Composer and electronics performer Sam Pluta has been designing software for live electronic music performance for the past fourteen years. Software design, like music composition, is a game of information. As humans, almost everything we care about lies somewhere in between simplicity and complexity, somewhere between too little information and too much. A composer, for instance, wants to present enough sonic information to pique the listener's interest, while at the same time not oversaturate the listener with too much complexity. But how do we approach this problem of sonic information when designing software for musical performance? While there are numerous commercially available platforms, the linear design of most commercial software systems limits their ability to be musically expressive. This talk will give examples of how small changes to simple processes can take sounds from the mundane to the beautiful. Pluta will also share how the non-linear design of his own software system allows him to be musically expressive in almost any performance environment.
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