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Public Sound Objects: a shared environment for networked music practice on the Web

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2005

ALVARO BARBOSA
Affiliation:
Music Technology Group (MTG), Pompeu Fabra University, Calle Ocata 1, 08003 Barcelona, Spain E-mail: abarbosa@iua.upf.es Research Center for Science and Technology of the Arts (CITAR), Portuguese Catholic University, Rua Diogo Botelho 1327, 4169-005 Porto, Portugal E-mail: abarbosa@porto.ucp.pt

Abstract

The Public Sound Objects (PSOs) project consists of the development of a networked musical system, which is an experimental framework to implement and test new concepts for online music communication. The PSOs project approaches the idea of collaborative musical performances over the Internet by aiming to go beyond the concept of using computer networks as a channel to connect performing spaces. This is achieved by exploring the internet's shared nature in order to provide a public musical space where anonymous users can meet and be found performing in collective sonic art pieces.

The system itself is an interface-decoupled musical instrument, in which a remote user interface and a sound processing engine reside with different hosts in an extreme scenario where a user can access the synthesizer from any place in the world using the World Wide Web. Specific software features were implemented in order to reduce the disruptive effects of network latency, such as dynamic adaptation of the musical tempo to communication latency measured in real time and consistent sound panning with the object's behaviour at the graphical user interface.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2005

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