D1 / Gliders
As fans of experimental music, we are drawn to compositions that are unconstrained by the grid. But most piano rolls and sequencers are grid based. These tools make it easy to create precise rhythms or complete randomness. But when we tried to use them to create sequences with natural motion, we found ourselves fighting the grid. So we asked: What is the best way to create natural motion? Our answer: By simulating the natural world. We set out to create environments governed by the laws of physics. We populated them with entities that were affected around by forces like gravity, wind and friction. We created intuitive interactions to manipulate the entities. And we used the events triggered by their activity to produce MIDI, that we sent into our DAWs through a virtual MIDI bus. In this way, we were able to get MIDI sequences that had the satisfying physicality that we were going for. We were able to create music directly from simulations of natural phenomenon instead of trying to approximate the motion through painstaking, manual interactions. This exploration opened up a vast creative territory of bringing computer music closer to the natural world. You can check out our work so far here: https://dawnsonics.com/d1 https://dawnsonics.com/gliders
— Our simulated environments unlock a whole new class of musical interactions that produce natural sounding patterns. Musicians no longer need to spend tons of time manually nudging notes and drawing detailed automation curves to get organic movement. — The environments create an immersive atmosphere that triggers curiosity, engenders playfulness, and generates inspiration. — The patterns contain the expressive qualities of human performance, as well as the precision of computer generated sequences. Musicians no longer have to compromise one for another. — The core idea of deriving musical source from simulated environments can be scaled into an entire world with interlocking parts, bringing digital music creation closer to the realm of games. — The simulations are portable and lightweight. They exist in the browser. You can access them by just visiting a URL. You don't need to install anything. They work with any MIDI compatible device.
