Music 171: Computer Music I
Winter quarter 2016, University of California, San Diego, section ID 857815
https://msp.ucsd.edu/syllabi/171.16w/
Textbook: online at msp.ucsd.edu/techniques/latest
Meetings: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:30-4:50
CPMC (Conrad Prebys Music Center) room 136
Instructor: Professor Miller Puckette, CPMC 251, msp@ucsd.edu, https://msp.ucsd.edu/ .
Office Hour Tuesdays , 2:30-3:30 (all office hours are in the classroom.)
TAs:
Kevin Haywood, khaywood (at) ucsd (dot) edu; office hours Thursdays 5PM
Ryan Done, rdone (at) ucsd (dot) edu; office hours Thursdays 2:30-3:30

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://msp.ucsd.edu/software.html .

There are eight weekly assignments, due Fridays.

A final presentation is due at the regular final exam time, 3-6PM, Tuesday, March 15. Assignments are worth 10 points apiece and the final is 20.

Here are the patches and blackboards from class, The videos from an earlier year are HERE.

List of topics (about one per week):

Jan. 5-7. Making sinusoids and controlling their amplitudes and frequencies. Read chapter 1 of the book, particularly looking at the examples at the back of the chapter. Homework assignment 1 is due Friday, Jan. 15.

Jan. 12-14. Wavetables (Chapter 2). Homework assignment 2 is due Friday, Jan. 22.
NOTE: starting this week there is a penalty for late homework (10% per day).

Jan. 19-21. Control and signal paths (chapter 3). Homework assignment 3 is due Friday, Jan. 29.

Jan. 26-28. Polyphony and control strategies (chapter 4). Homework assignment 4 is due Friday, Feb. 5.

Feb. 2-4. waveshaping and FM (chapter 5). Homework assignment 5 is due Friday, Feb. 12.

Feb. 9-11. Pulse trains and ring modulation (chapter 6). Homework assignment 6 is due Friday, Feb. 19.

Feb. 16-18. Delays and delay effects: echos, comb filters, flangers, pitch shifters (chapter 7). Homework assignment 7 is due Friday, Feb. 26.

Feb. 23-25. Filters and filter design (Chapter 8). Homework assignment 8 is due Friday, March 4.

Mar. 1-3. Fourier analysis and resynthesis (chapter 9)

Mar. 8-10. Classical waveforms (chapter 10) and miscellaneous: Gem and 3D graphics; audio analysis tools; networking; spooling sounds to/from disk.