Starting Point

Various collaborative apps allow users to work online simultaneously on a document, code or track. Besides new tools that create compositions in collaboration with artificial intelligence, established digital interfaces synchronize devices, instruments and apps through collaborative data exchange.

The project explores what happens if two or more users create a piece of music together in real-time, listen to it at different speeds and in different keys. On this basis, various experiments were carried out to investigate the interaction and behaviour of several collaborating users, as well as searching for solutions and parameters to represent music in a multi-perspective approach. The work is based on the Masterthesis of Stephan Kloss, Halle 2019.

Instruments and Controllers

The central cube of the tesseract has six surfaces. Each surface comprises one instrument: synthesizer, strings, bass, arpeggiator, drums and percussion.

Every instrument include four control layers. These are used to record tones, to change their dynamics, to deform the sound and add diverse effects.

Navigation

inside of the tesseract

Each of the eight Tesseract cells has its own specifications in the way how the instruments sound and in which tonal environment the piece of music takes place. The navigation system allows players to enter other cells by rotating the tesseract. According to defined parameters of the cell, the basic tones and tempo will change and reproduce the same recorded notes and values with different characteristics.

For a more complex, in-depth editing each cell can be edited in, musical key, pitch, tempo (bpm) and reverberation. The cell editor includes as well a metronome, a mute button for the background ambience and additional visuals.

Collaborative

Loop-Recording and Data-synchronization

Similar to musicians who work with loop machines, all touch interactions are recorded and played back via loop recording. The devices, which are connected via a local network, exchange the recorded data as data loops. Each loop has a fixed clock length and resolution and can be written and played back at different speeds.

Data exchange via OSC (Open Sound Control) takes place in two separate steps:

In the first step, the interaction of the respective participant on the other device is moment only visualized for the time being.

In the second step – after completion of the interaction – the recorded data will be transmitted. Afterwards – and only then – the other players can hear the changes. The subdivision of the data exchange into these two steps ensures clock-synchronous playback of the recorded melodies and rhythms at different speeds.

Interactive Composition

Mutant is an app in between an experimental composition and an interactive music album in which each song has its own mood and dynamics, because of its limited and subjective selection of seven environments (the cubes, including instrumentation, effects sets, background sounds). It becomes audible through the user inputs and interactions and can be interpreted individually or together.

Further development

Based on the Mazetools core, the development process of Mutant started with a prototype in context of the master thesis of Stephan Kloss 2019. During the further development to an cross-platform app, passionate beta testers did give important feedback for the release of Mutant 1.0. The app will be updated continuously and beside the work on new functions, a virtual reality mode have been tested. The development of Mutant stands in close relation to Soniface and upcoming Mazetools.