Devlog #4
Week four of this devlog, and I’m back in your inboxes with news about beer, version control, and harmonies. Is this the first time those three things have ever been in the same sentence? Quite possibly.
A quick reminder for those of you with leaky memories - this is the super-secret behind-the-scenes newsletter club for Loud Numbers - a data sonification podcast created by Duncan Geere (that’s me) and Miriam Quick.
Beer Sketches
This week, Miriam has been hard at work sketching out our beer sounds. She writes:
I find sketches helpful when writing music as they help me to clarify the shape and structure of sounds and give me a visual reference point.
Firstly I drew a sketch to work out how the sound for each aroma / taste parameter (maltiness of aroma, sweetness of taste and so on) should unfold over time.
Then I stacked the parameters on top of one another to work out which should be highest and lowest in the texture – acidity with the sharpest, highest sounds and body with lowest - and how they should relate to one another. For example fermentation aroma and alcohol taste are closely linked, so they should sound similar. Same with hops and bitterness. In the image, closely linked tastes/ aromas are connected with a solid line and more distantly linked ones with a dotted line.
Then I drew a sketch putting the two together on a small multiples chart so that the shape, time to unfold and pitch height of the sound are all mapped on the axes. They are like little graphic scores.
Version Control
As for me, I spent a chunk of this week moving all our code and data files into Github, and renaming our “master” branches to main.
Github, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, is a web service that lets you collaborate on code with other people, using a bit of software called Git that handles version control.
Previously, we were working out of Dropbox folders, with a new file for each update of the sonification code. Now, we’re going to be using Git’s super-powerful version control system to handle the history and changelogs for us. We can see who did what and when, go back to older versions if something breaks, and even make a “fork” of the code to try something experimental, and then “merge” it into the main branch once we’re happy that it works.
Right now we’re keeping our repositories private (don’t want to spoil the surprise of the full tracks!), but sharing the code for our sonifications is something that we would like to do when the podcast is out.
Sooner than that, I’d like to build up a small library of useful, reusable snippets of code that perform sonification-related tasks in Sonic Pi. I’ll let you know when I have something to share on that front.
Harmonies
Finally, Miriam’s been doing a little bit of more traditional composition work.
I worked out the harmonies of the little musical pieces we’ll be making of each beer. This was easiest done in traditional music notation.
That’s what we’ve been up to. Follow our social media accounts for more bits and bobs related to the project - little bits of code, key inspiration points, and other sonification projects that we 💕.
If you have any comments or questions then hit reply. Otherwise we’ll see you next week!