DECENTER - Daniele Fabris

DECENTER - Spatial Granular Sampler

This M4L device is the first prototype of a series of spatial instruments I’m working on in the recent years.  I’m designing instruments and sound fx that support me developing a musical compositional approach based on an idea of sound orchestration through sound spatialisation, augmenting my live performative expressions and composing possibilities in a multichannel sonic environment.

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This project is an extract of my research achieved at the GRAIM studio at the Conservatory of Vicenza.
In my thesis "From a compositional process to an interaction paradigm" I wanted to describe my musical activity and its relationship with the digital domain, summarizing my matrix of thought on the relationship between composition and digital lutherie, passing through the relationship between instrument and performer; I focus my attention on the materials, methods and processes adopted in the compositional phase.
I have implemented my archetypes in various applied research projects, between musical composition and creative coding, documenting the processes and results. This demonstrates that today, engineering, composition and execution skills can converge in a single figure thanks to the release of resistances in the digital domain.
I therefore wanted to devote some reflections to the human-digital link, launching ideas on how this link addresses issues of accessibility, inclusion, decentralization, towards a change of cultural paradigm. These thoughts are part of my vision of how the composer's evolution influences itself in relation to the digital medium, bringing out new open musical systems and hybrid disciplines, towards alternative methods of interaction and perception.

* What are the key questions within this research ? 

How the environment and sound’s spatial distribution effect our listening/perception?
 What are the correlations between sound spatialisation and sound synthesis? 
Do sonic spaces’ new conceptions develop a different musical compositional approach and new forms of sound expressions?
 Does a redistribution of sound in space enable an augmented perceptive dimension and deeper interpretation of time and space?
 How can we design new instruments that take in consideration the spatial distribution of sound, not just its generation? 
How technology can support creativity?

A spatial instrument is a tool that has the ability to manipulate the spatial dimension of the sound produced at the same time as its ability to produce or manipulate the other dimensions of sound. The sound generation and the spatialization of the sound will be correlated, synchronized. The core engine is composed by three autonomous but interconnected nodes: sound processing, coordinate generation, multi-channel spatial decoding. This powerful integration allows artists to use a single device to create both music content and its multichannel spatialization in real time, proposing a new interaction paradigm.