Music from a Tiny Sine Wave

October 12, 2005 11:28 PM

Sine Wave Music A group of internet musicians have taken up the challenge of creating complete musical compositions derived from a single one second 440 hz sinewave tone. This tone (often called a test tone) is simplest musical unit. The musicians had to manipulate the sinewave into new tones by changing the pitch and harmonics of the noise and passing the tone through effects to create new sounds. These were then used to create complete pieces of music. Three volumes of sinewave music are found in Audiobulb Records 'project' page under the title Root of Sine. The label has posted a 'Prime Numbers' compilation on their front page .
posted by room (22 comments total)

Germany's Raster-Noton is another label that explores these kinds of abstract electronic sound ideas, albeit with a more minimal approach. In particular, Ryoji Ikeda's contribution to Noton's 12-disc 20'-2000 series also explores the purity of the 440 Hz tone.
posted by Rothko at 11:36 PM on October 12, 2005

Very very cool! Thanks!
posted by Quartermass at 12:11 AM on October 13, 2005

I don't get it. If you can generate any duration, frequency and amplitude from the original sine wave, then you are just using a synthesizer, no? I mean, any electronic instrument does this anyway, since it uses a single "tone" at 60 Hz to power the device!

As Kirk would say: explain! (please)
posted by mondo dentro at 12:13 AM on October 13, 2005

Hmmm. If you're allowed to re-pitch and pass the sound through effects and synth units that take samples, that's not really all that much of a restriction. A large proportion of the pad, melodic and percussive sounds in music I've made has been based on synths using a pure sine tone, and it's surprisingly easy to quickly end up with very complex synth tones from two or 3 stacked sine monosynths with their own effects chains.Many effects plugins today are so complicated, and mangle the sound so completely that the line between an "effect" and a "synth" is a very blurry one. Still, i have found that virtual studio programs are so powerful now that imposing some restrictions other than just running out of cpu power can definitely help with creative blocks - I'd like to see some clearer "Dogme" style rules for this project to tighten up the approach, and give you a better idea what restrictions the composers were working with.

Personnally, I couldn't give up using real drum and instrument samples to add a little sonic variety, though, so I don't think this approach is for me - still, anything that weans people off synth and effect presets is basically fine by me!
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:19 AM on October 13, 2005

Go read about the Fourier transform, and this becomes sort of a joke.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 1:19 AM on October 13, 2005

yes of course - theoretcially transforming sounds is something that a sound designer can do with relative ease....

The beauty of Root of Sine and these tracks is that people have actually done it. They have taken the time to build complete tracks from a one second sound source - rather than going straight to a synth or a sample CD containing drum or pad sounds.
posted by room at 1:51 AM on October 13, 2005

Yeah, even though (as mentioned), one can create almost any sound out of nothing but sine waves, practically speaking, you can't. It's like saying you can make any image in Photoshop just using the pencil tool and changing colors. Sure, you could. Theoretically. But you're not going to be able to make that Jenna Jameson image that really gets your dunkey swinging with just a pencil tool...

So there.
posted by chasing at 2:35 AM on October 13, 2005

I liked this a lot more when people were doing it with xm/it/s3m/whatever modules ten years ago.
posted by Josh Zhixel at 2:43 AM on October 13, 2005

But you're not going to be able to make that Jenna Jameson image that really gets your dunkey swinging with just a pencil tool...

And it seems you're not going to be rocking too many dancefloors with just a modified sine wave, at least on the basis of the showing here today.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:47 AM on October 13, 2005

good music = rockin dancefloors?
posted by room at 3:32 AM on October 13, 2005

i would say the visual equivalent is creating a photograph of a tangible image from a beam of pure white light.....

which would need to be split into consttuant parts of the colour spectrum - made into small and big shapes of different shades of colour and then arranged into the final (mostly pink) image of Jenna.....
posted by room at 3:35 AM on October 13, 2005

Interesting post, room. It isn't anything earth-shattering but a good example of 'creativity within constraint'. I've been playing around with using 'no-input mixer' feedback for several months, myself - again nothing earth-shattering as it's been done before as well.

Thanks, love to see audio posts.

And dancefloors suck.
posted by melt away at 4:56 AM on October 13, 2005

do you have a link to your no input sound/music?
posted by room at 5:05 AM on October 13, 2005

Great find, thanks for sharing. This will save me the cost of the next Kraftwerk CD ;)
posted by DrDoberman at 5:40 AM on October 13, 2005

Easy/pointless or not, I'm listening to Noidsoup's aptly titled "That's Synthetic and I Hate You" from the link and it's absolutely beautiful. Like a non-intrusive Postal Service. If I made movies I'd put this under the time-lapse scene where the protagonist wanders around town, pondering his sins...
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:27 AM on October 13, 2005

This post is awesome.

Eat tacos every day.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 6:46 AM on October 13, 2005

am i missing it, or are there samples on this page somewhere?
posted by TechnoLustLuddite at 7:08 AM on October 13, 2005

I goofed around with something similar in college- I recorded a single guitar note and looped it, then fed it through the parametric equalizer on digital mixing software in the studio (this was 1992, I have no clue what program it was).

The parametric EQ was novel: not only did it EQ the signal on the fly, but it would change its output with every keystroke I pressed. SO if I entered the Frequency Range field, and typed "1230" it would EQ at 1, then 12, then 123, then 1230, as I entered each keystroke.

I recorded a half-hour of this noodling onto DAT. If only I owned a DAT player now...
posted by Lord Kinbote at 7:12 AM on October 13, 2005

If you like this, check out Ryoji Ikeda and Farben / Jan Jelinek.
posted by driveler at 7:39 AM on October 13, 2005

Yes - click on the track names to hear the music @ audiobulb

here is one of the tracks.........

william fields
posted by room at 7:57 AM on October 13, 2005

These are pretty cool to listen to. Thanks, room.

mondo dentro writes "I don't get it. If you can generate any duration, frequency and amplitude from the original sine wave, then you are just using a synthesizer, no? I mean, any electronic instrument does this anyway, since it uses a single 'tone' at 60 Hz to power the device!"


There's a couple things about that - first of all, that 60hz tone that powers the computer is a fairly dirty tone - it has a lot of harmonics over it, which would make it hard to make... something like this.

As for that being how synthesizers work... I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that synths don't just repitch the AC coming into your machine, for a fairly similar reasons. As I recall, you just can't really trust the quality and pitch of AC.
posted by vernondalhart at 8:28 AM on October 13, 2005

Nifty stuff.

It wouldn't be difficult at all to do this; in fact I think I may try it myself. As melt away said, the constraints make things interesting.

Last year I put together an experimental track that uses only a Rhodes electric piano emulation plugin and effects, and almost none of it sounds Rhodes-like. Not my best work but the divergence still fascinates me.
posted by Foosnark at 8:32 AM on October 13, 2005