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

Nathan Carter; Jim Murphy; Mo Zareei

Image credit: Nathan Carter; Jim Murphy; Mo Zareei

• Format: poster
• Session: posters-1
• Paper PDF link
• Presence: in person
• Duration: 5
• Type: short

Abstract:

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