Abstract:

In this paper I introduce Chaosynth, a new sound synthesis system which uses a cellular automaton to produce sounds. Chaosynth functions by generating a large amount of short sonic events, or particles, in order to form larger, complex sound events. The synthesis technique of Chaosynth is inspired by granular synthesis. Most granular synthesis techniques uses stochastic methods to control the formation of the sound events. Chaosynth, however, uses a cellular automaton. I begin the paper by introducing the basics of granular synthesis and explain the functioning of the Chaosynth technique. I then introduce the basics of cellular automata and present ChaOs: the Celular autamata used in Chaosynth. I also explain how ChaOs controls the synthesis parameters and how I used parallel computing to accelerate its performance. I conclude the paper with some final remarks and suggestions for further developments. An early version in English of this paper can be found in Leonardo Vol. 28, No. 4 (Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Science and Technology, MIT Press). A project report is available in the World Wide Web site of Edinburgh University: http://www.music.ed.ac.uk/pgrecs/eduardo/chaosynth_repor/epcc_project.html.