Keywords - Max-for-Live, Sound Design, Granular Synthesis, Max/MSP
This is a multi-granular synthesis based Max-for-Live sound design tool I developed for Beautiful Machines, March 2025. Visit Beautiful Machines' bandcamp page to download or visit lock-music.com. Visualizer: Geometrum by Sabina Covarrubias
The Natural Language M4L device can be freely pulled from Github via the following link: https://github.com/Chris-Lock-Music/Natural-Language-M4L
The sounds on the Natural Language ep exist across many spectra of sonic parameters. Perhaps one of the most prevalent of these spectra is the relationship between rhythm and drone, or discrete musical notes versus sustained sonorities. As the tracks progress through the record, they explore the extremities of this spectrum – often featuring pounding, tumbling rhythms or crushing, droning noise – and the poetry of the music exists somewhere in the middle. Through this pseudo-spectromorphological approach, I composed the tracks on this EP with the idea of blends (in every sense of the word) in mind. How might different genres blend together to create a hybrid style? How might a dj blend these tracks with other music? How might noise, rhythm, pitch, and texture blend together to form a kind of primordial ooze from which a new, personal musical language might find its first steps.
The release also comes with a free download of a custom Max-for-Live device, developed by Christopher Lock, which is inspired by the sounds on the record. The device is a kind of sound-design generation tool, made from two granulators loaded with samples from the ep. It is intended to be used as a way to experiment, brainstorm, and invent new sounds which then might be resampled and used in other contexts. By including this custom M4L device, I hope to give the musical ideas which I explore on this ep a second life, extended beyond the static recordings. The textures, gestures, and granular phrases which make up the syntax of the music on the ep continue to live through the instrument, beyond what has been committed to the recording.
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