CATMASTER AND “A VERY FRACTAL CAT”, A PIECE AND ITS SOFTWARE Fernando Lopez-Lezcano CCRMA, Stanford University
[email protected] http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~nando ABSTRACT the rest of the keyboard is available for the performance of the piece). The piece requires a keyboard controller In this paper I describe the genesis and evolution of a se- with both a pitch bend and modulation wheels, four ped- ries of live pieces for a classically trained pianist, key- als (the usual sustain pedal plus three additional control board controller and computer that include sound genera- pedals), and an 8 channel digital fader box (BCF2000 or tion and processing, event processing and algorithmic similar) that is used by the performer to change the bal- ance of the different sound streams during the perfor- control and generation of low and high level structures of mance. the performance. The pieces are based on live and sam- pled piano sounds, further processed with granular and A computer (either laptop or desktop) running Linux pro- spectral techniques and merged with simple additive syn- vides all the sound generation and algorithmic control thesis. Spatial processing is performed using third order routines through a custom software program written in Ambisonics encoding and decoding. SuperCollider (“CatMaster”), and outputs either a 3rd or- der Ambisonics encoded stream, or an Ambisonics de- 1. INTRODUCTION coded output for an arbitrary arrangement of speakers. The piece should be played with a diffusion system that This series of piano pieces, starting with “Cat Walk” at can at a minimum support 5.1 channels of playback.