perfect circuit interactive live streams (2018–21)

Between 2018 and 2021, my colleagues at Perfect Circuit and I created several interactive YouTube live streams, in which text from the live chat was used to generate MIDI and control voltage data for hardware synthesizers/drum machines at Perfect Circuit’s shop in Burbank, CA. One such instance can be seen below:

These live steams used a combination of node.js (with scripts coded by my collaborators) and Max/MSP in order to interface with the specific hardware for each stream. I was responsible for creating the Max patches, assembling the hardware, and making general sound design and compositional decisions.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this process was determining exactly how the live stream text would be translated into control data for the instruments in question. Each stream (four in total) took slightly different approaches. In the first, I created a pseudo-code “language” based on PATCH-IV for the Buchla 300 system—users could type in highly structured commands which could then be used to establish control voltage routings (via a software CV routing matrix), sequences, random voltage generation, and more, executed using a Make Noise 0-Coast, Expert Sleepers ES-8/3/6 combo, and a Strymon Magneto delay. Invalid commands or improperly formatted commands randomized the CV matrix.

Subsequent streams were focused more extensively around MIDI—taking the general approach of parsing individual words into sequences in which specific characters were mapped to specific pre-determined pitches. Different words would generally be “allocated” to different instruments, allowing for highly structured and “musical” control of many devices from relatively short messages. The above video example is based largely on this approach.

Later streams included more complex meta-structural logic, in which certain text strings could be re-interpreted as chord progressions, changes in orchestration, changes in rhythmic structure, etc. Our most recent interactive stream involved green screens, floating synthesizers, a levitating Godzilla in space, live MIDI control of an LZX Memory Palace video synthesizer/processor, and generally glitchy/irregular audio.

You can read more about a couple of these streams on Cycling 74’s blog and Perfect Circuit’s blog.