Location: Hungarian Palace of Arts, Budapest
Year: 2014

About
Shape Composer is an application that is developed to control acoustic instruments with freehand drawings and algorithmically generated patterns. Sort of visual notation editing software. It is based on MIDI, each instrument that has midi capability can be controlled by drawing. For this special occasion, it is designed to control all the parameters, registers and nuances that a Church Organ has. Müpa has a really special instrument in terms of flexibility and size, this project was truly inspiring from the beginning.

Realization

The basic concept is developed by Dániel Váczi, whereas during the development process, László Fassang, Ernő Z Rubik and Bálint Bolcsó were really helpful with their advices.

The software also has a musical visualization feature: based on midi & spectral information, it generates visuals that helps understand tonal relationships in the actual music. The software is developed using Processing (with native java interfaces & midibus library), Pure Data (using libPd for parameter mapping & test sound generation).

Shape Composer was commissioned by the Hungarian Palace of Arts (Müpa), and has been used for the performance “Etudes for mechanic organ” in october, 2014.