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How-To

How can I use ChatGPT to make music?

April 20, 2023 by KC Editor Leave a Comment

The artificial intelligence app ChatGPT is everywhere you look at present, and it or platforms like it probably aren’t going away. In fact, they’re likely to improve at exponential rates. As a musician, whether you love or hate stuff like this, being aware of it is important. This is a brief primer on just some examples of what’s out there at present for you to play with.

To start this off, I asked ChatGPT itself what music-related coding languages it knows. Its response:

As an AI language model, I am familiar with several programming languages related to music. Here are some of them:

  1. Max/MSP: A visual programming language for music and multimedia.
  2. SuperCollider: A platform for audio synthesis and algorithmic composition.
  3. ChucK: A strongly-timed audio programming language for real-time synthesis, composition, and performance.
  4. Pure Data (Pd): A graphical dataflow programming language designed for audio and multimedia processing.
  5. Csound: A programming language designed for sound and music synthesis.
  6. Python with music libraries such as Music21 or Pydub for audio processing.
  7. JavaScript with Web Audio API for audio manipulation and visualization.
  8. Sonic Pi: A live coding environment for music.
  9. Faust: A functional programming language specifically designed for real-time audio signal processing and synthesis.

These are just a few examples of coding languages related to music. There are many more, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses depending on the specific application.

Ok – even a novice like me recognises that there’s a few heavyweights in that list. Let’s look at one of them: Sonic Pi

Our friend Ed at Elk Elektronik has done a brilliant video showing broadly how ChatPGT and Sonic Pi work:

Until watching this video I’d never used Sonic Pi before, but it’s pretty easy to use. You can download it here, with versions available for Windows, Mac and Raspberry Pi OS. All you need to do is launch ChatGPT in your browser and type a query in plain English. For example, I asked the following:

Can you generate sonic pi code in the style of Kraftwerk?

ChatGPT then responded with an answer, including the appropriate Sonic PI code (image only shows a small amount of the total code):

Now it’s just a matter of pasting that code into the main window of the Sonic Pi app and clicking on ‘run’ to hear the result:

To save you doing all those steps yourself, you can listen to the output right here:

https://keyboardchronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/SonicPi-example.mp3

It’s pretty rudimentary, sure. But that’s the raw output only – Sonic Pi gives you lots of onboard tweaking options and that’s before you add your own gear to the equation. At the very least it’s a great scratchpad for ideas.

For those who worry we are about to be overrun by AI music – we may have a little breathing time as although Sonic Pi was simple to use as a non-coder, I tried all the others in the list above and couldn’t get a single one to work for me, for a variety of reasons. There’s still some work to do by our AI overlords!

Filed Under: How-To

How to Update to V1.20 on your Yamaha YC 61 / YC 73 / YC 88

February 24, 2022 by KC Editor Leave a Comment

It’s been a while coming but this week sees the latest firmware update for the Yamaha YC 61 / YC 73 / YC 88 and it’s a significant one.

The big wins:

1. A new rotary speaker effect has been added.
2. New FM organ types have been added.
3. A new setting “FM Color Type” has been added to the “Drawbar Color” setting.
4. Three EQs have been added to the effect types.
5. A new setting “Touch Sensitivity” has been added to the Settings.
6. The locations in the menu of “EG Control” and “Filter Control” have been changed.
7. New Live Set Sounds have been added.
8. New Voices have been added.

To update to 1.20, you need to do the following (as explained in the original instructions):

1. Download the update file here

2. Back up any custom settings you have by inserting a USB thumb drive in the back of your YC and then selecting Menu / File / Backup File / Save (and renaming the file if you desire)

3. Unzip the download file and copy the 8T25OS_.PGM file to a USB thumb drive (Yamaha recommends it not have any other files on it besides this one, so avoid using your backup thumb drive if you can. I did the update on same drive as my backups and had no issues but best to follow Yamaha advice)

4. Remove the USB thumb drive from your computer and ensure your keyboard is powered off.

5. Connect the USB flash drive prepared in step 3 to the USB [TO DEVICE] terminal of the YC. Power on the YC while holding down the [MENU] and [STORE] buttons until the “YAMAHA” logo appears on screen.
In this step, don’t press any buttons other than the [MENU] or [STORE] buttons.

6. The YC OS updater will begin with a “Now loading” message and the following:

“Current Ver” indicates the current version of the YC, and “New” indicates the updater version.
Press the [ENTER] button to start the update.
Press the [EXIT] button to cancel.

———————
Updater
Current Ver : *.**.*
New Ver : *.**.*
[ENTER] : Start
[EXIT] : Reboot
———————

7. After the [ENTER] button is pressed, the following message will appear.

———————
Updater
All User memory
will be initialized.
[ENTER] : Continue
[EXIT] : Reboot
———————

8. Press the [ENTER] button again to execute the update. All the Live Set Sounds and the settings of MENU screens and SETTINGS screens will be initialized.
Press the [EXIT] button to cancel the update.

9. The following message will appear when the update is completed. For me the update from 1.1 to 1.2 took about 8 minutes.

Confirm that the Current Ver is the updater version.

10. DO NOT power off or remove the USB flash drive from the YC until the “Completed. Please turn off.” message appears. If power is accidently interrupted while running the updater (by disconnecting the AC cord, etc.),
the unit may become inoperable. If this happens, run the updater again. If the unit still does not function after doing this, please contact your nearest Yamaha service center.

11.  Turn off the YC and remove the USB flash drive (unless you need to reload custom sounds etc, in which case power the YC back on with USB drive still connected and then select Menu / File / Backup File / Load / and choose your backup file and then whether you want to load all backup settings or just live sound sets)

12. Power on the YC.

 

Now enjoy the even better YC! Also if you’re more a visual person, check out this great walk through vid of updating firmware on the YC.

Filed Under: How-To Tagged With: Yamaha YC

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