Data Mapping
Creating a Sonic Environment by Mapping Data from Video Input
I have taken interest in creating interesting and cohesive sonic worlds by means of mapping data. In particular, I have enjoyed mapping individualized input — webcam video, vocal recording, and selected samples — to compose interesting ambient soundscapes.
Composing with Video Data
In Max MSP, I used vizzie patches to take video input and manipulate and analyze it. The resulting data is used to control a multichannel synth and multichannel harmonic delay on live vocals, and to trigger samples in a drum machine. The outcome is an interesting and easy-to-manipulate sonic environment, available to listen to on Soundcloud.
The webcam video input gets fed through a Scrambler (which cuts it into pieces), a Tesselater (giving the tesselated effect, varied by the Twiddler objects that change its values) and then a Colorizer. The effected video is then put through several video converter objects, which convert the vizzie data to midi data for each color channel. The midi data from the green channel controls the frequency of the multichannel synthesizer, using the waveform of a phaser organ being stored in its buffer. The live sampling with multichannel harmonic delay and a stutter effect is being controlled by two things. The effected video output is fed through an analyzer, and every time one of the color channels maxes out at 1, a bang is sent which selects a new set of harmonic values for the delay. In addition, the midi data from the blue channel is controlling the speed of the stutter effect on this harmonically delayed sample. Finally, the midi data from the red channel is sent to the drum machine, and each time it matches up with one of the numbers in the select objects, a bang gets sent which triggers the connected drum sample. All of these signals are then sent to a master audio output, and the user can open and record the sound into a new file.
These three elements come together to create a dynamic and energetic but cohesive soundscape. The patch is also highly adaptable— it can be used to create a wide variety of sonic environments based on the user’s choice of samples for the drum machine and synthesizer, as well as the live sampling and video input.