
Student Builds Daphne Oram’s Unfinished ‘Mini-Oramics’ - teh_klev
http://www.gold.ac.uk/news/mini-oramics/
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camtarn
Tom Richards, who built the machine, has a very short blog here with a couple
of bits of extra info on the machine:

[http://minioramics.blogspot.co.uk/](http://minioramics.blogspot.co.uk/)

Unfortunately, there's not much in the way of info about how the lines on the
film map to the synthesizer controls - I found it very odd to watch the film
go by, and see busy sections with short discrete notes, sections with long
interesting curves, and almost empty sections, but to hear no discernable
difference in the audio.

~~~
orillian
I think the disjoint between the audio and the visual is amplified due to the
fact that the read head(s) are a couple inches to the left under the cover. So
there is always a perceived delay to the audio from where you are looking.
This magnifies if you for example look to the right edge of the view while
it's playing a couple inches past the left, less so if you can project the
last "bar" past the left edge in your mind.

This device would be better I think if the read head could be moved directly
to the left edge or even perhaps placed in the center of the view. But I have
a feeling it needs to be in darkness to read best.

Interesting idea none the less.

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porsupah
The Radio 3 documentary on Daphne Oram, "Wee Have Also Sound-Houses":

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ct1y1](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ct1y1)

\- is, predictably, not available to listen to on their site, but you can find
it on YouTube:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNaqvAH7R34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNaqvAH7R34)

~~~
pmoriarty
Another documentary that anyone interested in this period of the Radiophonic
Workshop might like is one on a colleague of Oram's: Delia Derbyshire, famous
for being the creator of the Dr. Who theme.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXnmSgaeGAI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXnmSgaeGAI)

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konschubert
The music which it plays in the demo video is a meaningless mix of scribbled
sounds.

Whatever the musical potential of the instrument might be, it is not shown in
the video.

~~~
Angostura
I'm pretty sure that was some Schoenberg actually.

~~~
konschubert
I respect if others discover meaning in this music. To me it sounds like a
child's scribble.

~~~
pmoriarty
I find the art of children to often be much more unaffected, creative, and
interesting than that of most adult artists. In fact, so do some adult artists
themselves, who admire and even seek to themselves emulate the art of
children.

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biot
I almost heard Flight of the Bumblebee at one point (0:50 in the video). I
think something like this could be useful as a music transcribing device --
listen to a piece and move your pen up/down as the pitch rises/falls while the
medium scrolls by. Then rewind and play.

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fhood
Could someone explain to me what the creative advantage of this is?
Particularly over a computer? I don't have a background in electronic music,
so maybe I am missing something?

~~~
JonnieCache
In the 60s/70s, composing on a computer wasn't the same experience as today.
Incidentally, today it's still pretty frustrating.

The creative advantage is in being able to express pitch, (and presumably
generic control voltages) intuitively as continuous lines, which is a natural
fit for analog synthesizers. The alternative is sending discrete events, which
is how midi works, something not invented until later. There is a school of
thought that to limit synthesizers to the discrete world of "notes," with
quantised durations and pitch values as a hangover from our ideas of keyboard
instruments, is to waste their potential.

Ribbon controllers were popular in that period for expressing continuous
pitch, and I suspect the Oramics was designed as a way of recording these
sorts of expressions, like a kind of analog punch card.

Also consider that the main compositional method of the radiophonic workshop
at that time was splicing magnetic tape with razor blades and sellotape.

~~~
fhood
Thanks, to me the article wasn't clear on whether the machine was built for
historical reasons, or whether it had modern uses.

I agree that it seems restrictive to limit synths to discrete notes (like
playing guitar without bends) although I probably wouldn't use the word
mellifluous to describe the sounds made in the video.

~~~
mrob
I agree that quantized pitches are a great waste of a synth's potential.
William Sethares did some very interesting research on consonance perception,
which can be used to construct microtonal tuning systems without the
dissonance usually associated with them. Here's an good demonstration of what
you can do with arbitrary pitches:

[http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/mp3s/three_ears.html](http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/mp3s/three_ears.html)

"As each new note sounds, its pitch (and that of all currently sounding notes)
is adjusted microtonally (based on its spectrum) to maximize consonance. The
adaptation causes interesting glides and microtonal pitch adjustments in a
perceptually sensible fashion. "

~~~
JonnieCache
Wow, that makes me feel seasick. Looking forward to playing it at the tail end
of parties.

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dang
Previous Daphne Oram on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10993961](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10993961).

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tribe
Someone made an iPhone app which simulates one of these machines, if anyone is
interested in playing around with one:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/oramics/id454505541?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/oramics/id454505541?mt=8)

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jlarocco
Sounds interesting, but the article doesn't show up for me.

Ad-block shows it's blocking some font files, but everything else is getting
through. I hope it's not a new trend to not display anything if custom fonts
don't load.

