1-bit symphony: electronic orchestral composition housed on a single microchip

Tristan Perich's 1-Bit Symphony is an electronic composition in five movements on a single microchip.

Though housed in a CD jewel case like his first circuit album (1-Bit Music 2004-05), 1-Bit Symphony is not a recording in the traditional sense; it literally "performs" its music live when turned on. A complete electronic circuit—programmed by the artist and assembled by hand—plays the music through a headphone jack mounted into the case itself.

More on the project website, here. The project will be released next week via Cantaloupe Music. You can order it here for $29 plus shipping.

Update: Pesco blogged about an earlier iteration of this project back in 2005.

(Thanks, Marianne Shaneen!)

• [Anonymous]

  Is this who double rainbow guy eventually turns into?

• [SamSam]

  I actually thought the piece was really good, and it’s not at all like the sort of music I’d normally listen to. I was put off by the modem-like sounds in the first few seconds, but then it really started to develop some structure.

  Regardless of the music, I thought the idea of the piece being performed by you while you are listening to it really neat.

• [Zan]

  I had a portable CD player back in the day that advertized “1-BIT DAC” in large letters across the top. I listened to plenty of symphonies on that.

• [friendpuppy]

  Boy this guy sure took an overdose of the “How to talk and sound like a pretentious sensitive artist” pills.

  • [JohnnyOC]

    No kidding! He’s almost like a caricature..

    70% marketing 30% art (and 10% butterscotch ripple).

    • [SB-129]

      and 100% very hard drugs. ps i liked it and think the format is 100% awesome.

      • [friendpuppy]

        Yep. Despite my dislike for his artificial personality the design is beautiful and I do like the music.

• [notfred]

  This is no more art than playing a MIDI file.

• [miss_modal]

  This is dope! There’s also a documentary about 1-Bit Symphony and its construction.
  There’s a trailer:
  http://vimeo.com/14278650

• [Anonymous]

  Interview with Perich here.

• [Dv Revolutionary]

  There is a switch to turn it on/off and then there is a button that does something else.

  What does the button do? Is this and interactive symphony? Can you be a 1-bit conductor?

  • [MindTheGap]

    The button allows you to skip between the five movements of the 45-minute piece.

    • [Goorpy]

      Thanks. I was trying to find out how long the whole thing lasts. You answered two in one. *thumbsup*

      • [MindTheGap]

        No problem, though there’s kind of a * on the length. One of the really interesting things I found about this project is that due to the “live not memorex” nature of the playback, Perich had to deal with the fact that the user has to physically turn the thing off to get the battery to stop draining. So silence is dangerous and looping the piece around again could be annoying/musically confusing. Instead he kind of degrades down into a static cluster tone which will theoretically play forever (to the limit of the battery) until you turn it off.

• [classic01]

  You can actually use PWM to encode a smooth sound wave with on a single pin. Just because it is 1-bit it doesn’t need to sound like it was made in the 70s. :-)

  • [robcat2075]

    Just because you *can* doesn’t mean the artist must choose to or that it was a naive choice born out of ignorance or incompetence.

    It may be like a photographer choosing to shoot daguerreotypes even though digital imaging is available today.

• [the matching mole]

  You’d better get your orders in soon. Brian Eno’s about to buy 2,000 of them.

• [Donald Petersen]

  I like the concept a lot, particularly the “live performance” part. But my ears demand a couple more bits.

• [brianary]

  This was actually in a Greg Egan novel years ago, IIRC (Distress? Quarantine?).

  The chip contained equations designed by the composer, and the button would re-seed the pseudo-random number generator.

• [tanjent]

  I received an early copy (due to preordering) and am listening to it again as I type this.

  It’s a really beautiful work, far better than I expected (and I purchased it mostly for the novelty of the design and because I’ve been doing hobbyist projects with microcontrollers and audio myself).

  Seriously, listen to it if at all possible – use full-size headphones, as the headphones themselves do a lot to filter the harshness of the square waves into something more palatable.

  I am very very happy I own this work of art. :)

  -tanjent

• [solipsisticnation]

  As always, Boing Boing is font of all things wonderful! Thanks for turning me on to Tristan’s 1-Bit Symphony. Tristan was my guest on this week’s Solipsistic Nation and you can here our conversation and two track’s from his 1-Bit Symphony at http://solipsisticnation.com/?p=554

• [Anonymous]

  extraordinarily awesome.

• [Church]

  1 bit? So it’s like Cpt. Christopher Pike in concert?

• [dragonfrog]

  I like it, but I’d really want to put a low-pass filter in front of the headphone jacks – unfiltered, high-pitched square waves really bug me.

• [DoppelFrog]

  That was horrible. 1 bit too many. :(