Generative music, huh?

Intermorphic’s Noatikl is a powerful application with 17 years of R&D (as Noatikl is the software successor of the Koan generative music system). Noatikl is the leading generative music application due to its legacy and depth of control. Noatikl thinks of generative music in lists and numbers; it’s interface is table-based (rows as the tracks and musical qualities as columns). Musical qualities are divided 34 parameter categories (24 track, 10 global). A familiarity with these parameters are required to properly navigate the application. Noatikl is entirely scriptable, allowing Lua-learned users to code their rules and constraints. Its learning-curve is medium because tables aren’t entirely intuitive in regards to music creation. However, Noatikl speaks the same language as musicians, so it shouldn’t take long before a curious musician is hypnotizing him(her)self with sculpted randomness.

Noatikl is cross-platform (Mac and Windows), available in a standalone application or VST/AU plugin. See Intermorphic’s Mixtikl, a mobile equivalent of Noatikl.

Nodal thinks of generative music in user-based graphs. These graphs consist of nodes (musical events) and edges (connections between events). The user interactively defines the graph, which is then traversed by any number of players, who play the musical events. The time taken to travel from one node to another is based on the length of the edges that connect the nodes. Nodal is an intriguing tool due to its simplicity. Nodal minimizes musical qualities to pitch, velocity, and duration, focusing the remaining user-input within the graph. Its learning curve is mild, although its mastery curve I would imagine is extreme. It is difficult to translate traditional music to Nodal, or vice-versa, because of its minimal approach. Nodal remains as an experimental generative tool for me.

Nodal is available as a standalone application for Mac only. Nodal is a research project developed by the CEMA at the Clayton School of Information Technology, in Australia.

Elysium thinks of generative music in hexagonal-grids. Elysium’s approach is analogous to that of Nodal, in that the user-experience and result are similar, but Elysium extends functionality far beyond Nodal. An Elysium patch is composed of layers, cells, tokens, and playheads, that play to create a sequence of notes.

• Layers: equivalent of a track, a single grid of cells, each containing a note, sent to a single MIDI channel.
• Cells: arrayed in a 17×12 honeycomb, each representing a single MIDI note, cells are organized in a harmonic table (three adjacent hexagons around a single vertex form a triad).
• Tokens: equivalent of players in Nodal, functions include Start/Stop, Note (plays an actual note), Rebound (changes direction), Absorb, Split, and Spin (impact movement).
• Callbacks: allow the user to define his(her) own musical behaviors by scripting them, Javascript and Ruby

Its learning curve in steeper than that of Nodal, because it provides more functionality. Elysium is certainly leading generative music in new directions.

Elysium was inspired by watching Mark Burtons incredible Reactogon multi-touch instrument and Giles Bowketts Archaeopteryx. Elysium is an open-source project currently available for Mac only.

Archaeopteryx thinks of generative music in Ruby code. I myself do not and have not attempted to code in Ruby, so I have no experience with Archaeopteryx. Watch the screencasts and dig it.

Archaeopteryx is a open-source project by Giles Bowkett. It is currently available on Mac only.

RJDJ thinks of generative music in PD patches. RJDJ is an iPhone application that runs Pure Data patches, which react to iPhone sensor data such as microphone and accelerometer, to create reactive soundscapes. Pure Data is an open-source visual programming environment used largely to program music. Community patches can be downloaded into RJDJ, in the form of scenes, which manipulate sensor data to create reactive compositions. Watch the screencasts to get a better of idea of what RJDJ does.

Bloom thinks of generative music in colorful concentric circles. Bloom is a highly-publicized iPhone application developed by generative music pioneer Brian Eno and software designer Peter Chilvers. Bloom is a simple application that allows the user to “play” by touching the iPhone display, or “listen” as it generates music independently. Users can choose from 9 mood presets.