updated project proposal

Updated Project Proposal For the fall semester of MMDD-350:

Goals:

To gain a practical understanding of combining and interfacing more than one form of media in a single project/presentation. This is to be done primarily through the software Max/MSP/Jitter.

Project Outline:

I will build a software instrument in Max similar to the Phase Shifting Pulse Gate built by Larry Owens at Bell Laboratories for the composer Steve Reich. The instrument can take up to twelve audio inputs and gates their outputs based on divide by ten and divide by twelve flip-flops driven by a common clock source. The net result is a phrase that will not repeat itself for 120 gate open-close cycles.
This instrument will be will be a type of a sequencer but instead of counting in bars and beats this sequencer will count in repetitions, sample length, and pulse-width of the positive edge of the gating flip-flop. It will be interesting to experiment using the same sample but stretching the time to fit the gate length, to use different samples, for each input, to use video samples in some places, to continuously gate the same sample, have live performers playing into different inputs that would then be delayed and gated, etc…
Ideally, I would like to be able to set up a surround environment in which people could experience phase-gating in 360 degrees.

Limitations:

Outputting sound on more than one channel from a single computer. I have a 7.1 surround sound card that I could possibly use for this but it requires a desktop computer and I only have a laptop.

Overall:

By building this instrument, I can load samples of real instruments playing, thus creating interesting time-shifting effects, I can load midi sequences to control virtual instruments where pitch will not be affected, and I hope to be able to extend properties of this instrument into Jitter where I will be able to capture and manipulate images/video in relation to pulse/phase phrases created by the instrument. I intend to create this instrument as a sort of tool that I can add to a growing collection of software that I can use for live audio and visual performances.