6 ms·

An Approach to Sound Synthesis with L-Systems

90 points by sargstuff 3y ago

atoav 3y ago
It would be interesting to see this done one the resulting waveform itself instead of modulations. So direct generation of waveforms using L-Systems.
- sargstuff 3y ago
  Some how, don't think Lisp fourier series via UTF character fitting was a defining motivation for being able to stack UTF chars into single char space. Perhaps nyquest plot[2], nyquestgui[1] or "Inverse Procedural Modeling of Branching Structures by Inferring L-Systems"[0] discusses an approach. More 'standard' approach would be to have sound image in svg format then convert svg image to g-code. use image scaling to filter out higher/lower level harmonics. g-code used in cnc / laster cutter machines is similar to l-system working/local system coordinates. Lot more verbose, but likely could be culled & transformed into a slimmer 'l-system' like take. inkscape is a graphics program with the ability to convert svg to g-code. ---- [0] : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38945108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38945108 [1] : https://lpsa.swarthmore.edu/Nyquist/NyquistGui.html#Introduction https://lpsa.swarthmore.edu/Nyquist/NyquistGui.html#Introduc... [2] : https://lpsa.swarthmore.edu/Nyquist/Nyquist.html https://lpsa.swarthmore.edu/Nyquist/Nyquist.html
sgwizdak 3y ago
There's also been some papers on l-systems for composition leveraging a traditional scale: https://www-users.york.ac.uk/~ss44/bib/ss/nonstd/eurogp05.pdf https://www-users.york.ac.uk/~ss44/bib/ss/nonstd/eurogp05.pd...
choult 3y ago
Nice! I did this back in 2003 for my MEng, and took a similar approach but using MIDI and musical notes/scales rather than direct waveforms. I did get some promising results - what are fugues but fractal music? - but was never musical enough to do anything more with it.
- p1esk 3y ago
  I don’t see how fugues are fractal. Care to explain?
  - sargstuff 3y ago
    Focusing on just the music, sounds like difference in song complexity / embelishment spinoffs. Different approach constrasting tree generated by room sonar example[0] and Salieri/Mozart song[1]. Initial Salieri song simple 'tree' per single source mono-soundings. Mozart 'sterioized' Salieri's initial song by embelishment/counterpoint. aka the more detailed 'tree' spin-offs. --- [0] : http://sites.music.columbia.edu/cmc/courses/g6610/fall2003/week4/index.html http://sites.music.columbia.edu/cmc/courses/g6610/fall2003/w... [1] : Mozart insults Salieri by playing he own piece better than he did : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jlQiHHMlkA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jlQiHHMlkA
    - p1esk 3y ago
      I didn't quite understand your first link, or what it has to do with music. But the second link points to something that is neither a fugue nor fractal in any way. Mozart's piece played there has no fractal properties, and deviates completely from the original Salieri melody. Perhaps you're confusing fractality with a regular counterpoint? To clarify, a temporally fractal musical composition would be self similar on different time scales. For example, if we consider a 7 note melody, then we could, in the simplest case, make it fractal by inserting the same 7 note melody (perhaps using a different key, or even a slight variation, but still easily recognizable as the original melody) between selected two notes (preferably neighboring) of the original melody. Still, I find your remark "what are fugues but fractal music?" interesting, because fugues might be the most suitable musical structures to have a fractal property. In a complex 4 or 5 voice fugue, as the voices partially overlap, sometimes a higher level melody emerges, and this melody could, in principle, be constructed to mimic the common theme. I have never noticed any fugues to be fractal, but I wouldn't be surprised if a genius like Bach had tried to compose such a fugue, and it would be interesting to hear it.
      - 3y ago
dharma1 3y ago
It’s cool people are messing with this stuff but for me the results of modulating an oscillator with it dont sound that interesting unless you’re into modular synths with chaos oscillator type stuff. Most fitting use of L systems seems to be 3D plant geometry generation
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- sargstuff 3y ago
  non-standard take on MIDI / portability / automatically generating post-script like description. Similar to cnc g-code / post script printing language. Just a more strictly math based view. Text way of conveying non-linear to linear transform in a portable format without using musical notation. aka raw non-linear piano string vibration to linear 'piano key'. debatable, but programming language book on sed and how to use regular expressions to manipulate the ascii l-system sounds would seem to be a bit ligher reading/learning than multiple semesters of engineering level calculus to learn mathematical equations for manipulating ocillations. High school level introduction to l-systems presented as logo programming. [0][1] ---- [0] :Turtle Geometry: The Computer as a Medium for Exploring Mathematics (Artificial Intelligence) by Harold Abelson (Author), Andrea Disessa (Author) [1] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)
  - detourdog 3y ago
    The similarity is likely due to the fact that they were both early standards built for limited environments. I find systems like this are always tighter than systems designed after the WWW became most people's computer experience.
  - anthk 3y ago
    On L systems, "The Computational Beauty of Nature" teaches you this, among Mandelbrot (and more fractals), how Scheme (Lisp) works and the dynamics of nature systems. After that, I would suggest all to read "Gödel, Escher, Bach" among SICP with Chicken Scheme to do the exercises. Then switch back and forth from The Computational Beauty of Nature and GEB. My ~/.csirc: (import scheme) (import (srfi 203)) (import (srfi 216)) Run "chicken-install srfi-203 && chicken-install srfi-216" as root too.
bravura 3y ago
I really enjoyed the pulsar synthesis sounds: https://nathan.ho.name/posts/pulsar-synthesis/ https://nathan.ho.name/posts/pulsar-synthesis/ Very Aphex twin.
- pier25 3y ago
  Amazing stuff. I'm going to have to start messing with Super collider now :)
chaosprint 3y ago
Interestingly, I use phasor to control a buffer reader, and I can get somewhat similar results. https://youtu.be/UZxZ8vpBOPo?si=hZKTb3nWhpj4uY-z https://youtu.be/UZxZ8vpBOPo?si=hZKTb3nWhpj4uY-z
- sargstuff 3y ago
  yeah, but fractal garbage collection bit messy/unbounded.
Zenst 3y ago
The sounds produced remind me so very much of early Human League, with the track - The Dignity Of Labour pts 1-4(1979), with parts 2 and 4 sticking out more in the deja vue. https://youtu.be/Yfh8zsF5308?si=PlYXLZb3Jqks7U_Y https://youtu.be/Yfh8zsF5308?si=PlYXLZb3Jqks7U_Y
ganzuul 3y ago
Reminds me of speech inflection.
- sargstuff 3y ago
  Vocoder more representative of the ADSR approach.[0] Although adding the orchestral music score single track equivalent of speech production looks about the same.[1] Space / technical complexity not withstanding, could generate a full choir & full orchestra with 1 vocoder per singer/ 1 vocoder per orchestra instrument. Suppose chatgpt could assist with reducing/minimizing amount of vocoders needed via waveform overlap reductions at the expense of being specific for given set of song(s). ---- [0] : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsdOej_nC1M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsdOej_nC1M [1] : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JManm091qWI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JManm091qWI

90 points by sargstuff 3y ago

It would be interesting to see this done one the resulting waveform itself instead of modulations. So direct generation of waveforms using L-Systems.

sargstuff 3y ago
Some how, don't think Lisp fourier series via UTF character fitting was a defining motivation for being able to stack UTF chars into single char space. Perhaps nyquest plot[2], nyquestgui[1] or "Inverse Procedural Modeling of Branching Structures by Inferring L-Systems"[0] discusses an approach. More 'standard' approach would be to have sound image in svg format then convert svg image to g-code. use image scaling to filter out higher/lower level harmonics. g-code used in cnc / laster cutter machines is similar to l-system working/local system coordinates. Lot more verbose, but likely could be culled & transformed into a slimmer 'l-system' like take. inkscape is a graphics program with the ability to convert svg to g-code. ---- [0] : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38945108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38945108 [1] : https://lpsa.swarthmore.edu/Nyquist/NyquistGui.html#Introduction https://lpsa.swarthmore.edu/Nyquist/NyquistGui.html#Introduc... [2] : https://lpsa.swarthmore.edu/Nyquist/Nyquist.html https://lpsa.swarthmore.edu/Nyquist/Nyquist.html

sgwizdak 3y ago

There's also been some papers on l-systems for composition leveraging a traditional scale: https://www-users.york.ac.uk/~ss44/bib/ss/nonstd/eurogp05.pdf https://www-users.york.ac.uk/~ss44/bib/ss/nonstd/eurogp05.pd...

choult 3y ago

Nice! I did this back in 2003 for my MEng, and took a similar approach but using MIDI and musical notes/scales rather than direct waveforms. I did get some promising results - what are fugues but fractal music? - but was never musical enough to do anything more with it.

p1esk 3y ago
I don’t see how fugues are fractal. Care to explain?
- sargstuff 3y ago
  Focusing on just the music, sounds like difference in song complexity / embelishment spinoffs. Different approach constrasting tree generated by room sonar example[0] and Salieri/Mozart song[1]. Initial Salieri song simple 'tree' per single source mono-soundings. Mozart 'sterioized' Salieri's initial song by embelishment/counterpoint. aka the more detailed 'tree' spin-offs. --- [0] : http://sites.music.columbia.edu/cmc/courses/g6610/fall2003/week4/index.html http://sites.music.columbia.edu/cmc/courses/g6610/fall2003/w... [1] : Mozart insults Salieri by playing he own piece better than he did : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jlQiHHMlkA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jlQiHHMlkA
  - p1esk 3y ago
    I didn't quite understand your first link, or what it has to do with music. But the second link points to something that is neither a fugue nor fractal in any way. Mozart's piece played there has no fractal properties, and deviates completely from the original Salieri melody. Perhaps you're confusing fractality with a regular counterpoint? To clarify, a temporally fractal musical composition would be self similar on different time scales. For example, if we consider a 7 note melody, then we could, in the simplest case, make it fractal by inserting the same 7 note melody (perhaps using a different key, or even a slight variation, but still easily recognizable as the original melody) between selected two notes (preferably neighboring) of the original melody. Still, I find your remark "what are fugues but fractal music?" interesting, because fugues might be the most suitable musical structures to have a fractal property. In a complex 4 or 5 voice fugue, as the voices partially overlap, sometimes a higher level melody emerges, and this melody could, in principle, be constructed to mimic the common theme. I have never noticed any fugues to be fractal, but I wouldn't be surprised if a genius like Bach had tried to compose such a fugue, and it would be interesting to hear it.
    - 3y ago

dharma1 3y ago

It’s cool people are messing with this stuff but for me the results of modulating an oscillator with it dont sound that interesting unless you’re into modular synths with chaos oscillator type stuff. Most fitting use of L systems seems to be 3D plant geometry generation

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sargstuff 3y ago
non-standard take on MIDI / portability / automatically generating post-script like description. Similar to cnc g-code / post script printing language. Just a more strictly math based view. Text way of conveying non-linear to linear transform in a portable format without using musical notation. aka raw non-linear piano string vibration to linear 'piano key'. debatable, but programming language book on sed and how to use regular expressions to manipulate the ascii l-system sounds would seem to be a bit ligher reading/learning than multiple semesters of engineering level calculus to learn mathematical equations for manipulating ocillations. High school level introduction to l-systems presented as logo programming. [0][1] ---- [0] :Turtle Geometry: The Computer as a Medium for Exploring Mathematics (Artificial Intelligence) by Harold Abelson (Author), Andrea Disessa (Author) [1] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)
- detourdog 3y ago
  The similarity is likely due to the fact that they were both early standards built for limited environments. I find systems like this are always tighter than systems designed after the WWW became most people's computer experience.
- anthk 3y ago
  On L systems, "The Computational Beauty of Nature" teaches you this, among Mandelbrot (and more fractals), how Scheme (Lisp) works and the dynamics of nature systems. After that, I would suggest all to read "Gödel, Escher, Bach" among SICP with Chicken Scheme to do the exercises. Then switch back and forth from The Computational Beauty of Nature and GEB. My ~/.csirc: (import scheme) (import (srfi 203)) (import (srfi 216)) Run "chicken-install srfi-203 && chicken-install srfi-216" as root too.

bravura 3y ago

I really enjoyed the pulsar synthesis sounds: https://nathan.ho.name/posts/pulsar-synthesis/ https://nathan.ho.name/posts/pulsar-synthesis/ Very Aphex twin.

pier25 3y ago
Amazing stuff. I'm going to have to start messing with Super collider now :)

chaosprint 3y ago

Interestingly, I use phasor to control a buffer reader, and I can get somewhat similar results. https://youtu.be/UZxZ8vpBOPo?si=hZKTb3nWhpj4uY-z https://youtu.be/UZxZ8vpBOPo?si=hZKTb3nWhpj4uY-z

sargstuff 3y ago
yeah, but fractal garbage collection bit messy/unbounded.

Zenst 3y ago

The sounds produced remind me so very much of early Human League, with the track - The Dignity Of Labour pts 1-4(1979), with parts 2 and 4 sticking out more in the deja vue. https://youtu.be/Yfh8zsF5308?si=PlYXLZb3Jqks7U_Y https://youtu.be/Yfh8zsF5308?si=PlYXLZb3Jqks7U_Y

ganzuul 3y ago

Reminds me of speech inflection.

sargstuff 3y ago
Vocoder more representative of the ADSR approach.[0] Although adding the orchestral music score single track equivalent of speech production looks about the same.[1] Space / technical complexity not withstanding, could generate a full choir & full orchestra with 1 vocoder per singer/ 1 vocoder per orchestra instrument. Suppose chatgpt could assist with reducing/minimizing amount of vocoders needed via waveform overlap reductions at the expense of being specific for given set of song(s). ---- [0] : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsdOej_nC1M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsdOej_nC1M [1] : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JManm091qWI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JManm091qWI