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Introduction to Computer Music
- latexr 1y agoI’m interested in the subject but not really a fan of the presentation. Is there an ePUB version or similar that I’m not seeing?
- dakiol 1y agoIndeed, or a PDF. When one study these topics is way easier to do so via PDFs for example: you bookmark the page and continue tomorrow. If it’s HTML, you need to bookmark too, but this is a hassle since bookmarking creates an entry in your browser bookmarks (that you need to clean up later) and if the html page is too long and has no anchors, good luck remembering what part you read last (not to mention that one can read a pdf offline and the pdf can be archived easily). Also knowing how many pages there are to read and how many you have read so far is very helpful (in contrast, reading a website is rather tiring since you don’t know how far are you or how much is left)
- larodi 1y agoQuickly read thorough it, is indeed a nice introductory read. Recommending, may be suitable for 10th-12th graders also.
- aa-jv 1y agoIts a good read, provides a good introduction - but imho, loopops incomplete guide to electronic music is a much better investment of time and energy .. http://patreon.com/loopop http://patreon.com/loopop .. very definitely worth the effort to get it downloaded for offline reading, also.
- gramie 1y agoLoopop's guide looks interesting, but to unlock the book I had to join (for free) the Patreon channel. Then it immediately tells me that to unlock the book I have to become a paid member. It turns out that the free tier only gets you notifications when new content is published; to read that content, you have to pay. I wouldn't mind paying, but dislike the bait and switch approach.
- Fraterkes 1y agoHis patreon is really explicit about what you get for what tiers. I get that the patreon ui is pretty confusing, but that’s not his fault
- stronglikedan 1y ago> but that’s not his fault He chooses to utilize Patreon for his business, so it really is, at least partially.
- Fraterkes 1y agoMy condolences, you are annoying.
- mkesper 1y agoCome on, you can join for one month, download the up to date version and leave again. Not too much asked for such a ressource.
- MomsAVoxell 1y agoYes, it’s definitely worth it, in my opinion. Loopops book is easily one of the most powerful collections of knowledge of electronic music production out there. I’ve been making electronic music since the 80’s and still find the regular updates from loopop titillating and inspiring.
- richrichardsson 1y agoNo mention of Daphne Oram [1] in the history of electronic music. :( [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_Oram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_Oram
- Mouvelie 1y agoThanks, did not know about her, will check out her book !
- laxd 1y agoBirds of Parallax from 9:45 onwards is my favorite. They had this on repeat in an electronic music history exhibition I attended in a London museum some ... counting... 12 years ago. https://youtu.be/lNTZh0jHOvs?t=585 https://youtu.be/lNTZh0jHOvs?t=585
- bondarchuk 1y agoThe whole of BBC/radiophonic workshop are not there, maybe it's a bit US centered..
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- vodou 1y agoShe wrote a "treatise" on electronic music called An Individual Note of Music, Sound and Electronics. From the back cover: "[...] a fascinating glimpse into the creative mind behind the Oramics machine. In this engaging account of the possibilities of electronic sound, Oram touches on acoustics, mathematics, cybernetics and esoteric thought, but always returns to the human, urging us to 'see whether we can break open watertight compartments and glance anew' at the world around us." http://www.anomie-publishing.com/coming-soon-daphne-oram-an-individual-note-of-music-sound-and-electronics/ http://www.anomie-publishing.com/coming-soon-daphne-oram-an-...
- waffletower 1y agoIf it makes you feel better, when I taught the history of electronic music I introduced students to Daphne Oram.
- brcmthrowaway 1y agoAny way to compose compelling electronic music without having to spend time learning a commercial app like Ableton?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mfro 1y agoLearning the app is not the difficult part. It is honing your style within the toolset you're comfortable with. Every DAW has its pain points and learning curve. Spend a few hours a week with each and see which one works for you, is my advice. Same as any other tool, you can't create effectively until you've become comfortable with it.
- jamboca 1y agoLiterally hundreds or even thousands of ways, physical instrument such as sequencer/sampler, other DAWs. It’s not about learning a commercial app it’s about understanding principles of music production irrelevant of your platform. Just pick one and go: your ears won’t know any difference
- lynx97 1y agoYou'll have to spend time learning whatever tool you are going to employ. If commercial is the issue... Have a look at SuperCollider. It has a learning curve, new programming language and all that. But the flexibility and actual software architecture is pretty unmatched in its own nieche IMO.
- brcmthrowaway 1y agoI haven't heard anything nice from SuperCollider
- nyeah 1y agoMe either. Links or no downvotes, bruhs.
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- i_am_proteus 1y agoAnother fine text on this subject I can recommend (at a somewhat higher level, and not provided for free) is The Computer Music Tutorial: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262044912/the-computer-music-tutorial/ https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262044912/the-computer-music-tu... I suggest having some kind of sequencer and synthesizers (one subtractive, one FM) available to play with while reading. Free VSTs in the free Reaper DAW are a fine starting point.
- PaulDavisThe1st 1y agoReaper can be downloaded without paying anything for it. But in a wink-wink strategy, continued use of it after a certain period of time is supposed to be accompanied by paying for a license. This is not enforced. You can call this free if you wish, but it's all a bit wobbly. Also, if you want to play with synthesis, then VCV Rack, which is truly free (but also comes in a for-cost version with a few more features) is likely the right place to start, or its even free-er cousin/fork Cardinal (which can even be run in your browser) https://cardinal.kx.studio/ https://cardinal.kx.studio/ https://vcvrack.com/ https://vcvrack.com/
- JoeDaDude 1y ago"Computer Music" is a very broad term (no surprises here) so, like many here, I can point out topics that are not covered. In particular, computer music (aka algorithmic) composition [1], or very recent AI techniques like the Google seq2seq example at [2], or the (unpublished, but probably a form of generative adversarial networks) techniques used by SunoAI and Udio. [1]. https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~blackrse/algorithm.html https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~blackrse/algorithm.html [2]. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.11325 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.11325
- waffletower 1y ago"Computer Music" is also a fairly conventional academic musical genre exploring elements of electro-acoustic, acousmatic, musique concrete, synthesis, algorithmic and serial composition techniques.
- MarcelOlsz 1y agoAlternatively there is Curtis Roads' "The Computer Music Tutorial" [0] [0] https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262044912/the-computer-music-tutorial/ https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262044912/the-computer-music-tu...
- TheOtherHobbes 1y agoThe second edition is almost a complete rewrite - much more up to date, but loses some of the core nerdiness of the original. It's worth mentioning that "computer music" in the original sense was more about generative compositions and experiments with synthesis and DSP, all controlled and generated by hand-written software. DAWs are much more emulations of a traditional recording studio that happen to run on a computer. So although a computer is involved, they're not "computer music" in the traditional sense. The difference is that you can do far more with languages like Supercollider. Max, PD, and Csound, especially when controlled with custom code. But they're much harder to work with. Unlike DAWs and VSTs, they're not optimised for commercial production values. This makes them more experimental and more of a niche interest. There isn't a lot of notable pure computer music around outside of academia. The biggest success was probably the THX Deep Note. BT made some albums with (mostly) Csound. Autechre used Max quite heavily. Holly Herndon is another name. So commercially, DAWs are everywhere, but there's no huge commercial computer music fan scene in its own right.
- unit149 1y ago[dead]
- spacechild1 1y agoJust slimmed some chapters, but this looks like a great resource! If someone wants to dive more deeply into digital synthesis, I can recommend "The Theory and Technique of Electronic Music" by Miller Puckette (creator of Max and Pure Data): https://msp.ucsd.edu/techniques/latest/book.pdf https://msp.ucsd.edu/techniques/latest/book.pdf. All examples are actually Pure Data patches that you can try out and experiment with.
- matheusmoreira 1y agoMy favorite is OneLoneCoder's videos where he just writes his own synthesizer: https://youtu.be/tgamhuQnOkM https://youtu.be/tgamhuQnOkM
- jschveibinz 1y agoLet's not forget the contributions of Bernie Hutchins (Electronotes): https://archive.org/details/electronotes-meh-ebgpcc-torrent https://archive.org/details/electronotes-meh-ebgpcc-torrent https://www.timstinchcombe.co.uk/synth/Electronotes_EN_index.txt https://www.timstinchcombe.co.uk/synth/Electronotes_EN_index... The full set is very rare--but what a treasure trove of high quality material.
- BlandDuck 1y agoI judge technical explanations of audio gear by their description of balanced signals. A common error is to focus on the positive and negative signals having opposite polarity, which is entirely irrelevant for canceling out interference (it may improve headroom, but what is actually important for eliminating common mode noise is to have identical impedance with respect to ground). I would say this text fails this test, which gives me pause. The description is: "The two conductors carry the same signal, but with reverse polarity (meaning that one conductor carries a signal that is the mirror image of the other). If external noise and interference enters the cable, it will probably affect both conductors equally."
- lastcoyotes 1y agoI love that people share historical pioneers in electronic music, but I'd also want to add some artists of the last decade who really pushed new directions and visions. The PC Music collective/label has been one of my favorite bunch of artists. AG Cook, Danny L Harle, Finn Keane (FKA EasyFun), and all of their tangential collaborators outside the label have been making such awesome computer music.
- bane 1y agoOh man, I get that as an author you have to choose a path to introduce the new learner to...but it bums me out to see that the material completely avoids tracking as one of the preeminent ways to make music on computers. Instead it goes down the midi path, which of course ultimately is the dominant commercial technology today. But I've always thought that the complexity and expense of a good midi setup is more of a prosumer-type thing. Tracking gets you quick entry from chiptunes through extraordinarily expressive sampling to VSTs and even into midi at the edges, and there's trackers for pretty much every kind of computer that can make music. You can very cheap/free/easily explore the main musical concepts presented here from synthesis to digital audio. Bonus, most classical tracker files are a kind of "open source" music in that you can see all the note data, the techniques the composers used, and have access to all of their instruments. You get to "see" both composition and performance details down to the note. I really wish that the academic computer arts educators would catch on to these core pieces of the demoscene -- which is now UNESCO recognized by now six countries as intangible cultural heritage for all of humanity -- and were developed to both challenge and wow the audience and make production by literally penniless children possible.
- poulpy123 1y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but a tracker is a software to compose music ? This books is about making sounds, so lower level
- bane 1y agoLook at the table of contents.
- poulpy123 1y agoI did it and even started to read before commenting. The table of contents is acoustics, studio gears, midi, synthesis, digital audio, history and some appendix. Even if midi and potentially gears are side topics, it is focused on sound creation not composition.