Dispersal in ProcessPack – A Composer’s View
The ProcessPack functions are designed to realise a musical passage: i.e., one or more phrases or portions of music with an identifiable formal pattern — an interior event sequence in a piece of music — patterning at a micro-level rather than working at the level either of the single sound or of the overall macro-form of the piece. Hence the term ‘micro-form’, or, more fully, for music, ‘micro-time-form’.
A typical micro-form is ‘transition’: a gradual change of state. Others are ‘repetition’, ‘contrast’ and ‘embedding’. There are many, and composers are always creating new ones!
DISPERSAL is based on the pattern, the micro-time-form, of ‘scattering’: taking something and separating it into (many) pieces and dispersing it, as it were, to the four winds. This is more than a (perhaps randomised) segmentation of a sound because it goes on to reassemble the fragments in a specific way. In its classic form, it spreads outwards, both horizontally and vertically, a bit like the mist from a spray can. One can emphasise the edges of the shape or the fill between the edges. When reversed, this process realises another micro-form: ‘convergence’ or a ‘gathering together’.
Realising a classic dispersal or convergence would normally be a very time-consuming process. Suppose you want to have 500 pieces: each to be cut from the source, perhaps in a certain pattern, each transposed and placed on a time-line according to the overall pattern to be achieved, and then all 500 pieces mixed together to produce the output soundfile.
DISPERSAL does all this in a matter of a few seconds, while offering you a staggering number of options for shaping the result: your intended passage of music. The technical description of the Dispersal module goes into more detail about these options. In particular, note the options available
- to alter how the source is cut,
- to order segment lengths and inter-segment gaps,
- to select among a the variety of shapes, including Wedge In and Wedge Out as well as a number of contour shapes such as Sine or ‘V’ shapes.
The length of the output can also be specified, and this plays an important part in achieving an appropriate compositional role for the result: a concentrated flurry of activity over 10 or 20 seconds, or a more gradual unfolding over e.g., 1 or more minutes!
The purpose and opportunities of the exercise also differs according to the nature of the source soundfile:
- If the source is spoken words, a concentration of words can then fan out or v.vs. The sense of the text can be maintained if the pieces are cut from the source progressively, from the beginning to the end; or it could be much more fragmented if the cuts are made at randomised positions in the source. Such an explosion or focusing of voices can be full of energy and intensity. More light-hearted results are possible when randomised transpositions and the natural rhythms in the text start to overlap at different speeds.
- If the source is a single steady tone, there may not be much variety from segment to segment. The segments can be made to overlap so that a fairly continuous tone results, clearly delineating the selected shape. Using the double free-draw facility, upper and lower limits can be created and the space between filled with a scattering of segments. By snapping each segment to a user-defined harmonic grid, harmonies can grow from or collapse to a focal point. Similarly, motivic figures or melodies can be put together using the Sequencer function within Dispersal.
- If the source is instrumental, the instrumental tones can multiply and overlap, creating shaped textures.
- If the source is a timbrally complex or noise-based sound, the Dispersal module can be used to create powerful sonic images.
DISPERSAL comes with a comprehensive manual that details the large number of compositional results that are possible, with sound examples and a chart for each one showing its key parameter settings. A discussion of micro-forms and a list of about 80 of them are also included with the manual, to help with thinking at the level of the musical passage, and also as an indication of possible future ProcPack modules. The graphic user interface is intuitive to use, and parameter settings can be saved to a configuration file and reloaded, for example for use with a different source.
Our aim overall has been to move beyond the sound to the passage of music, automating the process as much as possible while providing an extremely broad and flexible range of shaping options. This is a composer’s tool par excellence. To get your copy click here to download it now!
Archer & Richard – Wellspring Music