4 ms·

Recreating the THX Deep Note - EarSlap

52 points by jawngee 17y ago

cesare 17y ago
Turn it up! Turn it up! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3_HHZFi0As http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3_HHZFi0As On a more serious note, I'm really a fan of SuperCollider (especially for it's smalltalk-like dynamic language). It's incredibly good for sound design and real-time experimentation. But for the best quality output, Csound (http://www.csounds.com/ http://www.csounds.com/) is hard to beat. Here are some people who tried to recreate the same effect in Csound: http://csound.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/the-thx™-sound-from-csound/ http://csound.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/the-thx™-sound-from-c... http://joesprojectblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/thx-deep-note-challenge.html http://joesprojectblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/thx-deep-note-ch...
- ensignavenger 17y ago
  I like this one- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMchJfsIj7E&NR=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMchJfsIj7E&NR=1
paulgerhardt 17y ago
I find the note at the end about SCTwitting the most fascinating. Music represented as code confined to a character limit of a broadcast medium...just wow. I know a few digital poets who will have a field day with this. Thanks for sharing!
- kragen 17y ago
  Thomas Dolby apparently made a living for some years composing cellphone ringtones, which I think also have to fit into a small amount of space and be synthesizable in real-time on a limited processor.
  - cesare 17y ago
    They were almost certainly prerecorded. Or he could have composed some MIDI tracks. But seriously doubt that they were synthesized in real-time.
    - kragen 17y ago
      Playing a MIDI track involves synthesizing waveforms in real time, so I'm not sure what you're saying here. There have been plenty of phones that supported monophonic or mildly polyphonic ringtones without supporting full PCM, and plenty more that supported PCM samples but have limited space, kind of like old .MOD files.
      - cesare 17y ago
        I'm saying that they probably use a general midi sound bank, with sample sounds and limited control. You can only choose instruments from a predefined palette. I doubt you could generate your own waveforms, apply your own custom effects and so on. I never researched much into MIDI ringtones so I might be wrong.
yan 17y ago
This reminds me to ask, is anyone aware of any beginner-friendly books on audio synthesis? Be it using csound, supercollider, or chuck, just something that explains concepts reasonably well.
- cesare 17y ago
  For SuperCollider there's a book which is not out yet (I have read a draft and found it excellent, especially for beginners) but it should be out soon. You can try to send an email to one of the authors: http://www.music.utah.edu/faculty/faculty_a-z/david_michael_cottle http://www.music.utah.edu/faculty/faculty_a-z/david_michael_... He used to send a pdf of the draft version if you asked him, but since the printed book is due soon (by MIT press) I don't know if this is still true. There's also 'The Theory and Technique of Electronic Music' by Miller Puckette (the author of Pure Data): http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/techniques.htm http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/techniques.htm The examples are, obviously, in Pure Data. But it is an excellent book and all the concepts can be applied to any synthesis language/tool. For Csound there's 'The Csound Book' by Richard Boulanger (MIT Press): http://csounds.com/shop/csound-book http://csounds.com/shop/csound-book This is also excellent. Disclaimer: the author is a friend.
  - blasdel 17y ago
    My old roommate was recruited to write one of the chapters (on language internals and his CocoaCollider bridge), but last I heard MIT Press had dropped the project. IIRC it would have been the first supercollider book.
- parenthesis 17y ago
  I've found this http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Music-Tutorial-Curtis-Roads/dp/0262680823 http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Music-Tutorial-Curtis-Roads/d... book to be an excellent tour of the standard concepts and techniques of computer music (not just synthesis). It is both technical and accessible. Makes an excellent companion to whatever specific tools you choose to use.
  - cesare 17y ago
philwelch 17y ago
If I was teaching someone how to program and wanted to get across the idea of incremental development, this is the first example I would use. You can just hear at each step how he's getting incrementally closer.

52 points by jawngee 17y ago

Turn it up! Turn it up! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3_HHZFi0As http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3_HHZFi0As On a more serious note, I'm really a fan of SuperCollider (especially for it's smalltalk-like dynamic language). It's incredibly good for sound design and real-time experimentation. But for the best quality output, Csound (http://www.csounds.com/ http://www.csounds.com/) is hard to beat. Here are some people who tried to recreate the same effect in Csound: http://csound.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/the-thx™-sound-from-csound/ http://csound.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/the-thx™-sound-from-c... http://joesprojectblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/thx-deep-note-challenge.html http://joesprojectblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/thx-deep-note-ch...

ensignavenger 17y ago
I like this one- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMchJfsIj7E&NR=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMchJfsIj7E&NR=1

paulgerhardt 17y ago

I find the note at the end about SCTwitting the most fascinating. Music represented as code confined to a character limit of a broadcast medium...just wow. I know a few digital poets who will have a field day with this. Thanks for sharing!

kragen 17y ago
Thomas Dolby apparently made a living for some years composing cellphone ringtones, which I think also have to fit into a small amount of space and be synthesizable in real-time on a limited processor.
- cesare 17y ago
  They were almost certainly prerecorded. Or he could have composed some MIDI tracks. But seriously doubt that they were synthesized in real-time.
  - kragen 17y ago
    Playing a MIDI track involves synthesizing waveforms in real time, so I'm not sure what you're saying here. There have been plenty of phones that supported monophonic or mildly polyphonic ringtones without supporting full PCM, and plenty more that supported PCM samples but have limited space, kind of like old .MOD files.
    - cesare 17y ago
      I'm saying that they probably use a general midi sound bank, with sample sounds and limited control. You can only choose instruments from a predefined palette. I doubt you could generate your own waveforms, apply your own custom effects and so on. I never researched much into MIDI ringtones so I might be wrong.

yan 17y ago

This reminds me to ask, is anyone aware of any beginner-friendly books on audio synthesis? Be it using csound, supercollider, or chuck, just something that explains concepts reasonably well.

cesare 17y ago
For SuperCollider there's a book which is not out yet (I have read a draft and found it excellent, especially for beginners) but it should be out soon. You can try to send an email to one of the authors: http://www.music.utah.edu/faculty/faculty_a-z/david_michael_cottle http://www.music.utah.edu/faculty/faculty_a-z/david_michael_... He used to send a pdf of the draft version if you asked him, but since the printed book is due soon (by MIT press) I don't know if this is still true. There's also 'The Theory and Technique of Electronic Music' by Miller Puckette (the author of Pure Data): http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/techniques.htm http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/techniques.htm The examples are, obviously, in Pure Data. But it is an excellent book and all the concepts can be applied to any synthesis language/tool. For Csound there's 'The Csound Book' by Richard Boulanger (MIT Press): http://csounds.com/shop/csound-book http://csounds.com/shop/csound-book This is also excellent. Disclaimer: the author is a friend.
- blasdel 17y ago
  My old roommate was recruited to write one of the chapters (on language internals and his CocoaCollider bridge), but last I heard MIT Press had dropped the project. IIRC it would have been the first supercollider book.
parenthesis 17y ago
I've found this http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Music-Tutorial-Curtis-Roads/dp/0262680823 http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Music-Tutorial-Curtis-Roads/d... book to be an excellent tour of the standard concepts and techniques of computer music (not just synthesis). It is both technical and accessible. Makes an excellent companion to whatever specific tools you choose to use.
- cesare 17y ago

philwelch 17y ago

If I was teaching someone how to program and wanted to get across the idea of incremental development, this is the first example I would use. You can just hear at each step how he's getting incrementally closer.