ICM W6 sketches

I combined this week's assignment with myHalloween themed Pcomp midterm. The idea is a spooky photo booth that tells fortune. Inspired by the transparency example , I thought about displaying a half opacity ghost/demon image as a filter on top of the webcam image.  The DOM elements I added from p5 sketch are: a video capture (webcam = createCapture(VIDEO)) ,  a text input ( nameInput = createInput('type your name')), a button that calls takePic to freeze the video and display messages, a button that saves the pictures, and a button that reset the webcam back to active. The text input and button elements on the webpage are controlling the photo booth actions on the canvas with different callbacks. I also added a "Fortune telling photo booth" header inside index.html, and used @font-face to set the header font and added a background image inside css. My sketch: https://editor.p5js.org/ada10086/sketches/rksofdUim

To play photobooth: https://editor.p5js.org/ada10086/full/rksofdUim

Another project I made using DOM and HTML is an animal sampler for my Code of Music class. I created a drop down menu for selecting animal sounds using sel = creatSelect(). However, when I call sel.value() to get the animal name which I used to store my preloaded animal sound sample, I can only get a string: 'dog', 'cat', 'cow',etc. So I was wondering if there is a way to convert strings to variable names(to get rid of the ' ' ). I read somewhere people suggested using  window[] or eval(), but none of them solved my problem. I had to find a way to use the string value, to load the sound and the image according to the string being selected. Therefore I have:

selectedAnimal = sel.value();

animal = loadImage('animalImage/' + selectedAnimal + '.png');

"F1": 'animalSound/' + selectedAnimal + '.wav'.

to include the the sel.value() within the file name when I load the image and sound files instead of calling a preset variable dog, cat, cow. However, this way I had to convert my sound and image files to make sure they have the same extension png and wav.

Another problem I had when I added the dropdown menu is I cannot change the size, of the texts in the menu, the size() function only changes the size of the menu box, but the text stays the same, I tried to change it in CSS and html file with font-size but nothing changed.

To get around with selecting animals using the dropdown menu, I thought about displaying all the animal images on the webpage underneath the canvas as image elements: dog = createImage(), and have dog.mousePressed() to select the sound sample, code.

However, I couldn't get the absolute positioning of the images correct. I was wondering how to set the absolute positioning using position() as well as in the html/css file.

One problem I had for both sketches is that when I tried to set the canvas to the center of the window, instead of using (windowWidth/2, windowHeight/2), I had to use ((windowWidth - width) / 2, (windowHeight - height) / 2), which confuses me a lot.

To play: https://editor.p5js.org/ada10086/full/SJ8-14tj7

My code: https://editor.p5js.org/ada10086/sketches/SJ8-14tj7

W5 sketches

My first sketch are an array of pipes: I started off thinking about combing my ICM sketch on objects and class with my Code of Music harmony sketch, to have my objects tied to my harmony transposition in some way. So I thought about making gradient strips that resembles certain instruments, and the lengths of strips corresponds to the steps of transposition.

These are my visual inspirations:

Therefore, as I intended to create an array of strings/pipes, at incrementing x location and incrementing height,  I created a Pipe class with constructor _x and _h, with a display function to display each pipe as an array of rectangles reducing in size and increasing in brightness, to achieve the gradient effect, and then initialized an array of pipe objects, and have each pipe's mouseX and height tied to index i to have them evenly spread across the canvas. As I move mouse across the canvas to the right, more pipes are displayed, corresponding to higher pitch therefore bigger transposition steps in harmony.

My sketch: https://editor.p5js.org/ada10086/sketches/SytG2QgsQ

My second sketch is drawing random polygons with a Polygon class.

I drew my inspiration from this piece at Open House at Mana Contemporary over the weekend. Unfortunately I only took a picture and did not remember which artist created it, but I thought about recreating the piece with Polygon class and randomize some polygon parameters.

My sketch: https://editor.p5js.org/ada10086/sketches/HJPGi7MoQ

W5 Harmony Interaction

My goal for this assignment is to create a drone piece, with a bass line with the same repeated note and a top melody line, the interaction was to move the mouse across the canvas, which is divided by 12 strips, to transpose the whole piece each time by half step every time a new strip is displayed. My inspiration for the Pipes sketch from ICM. Because my sketch looks like a pipe organ, I used synth.set(), to apply a triangle oscillator to make it sound more like an electric organ.

Challenge 1

I couldn't figure out how to use Tone.Event or Tone.loop to loop my set of notes, which I was also not sure if it was achievable. My guess is both events loop the callback every "16n"(defined), which means synth.triggerAttackRelease() (triggers only one note) in callback function is called once every "16n"; however what I wanted to achieve was to play a fixed set of notes every "3m", therefore Tone.Part seems to be the solution ? 

Challenge2

My second problem then was to figure out how to transpose the entire array of notes in Tone.Part, as all the triggerAttackRelease() functions are called before setup, and my notes were passed in into the callback function in Tone.part event. I'm not sure how to get the notes variables from that function (use dot syntax?) so as to change the steps of transposition constantly in my draw loop with mouse location. 

My harmony sketch: https://editor.p5js.org/ada10086/sketches/HkXF3s0cm

My visual sketch: https://editor.p5js.org/ada10086/sketches/SytG2QgsQ

Combined final sketch(transposition not working yet): https://editor.p5js.org/ada10086/sketches/rJRxVxZiX

Week 5 Harmony Interface

I like how intuitive this chord interface is for displaying all the major and minor triads on a keyboard and distinguishing the sound qualities between the two types of chords.  However, I think it is overly simple and some information can be added on the interface to make it more useful as a tool for music learners, educators and composers. The purpose of this interface is implied in two modes: chord notes display mode and chord detection mode. First mode is to easily locate all the notes in any given key signature, scale or mode, degree of chord scale and inversion from the drop down menus, and display all the  chord notes on the keyboard and the staff. The latter mode is to detect key signatures and the rest of the notes in a chord given the bass note of a chord being pressed on the keyboard, the degree of scale and inversion selected from the drop down menus.

There isn't too much of a difference graphic wise, only there is a longer keyboard with a five-line staff  underneath and a few drop down menus are added for all key signatures, all modes on top, and chord, which can be either triad or 7th chord, and its inversion.

The list of items in each drop down menu differs according to which key and mode or chord degree of scale and inversion are selected, determined by these charts:

Having learned music theory and played instruments many years, I found this interface could be very useful in music theory education as it lists all the possibilities and combinations of any chord in any key and mode, highlights all the notes and display the chords and visually describes the relationships between chords. For composers, this could also be helpful when they are picking chords for their chord progressions, so they can locate each notes in the chords they want to use more accurately and quickly without having to do the conversion and mapping in their head.

Week 4 Synth composition

My inspiration for this assignment is the Roland TB-303 bass line synthesizer, which creates a very distinctive squelching sound and is present in a lot of music I listen to. My goal was to regenerate a sound as close as possible to TB 303 with synth on Tone.js, by creating a repeating melody pattern and manipulate two of the variable parameters on the original synthesizer (filter envelope decay, and cutoff frequency or Q(resonance) ) and to have those parameters also manipulate my sketch on canvas. I looked up some characteristics of the synthesizer and found it is an analog subtractive synth that creates Sawtooth and square wave only, with no LFO, and a 24dB low pass resonant filter, non self oscillating. Both the amplitude envelope and the filter envelope have a sharp attack and exponential decay. With that goal in mind I played with a virtual TB303 synthesizer in the browser: and came up with a melody patch: https://soundcloud.com/chuchu-jiang/virtual-tb-303

Challenge:

1. My original approach was to create a subtractive synth with Tone.oscillator and apply a filter, an amplitude envelope, and a filter envelope manually. However,  I couldn't figure out how to have an oscillator play a set of notes (an array of notes I assigned) generated with the same filter and envelopes(so I can later manipulate the whole melody with these parameters), because notes are passed in at the beginning: osc = new Tone.Oscillator("F2", "sawtooth");  and triggered separately with ampEnv.triggerAttackRelease(); and filterEnv.triggerAttackRelease(); ,where I cannot pass in a set of note values. I found a way around this problem by creating a MonoSynth instead, which has all the subtractive synth features built in(oscillator, amplitude envelope, filter and filter envelope), so that I can later pass my patch of notes in synth.triggerAttackRelease(note, duration); .
2. I am still using Tone.Transport.position.split(":") to get position of beats and notes and Tone.Transport.scheduleRepeat() to play notes repeatedly, I used a nested for loop for 4 bars of 4 16th notes, which was a little bit redundant. I was exploring other ways of scheduling how to play a loop of different notes using Tone.part
3. As I was trying to manipulate the synth features as well as my sketch while the patch is being looped, I realized I need to place those variables in the draw loop. Since I had the all the features of MonoSynth constructed in setup, I had to find a way to manipulate them in draw repeatedly. My first attempt(code) was creating new Tone.Filter, new Tone.AmplitudeEnvelope, and new Tone.ScaledEnvelope in draw and have  synth.connect(ampEnv);. but the sound would stop after a few loops, with some delay and noise and mouse location doesn't seem to change in Q or f values doesn't seem to affect the sound.  So my second attempt(code) was moving the whole MonoSynth constructor into draw loop, and the interaction seemed to work but still sometimes the audio loop would stop for a while before continuing to play. I was wondering if the delay in sound has something to do with the values I put in.   ===> solved: putting all the MonoSynth parameters in setup overloaded my browser causing glitch in sound, so I accessed the parameters by using dot notation: synth.filter.Q.value = q; and synth.filterEnvelope.decay = d;

At the end I combined my MonoSynth with my 2D toroidal flow sketch  and here is my final sketch .

https://youtu.be/K4LC2gTjgbQ

W4 Wave Sketch

I took my code from the Code of Music class' assignment and reworked it to add some interaction elements. I expanded my code from this sine wave example by creating a wave class using a constructor function and created 2 arrays of 8 waves objects, one array moving to the left and one moving to the right, and passed in wave speed, wave period, wave y location and wave color associated with the index of the array. I kept my setup and draw loop as clean as possible by using array of objects and kept most of the code inside the constructor function. I added mouse interaction so that when user click on the left or right half of the canvas, it slows down or speeds up the wave movement. At the same time when mouse click is at the top or bottom half of the canvas, it increases or decreases the wave amplitudes.

As I was creating the wave objects, I came across two different ways of creating objects in p5js, one is using a class, the other is using constructor function. It seems like either way works, but I was a little confused about the differences between the two methods.

To play here: https://editor.p5js.org/full/rJIWWa1qQ

code:https://editor.p5js.org/ada10086/sketches/rJIWWa1qQ

W3 Interactive Melody

I had an idea of mapping 8 different synth tones to keyboard keys asdfghjk, and extract the waveform properties from each synth tone using FFT, and display each tone vertically as a line across my canvas like this example: https://p5js.org/reference/#/p5.FFT. So each time a key is pressed, the relative note and line is triggered. I used the syntax from the example. However I couldn't get it to work, nothing was drawn on the canvas when I applied the example code. Later I realized, I was creating sound with tone.js, which is a web audio framework separate from P5.sound, therefore the tone.js and FFT functions in P5 sound would not be compatible. So I looked up FFT on tone API . However, I couldn't find any documentation on how to get an array of values from the function like the P5 example. The example codes in tone are very limited. So I changed my approach, instead of extracting properties from tone.synth(). I decided to sketch the waveforms manually and have each synth note trigger the wave. With that approach, I made two sketches. One for audio and one for visual.

With the visual sketch I have the certain parameters of the waveforms increment or decrement as I go down the lines. I referred to this sine wave example to and created a Wave object and generated an array of 8 waves, passing in wave speed, wave period and wave y location.  My biggest challenge for this part was to create an array of objects as the relevant topics have not yet been covered in ICM class.

With the audio sketch, I first used function keyPressed(){}:

function keyPressed(){ if (key === 'a') { synth.triggerAttackRelease("C4",0.1);

I played around with synth.triggerAttackRelease() and function keyReleased(){}. however, its either the sound stops before I release the key or it goes on forever.

I realized I wanted to achieve the effect that when key is pressed, the synth is played continuously, and when key is released, synth stoped.  So I used if statement within the draw loop:

if (keyIsPressed & key === 'a') { synth.triggerAttackRelease("C4", 0.1); }

I was able to hold down a key to play a note, but it doesn't sound as nice as the synth generated in the keyPressed function, there was a little buzz noise. 

And the issue I had with both approaches was I couldn't get multiple notes to play at the same time, ie to play a chord. There was only one note at a time even though I held down multiple keys on my keyboard.  ==> solution: use polysynth , updated synth code

My code: https://editor.p5js.org/ada10086/sketches/rkS9kvhtQ

To play fullscreen: https://editor.p5js.org/full/rkS9kvhtQ

Video:

https://youtu.be/hOIvTyy9OEI

W3 Sketch

I first created a static sketch with a loop of hollow squares. Then I thought about making it more dynamic by rotating and scaling it. I created two sliders , one controlling the rotating speed and the other controlling the scaling speed. and one button to generate a random color for the squares. My original intention for creating the slider was to use if (mouseIsPressed){} because it is used to test if mouse is being held down. So when I'm holding down the mouse dragging the slider, the code inside if (mouseIsPressed){} should be executed. However, I don't know why it did not work. So I referred to the example code for slider and it worked like a charm.

Code: https://editor.p5js.org/ada10086/sketches/HJHOLHEFX

W2 Rhythmic composition

My rhythmic composition is a techno beat loop, including three instruments: a hihat, a synth bass, and a kick drum. My time signature is 4/4. Each kick marks one beat, whereas synth changes its pattern every 2 beats, and hihat every 4 beats.  I subdivided each beat (quarter note) into 4 16th notes, as synth and hihat are arranged as quarters in every beat. I used Tone.Transport.position.split(":")[] to get the current position of beat and 16th note, however, the position of 16th note is not returned in integer[0,1,2,3] . Therefore, I had to convert it into integer using | , to get the exact 16th note position. I have one function for each instrument to call play as they are repeated in different duration(4n,16n). So for the first beat [0], for example, when beat == 0, 16th == 1 and 3 for synth, and 16th == 2 for hihat, and so on and so forth, I arranged the rest of the beats according to this diagram.

code: https://editor.p5js.org/ada10086/sketches/By5fJM4KQ

W2 Design rhythm interface - The hmtz hmtz train

As I was commuting on a train thinking about the elements of rhythm, I noticed that each time a chain of cars passes by a gap or a bump in between two sections of the train track, it would create a rhythmic bumping noise like the one in this video: https://youtu.be/MPPNqhf8fRs?t=29s

So I thought the noise is a result of a chain of cars passing a fixed point. And the speed of that rhythmic sound is a result of the moving speed of the train, as the train slows down, the pulse also slows down. So I played with the concepts of rhythms and the idea of passing train and its parameters like speed, number of cars, number of levels, numbers of doors and windows, and I was imagining a rhythm interface that is a train passing a gate that triggers different levels of sounds stored in each car. So I created this sketch:

The train interface is constructed with several parameters:

# of levels: players can import multiple beat samples, each sample track creates a level on the train, tracks stack on top of each other vertically like different levels of the train. The number of levels indicates the number of instrument tracks.

# of cars: the entire length of the train is consist of many cars connected horizontally. Each car number indicates the measure number.

# of windows: players can input a time signature at train head and divide each level of a car into smaller sections represented by the number of windows on each level, this is to mark the subdivisions(windows) in a measure(car). If a player decides the meter to be 4/4, 1 full window on a car is 1 whole note, 2 windows are 2 half notes, and 4 windows are 4 quarter notes, etc... players can then toggle on and off the lights on each window to place a beat of a certain duration at a certain subdivision in a measure, and copy a certain pattern to paste in later windows. As an example, in this loop, the most basic house/techno music rhythm pattern, the black windows in the sketch represents kick drum, blue window snare drum and red window hi-hat.

Speed of the train: players can also input speed of train in the form of BPM, the higher the BPM, the faster the train moves. for example if the meter is 4/4, BPM is 120, there is 120/60=2 beats per second. So we can imagine in every second, two windows of quarter notes would pass a certain point.

Gate: somewhere in the middle of the screen, there is also a gate, a fixed point for each car of the train to pass, acting like a trigger point for each notes(windows) carried in the car. The train travels from right to left, the gate represents current time; everything to the left of the gate is past beats; whereas everything to the right are upcoming beats to be played when they reach the gate.

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Limitations I can think of right now: since I have not yet seen this moving train in action, I can not picture how fast it will move if I set the BPM to a common value like 160, if it moves too fast it will be really hard for our eyes to catch each beat and understand what is really going on in each measure.

Applications: I can see this interface being a game/instrument to be experimented by kids who are learning music and want to create their own beats by helping them visualize how rhythm works while having fun running their own train.

W2 Response to interactive rhythm projects

Two of the drum machine examples that impressed me the most are Groove Pizza and TR-808 re-creation one. Groove Pizza has a very simple, and visually appealing interface. It managed to spatially map every single beat generated by different percussion instruments into points in 2D circular plane, aka, pizza. One cycle through the pizza represents one measure/bar. The number of pizza slices represents the number of subdivisions in a measure. The points are then connected to form different shapes, most of the time symmetrical, given the repetitive nature of rhythm. Therefore, notes on a linear timeline are formed onto a more recognizable spatial arrangement in front of players. Different genres of music have different shape patterns on the pizza, which tells player a lot about the rhythmic characteristics of that genre. I can see this application has great educational potential in music education.

However the project I had the most fun playing with is the Roland TR-808 recreation. It took me a while to figure out how to use it and what each knob and button are for. I looked up the original physical model and noticed they look pretty much the same. This project lacks originality and creativity as it's simply a virtual duplication of the physical machine. However by playing with the web version I was able to get the gist of how the physical drum machine works without having to visit a store or obtaining a physical product. I can see this project being applied to many other musical interfaces by demonstrating how to use them in a very accessible web environment, so that both amateur and professional producers are able to "try out" the machine virtually before they decide which instruments suit them the best.

Here's a screen recording of my first TR-808 creation:

https://youtu.be/1TAtorV5uqw

W1 Create a digital, audio-visual, sample based instrument

  As I'm still a beginner user of the p5js web editor, for this audio-visual sample based instrument assignment, I was only able to create some simple visuals. The best sound sample to go with my visual is minimal ambient and analog sounds. I used two samples from freesound.org I named ambient and signal. I also referred to p5 sound library to generate an oscillator with new p5.noise() as the third sound.

I started with creating a snow screen with all random greyscale pixels similar to the old fashioned static TV screen. Then I had key 'a' to toggle play ambient.wav and the snow screen.

Then I used mousePressed() to turn on signal.wav, which is a higher pitch white noise. At the mean time the snow screen turns into RGB scale from greyscale. When mouse is released, however, the RGB is turned off.

Finally I created a greyscale slider reactive to mouseX, to change the bandpass frequency of the filter of the p5.noise oscillator generated. I referred to: https://p5js.org/reference/#/p5.Filter . The bigger the mouseX value is the higher the frequency.

The longest time I spent when I was stuck was to figure out how to toggle play with key and mouse, using boolean aPressed, sound.IsPlaying(),  and figure out how to use event functions like keyPressed(), mousePressed(), mouseReleased() .

I wanted to keep this first project relatively simple as I slowly start to build my programming skill. Therefore I did not spend much time worrying about the sound input.

my code: https://editor.p5js.org/ada10086/sketches/SJz68kd_Q

A screen recording of me playing with the instrument:

https://youtu.be/G0yhnVROViA

W2 Sketch

My week 2 assignment I have my background generate a random greyscale color every time i run the sketch. Then drew a square in the middle of the canvas with its size and rotation controlled by mouse position.  The size is determined by the distance between mouse position and the center of the canvas, s=dist(width/2,height/2,mouseX,mouseY); The rotation angle is controlled by mouse position relative to the center of the canvas. I drew this diagram to better illustrate how I derive the angle of rotation from mouseX and mouseY, by using arctangent formula, in p5js reference, I found atan().

Then I drew four smaller rectangles on four corner of the canvas and have them rotate and change color over time independent of the mouse.

I found it mesmerizing to play with the image. Depending on the speed I move my mouse and the direction I rotate my mouse, each time I create completely different effect like the ones below.

link to my sketch:https://editor.p5js.org/ada10086/sketches/S1y0dvB_X