Works » By Title » K » Karma (5:58 / 1986)

Composed and produced by Ricardo Dal Farra in 1986 at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, Stanford University (USA).

We can find in “Karma” sounds longer than 100 seconds changing their timbre slowly, with unstable pitch, and coming from very diffrent points in space. These coexist with other very short sounds that fly in groups of hundreds, surrounding the listener, and multiplying the density of attacks. Near the end, sounds that remember traditional instruments and standard tunings appears.

The sound generation and the simulation of travelling sound sources were achieved using a digital synthesizer-pocessor (“Samson Box”). The score is a list of instructions and data in PLA language. The sound synthesis techniques used were: extensions of the Karplus-Strong algorithm, and frequency modulation (FM). This is a stereo mix from the original four channel tape.