My Exploration of the Computer-Generated Random Song Space (c) January 19, 2024, by James Pate Williams, Jr.

I have been interested in creating “music” using computers since I read an article by Martin Gardner in “Scientific American” way back in the 1970s. Gardner mentioned three types of noise found in nature: Brownian, Fractal, and White noises. My first feeble attempts at computer generated music happened in the early 1980s when I used LaGrange College’s Personal Computers (generic not IBM PCs). Later after my father bought me a Commodore Amiga 2000 on Saturday, April 30, 1988, I explored the sound producing space of that brand of Personal Computers and the Amiga BASIC computer language which was created by Microsoft. I designed and implemented a keyboard emulator program and a stochastic “music” generating program that used Brownian, Fractal, and White noise.

Skip forward to the early 2000s. While I was a graduate student in software engineering and computer science in the period 2000 to 2005, I translated Sun Java’s MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) sequencer to the Apple and PC C languages. I also created a MIDI language assembler and compiler. MIDI is well-known as a gestural music language. Sometime in the late 2000s, I designed and implemented an application in C# to create a random song from either musical chords or scales. Nowadays I still reuse a lot of my decade’s old software.

User interface of my “Random Song from Scale” C# application:

After creating a random song, I upload (import) the MIDI file to my SONAR Platinum Digital Audio Workstation then use a synthesizer to create a sound (audio) track to export as a wave, MP3, etc. file.

On January 17, 2024, I purchased two bargain basement Universal Audio VST plug-ins: a Moog Mini-Moog synthesizer emulator and a Waterfall Hammond B3 emulator complete with a software Type 147 amplifier with Doppler effect Lesley rotating speaker. Each plug-in cost me a cool $49.00 USD. Now the prices have jumped to $199.00. The real 1970s analog Mini-Moog is available for approximately $3,500 to $24,000 USD. I know an individual with a Voyager Moog synthesizer that was hand signed by the inventor Robert Moog.

https://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/universal-audio-moog-minimoog–uad-instrument-mac-windows/m00313000000000?rNtt=Universal%20Audio%20Minimoog%20plug-in&index=5
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Author: jamespatewilliamsjr

My whole legal name is James Pate Williams, Jr. I was born in LaGrange, Georgia approximately 70 years ago. I barely graduated from LaGrange High School with low marks in June 1971. Later in June 1979, I graduated from LaGrange College with a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry with a little over a 3 out 4 Grade Point Average (GPA). In the Spring Quarter of 1978, I taught myself how to program a Texas Instruments desktop programmable calculator and in the Summer Quarter of 1978 I taught myself Dayton BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) on LaGrange College's Data General Eclipse minicomputer. I took courses in BASIC in the Fall Quarter of 1978 and FORTRAN IV (Formula Translator IV) in the Winter Quarter of 1979. Professor Kenneth Cooper, a genius poly-scientist taught me a course in the Intel 8085 microprocessor architecture and assembly and machine language. We would hand assemble our programs and insert the resulting machine code into our crude wooden box computer which was designed and built by Professor Cooper. From 1990 to 1994 I earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from LaGrange College. I had a 4 out of 4 GPA in the period 1990 to 1994. I took courses in C, COBOL, and Pascal during my BS work. After graduating from LaGrange College a second time in May 1994, I taught myself C++. In December 1995, I started using the Internet and taught myself client-server programming. I created a website in 1997 which had C and C# implementations of algorithms from the "Handbook of Applied Cryptography" by Alfred J. Menezes, et. al., and some other cryptography and number theory textbooks and treatises.

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