Max Mathews) during an artist residency in Japan in 1989, when a friend slipped a pirated version of it on a floppy disk. At this point, Max could only send MIDI information and could not handle the signal processing. Stone began performing with him, frequently collaborating with Japanese video artists, dancers and musicians.

He has witnessed software changes over the years: signal processing and visual processing were later incorporated. Software has split from various corporations, Stone formally beta testing its development at various stages. Eventually, one of its developers set up a company to sell it, Cycling ’74. The outdoor party used the wildly popular music software software Ableton Live to make a breadboard. Eventually the two programs merged, and soon, Abilton absorbed Cycling ’74 together.

Predictably, Stone Ableton has resisted the linear temptation of unification, and his latest output is more radical than his work 30 years ago (one of his new songs sounds like an electronic subgener vaporizing, but he says he’s never heard of it. Not) a concept). It performs with iPads and laptops, wears emotional hats and uses OSC (Open Sound Control) to send control data to its maximum patches. He has lived in Japan full-time since 2001, teaching at Chukio University; He has spent his quarantine in Los Angeles, however, teaching zoom classes to Japanese students at 2 a.m. local time.

His new album, Stolen car (An anagram of his name), was published on September 25.