Composing Sounds: Developing Tools for Refined Control of Timbre in Music
Johannes Kretz · Journal of New Music Research · 2002
This paper summarizes the authors experiences in developing tools for generating and performing sounds with computers using concepts, which strongly extend the traditional concept of “notes in a score.” The software environment KLANGPILOT allows to describe and formalize musical ideas in a language, both close enough to traditional concepts to support an efficient creative process, and rich enough to allow the creation of (mainly synthetic) sounds with unusual, sophisticated spectral properties. Also some links between high level control of sound synthesis and computer aided composition are highlighted. Finally, a way of playing back sounds is described, which provides a compromise between the safety of recorded tapes and the temporal flexibility of real time technology.