Commercialisation opportunity
A new computer program created as part of a PhD at NTNU, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, takes in sound and processes it, creating ever-changing variations of the original.
Created by composer, musician and computer programmer Øyvind Brandtsegg, the device is described by NTNU as a tool for both improvisation and variation, a computer program and musical instrument in one. Uniquely, it allows composition to be controlled in real time, and carried out at the same time as a performance.
The device takes any recorded sound and splits it into a number of very short sound particles that last between 1 and 10 milliseconds. These fragments may be infinitely reshuffled, making it possible to vary the music with no change in the fundamental theme.
“It’s easy to change a bit of music into something that can’t be recognised. It’s the opposite that is the challenge: to create variations in which the musical theme remains clear,” says Brandtsegg.
He is now planning a commercial version of the ‘particle synthesiser’ that will run as a plug-in to standard music studio software.
Brandtsegg is a graduate of the jazz programme at the NTNU Department of Music. In developing his new computerised instrument, he worked with scientists at the Department of Computer and Information Science and the acoustics group at the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications at NTNU.
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