I work on SuperCollider since 2020 (I'm not sure but it's around this time) and worked before that on Pure Data (since 2017, i'm pretty sure of this) and even before this
I was messing around with ppooll, a environment for computer music improvisation made with Max (Msp).ppooll.klingt.org
And since I started diving deeper into computer music, using more complex tools than classic DAW softwares, I've been mostly focusing my work on granular synthesis because I thought this was a technique with a lot of potential and suited my way of
observing (this word is very important to me) the world and generally crafting, creating. I give importance to details anywhere, everywhere, thinking that most of what I see on this planet, in this life, is made of a group of particles, unit, individuals is comforting to me.
I spend a lot of time doing micro composition which is thinking about the identity and behavior of each audio particles and how they interact with each other (through superposition/layering/overlapping, phase cancellation, modulation between each other and much more)
in the bodies of particles that I want to be generated by SuperCollider (scsynth).
I could not have made the synthesizer I'm using right now that I made on SuperCollider without the work, examples and documentations of ALBERTO DE CAMPO,
precisely the Microsound chapter from the SuperCollider Book (MIT Press), the tutorials by
ELI FIELDSTEEL on YouTube and one video by ALIK RUSTAMOFF (
Reflectives on YouTube) about microsound, granular synthesis.
It is also very much inspired and based on the techniques elaborated by Curtis Roads on his book Microsound which is to ME, my sort of Holy Text. If YOU are interested
in granular synthesis, YOU should have this book around, in your place, bag or computer. If YOU don't understand it, just keep it around, YOU'll come back to it later.
The synth itself is one grain, commonly called grain, but could be called a particle, atom, audio dot, audio pixel, fragments........ . . . . . . . . .
that has its amplitude modulated by an envelope, a window. The content of one single unit before its AM (amplitude modulation) could be anything:
a sound file on your computer,
an input signal for a microphone,
a wavetable being played,
a generated noise
etc.
The unit is then spawned, emitted by one or several patterns, the moment I spend the most time on is when I compose these units, I can determine the amplitude of each
individual unit for example or the shape of the envelope or its length.
The result is an assembly of these particles, forming an assembly of micro sounds that can be called "sound object". Depending on the rate at which they are being spawned,
they can be one perceived auditive event or rhythmic sequence of these grains.
It could be said that it is basically a synthesizer, sampler being played very very fast, potentially fast enough so we can only hear one tone.