Today I'm speaking to an audience at the Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology
of Connecticut College about finding a meeting place between visual
expression and sound. For attendees (and you readers at home), here are
some helpful links:
- Physical Modeling and Sound Creation: Apple's Logic
(Mac-only) is deep as it is, but its Sculpture synth alone points to
the future of virtual instruments with sophisticated physical modeling
sound generators. - Free Lunch on Windows: Logic's price tag is a hefty $1000 ($500 academic); if you're a Windows user, check out the free VST String Theory from Ugo. No VST host? Run it in the free (but superb) Kristal Audio Engine. You won't have Logic, but you won't have spent anything, either!
- Image as Sound: U&I's new MetaSynth 4 (OS 9/X) lets you paint to create sound and filters.
- Video Control: That's an iSight camera from Apple running the interactive multimedia software Cycling `74 Jitter which adds onto Max/MSP (Windows/Mac). Eric Singer has done some work in Max/MSP-Jitter motion tracking, but there's a lot more value and capabilities in Electrotap's Tap.Tools,
a library of essential stuff Cycling `74 doesn't give you including not
only motion tracking but plenty of other extras. Soon you'll be able to
take advantage of Electrotap's video control capabilities directly for
music with the upcoming plugin library Hipno, distributed by Cycling `74. See also Miller Puckette's free/open source Pure Data for Linux, OS X, and Windows if you want a non-commercial Max alternative. - VJing: Don't want to spend money or do programming? Witness the lines between image and sound blur directly with fun video toys from VJ Fader, like Neuromixer and VDrum. Free-as-in-beer, built in Max/MSP Jitter.
Enjoy! Now I have to take a deep breath.