PDCON:Porcelain carillon

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Sound recording: <flashmp3 id="Porcelain Carillon.mp3">Porcelain Carillon.mp3</flashmp3>

The carillon installed in the tower of the city hall has 35 bells made from Meissen porcelain, the lowest note being an a and the highest note g2. The bells are driven by solenoids with plastic tips, there is no velocity dynamic possible. For playing and composing with the original sound of the Weimar porcelain bells just download and unzip the soundfont.
In Linux use FluidSynth, in OS X you can put it in ~/Library/Audio/Sounds/Banks and use it with SimpleSynth.

Downloads

• Media:PorcelainCarillon Soundfont.zip Download the Weimar carillon as Soundfont
• Media:PorcelainCarillon PureDataPatch.zip Download the Weimar carillon as pd-patch

Links

• Radio Campanile
• Bertuch Verlag Weimar
• Turmuhrenbau Ferner
• Soundfont Tutorial how to import and use soundfonts in GarageBand
• Recommended OS X Apps
  • MidiKeys
  • SimpleSynth
  • Mighty MIDI

FAQ

Which are the possibilities of nuances of amplitude of the porcelain-carillon?

• technically there are no "nuances" for the touch-response: once you played a note the mechanical hammersystem hits the bell with the same intensity.

What is the repeat rate of a single bell / speed of execution of melody?

• we just sent a request to the guys who build the carillon if there is any limitation (techically/concerning “health” of the bells). As soon as we have an answer we'll let you know. As far as we tested the carillon with a MIDI-Keyboard there were no limitations except the speed of our fingers :)

Is there a full polyphony resp. how many voices can be played simultaneously?

• as far as we know there is a full polyphonic response. In principle you can play 35 bells simultaneously...

What's the length of the pieces you are looking for?

• Since there is currently no way to override or surpress the quarter-hour chimes the maximum length for a piece should not be longer than 12 minutes. If a piece is longer then it will mix with the quarter-hour chimes.

4^th international Pure Data Convention 2011 Weimar ~ Berlin