This page was last modified on March 9, 2001.

Christopher Dobrian

Music 147 Research Page

This page contains links to example Csound files, Max/MSP files, and MP3 files, made as instructive examples for students in Music 147 (ICS 180, ECE 198), Computer Audio: Musical Applications of Digital Signal Processing.

Csound

Csound Assignment No. 1

001.orc: instrument demonstrated on the first class session on Csound; an oscillator with a three-stage amplitude envelope
001.sco: score file to play the beginning of "Frère Jacques" on that instrument

Other stuff with sine waves

oscil+oscil.orc: the same instrument as 001.orc, with 2 oscillators
oscil+oscil.sco: a score file to demonstrate the effect of "beats" due to interference of two waves

gliss.orc: three instruments, demonstrating three ways to slide the pitch; one uses a frequency glissando, the other two use a pitch glissando (i.e., a glissando that is exponential in frequency but linear in pitch)
gliss.sco: score file to demonstrate the effect of a linear frequency glissando (played 1st) and an exponential frequency glissando (played 2nd and 3rd)

glisses.orc: an instrument that allows the pitch to be slid according to a 3-part line-segment function
glisses.sco: score file that plays 8 simultaneous different glissandi

additive1.orc: a simple sine instrument with ADSR envelope
additive1.sco: the first sixteen harmonics of a fundamental tone, played successively, then played simultaneously

additive2.orc: a sine instrument with six oscillators for additive synthesis, and a single ADSR envelope
additive2.sco: a few harmonic complex tones using six sine oscilators
additive2a.sco: a few inharmonic complex tones using six sine oscilators

additive3.orc: an instrument in which the wavetable can be specified in a p-field
additive3.sco: notes played with changing wavetable on each note, to show how a single instrument can produce many timbres

Csound Assignment No. 2: FM synthesis

FM2.orc: a two-operator FM instrument (one carrier, one modulator), with independent control of carrier amplitude (ADSR) and modulator amplitude (two-stage line segment control of modulation index)
FM2.sco: score file to demonstrate a few different timbres on the FM instrument

FM3.orc: a two-operator FM instrument similar to FM2.orc, but allowing for easy pitch-naming in p5
FM3.sco: score file to play a trumpet and drum riff
FM3a.sco: score file to play a some more interesting FM sounds: a bell, an evolving sound, and some woody percussive notes

FM1.orc: an extremely simple instrument for demonstrating frequency modulation;
FM1.sco: score file to demonstrate low-frequency modulation (vibrato), and frequency modulation at an audio rate (FM sysnthesis)

Examples using sound files as sound source

gtr.orc: using 512 samples of a soundfile (of an electric guitar) as a wavetable for an oscillator
gtr.sco: score file to play a strummed E7 chord and a downward blues scale, ending on a note with vibrato
gtr512.aiff: sound file needed for the above Csound files

bass.orc: using loscil to read a soundfile (of an electric bass) that has loop points specified in the file
bass.sco: score file to play a bass riff on the instrument, taking advanctage of the sustain loop to play longer notes
bass.aiff: sound file needed for the above Csound files

ahkey.orc: using loscil to read a soundfile (of an electronic keyboard), specifying the loop points in the Csound instrument
ahkey.sco: score file to play a pair of notes on the instrument (just to demonstrate the sustain looping)
ahkey.aiff: sound file needed for the above Csound files

pno.orc: using diskin to read a soundfile directly from the hard disk (and add vibrato to it, if desired
pno.sco: score file to play a few transposed piano notes (including one with vibrato), and a flute phrase (with extreme vibrato added)
Bb8vbshort.aiff: sound file needed for the above Csound files
D.aiff: sound file needed for the above Csound files

Csound Assignment No. 3: Panning

simplepan.orc: "linear" crossfade to pan sounds from speaker to speaker, simulating a moving sound source
simplepan.sco: score file to play noise bursts and FM notes, while panning them between speakers

equalpowerpan.orc: "equal power" crossfade to pan sounds from speaker to speaker, simulating a moving sound source in an arc that maintains a constant distance from the listener
equalpowerpan.sco: score file to play the same FM notes as in simplepan.sco, while panning them in simulation of a constant distance arc between speakers using an "equal power" crossfade; theoretically this version should avoid the "hole in the middle" phenomenon of the linear crossfade

Additional Csound examples

comb1.orc: demonstrates the comb filter effect that occurs when a sound is mixed with a delayed version of itself; the fundamental frequency of the peaks of the comb filter is determined by the delay time, such that F=1/delay
comb1.sco: plays a few notes with white noise, and then with a rich harmonic wave, with different delay times to show different comb filtering sounds

lopass1.orc: a sweeping lowpass filter with either white noise or a rich harmonic wave as the source sound
lopass1.sco: plays some filter sweeps with white noise, and then with a rich harmonic wave, to show the effect of a few different cutoff frequencies and Q settings

doppler1.orc: a more sophisticated spatialization instrument that allows one to specify a sound trajectory from one point to another in 2-D space (giving starting and ending x and y coordinates), which then calculates delay and amplitude for each speaker based on the distance and angle of the sound source; as the distance from the listener changes, Doppler shift occurs
doppler1.sco: score file to play a sound like a European police siren whizzing past the listener at about 45 mph
dopplerthoery.htm: a brief explanation of how the Doppler shift is derived in this Csound implementation

dispfft.orc and dispfft.sco: orchestra and score file to display the FFT of filtered white noise, demonstrating the effect of a butterworth lowpass filter
dispfft2.orc and dispfft2.sco: orchestra and score file to display the FFT of a band-limited pulse train as it is filtered by a butterworth lowpass filter

grain.orc and grain.sco: orchestra and score file to demonstrate one method of granular synthesis, using the grain unit generator
Dpentatonic.aiff: sound file needed for the above granular synthesis Csound example

Max/MSP

No Max/MSP files posted yet.

MP3

Csound Assignment No. 1

Frère Jacques played on 001.orc

Csound Assignment No. 2

cheezy trumpet-like and drum-like tones played on FM3.orc
a few weird tones played on FM3.orc

Csound Assignment No. 3

panning from speaker to speaker using a linear crossfade
panning from speaker to speaker, in simulation of a constant distance arc from the listener, using an "equal power" crossfade

This page is for Music 147 (ICS 180, ECE 198), Computer Audio: Musical Applications of Digital Signal Processing, offered Winter 2001 at UCI.