Gendy-like breakpoints oscillator

oljud · Last edited by oljud on Sun Sep 04, 2016 11:41 pm; edited 1 time in total

I made a breakpoints-based "dynamic stochastic" oscillator a while back, a'la Iannis Xenakis' Gendy algorithm. It's a bit bare-bones—no interpolation, only 8 breakpoints, no manual initial setting or clamping of individual breakpoints—but I think it gets fairly close, soundwise. You get these weird formants and stuff popping up "from nowhere" and cool noisy stuff.

I've also added a pitch-tracking oscillator, which can follow the envelope of the drone or be amplitude modulated by it, can be synced to it, and which can also frequancy modulate the Gendy oscillator. This gets quite raucous: lots of fun! This addition is what I'm most proud of, it takes the Gendy algorithm to new places. (I think at least in SuperCollider audio-rate modulation of the Gendy-parameteres wasn't possible and feedback of course is very different. I like my nord...)

8 variations and a couple of knob mappings. It gets four voices on my unexpanded Engine and since it's inherently random they make a nice thick wall of noise. It can be thinned out, of course, and can track pitch easily. (although it is by nature not pitch-stable unless you bring down the time-randomness)

In this patch there is no pitch control apart from the knob, I'll make a pure Gendy-version with that later. I couldn't fit the envelope in with the external oscillator in it, and I want to add some possibilities to use the envelope for more than just volume (perhaps resetting the random values, or so). I don't have a midi-keyboard, though, and using the sequencer modules drives me nuts after a while...

(parentheses:
Not sure if this is really a drone or not, couldn't find a "noise" category, or "experimental". I've mostly used it for drones.

Oh, and I used the search function but couldn't find anything regarding Gendy/breakpoints oscillators.

To do:
check if interpolation could fit in somehow
add weighting to the random values (levelscaler, shapers)
modulation..?
a version with individual controls for the breakpoints...

oh, and: is there anyone there? I've been lurking again for the last week or so, not many newer posts. I have a couple of more patches I want to share, so let me know if you like this, that makes me happy)

G2endy demo.mp3

Description:

Demoing the G2endy oscillator patch. 4 voices droning on, 8 variations after each other. Some knob twiddling, too.

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11.08 MB

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6:03

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G2ENDY-oscillator with tracking ext osx (1).pch2

Description:

Xenakis-style oscillator. Dynamic stochastic synthesis. Gendy-algorithm. Noise

Download (listen)

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G2ENDY-oscillator with tracking ext osx (1).pch2

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blue hell · Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2015 5:10 pm Post subject:

This is certainly very interesting .. even so much that I didn't get a chance yet to check out your patch or the mp3 Shocked

Heh, instead, after reading about the first sentence in you post I started googling stuff, reading about Gendy and Xenakis and then patching some things for myself to try.

For linear interpolation I ended up using a crossfading multiplexer. The inputs being driven from random LFO speed signals. And indeed, one can do very nice things with this idea ... giving natural sounding, or 'plausible', sounds.

And then suddenly it was bed time Laughing

And yes .. the Nord community has not been very active for .. say .. the last couple of years.

Anyway, I will check out what you did at some later stage, its weekend soon!

blue hell · Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2015 5:51 am Post subject:

Oh that sounds pretty wild Laughing

At work now, will need to check the patch later.

oljud · Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2015 6:56 am Post subject:

I'm glad you found some inspiring googling-material!

It does, doesn't it? Twisted Evil

Multiplexers, that's an idea. I've worked more with this kind of complicated clocking-and-routing kind of patch since this so I'm sure I could find a more clever solution. Using modulated sequential AHD envelopes could be a way of getting something similar.

I wouldn't mind taking a look at your patches, I guess you have a different approach than mine.

blue hell · Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2015 5:32 pm Post subject:

The patch might not quite be what you expected Laughing

Still had no time to look at your patch, had a performance today, in which I actually used the patch above!

On the G2 I would have done about the same thing ... the mirroring as described in the texts I read sofar .. I did not implement that as in my patch the points can not go out of range ... but I guess that mirroring woyld map nicely to wave wrapping.

I can use 12 points in my patch ... but with a proper setup with crossfading multiplexers that could be made longer.

But I should first look at your patch, curious about the tracking thing you described as well.

Electromagnetic Wave · Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2015 10:38 pm Post subject:

Hi oljud !

I like this patch ! Very interesting. From my side I checked the patch ... and I googled it after !

I like the work from Iannis Xenakis.

blue hell · Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 3:06 am Post subject:

ian-s · Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2015 4:22 am Post subject:

Love it.

Variation 7 sounds like screeching tires.

oljud · Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2015 12:47 pm Post subject:

oljud · Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2015 12:56 pm Post subject:

oljud · Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2015 12:58 pm Post subject:

varice · Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2015 11:26 pm Post subject:

Very interesting noises from this patch… Thanks for posting it Exclamation

Variation 4 makes a good drone.

Here is something to try… select Variation 5 and then mute the output of the “aux osc”. Then the sound it makes reminds me of some of the strange noises I could get long ago from a short wave radio…

W.T. · Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2015 9:48 am Post subject:

this sounds very interesting!
Something to look forward to when I get home. thumleft

W.T. · Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2015 10:35 am Post subject:

very nice patch sir respect

oljud · Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2015 1:51 pm Post subject:

W.T. · Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2015 2:12 pm Post subject: