Tech Lounge
00:06:11 · Chris Chinchilla, Evan Mezeske
[00:06:11] S0: Okay. [00:06:12] S1: And that was never a description that occurred to me, but I I think it's really helpful. So it's... You know, the idea is it's like this physical modeling synthesizer, and you're building these, like, physical objects out of really simple components, you know, these, like, abstract masses and springs and other things like that. And then, you know, after you build that system of masses and springs, if you were to introduce energy into that system, it's gonna vibrate in some way, and you can turn that vibration into sound. [00:06:40] S0: Yeah. [00:06:41] S1: And so, yes, Anukari is just this thing that lets you, you know, construct these whatever kind of physical contraption you might want to simulate, and then it will play that out, and you can hear what it sounds like. [00:06:54] S0: And I'm kind of looking at some screenshots here. I haven't actually tried it yet. Maybe I should have. I've making a lot of music the past week. Maybe I should have. But we've kind of... Actually, the interface to me looks a bit like some of these visualization tools that I've been playing with, that you drag these shapes in. You have a MIDI keyboard. So it's a bit of me that makes me think it's like Visualizer meets something like Max for Live. I don't know.
00:06:54 · Chris Chinchilla, Evan Mezeske
[00:06:54] S0: And I'm kind of looking at some screenshots here. I haven't actually tried it yet. Maybe I should have. I've making a lot of music the past week. Maybe I should have. But we've kind of... Actually, the interface to me looks a bit like some of these visualization tools that I've been playing with, that you drag these shapes in. You have a MIDI keyboard. So it's a bit of me that makes me think it's like Visualizer meets something like Max for Live. I don't know. [00:07:22] S1: Yeah. I mean, there's a visualizer aspect to it, but, like, one one sort of common misconception I run into a lot is, like, that the three d graphics are sort of like this, like, fun little visual on top of, like, some underlying synth engine. But the way I see it is that basically, like... So so the three d graphics are showing you, at least as far as the physics are concerned, like, literally one to one the state of this three d physics simulation. And so you can't... There's not really a way in which you could use it without the three d graphics. Like, they don't have to look pretty, but They they mean they kind [00:07:57] S0: of do. I think maybe I should have said something like Blender, I suppose, is is a better Yeah. So you have to kind [00:08:02] S1: of Yeah. Blender [00:08:04] S0: isomorphic is the word, is it? Like the sort of three d wireframes going into the distance. Is that the right word? [00:08:12] S1: I don't know. [00:08:13] S0: Something like that. Anyway,
00:08:13 · Chris Chinchilla, Evan Mezeske
[00:08:13] S0: Something like that. Anyway, [00:08:17] S1: Yeah. Definitely. I mean, Blender... So one sort of difficulty in building Anukari is that at least in the plugin space, there's like literally no prior art to draw on for a three d editor. Right? Like, that's just not a thing. But obviously in other software, that is a thing. And so Blender obviously was like one of the inspirations in terms of things like, you know, well, what's a typical hotkey for rotating a camera? [00:08:39] S0: Okay. Yeah. [00:08:40] S1: You know, stuff like that. But, yeah, certainly certainly that was an inspiration for some of the aspects of like the three d interface. [00:08:47] S0: And I mean, in some respects, you say not in software, but in the analog musical world. I mean, you talked about guitar strings, you know, you can take... There was actually something at Superbooth one year, which was basically like a live string that you could just sort of pull and pluck. Or you can take things like the prepared piano or just bottles. Three d objects do make noises even if they're not instruments per se. If I look at some of the screenshots here, they look way more complicated, but...
00:08:47 · Chris Chinchilla, Evan Mezeske
[00:08:47] S0: And I mean, in some respects, you say not in software, but in the analog musical world. I mean, you talked about guitar strings, you know, you can take... There was actually something at Superbooth one year, which was basically like a live string that you could just sort of pull and pluck. Or you can take things like the prepared piano or just bottles. Three d objects do make noises even if they're not instruments per se. If I look at some of the screenshots here, they look way more complicated, but... [00:09:23] S1: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're they're complicated in the sense that there's like a bunch of moving parts, but in a lot of ways, the the little abstract masses are kinda more like, you know, atoms or something. Yeah. And so if you think of, a guitar string, it's made of a lot of atoms. Anukari is not gonna have, like, billions of atoms, but it's kinda like you're building something out of little specs. And then you get something. [00:09:47] S0: I think we've talked about it a lot. Are you able to give a demo? [00:09:51] S1: I can definitely attempt to. [00:09:53] S0: I feel like that might make everything make more sense to those watching, anyone not watching, you don't have to go watch It is because [00:10:02] S1: very difficult to explain Anukari without some kind of demo. So this is that Yeah. [00:10:06] S0: This is great. It's great. Yeah. [00:10:08] S1: Yeah. Okay. Well, let me open up just a really simple preset. [00:10:13] S0: Hopefully, the sound comes through. We'll see what happens. [00:10:15] S1: Let's give that a try.
00:10:15 · Evan Mezeske, Chris Chinchilla
[00:10:15] S1: Let's give that a try. [00:10:17] S0: Yeah. Yes. It does. Good. [00:10:19] S1: Yeah. Wonderful. Okay. I'm gonna stop this camera from rotating. So, yeah, this is like the... Sort of like the starting preset, the simplest thing possible. And, yeah, we heard how it sounds. Let's see. So just a really simple little sound, and there's some macros down here in the lower right so we can hear how those sound. [00:10:47] S0: And is the microphone just like where you're picking up the sound from, or does it have some physical effect on the sound as well? [00:10:55] S1: Yeah. Yeah. The microphone, it's basically [00:10:58] S0: What's the Okay.
00:10:58 · Chris Chinchilla, Evan Mezeske
[00:10:58] S0: What's the Okay. [00:10:59] S1: It's the position from which sound is being picked up, and it's also... It does... It affects the timbre where it's at because it's sort of picking up sound along this pink line, which is a a bit of a hard thing to explain, but moving the mics around will definitely change the sound a bit. On a simple preset like this, it may not make a lot of difference, but... Yeah. So you got this mass, and the the round one can move around. Yeah. And the the square ones are sort of tied down so that, like, you know, if you create a mass and don't tie down, it'll just fly off into space. Yeah. Like, if I... You know? And... Yeah. In this case, there's a mallet, a couple of microphones to pick up sound. Yeah. So my favorite demo is yeah. So we... Okay. My favorite demo is if we... Oh, yeah. If we just add this thing, so we hear how it sounds. Connect this. And you just get these crazy sounds because this thing, it's only connected with one spring. It's just gonna flail about kinda wildly. [00:12:12] S0: We've definitely made... I think as children, we've definitely made instruments that sound a bit like that. They kind of crash of springs. Yeah. [00:12:19] S1: Yeah. Exactly. You know, you get a lot of a lot of sounds that are sort of like flexing a piece of metal or something. Maybe like a saw. [00:12:29] S0: What are the bits at the top that look like buttons?