Semi-Generative Music Using Borderlands Granular Demo (video)

Video description:

"One or two people have asked me to explain this “thing” I’ve been doing with Borderlands lately. So…

I tried to keep this demo simple so it’s easier to work out what’s going on, but hopefully still produce reasonably musical and interesting stuff. Hopefully.

There are only 12 sampled notes (the rectangular waveforms) and three parts / clouds – the moving circle things. The strings part on the right is cycling through three pairs of two-note chords. Top left are three cycling notes on trumpets, bottom left are three cycling notes on trombone / tenor sax.

Because the three cycles are slightly different lengths and not synchronised in any way, you get the illusion that the piece is constantly evolving – even though it isn’t really - it just takes quite a long time for it to repeat as a whole, even though the three parts themselves aren't very long. So I call it "semi-generative" music.

I used NI Session Strings and NI Session Horns to produce sustained single notes then imported them into Borderlands and recorded the parts' motion that you're watching now.

Hope you find it interesting, and apologies to Michael Nyman fans :-)"

Borderlands Granular on the app store: