The Articulate Particulator (part 1)

I don't know what it should be called. The names might fluctuate a little. There's a big back-story to this project. The Particulate Articulator is a software instrument written in Max. I won't assume that everyone reading this knows what Max is hence the link. For my purposes it's a virtual environment into which you drag and drop different objects with different behaviours then join them together with virtual cables to make synthesisers and other digital instruments. Others use it for video, managing complex multi-media environments and unheard-of geekeries beyond my ken.

The idea 'came to me' in strange circumstances of which I'll say more later. As some of you know I work with recorded sound. I record everything - natural environments, incidental sounds, objects, materials, instruments, electronic devices, hand-made gadgets - anything and everything that will serve a musical purpose. My compositional method is built around explorations into morphology (the shapes of sounds) dense textural layers and complexity. I've tried so many different ways of performing new music, for example the method of live mixing various streams of sound across several channels, changed on the fly, often performed to some kind of personal score. That works very well.  

Or gathering together interesting sound-making devices and electronic devices on a table (the 'car-boot sale' model) and improvising freely. That model works also very well and regularly serves hundreds of great musicians. But looking for something different and more specific it took me some time to realise that a new instrument had to be designed and built, extending the work I did in the late 90s and early 2000s when I was into just intonation and making my own versions of Harry Partch's diy orchestras out of metal, wood and glue.

Following the unexpected mysterious and 'you-won't-believe-me' insight into what needed doing I taught myself Max (badly) then designed and built the Articulate Particulator which in essence replicates many of my compositional preferences though in a more chopped up, randomised and therefore somewhat less predictable manner. The patch (the layout of the objects and cables on the page) is very messy and over-complicated. It looks like somebody's tipped a load of Max objects on the page then invited a child to mess it all up. A teenager could make it in five minutes using one tenth of the cables and objects. As a first-year University assignment it might scrape a D-minus. However (by one definition at least) it is a proper musical instrument and more importantly it actually does what I want. Next up I'll explain how it all works. Thanks for reading.