Game Audio Boston - New Synths & Audio Effects for Retro 1-Bit Sound
Details
GAB meets at Intrepid on the third floor, Room #3150. Folks start to gather at 6:30pm and the talk begins at 7pm.
New Synths & Audio Effects for Retro 1-Bit Sound
If you are interested in retro-styled video game music and audio, or the creative constraints of 1-bit sound on its own, this talk is for you! The sonic capabilities of many early computers (Apple IIe, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, &c.) were extremely limited: a single digital CPU pin wired directly to a speaker or audio jack. Traditionally, using these "1-bit" audio systems (also sometimes called "beepers" or "PC beepers") has meant sticking to a narrow range of timbres: mainly square waves, pulse waves, and impulse trains. In general, it is difficult to achieve polyphony or layered sounds with these systems, and they lack standard audio effects like filtering, EQ, and feedback delay. In this talk, I will first review some of the classical approaches to 1-bit music. Second, I will demonstrate my own process for composing 1-bit music in a modern workflow, using Ableton Live with custom DSP code written in Max For Live / MaxMSP / Gen~. Finally, I will describe the design of some of my custom 1-bit synthesizers, audio effects, and mixers. Special emphasis will be placed on a new variant of sparse noise I developed called "Crushed Velvet Noise," which is especially useful for 1-bit music.
Dr. Kurt James Werner does research related to virtual analog, the history of music technology (especially analog drum machines), 1-bit music, & sound synthesis. As part of his Ph.D. at Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), he wrote a dissertation entitled "Virtual Analog Modeling of Audio Circuitry Using Wave Digital Filters," using the classic Roland TR-808 bass drum circuit as a case study. As a composer, he works with chiptunes, musique concrète, circuit bending, algorithmic/generative composition, & breakbeat. He spent several years in Northern Ireland as a Lecturer in Audio at the Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC) of Queen's University Belfast, and just started a new position as a Research Engineer at iZotope, Inc. in Cambridge, MA.