Music 171: Computer Music I
Winter quarter 2013, University of California, San Diego, section ID 761179
https://msp.ucsd.edu/syllabi/171.13w/

Prerequisite: Music 170
Textbook: online at msp.ucsd.edu/techniques/latest
Meetings: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:30-4:50
CPMC (Conrad Prebys Musc Center) room 136
Instructor: Professor Miller Puckette, CPMC 251, msp@ucsd.edu, https://msp.ucsd.edu/ .
Office Hours Tuesdays, 5:00-6:00 in the classroom.
TA: Joe Mariglio: jmarigli (at) ucsd.edu
TA office hours Wednesdays 2:00-3:00, Warren Lecture Hall 2123 (1st door on left).

This is an introduction to audio synthesis, both in theory and in practice, using Pd (Pure Data) as a platform. Pd is free and you can run it on Windows, Linux, or Mac OSX. You can get it at https://www.msp.ucsd.edu/software.html .

There are eight weekly assignments, due Thursdays. Assignments can be turned in using ted.ucsd.edu.

A final presentation is due at the regular final exam time, 3-6PM, Tuesday, March 19. Assignments are with 10 points apiece and the final is 20.

The examples from class are accumulating HERE. The videos from the "same" class 2 years ago are HERE.

List of topics (about one per week):

1. Making sinusoids and controlling their amplitudes and frequencies. Between this week and next, read chapter 1 of the book, particularly looking at the examples at the back of the chapter. Assignment 1 is due Thursday, January 24.

2. Additive synthesis, wavetables, and various Pd lore Chapters 1-2). Assignment 2 is due Thursday, Jan. 31.

3. Wavetable oscillators and samples (chapter 2 of the textbook) and control and signal paths (chapter 3). Assignment 3 is due Thursday, Feb. 7.

4. Making polyphonic instruments (chapter 4), and amplitude and frequency modulation (chapter 5). Assignment 4 is due Thursday, Feb. 14.

5. Modulation continued: waveshaping and FM (chapters 5 and 6). Pd examples shown on 1/31 and 2/5 were from the Pd audio examples: D07.additive.pd, D08.table.spectrum.pd, D09.shepard.tone.pd, and (at great length) D11.sampler.poly.pd. Assignment 5 is due Thursday, Feb. 21.

6. Delays and delay effects: echos, comb filters, flangers, pitch shifters, reverberation (chapter 7). Assignment 6 is due Thursday, Feb. 28.

7. More on delays and filters (chapters 7 and 8). Assignment 7 is due Thursday, March 7.

8. More on Filters. Assignment 8 is due Thursday, March 14.

9. Fourier analysis and resynthesis (chapter 9)

10. Classical waveforms (chapter 10) and miscellaneous: Gem and 3D graphics; audio analysis tools; networking; spooling sounds to/from disk.