Fractal Music Project
HI, : after a long time of silence I´m back again with a new project. After my Multifractal Project which has remained unique as it still is the only software creating fractals using up to five formulas simultaneously here is my Fractal Music project, possibly the only one which deserves that name, there are some details they have in common: : It uses a single algorithm to automatically create music of theoretically indefinite size which never repeats itself. The rhythm is my own definition of an endless shifting rhythm originally inspired by Steve Reich ("Drumming") and Terry Riley ("In C") and on their side by African native music for instance by the pygmies. : The melodies- of course being the other half of the structure "shifting melodies" - are created using pixels of a Bitmap (BMP) fractal, which is scanned using the dots and lines of a freely designed IFS fractal. : The basic software - in and out and conversion of a pixel into musical parameters of a single note - originates in the nineties, author David Strohbeen and is not available anymore. : In addition to the image the music is influenced to a high degree by the IFS fractal used, a pyramid for instance creates a harder rhythmic structure, a spiral a softer melodic structure. Listening closely and relaxed you may well find that the general atmosphere of the music is that of the originating fractal. : I converted Jim´s "End of the World" image, FOTD Aug27, loved it at first glance. Thanks for that, Jim. Including links of the WAV files - mp3 is not satisfactory - and the original MID files. Be careful when using Midi: The sound depends on the fonts used and therefore maybe disapointing.The soundfont used is WeedsGM3, google for it. Use only a player that does not change the parameters. The creative player destroys the music, Winamp is ok. : Albrecht Niekamp] : SPIRAL1.IFS { 0.788 -0.424 0.242 0.860 1.649 5.431 0.896 -0.121 0.258 0.152 0.053 -6.722 1.377 0.052 0.182 -0.136 0.091 0.182 6.086 1.568 0.052 } : http://www.crosscanpuzzles.com/Aug13/082713.html https://www.dropbox.com/s/1c7bl26vc44lqy6/120913D3.MID https://www.dropbox.com/s/kvastwz6oopb900/120913D3.wav https://www.dropbox.com/s/odhd6582zzu6cy1/11091301.MID https://www.dropbox.com/s/94mlkbmmdwvydlp/11091301.wav
Albrecht Niekamp wrote:
HI, after a long time of silence I´m back again with a new project. ....... here is my Fractal Music project...
I listened to both of the MIDI and WAVE files, and did not see any difference between their corresponding versions. I was using Microsoft's Windows Media Player 11.0. Though I enjoyed both of the two types of music, I liked "11091301" (the melody version) the best. :-) Sincerely, P.N.L.
HI, Bill I see that you´re argumenting agressively because you´re promoting your website. But anyway I´ll reply factually. First a word about music generally: Good Music does something to you: It relaxes, makes you move or dance, makes you sing along or put you into a higher state of awareness like a good work of art. FRACTAL music of the traditional kind does nothing of that. It´s funny noise as I said in my admittedly provocative statement, maybe it´s an interesting noise. : My fractal MUSIC is definetly not of that kind. It´s fractal because it´s not possible to create with other kinds of images maybe some paintings which have something in common with fractals. Every good fractal has a certain "Rhythm" and clearly defined colours and areas. Jim´s FOTD´s prove that very clearly. That´s why the first image used is one of his.In order to transform these elements I use an IFS fractal that covers these areas. : In the long process of creating my Multifractal Project, that never would have finished without the help of the community I had contact with most of the people you mentioned. On Sylvie´s homepage is a collection of Multifractal images.Talking about the eightees: I published an assembler program for the AtariXL "Instant Music", the title has been stolen by the music industry, that created and plaid music using random generators, feedback and composition rules and had one thing in common with my fractal music: The music gets better the longer it lasts. On startup all voices play simultaneously, the more they diverge , the better is the adaptation to the source. If you listen to the melodic version you will notice that after about 5 minutes there is a noticeable change of quality, now you know why. : Shifting melodies: Thought I had invented the expression and therefore put it in quotation marks, anyway the meaning is different from other uses: Caused by the shifting rhythm the melodic structures change completely so they cannot be recognized anymore. : The precise description of my kind of a shifting rhythm remains my secret sofar. A rhythm that does not repeat even after a very long time of playing IS something new. Correct me if I´m wrong. If there is interest send a private email. : I would like to know what others have to say about this - everybody has feelings about music and after all: This is what a forum is for. : Albrecht Am 15.09.2013 00:21, schrieb Bill Jemison:
Ok Al, I'll rise to the bait. And lots of chum has indeed been thrown in. Because I am right at the beginning of my busy season, I will not be able to reply with the detail that I would like, so for the moment I will not address the real question: whether your creations are even fractal or not. Do they sound fractal? I guess that's in the ear of the listener. To me, fractals are not boring.
As you point out, mapping images to sound is not at all a new concept. It has been done since the '90's if I recall. And "shifting melodies" is a technique that has been used in electronic music for some time as well. Have you tried mapping your music to a non-fractal image? I have a feeling that the results would be indistinguishable as to which was from a fractal image and which was from an image of, say, the Eiffel Tower (assuming you run both images through the exact same process). I'm not saying they would sound the same, but I think one might be hard pressed to say which is which (fractal vs. non-fractal).
I remember when we emailed back and forth a few times about a year ago when you were already doing your project. However, I am wondering just where you get the idea that yours is the only fractal music project worthy of the name? And you actually post that assertion here - on the fractint list? That takes a bit of chutzpah in my opinion, and was obviously intended to provoke a comment or two. I suppose you weren't around the Fractint environment back in the late 80's and through the 90's. Did you ever hear of Tim Wegner? Jonathan Osuch? Robin Bussell? Sylvie Gallet? Of course, Tim started it all, with his dream of introducing the beauty and complexity of fractals to the visually impaired. And in my mind, he succeeded. IMO, your creations, at least those that I have heard, don't come close to that success, and in that respect, Tim deserves credit for the the greatest Fractal Music Project of all time. Just my opinion of course, but it was Tim who saw the potential of using fractal formulae (not pretty - or otherwise - pictures) to create sound. That is what his project was about. Apparently, you have chosen a different path.That is fine, but beware inviting comparisons.
So...ignoring my own caution, today I created an Audio Fractals site on google sites and uploaded an mp3 I originally recorded in '94 or thereabouts. Taiko drums and cowbell are the instruments. The original midi file was created using raw Fractint data output, which was converted to midi format by me. "MOVMNT14" has since been renamed, but this is the original. All the timings were generated within fractint. There are three notes added at the end as a tribute to Fractint. If anyone cares to listen to it here is the url:
Wow! It was right around 25 years ago that I stumbled on to Fractint. I was new to computer graphics, and immediately became intrigued by fractals in general, and specifically, in Fractint's ability to produce crude, rudimentary sounds from the fractal calculations. Tim Wegner had introduced the sound capability in order to impart on one of his sight-impaired followers a feeling for fractals and chaos without needing the visual output of the calculations for input to the senses. That has been my main focus with Fractint over the years...Audio Fractals. I became really intrigued watching the orbit points come and go as Fractint cranked away at the calculations. It was much more fun for me to watch as the fractal image was built than to see the final result. The journey became the focus, rather than the destination. I like to think that I was somewhat instrumental in pushing for increased sophistication in the way that Fractint handled Audio Fractals. It was partially a result of my prodding that the team (I think it was Tim...maybe Jonathan) inserted the ORBITSAVE=text parameter. That txt file, sound.txt, became the basic working unit for all my MIDI based Audio Fractals. So why not Fractal Music? I suppose the question could be posed: Why not Fractal Art? To me, a fractal is the calculation. If "your thing" is visual, then you are probably more interested in the visual expression of that calcualtion - an image on a monitor or in print. What I see in a visual fractal is the aftermath of dead orbits. When the value of a point exceeds the limit, it dies and a color is generated for that test point. Just my opinion, of course, but I think visual fractals are realtively mundane. I mean no offense - as I assume those who express their dislike of "Fractal Music" don't mean to offend those of us whose love of fractals leads us in a different direction. So why not Fractal Music? Because "music" is a subjective term and quite personal in nature. One person's cacaphony of noise may be another's starting point for adventure. I prefer to call my stuff "Audio Fractals", since that term avoids the issue of "is it music?" entirely. You can decide. Whether one considers it music or something else doesn't matter to me. What counts is "Is it interesting? Is it fractal?" In my experience there are two basic schisms in the Fractal Music/Audio Fractals world. There are those who produce sounds by using some sort of mapping routine - mapping colors of fractal images to sounds - and those that use the values of each iterative test of a single point in the fractal plane to determine the sounds. Here on the Fractint list we actually have practicioners of both approaches. Albrecht appears to follow the mapping path, picking interesting looking fractal images and, using his special algorythms, overlays, manipulates, massages and shifts to produce his trademark hypnotic, meditative and comfortable sound...almost trance inducing. Far from the chaotic images that are used for input, in my opinion. I would love to hear some discussion as to whether sounds mapped from a fractal image are, in themselves, fractal or not. Are they any different from the sounds produced by the same manipulations of non-fractal images with some variety in them? Would one be able to say with any certainty in a blind test which sounds came from the fractal image and which from the non-fractal image? Albrecht and I have had our own discussions about this, but I would love to get input from others. I am definitely an advocate and practicioner of the iterative approach. I started in the early 1990's by hanging an old Radio Shack mic over a disassembled 286's exposed PC speaker, and recording the sounds produced using Fractint v15.11 - fan noise and all - to my 386. When MIDI became popular and soundcards got good enough to work fairly well, I undertook a years-long project, using MF2T.exe and T2MF.exe to convert the values and timings produced by the sound.txt file to MIDI messages. It was a fascinating project. Using MIDI one can produce sounds that are more familiar to the ear than the raw Fractint-produced sounds. But one always runs the risk of overdoing things, and I am certainly guilty as charged of abusing a new toy. Even using my approach one can manipulate the files enough that they lose some of their fractal character. I loved the MIDI game I played, but my heart is really with the sounds generated within Fractint itself. As a side note: back in the early 90's when Fractint was on Compuserve, a member of the group, Dan Farmer, asked me why I didn't just map sound to image. I told him then as I would now: Because the joy is in the journey, not the destination. It would take an infinite amount of time to play the whole journey. I have been asked to post the images produced by my Audio Fractals, but it is generally a waste of time...my Audio Fractals only use the orbit calculations of a few dozen pixels each...even the longer ones. And if I increased the bailout values they would take even longer to be played. I am posting this because, as I get older (I didn't start with Fractint until I was in my early 40's) not only am I forgetting things, but, having long wanted to introduce my attempts at entertainment to the present day fractalists, the sad fact is that time is running out. I have great hopes of being able to resume my work on Audio Fractals, if the press of business and age ever allow. In the mean time I have started uploading a variety of 1990's vintage Audio Fractal .mp3 files to my new Audio Fractals web site: https://sites.google.com/site/audiofractals/. The MIDI files are all on page 1 "Sound of Chaos CD" which has the complete 1994 CD converted to .mp3. I hope you will check out the site and files and that no one has been offended by my message. I only want to stimulate discussion and perhaps inject a little vitality into the maps v. orbits subject. Cheers, Bill Jemison
Bill Jemison wrote:
In the mean time I have started uploading a variety of 1990's vintage Audio Fractal .mp3 files to my new Audio Fractals web site: https://sites.google.com/site/audiofractals/ The MIDI files are all on page 1 "Sound of Chaos CD" which has the complete 1994 CD converted to .mp3.
Was there a cover image for this CD ?? I downloaded these .MP3 files and was updating the information within them to look more like a published CD: • Song sequence number. • Title name. • Artist. • Album Name. • Album Artist. • Release Year. • Genre. • Composer. • Rating. • Comments. • etc... Just thought an image would help complete the selection for my audio files collection. Sincerely, P.N.L.
Bill Jemison wrote:
The MIDI files are all on page 1 "Sound of Chaos CD" which has the complete 1994 CD converted to .mp3.
The added applause at the end of your last track, "Zappa's Staircase", was an unexpected and humorous touch. :-) Sincerely, P.N.L.
*/"Albrecht appears to follow the mapping path, picking interesting looking fractal images and, using his special algorythms, overlays, manipulates, massages and shifts to produce his trademark hypnotic, meditative and comfortable sound...almost trance inducing. Far from the chaotic images that are used for input, in my opinion. I would love to hear some discussion as to whether sounds mapped from a fractal image are, in themselves, fractal or not. Are they any different from the sounds produced by the same manipulations of non-fractal images with some variety in them? Would one be able to say with any certainty in a blind test which sounds came from the fractal image and which from the non-fractal image? Albrecht and I have had our own discussions about this, but I would love to get input from others."/* ; Bill, I have to reply to this myself, because there is some misunderstanding. The used image does not make it Fractal Music. I use fractals because they quite often have a visible mathematical structure and order both in relation to the nature of the image and the distribution of the colors. No photo or painting has that quality with one exception: Some abstract paintings look like fractals and some of my images look like paintings. If you take a normal image, say the desktop background it will sound dull and disapointing as this quality is missing. What makes it Fractal Music is the IFS Fractal used for scanning. There are many to choose from, but they all have a strict fractal mathematical order of dots and they are responsible for the term Fractal Music - in connection ith the basic image. if I use the same image together with different IFS fractals it will generate completely different music - rhythm and notes. *The basic image supplies the input.* You may have a different opinion regarding my "fractal rhythm" which uses the smallest possible parts of a note to generate my shifting musical story which never repeats. ; Hope, this makes it clear. ; Albrecht
Am 21.10.2014 09:52, schrieb Bill Jemison:
How about giving us a "hurricane"? Thank You, Bill. I will submit a detailed reply later. Listen to "Stomping at the Chaos Club" or "The Stomp" and you have your hurricane, Working presently on an update version with more variety. There is a special MP3 folder on my site. Here is the link again: ; https://www.dropbox.com/sh/566vd07uw50fe4o/AABZh8-hymWegoSv2y21mbNCa?dl=0 ; This is the link to the complete site: ; https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zx1sjqtln4vtovk/AABAhwj_Ovy2WCAnFejh_9bOa?dl=0 ; Albrecht
Albrechtx wrote:
There is a special MP3 folder on my site. Here is the link again: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/566vd07uw50fe4o/AABZh8-hymWegoSv2y21mbNCa?dl=0
This is the link to the complete site: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zx1sjqtln4vtovk/AABAhwj_Ovy2WCAnFejh_9bOa?dl=0
I saw a few of your older .MP3 files, but I did not see some others: • Evening Song • Elegy • Playground • Circles • Rocking Hula Hop • etc... Sincerely, P.N.L.
Am 21.10.2014 13:30, schrieb Paul N. Lee:
* **I saw a few of your older .MP3 files, but I did not see some others:* Thank You, Paul. Now the list should be more or less complete. To be honest - the music lately had to come second as I noted lack of interest. But if Bill succeeds to start a discussion, just the better. I ´will gladly put more efforts into this line. As you may have noted I have started to inrease the variety and add some structure ; Albrecht
Bill, I will try to answer your questions and give you my point of view. As a friend said I have my own musical language - in the beginning it was for me alone but I detected that others came to like it so it´s not all that important if the term "Fractal Music" is justified or not. ; *"A geometrical structure that has a regular ** **or an uneven shape repeated over all scales** **of measurement and that has a dimension ** **(frac?tal dimension), determined according** **to definite rules, that is greater than the ** **spatial dimension of the structure."* ; According to this definition the term "Fractal Music" is impossible. Shall we say we have "Fractal Music" if fractal structures are used to generate it to a high degree? ; *I am trying hard to understand. You use a fractal image as your underlying input structure, and sample points on it using another fractal image - the IFS fractal image - as it is generated one point at a time. Different IFS fractal images sample those points in different patterns, producing different sounds from the same underlying (fractal) image. I'm sure there is a lot more to what you are doing, but is that the gist of it? Would you agree that that still puts you on the "mapping" side of things as opposed to the "iterative" side?** ;* Agreed - if applicable I manipulate the IFS - maybe turn it upside down or change parts. ; *"What makes it Fractal Music is the IFS Fractal used for scanning."** **I am a bit confused by your term "scanning". Is that another term for sampling? And, assuming that it is "fractal" what makes it "music"?** **;* It is and what makes it music is the cooperation of the source and the scanning. ; *" I use fractals because they quite often have a visible mathematical structure and order..."** **Why is that important?* ; See previous item - what is the difference between noise and music? Music is also a mathematical language. ; /*"*/*/No photo or painting has that quality with one exception: Some abstract paintings look like fractals and some of my images look like paintings." /With all due respect, that seems nonsensical to me. Your one exception immediately became several/, /and your premise is simply bizarre. On what basis can you make such an unequivocal statement? ; *See the sample (by Paul Klee). I´m talking about these grafical images only. It has an almost mathematical structure, maybe I´ll try to convert it-;* https://www.dropbox.com/s/06ozfdfdh8rx3qp/index.jpg?dl=0 ; BTW, what color depth are your input images? ; *They are my Fractint originals converted to Bitmap with Irfan Viewer. ; /*"...*//*uses the smallest possible parts of a note.."*/ The actual length depends on the speed of the music - possibly half a second, more or less ; A word about the procedure: The RGB values of a dot are converted to parameters of the music: Pitch, Length, Duration and Articulation - differently for each voice (10 voices). So it´s nonsense to say this source is not needed or can be disregarded. All other parameters are manually defined. If you cannot hear the difference between Contemplation and Tranquillity listen more closely - they are similar because the algorithm has not changed, only the note parameters. ; Up to now I have only one rhythm pattern. It is an extremely time absorbing procedure to create and involves a lot of try and error. One of the main problems is to maintain the general structure of the measures inspite of infinite variations which NEVER repeat. I have reproduced a grafical presentation on my site. ; https://www.dropbox.com/sh/e5k0j4hkr87p9sl/AAA9P-fDVaTCp-ObT6O77jwAa?dl=0 ; Any questions are welcome. ; Albrecht
participants (4)
-
Albrecht Niekamp -
Albrechtx -
Bill Jemison -
Paul N. Lee