Masters Thesis Ideas Anyone?

deathronan

Hi guys,

Im currently studying for a masters in music technology and soon enough I have to decide on a topic for my thesis. Ideally I'd love to develop a vst or a patch in max for live. I'm handy enough at programming C++ and I enjoy it so thats why I'm leaning towards this direction.

I'm just looking for people to give me potential ideas for a vst effect or instrument that they'd love to have but arent available or even ones that are out there and are in need of improvement. I'm kind of thinking of targetting the dubstep, d'n'b and idm genres with this idea if possible as it seems to be where its happening these days, especially in Ireland and the UK anyway. Ideally id prefer to develop for mac as well. Any feedback much appreciated.

Cheers!

MilanPan!c

deathronan wrote: »

Hi guys,

Im currently studying for a masters in music technology and soon enough I have to decide on a topic for my thesis. Ideally I'd love to develop a vst or a patch in max for live. I'm handy enough at programming C++ and I enjoy it so thats why I'm leaning towards this direction.

I'm just looking for people to give me potential ideas for a vst effect or instrument that they'd love to have but arent available or even ones that are out there and are in need of improvement. I'm kind of thinking of targetting the dubstep, d'n'b and idm genres with this idea if possible as it seems to be where its happening these days, especially in Ireland and the UK anyway. Ideally id prefer to develop for mac as well. Any feedback much appreciated.

Cheers!

A good free sidechain effect would be nice.

Something where you could place a master instance on one track and a slave on another.

You get the idea.

Or automated filtering/delay.

A nice lightweight alternative to Spektral Delay, which is never updated.

Two ideas off the top of my head.

deathronan

MilanPan!c wrote: »

A good free sidechain effect would be nice.

Something where you could place a master instance on one track and a slave on another.

You get the idea.

Or automated filtering/delay.

A nice lightweight alternative to Spektral Delay, which is never updated.

Two ideas off the top of my head.

Im liking that Spektral Delay Idea, I'm very interested in FFT's.

bedbugs

I'd love a plugin that manipulates audio in a generative type of way, but with adjustable parameters. I'm sure you cover generative composition in MMT, and as you know MAX/MSP is totally set up for that.

MilanPan!c

deathronan wrote: »

Im liking that Spektral Delay Idea, I'm very interested in FFT's.

Add me to your beta group.

deathronan

MilanPan!c wrote: »

Add me to your beta group.

Ha ha, no bother!

deathronan

bedbugs wrote: »

I'd love a plugin that manipulates audio in a generative type of way, but with adjustable parameters. I'm sure you cover generative composition in MMT, and as you know MAX/MSP is totally set up for that.

That could also be interesting, at first I thought you were talkin about something like dbGlitch but thats totally different. Ya i'm currently covering all that kind of stuff this semester, very interesting topic. I have no problem understanding the mathematical aspect of it, its just trying to figure out how to apply each technique to make sounds more interesting, it's early days yet though.

busttropical

plugins that id love and can never find:

a dub/reggae delay effect, with some sort of function that tweaks the delay time parameters in different ways to make that pitch shifty effect... for use on snare rimshots or... offbeat skanks...

honestly i know nothing about how difficult or not that is... ill just keep dreaming about it...

EDIT: shiat sorry didnt see you mentioned its on live, parameter thing would probably be sorted there!

studiorat

deathronan wrote: »

Im liking that Spektral Delay Idea, I'm very interested in FFT's.

Wavelets...

Have a look at Juce just found it today, really good C++ library full of audio classes etc.

I'm considering doing the same.

krd

Before you do anything take a look at this http://synthmaker.co.uk/

i'd like it if you could do a software version of something like a tenori.

Or a Roland groove box

lots of stuff has been done already

I'd love to hear about whatever you pick to work on - good luck with it.

MilanPan!c

busttropical wrote: »

plugins that id love and can never find:

a dub/reggae delay effect, with some sort of function that tweaks the delay time parameters in different ways to make that pitch shifty effect... for use on snare rimshots or... offbeat skanks...

honestly i know nothing about how difficult or not that is... ill just keep dreaming about it...

EDIT: shiat sorry didnt see you mentioned its on live, parameter thing would probably be sorted there!

you know Obliesk can do this and maybe even G-Sonique Dubmaster...?

busttropical

awesome, nice one boston guy haha

MilanPan!c

busttropical wrote: »

awesome, nice one boston guy haha

Call me Chris.

And hey, if you like Dub and Reggae, I assume you know Serge's reggae records?

Classy stuff!

studiorat

Usta love dub, but I've kinda lost touch with it. I don't think I've heard any "digital" dub reggae apart from some of that dub step thing that was around a few years ago. Does that count? Must check out Serge.

This looks good though http://synthmaker.co.uk/rastabox.html

krd wrote: »

Before you do anything take a look at this http://synthmaker.co.uk/

i'd like it if you could do a software version of something like a tenori.

Or a Roland groove box

lots of stuff has been done already

I'd love to hear about whatever you pick to work on - good luck with it.

Synthmaker looks nice, though I'm guessing the finished product is probably pretty high on cpu. I have not had a really good look at it though, one or two things mentioned on the site give me that feeling.

SynthEdit is similar and free! It's not as good looking though. But there are pre-built synths to learn from floating around. It's good fun, if you are a nerd. Though I feel the element of originality needed for a Masters would require something other than using either.

Some ideas I've had but not decided on were as follows:

An application to print out simple chords (maj and minor) from an audio file using chroma features and chord templates. Thought I don't know if I'd have time to pull that together AND make it work on an Android phone or similar. iphone would be too much hassle and they are crap anyway.;)

Two, a stand alone convoution app for the Mac. (thanks Madser) The code is already out there it's just a matter of compiling it for Mackintosh. Check out the musicdsp website.

A spectrograph widget for one of the Csound frontends. (possible.)

A cheap and cheerful outboard processing engine for VSTs, using a beagle board, connected by usb alone. Probably sell for around €300 or so. (someone may be doing this already)

Something to do with HRTF's and headphones. (boring!). I kinda got tired of the ambisonics thing and it takes up too much space.

Maybe a poll is in order.

Anyway, OP if you want I wouldn't mind collaborating on some aspects via Google Wave or something. I'm crap at de-bugging code, but I'm pretty good at finding ways to do things.

Plenty of beta testers here to!

krd

I put the synth maker there as a link to make a point - it's nearly pointless to create plugins from scratch when you have tools like that.

Though it doesn't really cover samplers. Which in DAWs these days can do incredible stuff really easily.

In terms of getting a job once you've finished you're masters - go for something on the Android or the Mac stuff.

I think the only fun jobs out there at the minute are developing for the I-stuff and phones and mac.

Something to show - or a popular app will get you work.

If I was you I'd create some kind of groovebox for a phone - (some kind of drum machine + synth) I Know it's a case of whatever you have to do to work your masters - but a popular will get you decent work -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kPy3DH8ZYg

busttropical

Where are you doing the masters??