Creating music is becoming increasingly easier and more creative as technology advances. There are some amazing (most for free!) tools online that really sparked my creativity. This article lists some of my favourites, along with links, so that you too can try them out and get inspired!
Typatone
Type anything into Typatone and it will turn every letter into a beautiful sound. Switch the instrument to find what you like best. There’s tons of option. You can transform any text into ambient music by copy-pasting it into Typatone or just writing it straight inside the editor. Cool tip: check how your name sounds! There is a download button so you can save all your creations.
The Typatone interface is very simple and fun to use!
Google ToneTransfer
This tool is extremely appealing from a sound design perspective. It allows you to create completely nw instruments/textures out of your own recordings. The online tool has a few instruments available into which you can morph your recording. The transformation works on the principle of formant transfer. Google recommends trying how your voice sounds as a different instrument! Try using random objects or other instruments and then turning them into anything from the given list. Sometimes, the results are quite realistic, but sometimes the software produces weird textures/sounds, which can sound quite cool and unique. Try ToneTransfer here.
Left side- choose or upload a sound, right side- transform the sound
HumOn App
This is a very easy way to help make music. Simply, hum the memory into your phone microphone and the app will generate MIDI. HumOn is especially good if you want ideas on what to make. It has additional features, sounds and loops which enable you to create more than just a simple melody. This app is far from the best, but it is quite fun to use. The humming can go off key when theapp records it, but it isn’t something to be too mad about. HumOn is both iOS and Android- compatible.
Audio Tool
AudioTool is an online production studio that feels like a real studio. You can play with iconic gear, like TR-909s, TR-808s and TB-303s just to name a few. Customise your setup as much as you want- all for free! Plug cables and tweak knobs manually. It’s all saved in the cloud. There’s also loads of tutorials to watch.
This is how the interface of AudioTool looks. Quite sleek!
Interactive YouTube Instruments
There’s a whole culture of interactive videos on YouTube that I just discovered. And a lot of them are playable instruments! How does it work. The author uploads a video consisting of one shots of a chosen instruments. You can skip through timestamps by using the number pad on your keyboard. So basically, the number pad is now your MIDI keyboard. Frankly interactive YouTube videos are a very creative way of creating a cool user experience through videos. The channels Amosdoll Music and Play With Keyboard seem to be the most prominent in this field of music creation.
The internet has changed since the birth of TikTok- it has never been so easy to go viral. If the content is genuinely good/funny, it organically blows up without any promotion. The COVID pandemic has made the app even more popular, as people in quarantine and countries in lockdown can’t go out, hence technology is their main source of fun. Hence, now is the best time to become viral.
There is another just as interesting feature on TikTok- their licensed music library. There’s 2 sides to this feature- first off, artists earn royalties every time their music is used in someone’s video. And secondly, if someone famous uses a certain song in their video (e.g. making it into a meme) the song blows up. This is why we suddenly have many new popular artists on the market. TikTok has lowered the threshold for entering the music scene.
The website trapital.co made this graphic to demonstrate what is going on with musicians who go viral on TikTok. They emphasise that even those categorised as “everyone else” have a huge potential to become Superstars with a little bit of support.
Let’s get into some stats- TikTok has over a billion monthly users, and the most popular genre on the app is hip-hop. Even though hip-hop still reigns supreme, tons of musicians from other genres can be found too. 90 of the Billboard top 100 songs last year came from TikTok. This proves much of an impact the app has on the development of the music scene. Songs like “Say So” by Doja Cat were used in 22 million videos- that is a huge number. Based on different statistics found online, one can conclude that the most popular songs on TikTok are the ones that are “memeable”- meaning they are funny in a way and can be used to enhance humorous videos (either funny lyrics or sounds). One example of this is the song Conkarah – Banana, which has been used in about 30 million TikTok videos.
There are different so-called “subcultures” on the app. In this article, I will list the ones related to music. The most significant I’ve seen are producer challenges, vocal covers and SynthTok. There are 2 ways to skyrocket as a musician on TikTok – through royalties (as i already mentioned before) and also through becoming a viral TikToker. Many small artists are experimenting with their videos, in hopes they will hit it big.
According to Fader, TikTok released its “Year In Music” report, and the summary claims that over 70 artists who found success on the platform in 2020 all secured deals with major record labels.
Here are some examples of the different types of videos from music producers. As seen from the example, the range of videos topics is quite wide (from synthesis, to covers and live performances):
Even though the music industry was started out of love and the opportunity for creative expression, it has been tainted with dark events for quite some time. Unfortunately, stories of murder and abuse have been present even in the olden times of music. In this post, I will talk specifically about sexual abuse which is extremely prevalent in the dance music industry.
Many allegations have actually surfaced up recently, especially during to COVID times. It seems like this difficult world situation we are facing has uncovered many of the heinous acts happening behind the scenes in the dance/electronic music industry.
One of the most active people in promoting the #MeToo movement and bringing justice to victims is DJ Rebekah. When she was just 17, she was excitedly going to a record shop to buy Vinyl and had also inquired about a job there. She was given a disgusting answer: “Yeah, you can give me a blowjob.” Back in that time, there were no female role models in the scene for her to look up to. 25 years later, she is an extremely popular Techno DJ and women are becoming much more prominent in the industry.
The record shop incident was just one example of sexism, harassment and abuse that Rebekah has experienced throughout her career. Along the way, there have also been many supportive men who have nurtured and encouraged her, she says. But for some, her passion for music was something to be used against her – either as a subject of ridicule, or as a means of sexual exploitation. As #MeToo stories begin to emerge in the dance scene with recent allegations made against Derrick May (which he denies) and the late Erick Morillo, Rebekah’s career is stained with the same patterns of abuse.
As a young DJ, Rebekah was abused more than a few times. Once, a promoter entered her hotel room while she was passed out and took advantage of her. Countless times, men have told her “you’re not a real DJ”, and nobody took her seriously. It didn’t help that she worked as a glamour model in the adult scene for a few years, from the age of 19. She did it because she needed money and needed enough time to make music. That was used against her for many years to come. A couple of decades ago, persisting in the face of continual disrespect was the norm for a female DJ. Rebekah recalls rejecting a former booking agent who came on to her one night in London. “I said, ‘I can’t believe that you’re doing this. I thought you put me in your agency because you respected me as a DJ,’” she recalls. “He said, ‘You’re not a DJ. I created you, you’re not a fucking DJ.’” When Rebekah suggested to a legendary US house DJ that they work together in the studio, he replied: “Only if you’re naked.”
Rebekah started dressing in black shirts, jeans and sneakers to turn the attention away from her body. She states: “Why should I have to change for a man who’s high in the industry to take me seriously?” she says. “But, in the end, that’s kind of what I had to do.” The relaxed dressing style is widely present with women in the dance scene, as a way to prove that their bodies are not the reason of their advancements in life. In 2017, even after two decades of demonstrating her talents, Rebekah was accused of faking her DJ sets- an allegation commonly thrown at female DJs). She promptly disproved this ridiculous claim with a live performance video.
“Being female in this industry is a double-edged sword,” says Rebekah. “In one respect, you get noticed really quickly and things happen really fast. But, on the other hand, you might not be ready for it. You get thrown in the deep end and you just have to survive.”
After clawing her way to the top, she finally felt comfortable to address sexual harassment and assault in electronic music in September, following the death of house superstar Erick Morillo, who was praised on social media despite having been recently charged with rape. The rape survivor who pressed charges was a fellow DJ who had played a gig with Morillo before going back to his house with another woman. Numerous other women shared stories of being assaulted by Morillo following his death, and were all slandered and ridiculed for it on social media. “I just went back to being the 17-year-old,” Rebekah says. “It’s been 20-odd years, and I thought things were in a better place and, what, we’re slut-shaming a female DJ who went back to a fellow DJ’s house? It made me feel sick.”
Rebekah shared her anger over the situation and started getting a slew of DMs from countless women sharing their abuse stories. She then started a campaign #ForTheMusic, for women and LGBTQ+ people to protect them against abuse in the scene and give them safety. Hedonism has always gone hand in hand with clubbing, but the scene’s milieu – late nights, drinking and drug use and a lack of industry oversight – has also enabled sexual predators to operate in the shadows for decades.
The campaign was hear by numerous electronic music associations and a first version of the industry code of conduct was released in November 2020. The goal of these new regulations is to make sure predatory behavior is reported and dully punished, and to hopefully create a safer party space for when clubs reopen after Covid-19.
Here is a partial list of DJs accused of sexual abuse in 2020- just showing how serious the situation is: Bassnectar, Graves, Raihala, Space Jesus, DJ IROC (who even worse abused underage girls), Billy Kenny, Thriftworks.
In 2018 one event shook the electronic music scene- Avicii had committed suicide, shortly after his close friends reported how happy and inspired he seemed. He retired from playing shows and instead of getting better, it looks like he got worse. The event was quite a shock, but it lead to numerous other electronic musicians to take a break from music and focus on their mental health. Last year Eric Morillo (49) and i_o (30, one of my personal favourites) both committed suicide, along with countless others- the list is too long. What is behind these events? The trend is worrying and uncovers a dangerous truth hidden behind the DJ desks…
Mental health has always been a big issue in the music scene, especially after the rise of popularity in drugs. This is especially prevalent in the electronic/dance scene. The deadliest part of the whole story is the lack of sleep. DJs can sometimes play daily shows up to months at a time, leading to dangerous lack of sleep. They take drugs and drink alcohol in order to keep u with the crowd and also stop themselves from crashing. This is a vicious cycle that leads to many dying and those who survive experience total mental depletion. Burnout, depression and anxiety creep up onto touring DJs, especially on comedown from drugs, and this gets worse and worse with prolonged chemical abuse. On top of that, people in the industry do not seem to have proper support from experts, or refuse to listen until it’s too late.
A big problem in the music industry is that it is heavily populated with 2 high-risk groups- young, inexperienced people and people with previous mental health issues. Living such a high-paced life filled with dangerous temptations will quickly exaggerate mental disorders and on the other side overwhelm the young and developing mind, breeding many insecurities and mental struggles.
Having a public life is a very hard thing to deal with. The most notable example of this is Britney Spears’ breakdown. Though she is a pop star and not an electronic musician, this is quite relevant to this article, as Britney is a musician under heavy public scrutiny. She is a prime example how badly negative press can impact someone’s mental health. On top of that, she is still being controlled by her family and management to an extent. DJs are also heavily directed by their management and this often leads to them feeling powerless, even miserable.
i_o once mentioned in his Tweets how during the times of the pandemic, we can truly see how many people care for us. Those who do will check in on us daily and offer help in any form they can. Unfortunately, one of his last posts on instagram, with a caption “do u ever question ur life” wasn’t taken as a warning sign that he needs checking up on.
This documentary gives an insight behind the scenes and showcases interviews with iconic DJs, like Carl Cox, Pete Tong, Eric Morillo, Seth Troxler, Luciano and other, giving us an insight in how they feel being part of the business:
This second documentary is about the world’s “craziest” DJ, Fat Tony, who claims he had spent over a million pounds on drugs, during his 28 years of using. He clearly shows us how much problems drugs cause to DJs and multiply their mental health struggles:
This article is a reminder to frequently check on your loved ones and make action, don’t just leave them with a few empty words.
Raves are an integral part of today;’s Dance Culture. But how did they come to be? What resulted in a need to “get down” on the dance floor and forget reality for one night? This articles explores the unique and crazy history of raves.
The term “rave” was first used to describe wild bohemian parties in the late 1950s, but it wasn’t until the 80s that the term gained lasting popularity. It still took a few years until the late 80s, when Acid House was born in Chicago, which marks the beginning of raves as we know them today. These raves started out as illegal warehouse parties full of attendees of enhanced states of mind influenced by drugs. Today, raves are much more common and much less often illegal.
In 1985 DJ Pierre (Nathan Jones) bought a Roland TB-303 bass synth at a second-hand shop and experimented with it until he accidentally got the squelchy bassline, which is such a characteristic sound of Acid House. From there on, the number of raves exploded, causing so much late-night ruckus that they attracted police. Laws in England particularly resulted in more and more illegal raves, which made it hard for promoters to organise events in Clubs.
This new sound began with a record produced by Phuture, a group founded by DJ Pierre, Earl “Spanky” Smith Jr., and Herbert “Herb J” Jackson. Newly turned on to the unique sounds of the TB-303, the trio released a demo of ‘Acid Tracks’.
Acid house hadn’t really made a big impact, until a group of four DJs (Paul Oakenfold, Danny Rampling, Nicky Holloway and Johnny Walker) took a trip to Ibiza to visit the acclaimed club Amnesia. This is where they heard resident DJs play the “balearic” style- a blend of multiple genres, including the Chicago Acid House. This inspired Danny to start a rave called Shoom in a gym. The sound system used was provided by Carl Cox, another DJ who went on to become a House legend. Ravers were obsessed with a then-new drug called ecstasy. This drug went on to become tightly related to the rave scene. One of the Shoom part tickets had a smiley face on it, which went on to become a trademark sign of the Acid House scene. The late 80s and early 90s was when the era of “dressing down, not dressing up” started. Club-goers were dressing increasingly tribalistic and laid-back.
Teenagers and young adults in a warehouse, dressed up in the recognisable Acid House Smiley gear, as well as other psychedelic-looking outfits.
Organized by production companies, raves began to gain press attention. A popular fanzine written by Paul Oakenfold called Boy’s Own was responsible for publishing the first article on acid house . Boy’s Own also held the first documented outdoor acid rave in 1988. Legend has it that the young Norman Cook – aka Fatboy Slim – was turned onto house music during one of their parties.
Sunrise and Revolution in Progress groups started making bigger parties. They brought raves out of the darkness of illegal warehouses into the light of big public events. Freedom to Party was a huge campaign in Trafalgar Square which influenced the loosening of UK’s licensing laws. Clubs and dance venues were finally allowed to stay open all night long.
The rise of use of drugs and psychedelics in parties gave them a lot of negative press. During the backlash, a UK acid house record managed to break into the mainstream. Produced by a mysterious artist called Humanoid, ‘Stakker Humanoid’ reached #17 on the UK charts in 1988.
During the early 90s, it became much harder to hold one-off events due to new bylaws. However, organizations such as Fantazia, Universe, N.A.S.A. (Nice and Safe Attitude), Raindance, Amnesia House, ESP, and Helter Skelter still managed to hold large-scale legal raves in warehouses and fields.
Genre styles started developing in the scene, and thus happy hardcore was born. In 1992 a bill was passed that allowed police to stop open air parties, or events organised by more than one promoter, as well as people on their way to raves. After 1993, most raves took place in licensed venues, including Helter Skelter, Life at Bowlers, the Edge, The Sanctuary, and Club Kinetic.
During this time, drum and bass emerged from a combination of techno, house and hardcore genres, originating in the UK. Records like The Prodigy’s ‘Jericho’, Rebel MC ‘The Wickedest Sound’ and A Guy Called Gerald ‘Anything’ helped to shape the sound of this genre.
After 1995, DnB got more and more often into house-oriented clubs, starting from the Ministry of Sound. However, the rave as it was back in the day was on a decline due to bad press. An organization called World Dance put on their “last” rave at Lydd Airport. “Here is your last chance before another chapter in ‘Rave History’ comes to an end!” the adverts posted around London proclaimed.
Meanwhile in the US during the 90s the timeline was as follows. A rave scene legend, DJ Scotto, made Manhattan’s first rave at Studio 54 (the Ritz back then). Frankie Bones started his famous Storm Raves in Brooklyn, with DJs Like Josh Wink and Sven Väth. Franky may have been the person behind PLUR
Frankie Bones would go on to start his own successful series of raves in Brooklyn, Storm Raves – where future international DJs like Josh Wink and Sven Väth got a chance to perform. Frankie also allegedly was the man behind the concept of PLUR, having once famously yelled on the microphone during a fight at a Storm Rave: “If you don’t start showing some peace, love, and unity, I’ll break your faces.”
Global Underworld Network was the most famous rave promotion crew. They are behind the OPIUM and NARNIA Festivals that were attended by an astounding 60.000 people. Narnia was featured on MTV and Life Magazine, as well as winning event of the year in 1995. It was dubbed the “Woodstock of Generation X”.
In the 80s and 90s raves were extremely popular in the Bay Area. There was no curfew and soon enough venues had up to 20.000 visitors every weekend. ‘Homebase’, and ’85 & Baldwin’ were two of the biggest venues that raves were held in the Bay Area. California also became notorious for raves.
After a few tragic incidents, the scene was brought to an end- watch this Fox News report from 1998. Even though illegal drugs were part of the scene, most people were there for more than just non-stop partying. It was an experience in its own: seeing your favourite DJs live, as well as MCs from abroad.
The rave scene influenced the emergence of electronic music and made it more mainstream. Even though the golden rave era was back in the 80s and 90s, we still carried over most of its principles into the new age. It is not the same, but all the core principles are still. there. People will always gather in unity to let go of worries and dance together like the unhinged animals we are.
The topic of Dance music culture is incredibly wide and rich in content. This article is the start of a blog series exploring and touching on different point of this Dance culture, ranging from history, geographic differences, external influences and even the consequences of drug presence.
Firstly, the most apparent difference between Europe and the States is in which genres are popular within Dance Music. In Europe, techno, trance, Drum and Bass, and House are way more popular, while in the States, the most popular genres are Future Bass, Dubstep and Trap.
Two festival goers exchange beaded bracelets during the Electric Daisy Carnival, Friday, June 20, 2014, in Las Vegas. Many of the attendees make the bracelets, known as “kandi” to exchange with others at the festival. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Privacy is taken way more seriously in European clubs. I remember from my own experiences (excluding Ibiza) having to sneakily take photos or videos, because camera use was not allowed in a lot of the clubs I visited.
Photo from an indoor festival at Printworks, London. Due to filming restrictions, the atmosphere is free from cellphone flash pollution.
There is a bigger segregation present in the US Clubs. VIP areas are always quite nice and big. Meanwhile, this is much less common in Europe and personally I prefer this type of experience. Money should not be the determining factor of how good a clubbing experience is. The reason for VIP segregation is that there is an obsession with celebrities in the US, while in Europe, people are more down to Earth and do not give so much significance to famous people.
Another significant difference is how hard Europeans “throw it down” in clubs. A lot of the clubs accross Europe are open 24/7 on the weekends (sometimes even workdays) and there is a party going on non-stop. It isn;t uncommon to hear stories of people being in raves for 36 hours straight. most I could handle is 24 hours back home in Bosnia! Meanwhile, most official venues have to close until 4:30 a.m. in the States.
Finally, there is a different in how people dress up, especially in club atmosphere. In the US, one can find numerous ravers dressed in crazy clothing, wigs, etc. In Europe, the most popular clubbing attire is “all black”, which is sort of the unspoken suit of the Techno scene. When it comes to festivals, one specific accessory- Kandi bracelet exchanges are extremely popular in the States and signifiy the PLUR movement, which is a huge part of rave culture. However, these bracelets cannot be found in most European festivals. In general, any type of exchange of items is way more common in the states.
Everybody thinks online marketing is an easy job due to all the social media that are available to us. Just share your releases on Facebook and Instagram, they say. But there is actually so much more work behind a successful promotional campaign, especially if the budget is tight/non-existent. This article will discuss all the possible ways of free promotion, including the timeframe for one campaign. Before starting this process, it is essential to have a digital distributor (for self-releasing).
The first 2-4 weeks of a release promo campaign are what comes before actually releasing anything. The artist should upload their work through their distribution service as a pre-release and set a later release date. This time during the pre-release will be used to garner Spotify saves that are beneficial for the algorithm, as well as pitching your work. It will be important to find promoters, playlists and curators who are willing to include your release on their channels in order to gain you a bigger following post-release. The reason why we leave so much leeway before the release date is because it takes promoters time to come across your submission. Sometimes it can take even 6 weeks. My favourite submission networks for this are LabelRadal and SubmitHub. The first platform gives you access to both labels (if you have unreleased music to pitch) and promoters with YouTube channels, who will share your work if they like it. On SubmitHub, you will find different types of curators- Youtubers, instagram influencers, and Spotify Playlists. Both of these networks allow you to pitch to a certain extent for free, but better features come with a subscription. However, most of the time, I could get away with sticking to the free version, especially on SubmitHub.
The next step is to figure out your social media campaigns. Have a total of 3 announcements- the day of pre-release, one day before the official release, and then finally the day of release. This way you will build up hype and interest. Also, make sure you are always active on your social media and have quality content that grows your following, as well as keeping your engagement up. If your social media is a bit dead, you won’t generate many streams from promotional posts.
Now it’s time to think about Spotify specifically. I focus on this platform because it has shown the most results for my efforts. After the official release date, you will have to search out playlist curators and build real connections with them. This way, you will have someone to come back to time and time again for each next release. Make sure to offer some sort of value proposition to curators, not just blindly begging them to playlist your tracks. Start with smaller playlists and build your way up as your streams grow.
The next thing in mind is to always keep up with how streaming platform algorithms are changing. For example, Spotify recently announced that they will be pushing out artists who agree to forgo some of their streaming profits in return for promotion. This could actually make the popular artists even more popular and the smaller ones will stay small, because they cannot afford to cut their already small profit.
TikTok has become a really important gateway to potential fans. Adding your tracks to their library opens up the possibility of your track going viral. For example, tiktokers tend to come up with trends that are copied by many other users on the platform. Often, these trends include a specific track or song. It is important to make sure that music you are submitting to TikTok is either “memeable” or that is has a potential for popular appeal.
Lastly, if all of this seems too complicated or like a lot of work, I would suggest one more step that is paid. This step may help you get much further, as it takes away the promo burden off of you and let’s you focus on music production instead. Get yourself a virtual music manager. One great example is https://www.thevirtualmanager.co.uk/ which have a monthly fee of 24 GPB, or 240 for a yearly plan (2 free months + a free 1-on-1). Personally, I consider this the next step after self-promotion, which will open many more doors for your music.
For all of the steps to work, be realistic to yourself and objectively determine whether your music is of high quality or not. Quality comes before anything else.
It’s now been more than a year since COVID-19 first started spreading in China. The virus has not only killed infected people, but it has also taken many industries with it. The music industry is one of Corona’s economic victims. In a nutshell, sources like Billboard and Amsterdam Dance event, the music industry finally recovered from a drastic downfall it experienced and electronic music artists in 2019 were making more than during the 2017 peak of the industry. The pre-covid yearly industry revenue was 7.3 billion, and now it has fallen almost 70%, which is a shocking pitfall. This article talks about the ways in which the industry is trying to cope with the loss.
The first major thing that happened was that over 90% of festivals were cancelled. Shortly after, clubs followed. This hurt artists a lot, because ever since the start of the 00’s, live performances have made up the majority of any musician’s revenue. Everyone moved online, organised streams and virtual festivals, which are accompanied by fundraisers intended to support the staff that has been put out of work due to the virus (i.e. promoters, bartenders, sound staff). However, these efforts were not enough, and pretty quickly we saw the closing of some of the most iconic clubs in Europe.
The Summer came and Ibiza and Majorca did the unimaginable- they closed their seasons. These islands are famous for their clubbing scene and at least 80% of their economy relied on party tourism. This has put many seasonal staff out of work.
Since standard festivals couldn’t be held anymore, organisations came up with the concept of “drive-ins” and “socially-distanced” festivals, but this is obviously not sustainable in the long run. Firstly, it is not cost-efficient and tickets are quite expensive. On top of that, festivals rely on international visits, which is highly discouraged during the global pandemic times.
One name that stood out with its charitable work and artist support during these times was Bandcamp. The biggest news they announced is that every Friday, the company would forgot about 15% revenue made from digital sales, channeling that money back to the independent artists. Besides the company itself, numerous artists made campaings on the pplatform where they donated 100% of album revenue to COVID relief organisations.
Many people are in need of mental support during these times, because it is hard to cope with quarantining and not being able to live a normal life. But there have been some positives- we are united more than ever and everyone is trying to help each other. Pineer DJ company has made a documentary that gives insight into how the music industry staff have been handling the situation. They showcase the stories of 5 prominent electronic DJs, who talk about their past and current experiences.
Synaesthesia is one of the phenomenons that was always quite interesting to artists, however, still never explored as much as it should be. During my research, I was quite intrigued to find out that even Plato had referred to synaesthesia in his writing. In 370 BC, he wrote Timaeus, which connects the world’s essence with musical ratios. After that, Aristotle compared the harmony of sounds with the harmony colours. After the chromatic scale was introduced, and in 1492 Franchino Gaffurino proposed a colour system for the scales, where Dorian was crystalline, Phyrgian orange, Lydian red and the Mixolydian was an undefined mixed colour. In 1646 Athanasius Krcher developed a color system for musical interval based on symbolism.
Sir Isaac Newton also delved into the relationship between music and colour. In his work Optics, he revisited and expanded upon Aristotle’s relationships between sound and colour. He mathematically divided visible light into seven different colours, which had similar mathematical relationships to a musical scale. Even though Newton didn’t hold to these claims as scientific truth, rather just analogies, Louis Bertrand Castel firmly believed that the connection between light and the musical scale is a fact. He drafted a sketch prototype for a “clavecin oculaire”, an instrument that would produce the “correct” colour with each note played.
In 1875, the first colour organ was built by the American inventor Bainbridge Bishop. The organ worked by projecting coloured light onto a screen while it is being played. Unfortunately all 3 of Bishop’s organs were lost in a fire.
Vincent Van Gogh is quite a notable artist with synaesthetic abilities. His letter to his brother often mention synaesthetic experiences, which confirm this claim. In those letters he mentions that certain colours, like yellow and blue were like fireworks to his senses. Van Gogh probably had chromesthesia and basically painted sounds the way he saw them. Yellow gave him an experience of joy- a song of hope that he was otherwise missing in his life.
Synaesthesia was a big subject of interest for certain Bauhaus artists as well, most notably Gertrud Grunow, who was a Bauhaus master and teacher since 1919. She was interested in incorporating movement and music into visual art, which in her words opened “new originals ways of experiencing”. She put a focus on instinctive and emotional expression. Gertrud started making a new style of curriculum, but sadly died before being able to finish. Today, it is hard to establish what her thoughts were in the curriculum, as it was finished by her assistant, and he was very good at mimicking her writing style. Grunow influenced the interest in Synaesthesia in Gropius, Kandinsky and Itten.
Kandinsky’s works were all named as if they were musical compositions. He called them “Symphony of Colours”. Just like Van Gogh, he found yellow to be particularly important to him. He created experimental performance-based expressions of Synaesthesia for theatre titled “The Yellow Sound”.
Today, there are more and more synaesthetic works done with modern techniques like VR, 3D animation and similar. Even though interest in this field is very steady, synaesthetic audiovisual experiences are not part of the mainstream media yet. Personally, I consider that this field needs a lot more attention and research, as it is still not entirely understood.
Using our voice or even any other random sound as an instrument is not really a new thing. Music producers often make synths by sampling their own voice, which is a fun approach to sound design. Moreover, beatboxers are capable of creating quite realistic drum sounds with their voice. But, have you ever wondered if it is possible to turn any sound into an actual instrument- like a trumpet, violin or such? Well, now you can!
Two teams within Google Research- Magenta and AIUX collaborated on creating Tone Transfer, which took over a year to develop. This little software allows you to transform everyday sounds into instruments, like the trumpet, violin or flute. The way the algorithm works is by transferring the formants of the selected instrument onto the sound recording that is fed into the software. The results vary, but are sometimes very accurate. However, even if they give a weird result, most of the time the newly synthesised sounds are quite cool for integration into electronic music.
The project is based on Magenta’s Differentiable Digital Signal Processing (DDSP) technology. AIUX helped make it user-friendly, so that it can be used by a wider audience, not just experienced developers. Their current online web app has a limited array of 4 instruments, with the possibility to upload your own and train the algorithm yourself. The algorithm was trained with 10-minute long samples for each of the instruments that are currently available.
There is still a long way to go and the research teams state that this is just the beginning of their plans. Tone transfer is not perfect yet, as it struggles with volume/dynamics of samples it is fed with. It also cannot superimpose attenuations of each specific instrument on the input sound, so it may not always sound realistic. The trumpet sounds the best with vocals. I presume it is because pushing out air into trumpets and while signing produce similar dynamics and volume changes.
This project is a great example of how useful machine learning can be in a multitude of situations. Software like the Tone Transfer could open up possibilities of unique live performances with generated instrument sounds that cannot be achieved with traditional instruments. Below you can watch a demonstration of how this software looks and works:
