Introduction:
Welcome to this 'blogotorial' - a combination of a blog and tutorial.
This blog is intended for those intrepid souls who, like me, enjoy delving into the artistic applications of computing technology. It is designed more for those who have some experience with programming, music and electronics, but, of course, all are welcome.
This isn't a finished product sort of thing. My purpose with this blog is to convey enough information for the reader to head off into uncharted waters of their own. There will most likely be no 'kits' for sale. I wouldn't mind getting a book deal, but it's not my main objective :)
To that end, the source code follows the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. By design, it is not "production code". It is development code -- since there are a ton of ways you can take any given topic, I leave in some commented code as an alternative; maybe it's a different way to do something. Maybe I just thought it sounded cool. The point being, it's code to play with, not code to produce a retail product with.
I expect this journey will be more of a mutual discovery thing: there is so much to the topic that I can't possibly cover all levels of everything. And there are ample resources on the web, should this blog, as I hope it will, spark some interest or fascination with any aspects of the worlds of electronics, music, electronic music, programming and any artistic endeavors any or all of them may lead to.
-- Bill, the Junkbox Junkie
Welcome to this 'blogotorial' - a combination of a blog and tutorial.
This blog is intended for those intrepid souls who, like me, enjoy delving into the artistic applications of computing technology. It is designed more for those who have some experience with programming, music and electronics, but, of course, all are welcome.
This isn't a finished product sort of thing. My purpose with this blog is to convey enough information for the reader to head off into uncharted waters of their own. There will most likely be no 'kits' for sale. I wouldn't mind getting a book deal, but it's not my main objective :)
To that end, the source code follows the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. By design, it is not "production code". It is development code -- since there are a ton of ways you can take any given topic, I leave in some commented code as an alternative; maybe it's a different way to do something. Maybe I just thought it sounded cool. The point being, it's code to play with, not code to produce a retail product with.
I expect this journey will be more of a mutual discovery thing: there is so much to the topic that I can't possibly cover all levels of everything. And there are ample resources on the web, should this blog, as I hope it will, spark some interest or fascination with any aspects of the worlds of electronics, music, electronic music, programming and any artistic endeavors any or all of them may lead to.
-- Bill, the Junkbox Junkie
Background:
It was somewhere in the early-to-mid 1960's, I think. Yeah, I'm that old. But anyway, I strongly suspect it was either Gershon Kingsley or Jean-Jacques Perrey. Whomever it was, was on some children's show of the day (I always thought maybe it was 'Wonderama' with Sonny Fox, but I can't really remember).
Be that as it may, this person was showing off this very cool machine that made all sorts of weird sounds, but in a musical context. I was maybe 5 or 6 and I got excited. I don't mean 'hey wow' excited. I mean the deep down “I WANT” excited. Whatever song he played, I don't remember. Might have been “Barnyard in Orbit”. I do know the show used part of the song for a drop to and from commercials.
From that point on, I absorbed any and all things I could get my hands on that had to do with electronics, synthesizers or electronic music. This included exposure to musique concrète, elektronische Musik, tape manipulation and any other off-the-wall music. Names like John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Dr. Thaddeus Cahill and his Telharmonium, Lev Termen and his Theremin, Maurice Martenot and his Ondes Martenot: on and on and on up to Dr. Robert A. Moog's Moog, The Arp, Buchla, EML, PAiA. Electronic magazines that carried any type of schematics by John Simonton, Jr., Don Lancaster, Craig Anderton and many, many more who, if I could instantly recall them all, would fill up the entire internet, so I'll quit trying to list it all.
So, in a nutshell, I studied sound synthesis and electronic music for a long time. I got my first taste of computing in 1976 when a friend got permission for me to use the timeshare HP computer teletype in the Math Department's teacher's lounge. I printed out a tutorial on the BASIC language and two days later wrote my first program – a “Mad Libs” program which asked for a few nouns, adjectives and whatnot and then printed a story using the words the 'player' had typed in.
I went to college in 1976. Took a year of music and, after a break, a year of electronics. During the latter, Commodore came out with the PET – the Personal Electronic Transactor. A desktop computer. Yet another deep down “I WANT” struck me.
I had, in the years between 1973 and 1978 added BYTE magazine and Polyphony to my normal subscriptions to Radio Electronics and Popular Electronics with an occasional Elementary Electronics issue, as they came to my attention.
Flash forward. By 1982 I had begin a short-lived career as a published author. Pocket Magic was the first, a small book of games for the Radio Shack 'Pocket Computer'. In 1983, a book of games for the Timex Sinclair 1000, aptly named 30 Games for the Timex/Sinclair Computer, was released. Two came out in 1984. The first was a co-authorship with Hank Librach (we actually each wrote our half-a-book without ever actually meeting) called Using The Commodore 64 in the Home. Also that year, my personal favorite, and sadly, final book was Music and Sound for the Commodore 64.
That final book contained pretty much all I had ever learned about basic music theory, the physics of sound, analog synthesis and computer programming. In chapter 10, The Commodore 64 as Composer, I discussed several ways to code music generating software. At the time, this was pretty cutting edge stuff.
Things went south in the computer book industry and so I went on with my life. In 1991, seven years after my last book, I was programming in Pascal, C and a couple of other languages. Pascal really became my 'secret' favorite because of several components inherent in the language. These things, as it turned out, were very well suited to writing music generation software. I was working as a professional 'corporate' programmer, which I found as appetizing as mud. But, it payed the bills. With a new family, I didn't have a whole lot of free time, but that old “I WANT” popped up again and I decided to devote what little time I could to writing new code based on my earlier work. I managed to come up with a MIDI-only version as well as one that worked with the OPL3 Yamaha FM type of IBM-PC compatible sound card. It was awesome fun, doing all that register-level programming.
Life again got the upper hand and, try as I might, time slipped away. I kept playing around with this or that as time went by. Microchip PIC® chips caught my eye, but I rarely had time to do much at all with them.
Finally, we're at about 6 months ago. After 20 some odd years, I'm back into the swing of things, learning Arduino coding and Processing and PIC® programming in C, re-familiarizing my self with a soldering iron, designing circuits. Having a blast.
That's what this whole thing is really about. Sharing my experiences and, hopefully, inspiring others to fully engage their interests, whatever they may be.
Enjoy.
Bill, the Junkbox Junkie
It was somewhere in the early-to-mid 1960's, I think. Yeah, I'm that old. But anyway, I strongly suspect it was either Gershon Kingsley or Jean-Jacques Perrey. Whomever it was, was on some children's show of the day (I always thought maybe it was 'Wonderama' with Sonny Fox, but I can't really remember).
Be that as it may, this person was showing off this very cool machine that made all sorts of weird sounds, but in a musical context. I was maybe 5 or 6 and I got excited. I don't mean 'hey wow' excited. I mean the deep down “I WANT” excited. Whatever song he played, I don't remember. Might have been “Barnyard in Orbit”. I do know the show used part of the song for a drop to and from commercials.
From that point on, I absorbed any and all things I could get my hands on that had to do with electronics, synthesizers or electronic music. This included exposure to musique concrète, elektronische Musik, tape manipulation and any other off-the-wall music. Names like John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Dr. Thaddeus Cahill and his Telharmonium, Lev Termen and his Theremin, Maurice Martenot and his Ondes Martenot: on and on and on up to Dr. Robert A. Moog's Moog, The Arp, Buchla, EML, PAiA. Electronic magazines that carried any type of schematics by John Simonton, Jr., Don Lancaster, Craig Anderton and many, many more who, if I could instantly recall them all, would fill up the entire internet, so I'll quit trying to list it all.
So, in a nutshell, I studied sound synthesis and electronic music for a long time. I got my first taste of computing in 1976 when a friend got permission for me to use the timeshare HP computer teletype in the Math Department's teacher's lounge. I printed out a tutorial on the BASIC language and two days later wrote my first program – a “Mad Libs” program which asked for a few nouns, adjectives and whatnot and then printed a story using the words the 'player' had typed in.
I went to college in 1976. Took a year of music and, after a break, a year of electronics. During the latter, Commodore came out with the PET – the Personal Electronic Transactor. A desktop computer. Yet another deep down “I WANT” struck me.
I had, in the years between 1973 and 1978 added BYTE magazine and Polyphony to my normal subscriptions to Radio Electronics and Popular Electronics with an occasional Elementary Electronics issue, as they came to my attention.
Flash forward. By 1982 I had begin a short-lived career as a published author. Pocket Magic was the first, a small book of games for the Radio Shack 'Pocket Computer'. In 1983, a book of games for the Timex Sinclair 1000, aptly named 30 Games for the Timex/Sinclair Computer, was released. Two came out in 1984. The first was a co-authorship with Hank Librach (we actually each wrote our half-a-book without ever actually meeting) called Using The Commodore 64 in the Home. Also that year, my personal favorite, and sadly, final book was Music and Sound for the Commodore 64.
That final book contained pretty much all I had ever learned about basic music theory, the physics of sound, analog synthesis and computer programming. In chapter 10, The Commodore 64 as Composer, I discussed several ways to code music generating software. At the time, this was pretty cutting edge stuff.
Things went south in the computer book industry and so I went on with my life. In 1991, seven years after my last book, I was programming in Pascal, C and a couple of other languages. Pascal really became my 'secret' favorite because of several components inherent in the language. These things, as it turned out, were very well suited to writing music generation software. I was working as a professional 'corporate' programmer, which I found as appetizing as mud. But, it payed the bills. With a new family, I didn't have a whole lot of free time, but that old “I WANT” popped up again and I decided to devote what little time I could to writing new code based on my earlier work. I managed to come up with a MIDI-only version as well as one that worked with the OPL3 Yamaha FM type of IBM-PC compatible sound card. It was awesome fun, doing all that register-level programming.
Life again got the upper hand and, try as I might, time slipped away. I kept playing around with this or that as time went by. Microchip PIC® chips caught my eye, but I rarely had time to do much at all with them.
Finally, we're at about 6 months ago. After 20 some odd years, I'm back into the swing of things, learning Arduino coding and Processing and PIC® programming in C, re-familiarizing my self with a soldering iron, designing circuits. Having a blast.
That's what this whole thing is really about. Sharing my experiences and, hopefully, inspiring others to fully engage their interests, whatever they may be.
Enjoy.
Bill, the Junkbox Junkie
Copyright © 2015 by Bill L. Behrendt
