-= The Onslaught =-


The Onslaught MP3
The Onslaught SCORE
The Onslaught ORCHESTRA


My name is Michael Smith and this webpage is a source for the assignment 2 CSound project for the course COSC 4P98. The final compilation MP3 file can be downloaded through the above link "The Onslaught MP3". The source score ( .sco ) and orchestra ( .orc ) files can also be downloaded above. But first there are some notes about the composition below...

Artistic Inspiration:

My composition was created with a notion of wanting to express a feeling of power, energy, suspense, and emotion in music. The music I listen too often exhibits these qualities, and I wanted to do the best I could to express them in a short composition created with CSound.

My composition has a story and is entitled The Onslaught...

Strong wind is blowing as a lone warrior tries to sleep. The sound of an approaching force is muffled and distorted by the howling wind. The wind dispenses long enough to hear war drums and the subtle movement of thousands of approaching men. The wind picks up lightly and the lone warrior wonders if his ears are deceiving him. The sound of war drums and approaching combatants comes through again, but the drums beat louder and faster and the men are moving more quickly. The lone warrior's heart is beating fast and hard like a jolt of thunder. Finally, the lone warrior stands up and looks towards the horizon only to witness a stream of enemies start to rush towards him. He stands ready to face them, drums roaring and a jolt of thunder, battle cries are heard. The onslaught ensues...

Some of the main sounds in my composition are wind, guitar and distorted guitar riffs, drums, thunder, and war cries. These were produced either entirely in CSound, or through edited sampled .wav files converted to .aif files, then run through self-made instruments made in CSound.

Tools Used:

RazorLame v1.1.5 : To convert final composition .wav file to an .mp3 file.

RazorLame website

Adobe Audition 2.0 : To sample portions of audio from .wav or .mp3 files for use in my composition. Also, used to convert .wav files to .aif files and change the sample rate, bits, or number of channels if necessary.

CSound Version 5.05 For Windows OS : For use in programming the composition. The entire composition was sequenced and created with CSound. The only outside audio came from .aif files. No post processing effects were done with other programs. I wanted to show a composition that was made exclusively with CSound to demonstrate some of it's possibilities.

Csound Editor Version 1.4.149 Free : A very simple GUI for CSound with main functionality to compile .orc and .sco files, as well as edit these files like a Development Environment.

CSound Editor Website

References:

Tool_Jambi_Riff.aif : Modified guitar sample from the song Jambi off the album Tool - 10000 Days. Came from own personal copy of album.

aaa.aif : Sample of scream, free from http://www.shockwave-sound.com/sound-effects/scream_sounds.html

tight_kick_021.aif : Sample of drum, free from http://www.users.bigpond.com/prodigalson/drum.htm

kick2.aif : Another sample of a drum, free from http://www.users.bigpond.com/prodigalson/drum.htm

Instruments:

I created several instruments for my composition. Including one that I modified from the following website to make my own wind instrument http://csounds.com/mikelson/.

The main unique instrument I created is a linen opcode that moves linearly over time to change the amplitude of a signal. A grain opcode is applied to the resulting sample with a reduced frequency and parameters that I chose based on a series of testing to get the sound I wanted right. This grain is then used for the amplitude of the loscil opcode to read in a wave table samples that are obtained from an audio file as input. The output is then processed and output to two channels (stereo).

The Data-Flow Definition Diagram is shown as follows:



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