Oversetter

Oversetter is a performance for computer-controlled grand organ and electronics, presented on the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ in 2018. The work begins from a problem of translation: how a digital signal might be carried across the mechanical, architectural, and acoustic body of the organ. Spectral analysis of a live electronic source drives the instrument, so that the organ operates as a system of conversion rather than as a stable instrument. Its historical machinery receives a contemporary signal and returns it through air, delay, and acoustic space. Oversetter is concerned with what happens when sound is transferred between incompatible bodies: the digital, the mechanical, the architectural, and the listening body gathered inside the hall. Technical description Live audio is analysed spectrally using a fast Fourier transform (FFT) and converted to MIDI, which is transmitted to the organ's control system. An updated system Max/MSP patch is included here for download, applicable for converting audio to MIDI for any synth or computer-controlled acoustic instruments such as the Yamaha Disklavier.