What Would You Do With an Additive Synthesis Supercomputer?
Complex Audio Rendering from a Distributed Systems Perspective
The creative potential of additive synthesis has often been limited by processing demands and programming complexity. The talk presents early results from a new research project attacking both areas.
The underlying technique, “macro-scale additive synthesis”, sits at the boundary between sound design and music composition. It operates at the macro-scale in two different ways. It addresses the entire composition timeline, and it can render large numbers of additive partials.
High throughput is realised using a distributed systems approach that can scale up to create an “additive synthesis supercomputer”. Integration allows rendering to begin from an arbitrary point in a complex musical work. This provides a user experience somewhere between real-time and batch synthesis.
The research project targets composers using sound synthesis as part of the overarching musical form. This can include long evolving sounds, polytempo, and spatial audio. Compositions will be specified using a new domain-specific language (DSL), currently in an early stage. Later in the project, DAW integration is envisaged to provide a practical workflow.
The talk explains the technique, architecture, and feature set. Audio examples will be provided.
Alan Broady
Research Student
The Open University
Alan Broady is a software engineer and solution architect with over 30 years of professional experience. He has worked on a wide range of application areas, with a focus on distributed systems and cloud computing. In particular, he has been involved with technical standardisation bodies, developing standards used worldwide in smart TVs and in logistics.
Alan is a first-year PhD research student at the Open University, attached to the university's Music Computing Lab. He is working on the RAINBOHz project that combines distributed systems, audio synthesis and music programming languages. Alan's further research interests include domain-specific languages, spatial audio, sound design and music composition.
He has a lifetime interest in combining digital technology with audio and music, starting with the development of a commercial MIDI synth editor for the Atari ST in the 1990s. He has been active as a keyboard player and sound engineer for many years.