Composing Morphology: Concatenative Synthesis as an Intuitive Medium for Prescribing Sound in Time

Abstract

This article presents AudioGuide, an innovative application for sound synthesis which aims to heighten compositional control of morphology in electronic music. We begin with a discussion of the challenges of managing detail when composing with computers, emphasizing the need for more tools which help the composer address the intricacies of sonic evolution. AudioGuide's approach—using a soundfile as a method for specifying morphological shape—provides a simple yet exacting medium for representing temporal ideas. Using the spectral structure of a soundfile, AudioGuide organizes a user-defined collection of pre-recorded sounds to create a similar morphological contour. Our matching strategy accounts for the spectral content, temporal evolution, and superimposition of sonic elements. We provide two examples which illuminate the capabilities of the algorithm from within a musical context.

Keywords:

• Concatenative Synthesis
• Audio Features
• Timbre
• Gestural Transcription

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Arshia Cont for his assistance in the preparation of this article.

Notes

Information and examples may be found at http://crca.ucsd.edu/~ben/audioGuide/

In the case of Figure 3, the morphological information present in the target's upper-left quadrant will likely not be well-represented in a resulting concatenation.

This approach builds on the design of other programs for concatenative synthesis. In particular, it can be seen as adding a method for simultaneous selection to an application similar to CataRT; alternatively, it can be seen as adding a time model to a program like Orchidée.

http://crca.ucsd.edu/~ben/aipow/