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About the MetaMusic Series

November 11, 2008

What is the Metamusic Series? ~ The Metamusic instruments, or which Husserl is a premiere example, blends ideas of digital logic with analog audio processing and unique user interfaces to transcend conventional paradigms. This is part of the reason that the instruments are named after philosophers. But Metamusic is far more than that....

Music has the unique ability to create an infinitely changing experience via pure abstractions of temporal and spatial relationships, most simply perceived as rhythm and timbre. True, we may live in a material world, but within our shared experience, the abstractions of time and space are not imprisoned by the clocks and Cartesian coordinates of modern science. For us, a day can pass like an hour, and an hour can seem like days. The tiniest of space we share with another person, in a fleeting touch, can mean more to us than all the stars in the sky. Through musical abstractions we can share such experiences, but only when the instruments place no constraints on our expression.

Expanding Your Control

The Metamusic instruments provide flexible yet deep control of acoustic and melodic patterns in ways that cannot be achieved by any other means. These instruments enable the creation of entirely new feelings and reactions, liberating creativity and imagination from the restrictions of conventional instruments, and opening new possibilities of imaginative expression that can change in any way imaginable. Through Metamusic invention, both new and experienced artists can now blend, harmonize, expand, and effortlessly flex a vast acoustic canvas, transforming a music experience dynamically in any different direction at any time.

Inter-Reaction

Over the last decades there has been a gradual collapse into a standardized set of electronic sounds, with a glut of bland instruments offering limited flexibility and nuance. They do not attempt to make the sophisticated capabilities of computers easily accessible to the creator. But now here, uniquely designed controls, customized to particular performer needs, can inter-react to create new sound experiences, both within conventional formats and in the realms of the esoteric.

Metamusic instruments put as much flexibility as possible right at your fingertips, opening up new horizons of exploration, yielding fresh experiences for audiences and new inspiration for you. The Metamusic series seeks to provide you with a complete set of controls for rapid creation of any sound possible, with as little effort as possible.

The instruments themselves are also designed to create evolving sounds and melodic pattern by themselves, thus combining algorithmic generation with flexible control.The complexity of configuration and audio processing is contained within the structures that operate behind the scenes. While there may appear to be a large number of controls in many of these instruments, the user interface is fantastically simple compared to the underlaying complexity hidden within the instruments.

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Where can I Discover More about the Actual Instruments?

You can read about the instruments, and if you register, download and participate in the forum. Please do let us know about yourself.

What do I need to Play the Metamusic Instruments?

To date, the instruments require ownership of a host program called Reaktor from Native Instruments. Future versions may not require such a host program.

Reaktor was chosen because it provides a professional, flexible, open-ended design environment similar to that used by hardware engineers for electronic design. It includes a 'schematic entry' system as well as real-time simulation of audio and control paths, which generate sound almost as a side effect. Native Instruments has expanded Reaktor to include a range of user-interface and sequencer host capabilities, so that an instrument developer can emulate the look and feel of traditional electronic instruments, as well as create entirely new kinds of instruments arising from computer music paradigms.

What is Happening with the Metamusic Series Now?

After eight years of public domain development, the Metamusic series is now moving to serve artists and musicians via commercial instruments, subscription services, and studio support. The public domain instruments are still offered here for those interested in finding out the design heritage.