Fugue For My Drum Machine

Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

In my experiments with the ER-1, I always thought that its 4 VCOs would lend themselves well to rendering a fugue, and in a brief moment of joblessness I composed one (plus an accompanying prelude later on). The difficulty in having the ER-1 play it is that, being a drum machine, it was never intended to play pitched tones in any conventional way. Each VCO is fixed to a single MIDI note, and pitch can only be modulated via its 0-127 pitch parameter. In order to realize any kind of score on the ER-1, I needed to painstakingly map frequencies (corresponding to 12TET pitches) to combinations of the ER-1's 'pitch', 'modulation speed', and 'modulation depth' parameters. With that mapping in place, I wrote a python script that can parse .musicxml files and translate them to the ER-1. The resulting pitches are never squarely "correct" in 12TET, an effect that I like given the tuning practices in place at the time when Bach was writing the Well-Tempered Clavier.

I had the pleasure of performing this piece live with the MDBQ in our last show, November 2025.

Ancient Grains

Sun, 01 May 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Ancient Grains is a software environment for live music performance consisting of several different modules (granular synthesizer, 3 audio playback buffers, effects, matrix mixer, sequencer). My initial goal was to build a granular synthesizer capable of capturing live audio and granulating it on the fly. Heavily inspired by Keith Fullerton Whitman's Playthroughs framework, I continued expanding the system to include other modules that would allow me a richer experience playing it live, eventually allowing for full performances using just this system (and the instruments played into it). Eventually I integrated it with a Monome Grid (used as a sequencer for external synthesizers) and an iPad, which I developed a UI for and use as the main control surface (see pictures).

Ancient Grains is one way I've attempted to answer the questions: "How do I want to perform live electronic music? What kind of systems and frameworks can I build that allow for a spontaneous, embodied live electronic music performance? How do I create the potential for surprise and mystery in a system governed by logic and rigor?"

Ancient Grains was created in Max/MSP, making heavy use of its gen~ environment, as well as Max's compatibility with JavaScript. A lot of the DSP and UI features wouldn't have been possible using Max/MSP alone. The system is tailored very specifically to my set of needs and interests.

HANK THE MASON — projects

Fugue For My Drum Machine

Ancient Grains