Cover Art by Ziwen Zhang
CLOUDS — the Soundscape Generator
By Ziwen Zhang and Joey Kinnan
Data Art Festivel 2022 Finalist
It all begins with the passion of exploring new free ways to help with the creative process as musicians and artists…
Soundscape Demos
Here are some demo tracks automatically generated by this project. There are 40 drum samples, 12 ambience samples, 8 vocal effects samples, 8 melodic bell samples, and 8 melodic bass samples used in this project. This library is specially composed and designed by Ziwen Zhang and Joey Kinnan.
CLOUDS is a creative, open-source soundscape generator programmed in Python. It processes samples from different categories and subcategories, then randomizes and mixes their playback together to create unique beats, textures, and chord progressions. The user begins by importing different banks of samples that CLOUDS arranges into arrays. Then, random patterns of these samples are created based on different weights given to each sample by the user. Finally, the randomized patterns are combined with other random patterns of different types of samples to create a unique, randomized soundscape.
Here is the code of the program:
Musicianship in the Digital Era
Musicianship in 2022 is not just about being able to play an instrument. In the past decade, digital instruments and other digital tools have become a driving force in both music performance and recording contexts alike.
However, these tools can be expensive, and it is important to highlight many of the free and open source music softwares that exist today. Reaper, for example, is a totally free Digital Audio Workstation that has many capabilities other DAWs don’t, such as the ability to work with Python to create custom plugins.
With streaming becoming the dominant music listening medium throughout the world, it is becoming harder and harder to make a living being an independent musical artist.
We believe that open-source music software created and shared by musicians and programmers can open up many new creative possibilities for making music in the digital era. As our existence moves more and more online, it is important as artists to still have some control over how one’s music is being made.
CLOUDS is an open-source soundscape generator created in Python. It was created by Ziwen Zhang and Joey Kinnan.
Even CLOUDS is a relatively simple program created with mostly basic digital signal processing fundamentals, and was created by two musicians. There are so many resources available to get into different creative coding environments, such as python or supercollider, that every musician can have the opportunity to explore and create alternative music software, regardless of prior experience or programming knowledge.
Special Thanks to:
Professor Ernesto Valenzuela for providing python support
Professor Brian Mcfee for providing digital signal processing support
Allie McSwain, Alejandra Tran Rosado, Peter Traver for providing vocal samples