THE GRH DIGITAL STUDIO. FOR TREATING NATURAL SOUNDS Bénédict Mailliard Yann Gestin dean Frances Allows INA + GRM + september 1982 Abstract ‘Three years ago, the Groupe Recherches musicales, Parisi, began to bulld an experinental digital studio, devoted to the electroacoustic music, in the traditionnal sense given co it by the Gm. We describe here the actual. stateof thiswork, andhis activity from this tine. Moreover, we precise vnich hypothesis and general solutions ve choose to answer to the connection between technical probless and musical Fequierenents and seaning. Since this kind of work is conceived from the beginning as allways in progress pven if it can be stopped), because of its programable aspect + the question is fondanentally a question of method. es essential feature 1s to make actual cut where we can understand Logical isjonction of level. We relate this too, Situation ‘The GRA Ls known as born in 1948 as the “Groupe de Musique Concrete’, and 1s working until now on music on tape, with the all available machines. In this condition, it was projected co butlé an experinental digital studio, as integrated to the all activities of the group, and in its prolongation. ‘Thus it should have eho sane porportions than a traditional electroscoustiestudlo of conposition, and atatlar standarte of use. ‘Tis general context deterainated the following features + The studio 42 devoted to the transformations andmanipulations of natural sounds, An the sense of this musical practice. = Tt ts not & composition studio. So no organisational tools was developped, ° nor General mixing facilities. Anyway this vould bea completely differend and inde~ Pendant project. 20= ™e traditionne! conditions of production are in GR, that the composers are vor King alone with the machines. So, essentially, they know the use of the machines, and its musical properties, but not its deep technical aspects, nor even its theorical fundations. In fact, the general attitude facing the sachines 19 eapiric and experi- rental. ‘This fix a general level of Laplicit symbolic representation, witch 4s the communication Language hetween pure research and pure composition. Technical description ‘Te digital seudio s build around a D&C POP 11 /60, operating system SKI M (Finesharing, sulttiaer), 192 K. bytes wesory and floating point, processor, With two AC QS drives + one is dedicated to the systen and his extensicnie he second (0 musical tools, patches and software experiments. : Te is located in a two part room, a glasspane ensuring sonte ssela~ ‘tion between the tvo parts, in the french national broadcasting building Th machine room has his own clinatisation systen, and contains, in addition of the computer y ‘to Aapex drives, 80 Mb af capacity each, for the sound samples; one Magtape 9 racks, 00/1600 bpi, and line printers ‘The contignous operator's room 1s uséd simultanoously as;masical room, and as software developaent. room; In it we find : four alphanuserie terainals WP 100, | araphic console GF 40with Lightpen, the #-track™ audso rack in connexion to the clas Steal studio of the GR, one ryo-erack, 1/4 inch, tape recorder, and one four-track, 1/4 inch, and fin2i29, four Loudspeakers. The construction of the studio vas decided in January 1978, coupueer ‘equipsent was ordered in August 1378, and received in wars 1973. musical “exploita- ‘lon began at the end of 1999 wien Erosphere, by Bayle, Furthermore & tvo-channel DAC/ADC eystes with Its interface was de~ signed. ‘Te standard sampling rate wag, fixed to 34700H2 . Thus the storaye capacity for sounds 1s evice lean (one channél)- ‘The studio work n non-real-time. [A team have been see up for developing the tools technically and mu- sically + J.P.allouls, Y.Geslin and B.Mailiiard, and recently J.¥-Bernier. As musical tools, the folloving sound transtomation facilities are now available, in which we ean recognize the classical domains of susical electroa- Coustic operations. + tise domain + manual sound editor, eine-aixing of very short segaents, contraction/expansion, "freezing", contraction to zero of Jow-anplitude sections, variation Of speed, elliptic dop- pler syste. + filters + bank of fixed band-pass filters, complecaly varvable £11 ters, vocoder by filter bank, vocoder by Linear prediction technique and aztural sound excitation, reverberators. + Aaplitude sodulator, space aodulator, xing aodulator. Ail of these factlities are calibrated to work properly on ay coxplex 24General logic In the concept of @ studio, ve don't have only @ research laboratory for a computer canter, but soreover an elaborated set of tools, related together by a coherence of meaning compatibility and standarts of use, devoted to a general popu Tation of users, which have their own Language. In olr case : electroacoustic coapo- fers, without other special knowledge than their ovn musical one. ‘Thus it responds to the same rules of formal analysis than any sys~ ton. By system, we mean a set of fundamental objects defined before all, legal re~ Lationships between thes, operations on both, and further, construction procedures. In this waye, thin a a Saale frame, vhich tx in fact « formal realisation of some Previous theory of music. ‘Ten such a system must be paralleled to the requiered theory, be- cause creating doaaines are in constant progress and even in change, because tools have a programable aspect, this must be open. With respect to this problea, our main proposition is that thesysten mist not be paralleled to the resulting expected objects, nor to the problems ai ked by the theory, but to the vay the theory works. This must be described in a cox or Language. We enphasize that in practical york, all these questions subeit the Any of propositions. in many axis ve have a Lalance, such as : precision on details versus elaboration; also auserous practical problenes have not exactly tobe solved, but zather weighted, and choosed. In this way we decided two baste principl = As operations domains, as vell as logical tenses. ausical exploitation (or deve- opment) and structure definition are different, alzhough they are strictly related. ‘The first one is a structural nonent, then cutof tine; the second an actual moses. ‘Then we separate the activity of building facilities from the one of its use, and eompletely desynchronize each from other the tine moaents of cach, even Sf the Loeas ‘and form of the tools are often proposed and discussed together with the coaposers. + Composers don't have to know any Level of couputer languages. ‘The pedagogical principles and its basic options are corwiated to this. “Conerete" manner : In the sense of the method, that is, of the practical ways,through Which the music is made, the essential features are the followings : 4+ The fondazental object is the sound by sound one mean any sounding (complex) phenosenon. In lagt instance, any seguent of recorded tape, as auch if can De heared, {2 a possible sound. ‘Thus, a sound 18 not a finite set of paraneters, but a general moving sorpho- logy! Tei more Listened, than conceived. ‘This morphology is structuraly heared, as perceptual relationships, with its internal movenents, as well a6 with some one other. ‘Tus, only a kind of sorphology 1s austcally pertinent : many changes of the ac~ tual sorphology do not affect the related perceptual properties. Consequently wedon'e act on real sounds but on their invariants. 22