An Electro-MechanicalSpectro-FantasticalMusical Machine
Roll up, roll up
What is Zaraforte?
Zaraforte™ is a machine that performs music. Hand it a score and it gives you back a recording, with every millisecond computed from first principles. No samples, no sound libraries, no synthesizer presets.
Its instruments are simulations of how instruments work: bows and strings, lips and tubes, reeds, air jets, hammers and soundboards. Its players breathe, lean into a crescendo, and drift a few milliseconds from one another the way real musicians do. They play in a room with walls and air, and the microphones stand somewhere in it.
Electro-mechanical is how it works. Spectro- is how it learns: it measures real recordings, down to the harmonics of a single note, and holds its own takes to the same measurements. Fantastical is what comes out: performances that nobody ever gave.
The attractions
Instruments built from physics
A violin here is a bow sticking and slipping on a string, over a body that resonates. A trumpet is a pair of lips buzzing into a brass tube. The sound comes out of the simulation.
Read more about instruments built from physics →Players who listen to each other
Real ensembles are never exactly together, and the ways they're apart follow a pattern. Zaraforte's players correct toward one another the way measured string quartets do.
Read more about players who listen to each other →A notation of its own
Scores are text. Beyond notes, they carry dynamics as curves, each player's timing, how an instrument is played, and where it sits on stage.
Read more about a notation of its own →A room, and microphones in it
Every player has a seat. Distance, air, reflections and arrival time are worked out from where they sit, and the microphones hear what their placement allows.
Read more about a room, and microphones in it →Measured against the real thing
It studies recordings of real performances and measures its own renders the same way, so every improvement can be checked against what real musicians do.
Read more about measured against the real thing →The same performance, every time
Given the same score and starting conditions, it's built to play exactly the same performance, down to the waveform. Its human variation is written into the score or seeded, never left to chance.
Read more about the same performance, every time →
See the whole programme of features →
Stay in touch
For more information
Leave your email address and we'll send occasional news of Zaraforte: new performances in the gallery, and what the machine learns next. We'll ask you to confirm first, and you can leave at any time.
No spam, and no lead-gen chicanery: your address is never sold, traded or mined. Only news of the machine.
Or email Pete directly: [email protected]