Eowave Eobody1 - Manual (Page 4)

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Who’s Who • user’s manual
manual ©eowave/Ircam 2003
Who’s Who
Ircam
Ircam was founded as a place that combines scientific research, development of related
technologies and contemporary musical creation, for the benefit of the musical and scienti-
fic communities. One of the main goals is to contribute, through science and technology, to
the renewal of musical expression. Reciprocally, specific problems related to contemporary
creativity have lead to original steps in the scientific field, with theoretical, methodological
and applied aspects. One of the main links between research and the musical production
activities is done through the development of software environments for composition, that
integrate models and prototypes which come from research teams working in various fields
related to music: computer science (languages, human-computer interface, realtime, data-
base management), digital signal processing, acoustics, psycho-acoustics and cognitive
psychology of audition. Knowledge and tools are also applied to fields of activity in the
industry that go far beyond contemporary musical production.
« At Ircam, my work is mainly oriented towards the design of electronic hardware for stage
and live performance applications. The aim of this design is to provide composer sand per-
formers new tools for expression and control in order to communicate with the computers
involved in computer assisted compositions and musical piece interpretation (sound pro-
cessing, sound synthesis, sample triggering, spactialization…).
One of those tools is AtoMIC Pro (Analogue to MIDI Converter). This device digitizes ana-
logue signals from sensors to transmit them to the computer which might use those infor-
mation as a «vision» of the outer world, so our five senses do. Thus stimulated, the machi-
ne can «answer» and take certain decisions depending on what happens on stage. This tool
is very useful in the field of interactive sound and/or video installations where it is possibly
needed, for instance, to detect a person at the key place in order to trigger a sound sample,
or to measure the activity in a room to control the volume of a sound effect. »
Emmanuel Fléty, Ircam.
eowave
« eowave was founded in 2002. Since 1998, we have designed our first products under the
name of More Electronic Sounds. We have started with the development of software and
stepped on hardware design of analogue machines and midi tools. There is not such a big
gap between developing software and hardware: both are a subjective representation of the
definition of the sound process. I really enjoyed developing iSynth. With the Essential
Instruments from Cycling’74’s Pluggo 3, each module is dedicated to a special synthesis:
granular, additive synthesis, FM, an analogue modeling synth or a wavetable synth… I have
tried to extract the essential of synthesis, starting all over again with fundamental questions:
«what’s an FM synthesis & how should it be concretized?» Now, some analogue effects I
have designed - the little analogue effects called the «bugs» for example - can be viewed as
some kinds of hardware Essential Instruments. Several little boxes, each representing an
effect, a multimodal filter, a ring modulator, a phaser or a sequencer. Several little boxes any
musician can use to add an analogue feeling to his music… Several easy-to-use little boxes
which can be used alone or assembled to create new sounds. But aside the search for new
tools, and new ways of expression is a real quest among unknown dimensions. The world
of synthesis is immense, while the world of expression has no limits. At this frontier comes
eo•body, an ideal intermediate between the external audio and video environment and the
artist, the essentiel bridge linking the world of analogue sensors to the world of digital pro-
cess. »
Marc Sirguy, MESI/ eowave CEO.