Dear Pd community,
The international research team of which I am a humble member (PPMR - ParaPonera Music Research) is proud to release today the first working prototype of ANTSynth (see below) developed as Pure Data patch. Attached is a standalone prototype patch which should work directly in Pd (make sure DSP is working and use the main toggle to start).
Testing and (constructive) critique are very welcome (please consider this is very preliminary!!)
Regards, Lorenzo.
A little background on Antsynth (more details and links in the patch and future posts):
ANTSynth is a cutting edge, innovative synthesis method. It stands for Ant Stimulation Turmoil Synthesis. Inspired by Natural Science, Biology and pioneering Engineer studies it creates unique additive-aggregate mesh-able (over)tones with complete formations of broad spectra which in turn the modern composer can imply (we think) in any composition. ANT synthesis is inspired by the Natural Sciences as it translates into sound some of the most interesting patterns of ants' complex social behaviour as outlined by Ted R. Schultz in his paper “In search of ant ancestors”. ANTSynth is created by an international team of biologists, engineers, sound designers and programmers (PPMR) and will be released as Open Source in the hope that it will be useful for the future generations of researchers, sound designers, artist, biologists, composers. Many questions and issues about the feasibility and optimisation of ANTSynth remain but preliminary results seem to be promising.
Minimal background bibliography:
D. Moody , A Field Study of the Ant Trail Phenomenon , Division of Natural Science , The University of Findlay , 2000 John M. Chowning, The Synthesis of Complex Audio Spectra by Means of Frequency Modulation, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, 1973 Julius O. Smith III. "Additive Synthesis (Early Sinusoidal Modeling)". Retrieved 2012-01-14. "The term "additive synthesis" refers to sound being formed by adding together many sinusoidal components" - https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/sasp/Additive_Synthesis_Early_Sinusoidal.htm...
Ettershank, G. 1965. A new modular-design artificial ant nest. Turtox News, 43:42–43. Holldobler, B., M. Moglich, and U. Maschwitz. 1974. Communication by tandem running in the ant Camponotus sericeus. Journal of Comparative Physiology, 90:105–127. Horn, D. J. 1976. Biology of insects. W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia. [Pages 3, 16–31, 207–208, 238–240] Jacobson, M. 1972. Insect sex pheromones. Academic Press, New York. [Pages 1–2, 79–100, and 101–120] Markin, G. P. 1968. Handling techniques for large quantities of ants. Journal of Economic Entomology, 61:1744–1745. Moody, D. L. 1981. Ant trails. The American Biology Teacher, 43:452–453. Wilson, E. O. 1963. Pheromones. Scientific American, 208:100–114.