UPIC is a computerised musical composition tool, devised by the composer
Iannis XenakisIannis Xenakis was a Greek composer, music theorist and architect. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...
. It was developed at the
Centre d'Etudes de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales (CEMAMu) in Paris, and was completed in 1977. The name is an acronym of
Unité Polyagogique Informatique du CEMAMu. Xenakis used it on his subsequent piece
Mycènes Alpha (1978), and it has been used by composers such as
Jean-Claude RissetJean-Claude Risset is a French composer, best known for his pioneering contributions to computer music. He is a former student of André Jolivet and former coworker of Max Mathews at Bell Labs....
(on
Saxatile (1992)), Takehito Shimazu (
Illusions in Desolate Fields (1994)), and
Curtis RoadsCurtis Roads is a composer of electronic and electroacoustic music specializing in granular and pulsar synthesis, author, and computer programmer....
.
Physically, the UPIC is a digitising tablet linked to a computer, which has a vector display.
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UPIC is a computerised musical composition tool, devised by the composer
Iannis XenakisIannis Xenakis was a Greek composer, music theorist and architect. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...
. It was developed at the
Centre d'Etudes de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales (CEMAMu) in Paris, and was completed in 1977. The name is an acronym of
Unité Polyagogique Informatique du CEMAMu. Xenakis used it on his subsequent piece
Mycènes Alpha (1978), and it has been used by composers such as
Jean-Claude RissetJean-Claude Risset is a French composer, best known for his pioneering contributions to computer music. He is a former student of André Jolivet and former coworker of Max Mathews at Bell Labs....
(on
Saxatile (1992)), Takehito Shimazu (
Illusions in Desolate Fields (1994)), and
Curtis RoadsCurtis Roads is a composer of electronic and electroacoustic music specializing in granular and pulsar synthesis, author, and computer programmer....
.
Physically, the UPIC is a digitising tablet linked to a computer, which has a vector display. Its functionality is similar to that of the later
Fairlight CMIThe Fairlight CMI was the first polyphonic digital sampling synthesizer. It was designed in 1979 by the founders of Fairlight, Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie, and based on a dual-6800 microprocessor computer designed by Tony Furse in Sydney, Australia...
, in that the user draws waveforms and volume envelopes on the tablet, which are rendered by the computer. Once the waveforms have been stored, the user can compose with them by drawing "compositions" on the tablet, with the X-axis representing cumulative duration, and the Y-axis representing pitch. The compositions can be stretched in duration from a few seconds to an hour. They can also be transposed, reversed, inverted, and subject to a number of algorithmic transformations. The system allows for real time performance by moving the stylus across the tablet.
The UPIC system has subsequently been expanded to allow for digitally sampled waveforms as source material, rather than purely synthesised tones. In 2005, Mode Records of New York released a 2-CD compilation of works composed with the UPIC, entitled
Xenakis, UPIC, Continuum,
http://www.moderecords.com/catalog/098_9ccmix.html which provides an overview of the machine's sonic possibilities.
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