Sculpting the Sound Atom: Towards Per-Grain Parameterisation and Interfacing in Granular Synthesiser Design

Nathan Carter; Jim Murphy; Mo Zareei

Sculpting the Sound Atom: Towards Per-Grain Parameterisation and Interfacing in Granular Synthesiser Design

Abstract:

This paper presents a number of custom-designed granular synthesisers built around interfacing with sound grains on an ‘atomic' level. Developed by the first author using Max/MSP, these synthesisers explore per-grain voice parameterisation that uniquely interfaces with individual grain signal processing properties in larger granular sequences. Conceptually inspired by ancient Epicurean physics and painterly expositions on atomism in Lucretius' poem ‘The Nature of Things' (c. 55 BC), the paper outlines how these synthesisers provided the sound materials to compose the first author's major soundscape work [anonymous work].