Tone to drone – Introduction to SuperCollider for monome norns

by Zack Scholl

Membership plan: Getting Started | Topics: Sound Design

Course overview

SuperCollider is an amazing open-source audio synthesis and composition tool.

What you'll learn

Understand the fundamentals of SuperCollider code
Understand SuperCollider UGens for audio synthesis and mixing
Design your own drone which you can run from SuperCollider
Add SuperCollider code into a norns script

Who is this course for?

In this workshop we will gain understanding of SuperCollider while making a musical drone - a minimal sustained sound with dynamic harmonic variations, in the vein of Sunn O))) or La Monte Young. We will also learn how to add drones to the monome norns in your own drone script.

Course content

Session materials

SuperCollider documents (part 1, 2, 3, and a bonus), code and music examples to download
Session slides

Tone to drone - Introduction to SuperCollider for monome norns - On-demand

Lesson 1 - Introduction to the workshop
Lesson 2 - SuperCollider - variables and functions
Lesson 3 - SuperCollider - simple sine wave
Lesson 4 - SuperCollider - UGens and their arguments
Lesson 5 - SuperCollider - multichannel expansion
Lesson 6 - SuperCollider - SynthDef and polyphony
Lesson 7 - SuperCollider - additive synthesis
Lesson 8 - SuperCollider - control rate vs audio rate
Lesson 9 - SuperCollider - generating modulation sources
Lesson 10 - SuperCollider - making a drone with modulation
Lesson 11 - SuperCollider - using ! for expansion
Lesson 12 - SuperCollider - putting an LFO in an LFO
Lesson 13 - SuperCollider - using a bank of modulation
Lesson 14 - SuperCollider - filters + envelope + panning + fx
Lesson 2 - SuperCollider - variables and functions
Lesson 15 - norns - use maiden to install ambulation
Lesson 16 - norns - making norns engine from SuperCollider drone
Lesson 17 - norns - compiling the norns engine
Lesson 18 - norns - naming the engine
Lesson 19 - norns - adding engine to norns script

Requirements

A computer and internet connection
A norns device

Meet your instructor

Zack Scholl is a Seattle, Washington based tinkerer who releases music and norns scripts as “infinite digits”. He has been programming for 12 years as part of his job developing instrumentation and conducting experiments to understand biophysical properties of human proteins.