GRM pt.2: the birth of a concept

Daniel Teruggi wrote an interesting article about the Syter system at INA - GRM in the booklet for Archives GRM (CD 4). This whole CD is comprised of works created through Syter.

"To mark and celebrate the thirty years of the INA (Institut National de l'Audiovisuel), the GRM (Groupe des Recheches Musicales) has chosen to bring together an exceptional set of five compact discs, illustrating some of its most remarkable musical archives. These original works, which are often previously unpublished or have been dispersed throughout a host of other publications, are important because of the originality and audacity they testify to in the second half of the 20° century. Some listeners will be pleased to see that there are a number of illustrious composers here who, in the 1950s, frequented the studio of Pierre Schaeffer, and others will discover numerous musicians whose enthusiasm enabled this innovative musical genre to last throughout the following decades."
Emmanuel Hoog, président directeur générale de l'Ina

Daniel Teruggi - The time of real time

From the very beginning, music, whether vocal or instrumental, improvised or written, and up until the invention ol recording processes, was listened to at the precise moment it was produced. The twentieth century changed all that, First of all with the appearance of recording media, which made it possible to listen to sound in a place and at a time other than those at which it was originally produced; then by the widespread use of electricity, which made it possible to invent new instruments and new ways of imagining and making music. Concrete music, electronic music, electroacoustic music, acousmatic music or contemporary electronic musics are all testimony to the same ambition: using electrical, electronic and computer-based technologies to invent the sounds of music. The invention of sounds is the invention of new forms of music, of new ways of looking at music, and is the logical consequence of the new opportunities that technology continues to provide us with. Musicians began to use computer systems a long time ago (1958) in order to synthesise sounds and to develop computer programmes that would enable them to combine sounds into musical works. Progressively it became possible to record these sounds, to process them or to hybridise them with synthetic sounds.

Musical computer technology did not develop fast and was dependent on the way processors and data storage systems evolved; in 1958, a large computer in a research centre was necessary in order to produce a simple synthesised melody, which it was not even possible to record in the memory. These initial technical difficulties brought about the appearance of two concepts which could be described in a historical perspective, but which are often presented as if the were antagonistic: deferred time and real time. Deferred time described the way that the first computer systems were unable to produce an instantaneous result.

Between the moment at which the intention was expressed and the moment when its result become an audible phenomenon, there was always a certain lapse of time.

The user programmed a sound using software, defining its various parameters and timbre, and then the computer calculated the sound and, depending on the complexity of the calculation, produced the result ofter a given interval. The listening time was deferred with respect to intention time.

It was logical that the next technological objective was real time, a concept that describes the possibility of hearing a sound at precisely the some time as the intention to make it is expressed.

Moving over to real time required changes to the command tools. Deferred time was the result of a programming system whereby the user defined, using written language, the result he wished to obtain; moving over to real time made it possible to define the intentions instantaneously and to modify the result as it was being listened to.

Now, most sound production and generation systems work in real time, enabling the user, thanks to various interaction tools (keyboards, mice, screens) to control and modify the sounds created and heard. Nevertheless, in the field of musical creation, and for a relatively long time, this technological evolution was opposed on methodological grounds. Real time obliges the operator to act and react, depending on the result, in a way that is similar to that of the instrumentalist. For many composers, deferred time, because it separated the moment of conception from the moment of listening, created a distance that was necessary for reflection, a situation that is similar to instrumental composition, between the writing of a piece on paper, and its being played.

[Daniel Teruggi @ Sonic Acts 2010 - courtesy Rosa Menkman]

  

Deferred time and real time in the GRM

At the beginning of the 1970s, the Groupe de Recherches Musicales began to experiment using computer technologies. At the time, the Group already had 20 years of experience, a major repertoire of musical works, a tradition for profound reflection on music and perception as well as innovative technological research. Little by little, therefore, work was undertaken to look at the possibilities that this new domain, which was already strong in the United States, could offer in France, where it was comparatively little known. Two projects were to follow one another, and then coexist, between 1975 and 1993: the first, from 1975 to 1987, concerned the development of deferred time sound processing tools, the "Studio 123 software programmes", developments that are dealt with in CD 3 of the GRM Archives set. The second project, the Syter system was a major technological development for musical computer programming, so original that its impact can still be felt in the development of processing tools today.
These two projects were vitally important in opening electroacoustic music up to composers from the instrumental world. The main successes of these two projects were to bring electroacoustic music out of the studio, making computer technology accessible, without needing programming skills, and making processing reliable and reproducible. The range of things it was possible to do to sound was considerably widened, using original and unheard of sound processing techniques. These two projects were a unique period for the GRM, the studios opened up to welcome composers with other ideas, concepts and points of view, the dialogue was rich and fruitful, and the understanding and analysis of the music being written there were enhanced.

The Syter project 

With the advent of computer technology, the first idea was to imagine a parametric control of machines using digital tools. For example, synthesisers, while remaining analogue in the way that the sound is generated, could be controlled by digital systems that would provide o greater precision in terms of frequency that traditional rotary buttons. It was thus that the first Syter was born, an acronym for: Synthése en temps réel (real time synthesis), and the objective of which was to build up a digital synthesis system based on a set of oscillators, controlled in real time by specialised gesture-based access or by external signals.
The first prototype that was built was relatively simple, since its only function was to control, in real time, the movements of a sound source between a number of loudspeakers. This prototype, with its delicate control system and laborious programming, was used in concert on 16 March 1977 for the creation of Cristal by Francois Bayle.
The designer of this tool and of its following versions was Jean-François Allouis, an engineer who arrived at the GRM in 1974, and who was fascinated by the potential of computer technology as applied to sound and music, and who had an uncanny inventiveness when it came to finding solutions to new problems and designing original systems. For this first concert, the acronym Syter become: Systéme temps réel (real time system), and was the starting point for a whole 5-year period of development during which Jean-François Allouis contributed to the setting up of the first GRM computer, oversaw the implementation of the deferred time processing system, built the Syter real-time sound processor and the input and output converters, developed programming software for the processor, built one of the first interactive real-time parameter control systems and programmed the first processing tools. In conjunction with computer scientist Jean-Yves Bernier and computer technician Richard Bulski, he needed to build and rebuild the system several times before the first full system was complete, in 1984. The system underwent very few modifications and additions, subsequent to that. Eight systems were built and sold, up until 1988. The software continued to evolve up until 1989, in particular thanks to the impetus of Hugues Vinet, who designed a digital mixing tool, providing the system with all the functions of a Studio. Two systems were in operation at the GRM until 1995, and around 100 works were composed in part or in whole using the system.

Related Posts: 

• GRM Tools - pt.1: an interview with Emmanuel Favreau

Introducing: Ana Topalovic & Èdua Amarilla Zádory

U.S.O. Project is pleased to announce its collaboration for Sonic Screens 2012 with Ana Topalovic & Èdua Amarilla Zádory. 

They will be also involved by playing the two selected scores during the evening Concert that will take place in Milan later this November. 

Ana Topalovic 

As an all-around cellist, Ana is an active member of the musical scene, performing as a soloist, chamber and crossover musician. Besides standard cello repertoire Ana’s concert programs also include less known works which she is very fond of promoting as well as her own arrangements and transcriptions for solo cello and other formations. A very important part of her artistic work is the engagement with the modern music. Ana performed throughout Europe, Americas and Asia as a soloist and with various ensembles (Oltenia Filharmonic Orchestra, Vienna String Duo, Trio Incognito, Ensemble Hombroich, Pierrot Lunaire Ensemble Wien, Burst Trio, Vienna Celloduo, Palestra Trio a. o.). She recorded and broadcasted solo works, chamber music and musicals for RBB, ORF, RTS, TVR and TV Metropolis. Ana Topalovic plays on cello made by R. and A. Gagliano in 1815. She lives and teaches in Vienna, Austria.

Èdua Amarilla Zádory

“Édua Amarilla” Zádory, which means „glistening moonrise“ in Hungarian, was born in 1974, in the southern Hungarian town of Kecskemét. Her professional life in Vienna has been marked by numerous concert engagements. Whether performing solos in the Golden Hall of the Wiener Musikverein, serving as lead chair of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, or playing alongside the other members of her „young“ Hungaria Piano Trio, Édua’s expressive and beautiful music expertly fuses Hungarian soul with the traditional Viennese sound. As of September 2012, Edua holds the status of Guest professor at the All-Quds University college of Music in Jerusalem. Édua Amarilla Zádory plays a masterpiece of a violin dating from 1801 and crafted by Joseph and Antonio Gagliano.

[www.anatopalovic.com]
[www.eduazadory.net]

Ben Burtt about the genesis of the TIE fighter sounds

[an excerpt from The Sounds of Star Wars - © Chronicle Books]

The genesis of the TIE fighter sounds is another story, one that began with Ben Burtt's search for the laser gun effect.



Originally, George Lucas had seen a British documentary on PBS about the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II and had noted that the firing sound of some strange Nazi rockets was quite weird and interesting. Lucas mentioned that it might make a great sound for the laser gun and Burtt managed to find a copy of the documentary. He then set about finding sources that could emulate that sound. Luckily, at Twentieth Century Fox Studios, Don Hall let Burtt go through the Fox sound library, where he found recordings of some elephants that had been done for an Errol Flynn movie The Roots of Heaven [1958]. In that film, elephants stampeded and bellowed. with an almost shrieking sound (the same sounds were used for the dinosaurs in Journey to the Center of the Earth).

After making a copy of that recording, Burtt realized that when he slowed it down and stretched it out, he ended up with a sound similar to the rocket one in the PBS documentary.

[The Lost World - 1960]

But it wasn't quite right, so Burtt took the sound of the elephant and mixed it with pass-bys he'd recorded of cars during a rainstorm as they sped through puddles in front of a motel where he was staying (a pass-by is when a vehicle comes toward the viewer, passes by, and then speeds away).
"Swoosh, the car would come by, and you heard this car plowing through the water," he says. "I took that sound still thinking that I was making a laser of some kind." The key "a-ha" moment occurred during temp track auditions, as shots started coming in from ILM of the gunport sequence.
"When we did temp mixes and played it back for the crew at Park Way, I would take advantage of the fresh audience, because the editors hadn't heard anything with sound," Burtt explains.
"The gunport sequence came along with the first trial shots of actual TIEs in motion. There was pressure to just get some temporary sound in for a screening, so I grabbed a random set of sounds I liked and cut in a different one each time a TIE fighter zoomed by," continues Burtt. "One sound was the elephant shriek, the next one was a slowed-down World War II warbird, the next a processed jet or rocket."
After the screening was over, the only talk in the room was about that elephant swoosh sound. "That was the greatest sound for those ships you could have possibly picked!" Of course, I was saying, "Oh yeah, of course". I’d really put it in because I had no other altemative, but it got great reviews, so naturally it became the sound ofthe TIE fighters."
"ln World War II, the super dive bombers had an artificially created siren wail created by air ducts," explains Joe Johnston, visual effects art director. "They didn't serve any purpose except to create this noise, which would terrify people. It was intended that the TIE should achieve the same effect."