MASS (Music and Audio in Sample Sequences) is a mathematical and computational framework relating musical elements to LPCM audio samples.

The scripts synthesizes sonic excerpts or whole musical pieces. The computational routines are derived from the mathematical relations in the documentation.

• the doc/ directory holds the:
  • article.pdf which describes the MASS framework.
  • listings.pdf which displays lists of:
    • sections, figures and tables of the article;
    • scripts that implement the equations, musical pieces and figures;
    • auxiliary scripts;
    • tables.
  • code.pdf, with most important Python scripts as PDF.
  • notesInMusic.pdf, a traditional music theory compendium for the user to further grasp how sonic synthesis and music theory intertwine.
  • spectra.pdf holds an elementary description of the sinusoidal components in LPCM samples.
  • tex files that are used to render these PDFs.
• The src/ directory holds Python scripts:
  • src/sections/ holds the scripts that implement the equations in each of the sections of the articles.
  • src/aux/ holds scripts that render the figures in the article and other auxiliary scripts.
  • src/aux/filters/ holds auxiliary scripts related to IIR and FIR filters.
  • src/pieces2/ holds scripts that render the musical pieces using the resources described in the second section of the article.
  • src/pieces3/ holds scripts that render the musical pieces using the resources described in the third section of the article.
  • src/piecesSIA/ holds scripts that render the musical pieces using the resources described in the notesInMusic.pdf document (a.k.a. fourth section of the article).

The PDF documentation relates mathematically musical elements and PCM samples, including subjects in musical theory, psychophysics and signal processing. The scripts are also part of the documentation, but are straightforward implementations of the equations in the PDF and further algorithms that realize the musical concepts that are not expressed as equations. As stated in the listing above, the scripts also include routines that exemplify the achievement of musical pieces within the framework.

This work is heavily influenced by this MSc dissertation and the corresponding code and documentation available at this repository.

The dissertation have been translated into English, enhanced and formatted as an article. The code has been reorganized. All these items are in this repository. The Appendices of the dissertation still have important information:

• Appendix G holds information on related books and articles: descriptions, how they differ from and complement this work.
• Appendix F holds descriptions of projects that were accomplished using the MASS framework.
• Appendix D holds considerations about AM and FM performed with logarithmic oscillations.

There are musical pieces and software packages that used MASS and are not linked here properly. They should be linked here somehow, somewhen. This is a start:

• Musical pieces:
  • Here are some of them (both already linked to MASS documentation and still not linked).
• Software:
  • The music (or here on PyPI) Python package is entirely based on MASS. It should be split into smaller packages ASAP.
  • Most of them, today (2017-Sep-23) should be in my git repositories.
• Standalone scripts:
  • A number of them will be found by following the links above.

All the code and documentation in the MASS framework is Public Domain. If someone wants me to put a more verbose license (e.g. BSD), e.g. because of legal or ethical issues, please drop me a line. Notice that I omitted the license in the files and considered this paragraph sufficient.

• This framework is also known in Portuguese by the acronym MASSA (Música e Áudio em Sequências e Séries Amostrais).
• If you miss or want anything in this framework, write me, please.

If you have any thoughts, questions, or want to report any usage of the MASS framework, please drop me a line at: renato [DOT] fabbri [AT] gmail [DOT] com