Music software development specials

General information 2026/2027

• MMus 1, 2 and BAT year 4
• Main topics: Systems design and programming, DSP and new developments in technology

Possible subjects

See the document 'Sessions' about the planned subjects for this year. Note: we make these plans together.

Some subjects from last year

• what is/are data?
• a few more things about data: storage and transmission
• audio file formats
• feedback on students' projects
• frequencies, spectrum, music information retrieval
• data sonification
• bit magic: masking, shifting and negative number representation in C++
• Short Term Fourier Transform (STFT) in small steps (with Python demo)
• FFFT
• mechanical Fourier transform
• application domains: choosing the right tool for the job

Systems design

• Programming languages and tools (including IDEs, frameworks...)
• Design methods and tools
• Creating useful diagrams for design, cooperation, presentations and knowledge preservation
• Hardware and tools
• Debugging
• Documenting
• about APIs: creating and using a (web) API
• Application domains of languages and tools
• Plugins and plugin hosts
• Using AI for coding and hardware design

DSP

• Pitch detection
• Onset detection
• Additive synthesis
• Transformation (input -> output), filtering, effects
• Synthesis
• Data sonification

DSP tools

• Sonic Visualiser
• Matlab / Open Octave
• Essentia
• Jupyter (Python)
• AI/machine learning

Music

• composition using Scheme and Lilypond

AI and machine learning

• Myths and Merits of AI
• generative AI vs controlling AI
• AI tools
• AI approaches
• building NN architectures from scratch

Upcoming sessions

• Ideas for topics
• Who has subjects to present?
• Who has subjects to study?
• Who wants feedback on their project?