Modular Strategies in Shaping Reflection

Modular strategies in shaping reflections and space
An excerpt of one of the lectures created for the Lindblad Studio, Goteborg, Sweden by Roland Kuit

Electronic Music composers not only create sounds for their compositions.
They create the space where in these sounds are placed, or can even move through space trajectories.
Please use this lecture here in combination with the broadcasting audio:

In this lecture the concept of space will be (re-)defined especially for modular synthesis.
Reflections are positional essentials in creating space. How space can be thought of as an indispensable element of music,
and with the kinds of approaches that emerge when space is dealt with from the start producing a sound work.
As this is a stereo broadcasting, this lecture is customized for using two channels.
Part of this lecture will be explained by use of very down to earth examples in witch modules and their connections are explained
and followed by a more elaborated examples as musical sentences.
If you want to exam the patches on this page click the pictures for downloading the NMG2.pch-files. These files can be played with the
Clavia NMG2 hardware synthesizer or with the NMG2Demo software here ***:

After installation, check your soundcard at Setup dropdown menu.
When you need a keyboard, you can use a midi keyboard or select Cntrl+K (Pc) or Apple+ K (Mac) for use of a Virtual Keyboard.
file:///C|/Users/Roland/Desktop/Doc/Web/Modular%20strategies%20for%20Concertzender.html[4-3-2016 23:00:49]
Modular Strategies lecture for Concertzender
All patches can be played with the NMG2 hardware and editor. Audio-in patches can not be played with the NMG2Demo.
In that case follow this sign for a Demo friendly one:

We will start with spreading a mono sound signal into a stereo-channel sound field.
Directions of sound and sound placing:

Balance can mean the amount of signal from each channel reproduced in a stereo audio recording.
A balance control will have 0 dB of gain in the center position for both channels,
and attenuate one channel as the control is turned, leaving the other channel at 0 dB.
The Panner(panorama) module takes an input signal and outputs it in a stereo panorama.
With the Balance (Constant module) "L-R-knob" we can define the direction of the sound:

We heard a sinewave moving from left to right and back to the middle and vice versa.
What is so important about this?
1/ We can place different sounds in a certain angle into a stereo field.
2/ We can create movement of sounds from left to right and vice verse.
In the next example the panning is modulated by a random LFO module with as result an arbitrary left or right sound of the musical sentences.


Panning by filtering.
Low-pas and Band-pass at Left channel. High-pass at right channel.
By changing the filters frequency we create a spectral panning:

Ring modulated Band-pass and Low-pass at Left. High-pass at the right.
Band-pass and Low-pass frequencies will be subtracted and multiplied:

Bremmers shelve filtering.
By this type of filtering a Comb Filter is used. A comb filter is a filter that has a series of very deep notches in its frequency response with the spacing
of all of the notches at multiples of the frequency of the lowest notch.


The oscillator's Low Pass filtered sound is routed to the left output. The High Pass filtered sound is routed into the Comb Filter before outputted to the right.
Special filters to achieve pseudo stereo effect, the "shelve" filter directing low frequencies to the left channel and high frequencies to the right channel,
and the "comb" filter adding a small delay in signal timing between the two channels, a delay barely noticeable by ear.
By modulating the feedback of the Comb filter, a little panning FX will be added:

Stereo with two filter banks.
Each filter bank is an array of band-pass filters that separates the input signal into multiple components, each one carrying a single frequency sub-band of the original signal.
One application of a filter bank is a graphic equalizer, which can attenuate the components differently and recombine them into a modified version of the original signal.
Very special left/right spectra can be made by this. First we will hear white Noise.
In the second example some musical sentences.

(This is a NMG1 patch. Here only as demonstration picture)

Stereo by phase inversion. A phase inversion is neither a time shift nor a phase shift, but simply a swap of plus and minus of the sound signal.
The Level module works as a by the "L-R knob" controlled Gain. Three linear mixers are producing the phase inversions here:


Kishii and Noro's pseudo stereo.

A pseudo stereo circuit is provided which processes an input monophonic signal into stereophonic audio signals. A phase shift circuit shifts a phase of the input monophonic signal by
a phase amount that depends upon a frequency of the monophonic signal, to produce an output signal having a gain with respect to the input monophonic signal which is equal to or larger
than a predetermined level over an entire frequency band thereof, and reaches a peak at a frequency at which the phase shift amount of the output signal with respect to the input mono-
phonic signal assumes a value equal or closer to −π.
A mixing circuit produces a first mixed signal by mixing a signal obtained by inverting a phase of the output signal of the phase shift circuit with the input monophonic signal
by a first mixing ratio, and produces a second mixed signal obtained by mixing the output signal of the phase shift circuit with the input monophonic signal by a second mixing ratio.
The mixing circuit generates the first mixed signal as a first audio signal carried by one of left and right channels that provide stereophonic audio signals, and generates the second mixed
signal as a second audio signal carried by the other of the left and right channels.

The Delay module is an All Pass filter. This module passes through all frequencies unchanged, but changes the phase of the signal. All
Pass filters are typically used for phase equalization and other signal processing tasks.
Left Delayed sound. By turning the Constant knob "L-R" we create phase differences. The delay length determines the phase angle:

Automatic panning by a LFO module. We can change the delay length by the control output of the LFO module, a triangle wave.
When increasing the rate and amount/amplitude of this control signal, a chorus sound is the result.

Schroeder's pseudo stereo. Schroeder studied the factors that play a greatest role in spatial impression in these types of complementary filters for headphone reproduction.
He showed that it was the intensity variations in frequency rather than the phase differences between each channel that had the greatest effect.

The output of a Noise Oscillator is routed into a mixer. The mixer's output is inserted into two cascaded Delay modules and routed back to the first mixer.
This is called Feedback.


Our delay line was very small in this example. Two times 5 meters. When we extend this distance. F.i. Two times 500 meters.
What do we hear now? We hear tube like echo's!
Shift register and Multiplexer modules can be used for panning a signal. The Delay Shift Register basically works like a Sample & Hold module,
with the difference that for every new sample, it shifts the previous sample one step to the right among the eight outputs.
The 8-1 X-Fade Multiplexer has eight inputs and one output. The channels are enabled by sending a control signal on the Ctrl input.
You can also define the amount of crossfade between adjacent channels with the X-Fade knob.
The Crossfade function is displayed in the graph
.

Left out is the original signal. Right out is the Delay Shifted signal. The "Left-right" control knob directs you though the shifted audio slices and thus panning in this way.

When routing back or feedback an eight step Delay module and automate the through the steps scanning, echo like results will happen.
The Mux module is a switchable mixer:


Each Shift Register Delay output 1-8 is routed to the 1-8 input of a Multiplexer, a switchable mixer.
Creating Shift Register preset switches by using Switch modules. In the next example you will hear the switched presets:

I AM SITTING IN A ROOM" (1969) Alvin Lucier (excerpts) *
for voice and electromagnetic tape:
The piece begins with a straightforward, unaccompanied reading of the following text: "I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking
voice and I am going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the
exception of rhythm, is destroyed. What you will hear, then, are the natural resonant frequencies of the room articulated by speech. I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a
physical fact, but, more as a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might have."
This patch represents the two chambers. Each chamber is feedbacked by the other chamber.
The two rooms patch:
Room sizes, filters and distortion can be adjusted.
Basic cascading delays. Every Delay is like the rooms of out previous example. The technical term here is bucket brigade(BBD).
A discrete-time analogue delay line, developed in 1969 by F. Sangster and K. Teer of the Philips Research Labs:


Basic cascading delay with mixer taps patch:

3-4-3 Delay algorithm:

The patch. 3 cascaded Single Delay modules with feedback modules into a 4 stack Single Delay modules with feedback modules into a 3 stack.
A Delay Matrix:


Extended Comb Filter Delay as an Audio Reverser with use of a MinMax module. The MinMax module compares two input signals and outputs the highest levels on the Max output and the
lowest levels on the Min output. This module is originally named a "level switcher" on old analog systems.
A flap-over of the reverberated signal:

Try some different things here and see what happens when using shapers in a feedback line.
Diffused Delay by saturation, shaping distortion in the feedback line:


Building a Stereo Reverb with Min-Max module dampers. Two times eight cascading Single Delay modules whereby the feedback line is tuned/damped by a Min-Max module:

Creating one comb of a comb filter. This is the direct audio signal combined with a feed-forward and one feedback signal:


Combining more combs in Schroeders reverb results in a string creator with three serial cascaded and parallel added comb filters:

How would an extended patch like this sound as a part of a physical modeling patch?
Emulated String Quartet IV - Roland Kuit 1996


We can build large Resonator matrix mixers this way.
Feed-forward and feedback cascaded delay lines that can be controlled by a network of switches:

Changing these static switched by controlled Mux mixers, we can create a tuning system. In this case the system is tuned by a Pattern Generator.
You can hear clearly the tuned delays as patterns:


With this tuning system called waveguides, you can create physical modeled instruments and even morph between instruments.
In this example a modeled trombone mouthpiece as a string exciter. The mouthpiece is simulated by the Resonators. The FX section functions as a tube or string:


These Karplus-Strong techniques to create waveguides can be used to create tuned and/or random tube lengths for simulating flutes.

Creating tubes with 'bore-holes'
The "flatterzunge fx" here is created by a LFO modulation on the amplitude. Multiplexers and Delay Shift Register modules function as bore-holes matrixes:

This last example completes this lecture.
I know this was much to talk about and explain in just 1 hour. Way to short.
After this hour the program will stay a while in the archive so you can listen back and explore/use these patches.
What I wanted was to raze your interest in the concept of using space.

Thanks for listening.

This lecture was a little part off and created from the e-Book Modular strategies in shaping reflections and space.
Published by Donemus:
Publisher's number: 13663
More information about Modular Strategies in shaping reflections and space here
Used equipment:
Clavia NMG2, by Nord

Kyma 7/Pacarana, by Symbolic Sound
* Printed in Canada.
© 1970 Alvin Lucier (BMI)
©® 1990 Lovely Music, Ltd. CD 1013
7-4529-51013-2-1
** New Chamber Music

© 1996 Roland Kuit
Donemus
Composer's Voice CD 207

Roland Kuit for the Concertzender 2016

*** This lecture is designed to use with your internet browser (screen width 1243). Start with installing the NMG2 Demo software, located in the file Clavia software for PC/Mac (Leopard user have to install VMWare, or Parallels and a Windows version). For OSX Lion: Step 1
Download and install WineBottler. Step 2 – Install. Once installed WineBottler, go where you saved G2 Demo installer, unzip it and double click“ SetupModularG2Demo_V140.exe”. A window will pop up asking what to do with that file. Select “Convert to simple OSX application” and click OK. In
the next window, scroll down Winetricks list and check “winxp” option, then click INSTALL. On “Save As” dialog window, name your application as “Nord Modular G2 Demo”, select “Applications” as target folder and click SAVE. Now WineBottler will start to install the software and a new
window will pop up with the old beloved windows installer. Go on with installation and, when a window with a directory tree will show just close it and complete G2 Demo installation following screen instructions. Now WineBottler will ask you which file should be started. Select “Modular G2
Demo v1.40.exe” from the list and click OK. Now you will find your packed software under “Applications” in your Finder. Unfortunately, seems that this software won’t work as packed wine application so you will need to do a further step. Go in your “Applications” folder and delete the app you
just created (Nord Modular G2 Demo), then go to: /your_user/Library/Application Support/Wine/prefixes. Here you will find a folder named “Nord Modular G2 Demo” with all installed files under: drive_c/Clavia/Modular G2 Demo v1.40. From there just drag the executable file to your
“Applications” folder holding CMD+OPTION to create a link and rename it as “Nord Modular G2 Demo”. Open the NMG2Demo and click the dropdown menu Setup. Select the appropriate soundcard and put the sample rate at 96000.
Mac users have to install the browser Opera.
Other installation for Mac users: download CrossOver 13.2 and the NMG2Demo will work on Mavericks 10.9.4.

The modular synthesizer is a type of synthesizer, that exists in both physical and virtual forms, consisting of separate specialized modules. The modules are not hardwired together but are connected together with patch cords, a matrix patching system, or
switches to create a patch. The voltages from the modules may function as (audio) signals, control voltages, or logic conditions.

This site is copyrighted (c) Roland Kuit 2016. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyrighted material violates Federal Law.


Modular Strategies in Shaping Reflection

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Modular strategies in shaping reflections and space

The two rooms patch:

Creating tubes with 'bore-holes'

Clavia NMG2, by Nord

** New Chamber Music

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