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Conference Paper

Computer Systems and Languages for Audio Research

Authors: Vercoe, Barry

AES Conference: 1st International Conference: Digital Audio · Paper Rye-025 · June 1982

Abstract

While most of the professional audio industry is preoccupied with the reproduction of recorded music created by natural instruments, there is a more profound application: creation of original music with digital signal processing. The historic limitations of natural air and string resonances can be overcome by the use of computer sound synthesis. Although computers can generate any sound that can be specified in point-by-point fashion, creative exploration of new timbres and new musical effects requires fabrication of new signal-processing structures at the level of software programming. For both musician and engineer, replacing an instrument by a terminal - or an analog pot by a subroutine - can be very disturbing, particularly if the modes of human-machine interaction are orthogonal to the task. A composer-oriented software system is described which affords intuitive yet flexible control over the most recent methods of digital audio processing.

Details

Published in
AES Conference: 1st International Conference: Digital Audio
Paper number
Rye-025
Publication date
June 6, 1982
Session subject
Digital Audio
Affiliation
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Experimental Music Studio, Cambridge, MA (See document for exact affiliation information.)
Type
Conference Paper