~ NextCube, IRCAM Musical Workstation Demo @ Science Day

I will be demoing an early digital music workstation at the Flanders 2023 Science Day. During the Science Day there will be demonstrations of several of the electronic music heritage instruments of the collection of IPEM, which used to be an early electronic music production studio. In the collection is a vintage analog synthesizer (an EMS Synthi 100), a Yamaha DX7, an analog plate reverb audio effect processor and, finally, a NeXTcube with a unique sound-card and early digital music workstation software.

The NeXTcube is an influential machine in computing history. The NeXTcube, with an additional soundcard, was also one of the first off-the-shelf devices for high-quality, real-time music applications. I have restored a NeXTcube to run an early version of MAX, an environment for interactive music applications. This combination of software and hardware was developed at IRCAM and was known as the IRCAM Musical Workstation or IRCAM Signal Processing Workstation. See my previous blog posts on Electronic Music and the NeXTcube and USB MIDI interface for the NeXTCube

The IPEM collection of electronic music instruments is unique with the aim to reintroduce the instruments into daily music practice an turn them into living heritage. For example in 2020, the Dewaele Brothers released the album made exclusively on the IPEM ‘EMS Synthi 100’ synthesizer. The NeXTcube demo will be hands-on as well. See you there!

UGent and IPEM

~ Introduction on Music Information Retrieval

I have been asked to give a guest lecture introducing Music Information Retrieval for the course ‘Foundations of Musical Acoustics and Sonology’ at Ghent University. The lecture slides include interactive demos with live sound visualization and can be found below.

As we delve into the intricacies of how machines can analyze and understand musical content, students will gain insights into the cutting-edge research field that underpins modern music technology. From the algorithms powering music recommendation systems to the challenges of extracting meaningful information from audio signals, the lecture aims to ignite curiosity and inspire the next generation of musicologists in both music and technology. Get ready for an engaging session that promises to unlock the doors to a world where the science of sound meets the art of music.

Thanks to ChatGTP for the slightly over-the-top intro text above. Anyway, here you can find my introduction to Music Information Retrieval slides . Especially the interactive slides are perhaps of interest. The lecture was given in the Art-Science Interaction Lab (ASIL) which has a seven meter wide screen, which affects the slide design a bit.

Fig: Click the screenshot to go to the 'Introduction to Music Information Retrieval' slides.

UGent, Code, and Music Information Retrieval

MIR_intro.pdf and MIR-intro-screenshot.png