COSC 4P98 Assign 3 - CSound Composition

Composition by Kyle Harrison

Listen
CSD file

My Composition

This composition is quite random in nature. It was created by simply playing around with CSound instruments. All of the sounds are very experimental and somewhat hard on the ears.

-The beginning is a simple 60Hz hum along with accompanying random granular synthesis.
-It then plays a 10 second clip of a sampled wav file.
-While this clip is playing, the flanger begins, which mixes with the played clip.
-A guitar pluck sound is then added to this mix, making a very interesting sound. This continues on for a period of time.
-This segment is ended with some more complex granular synthesis. The input parameters for this synthesis are taken from an oscillator playing back a sampled wav file.
-Once this has finished, we use the spectral fusion instrument for a period of time. This gives an interesting decaying pluck sound.
-More of the "complex" granular synthesis is used in addition to the spectral fusion.
-The ending comes in by playing the flanger and letting the echoes decay until silence.

Instruments

Playback of the Crystallize sample.
instr 102
a1,a2 loscil3 30000, 1, 4, 1
outs a1,a2
endin

Simple granular synthesis.
instr 103
a1 grain 30000, 440, 55, 10000, 10, .05, 1, 4, 1
out a1
endin

Granular synthesis using the playback of Crystallize as the pitch.
instr 104
a1,a2 loscil3 5000, 1, 4, 1
aoutL grain 5000, a1, 55, 100, 10, 0.5, 1, 3, 1
aoutR grain 5000, a2, 55, 100, 10, 0.5, 1, 3, 1
outs aoutL, aoutR
endin

Custom made instrument. This uses a flanger for both stereo channels.
The inputs are the corresponding channels in the playback of Crystallize.
The delay is the output of a sin wave.
instr 105
asin oscil 30000, 440, 1
a1,a2 loscil3 30000, 1, 4, 1
aoutL flanger a1, asin, 0.3
aoutR flanger a2, asin, 0.3
outs aoutL, aoutR
endin

Guitar pluck.
instr 106
a1 pluck p4, p5, 250, 0, 6, 0.3, 0.5
a2 pluck p5, p4, 250, 0, 6, 0.3, 0.5
outs a1, a2
endin

Buzz sound.
instr 107
a1 buzz p4,p5, 4, 1
out a1
endin

Spectral fusion.
instr 108
iamp = ampdb(p4) / 2 ;amp scaled for two sources
ipluckamp = p6 ;p6: % of total amplitude, 1=dB amp as in p4
ipluckdur = p7*p3 ;p7: % of total duration, 1=entire note duration
ipluckoff = p3 - ipluckdur
ifmamp = p8 ;p8: % of total amplitude, 1=dB amp as in p4
ifmrise = p9*p3 ;p9: % of total duration, 1=entire note duration
ifmdec = p10*p3 ;p10: % of total duration
ifmoff = p3 - (ifmrise + ifmdec)
index = p11
ivibdepth = p12
ivibrate = p13
ifrmntamp = p14 ;p14: % of total amplitude, 1=dB amp as in p4
ifrmntris = p15*p3 ;p15: % of total duration, 1=entire note duration
ifrmntdec = p3 - ifrmntris
kpluck linseg ipluckamp, ipluckdur, 0, ipluckoff, 0
apluck1 pluck iamp, p5, p5, 0, 1
apluck2 pluck iamp, p5*1.003, p5*1.003, 0, 1
apluck = kpluck * (apluck1+apluck2)
kfm linseg 0, ifmrise, ifmamp, ifmdec, 0, ifmoff, 0
kndx = kfm * index
afm1 foscil iamp, p5, 1, 2, kndx, 1
afm2 foscil iamp, p5*1.003, 1.003, 2.003, kndx, 1
afm = kfm * (afm1+afm2)
kformant linseg 0, ifrmntris, ifrmntamp, ifrmntdec, 0
kvib oscil ivibdepth, ivibrate, 1
afrmt1 fof iamp, p5+kvib, 650, 0, 40, .003,.017,.007,4,1,2,p3
afrmt2 fof iamp, (p5*1.001)+kvib*.009, 650, 0, 40, .003,.017,.007,10,1,2,p3
aformant = kformant * (afrmt1+afrmt2)
out apluck + afm + aformant
endin

Tools Used

CSound 5.15 was used to program the composition. No post-processing was done.
Playback of the file was significantly different than rendering of the output file so the composition was played and recorded (using my phone as a microphone) in .amr format.

Audactiy 2.0 was used to convert the .amr recording to an MP3 file.

Notes

A sample from the song Crystallize by Lindsay Stirling was used in the making of this composition.
The sample can be found here.
The original song can be heard on YouTube.

The spectral fusion instrument was borrowed from a tutorial by Richard Boulanger.
The tutorial can be found here.

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