Many Guitars
hardware:
IBM 3081/(TSO/CMS) mainframe,
DEC PDP-11/34 (for digital audio conversion)
software:
MIX
This was a relatively short piece, I don't know if I still have a recording
of it or not. I digitized a section of a guitar-riff from somewhere,
and "folded" it over and over to generate some really thick textures.
They just sort of faded in and out.
Working with the 3081 and the PDP-11 was an exercise in patience. We
would generally run our jobs on the mainframe after midnight, when
we were allowed to grab the larger computer resources we needed.
After waiting for our 'batch' jobs to complete, we would check out
large tape reels (1600 BPI for those who want to know this weird
stuff) and walk over from the Computer building to the Winham
lab in the basement of the Engineering building (E-QUAD).
We would then use the PDP-11/34 in the lab with custom-built
digital-to-analog convertors (by Virgil Decarvalho, an unsung genius
of computer music history) to turn the computer data into audio.
Often after hours of work the result would be a single CLICK!
on the tape.