lamination is based on a certain kind of discrete dynamical system wherein letters in a finite alphabet are replaced with strings of letters in that alphabet. Pictured is one such dynamical system: here the “alphabet” is just the letters a and b, and the rules generating the dynamical system are a -> b and b -> ba. Repeatedly performing substitutions according to these rules starting with the string “a” yields (in this case) a string that grows exponentially and has certain self-similarity properties but never truly repeats itself. (Certainly substitution rules that don’t produce this behaviour are possible.)
lamination presents you with three dynamical systems that together control the FormantPerc engine (would be easy to change engines, and not too difficult to add other outputs) or output via MIDI or crow, one each for note, octave and repeats. Tweak the rules to explore the space of possible dynamical systems!
lamination is named for a concept in the study of outer automorphisms of free groups (inspired by a similar concept for mapping classes of surface homeomorphisms), namely that of an attracting lamination. Dynamical systems similar to the one described above describe automorphisms of a free group, and in this situation, repeatedly applying the rules creates a string that converges to a “leaf” of an attracting lamination. lamination is perhaps ill-named because it is possible to produce sequences that don’t fit the model of an attracting lamination, but it seems more interesting as a script for this failing.
NB – lamination in many situations will eventually crash when it attempts to create a longer string than Lua allows you to. Fortunately it should take a while for this to happen.
Requirements
norns, grid (optional), crow (optional), MIDI out (optional)
Documentation
221022 Update: I highly recommend updating the script. This will allow future scripts that use FormantTriPTR to more easily coexist with Lamination.
E1 scrolls the current page. E2 scrolls in current page, and E3 edits when applicable K2 on size resets K3 on rule opens it for editing
Oh I forgot to add: lamination was inspired by a group of participants at the habitus workshop, who pushed me to consider possible connections between the math that I do and music. Thanks for that encouragement
This sounds fantastic (and a very interesting concept) - thanks! Are there options to constrain the output to a particular key and scale? In addition, is there MIDI output available?
I have long been thinking about utilizing mathematical functions to create non-repeating, generative MIDI data, and hope to learn a lot from what you have done here. At a minimum, as a non-mathematician, I have learned about “discrete dynamical systems” from your original post. This seems to be a fertile ground for creating other sequencer rules, as well - I hope you have other ideas and applications in store!
I’ve already downloaded a few papers from the internet about this topic thanks to you and your post. Now, hoping to have the time to read and understand them.
oh that’s really wonderful to hear—I’m glad I could connect those dots!!
I have some thoughts about later expansion of this idea; maybe some of those will see the light of norns
very good idea this script, thanks
I can’t open lamination “error: init”
my norns is up to date
I tried on 2 norns shields and the problem is the same
did I forget something ?
strange, a fresh install works fine here. can you, as @Doberman says, see if Maiden is complaining about something? Is it possible both shields have some Mod active that Lamination might not like?
i have this in matron
i remove passthrough but same
thanks
# script load: /home/we/dust/code/lamination/lamination.lua
# cleanup
# script clear
including /home/we/dust/code/lamination/../awake/lib/halfsecond.lua
# script run
loading engine: PolyPerc
>> reading PMAP /home/we/dust/data/lamination/lamination.pmap
m.read: /home/we/dust/data/lamination/lamination.pmap not read.
Engine.register_commands; count: 6
___ engine commands ___
amp f
cutoff f
gain f
hz f
pw f
release f
___ polls ___
amp_in_l
amp_in_r
amp_out_l
amp_out_r
cpu_avg
cpu_peak
pitch_in_l
pitch_in_r
# script init
### SCRIPT ERROR: init
/home/we/norns/lua/core/paramset.lua:125: attempt to perform arithmetic on a string value (field 'group')
stack traceback:
/home/we/norns/lua/core/norns.lua:145: in metamethod '__sub'
/home/we/norns/lua/core/paramset.lua:125: in function 'core/paramset.add'
/home/we/dust/code/lamination/lamination.lua:74: in global 'init'
/home/we/norns/lua/core/script.lua:109: in function 'core/script.init'
[C]: in function 'xpcall'
/home/we/norns/lua/core/norns.lua:146: in field 'try'
/home/we/norns/lua/core/engine.lua:91: in function </home/we/norns/lua/core/engine.lua:89>
hmmm, line 74 in lamination is just me adding a group—but with the new syntax. what is the version number that shows up when you hit K2 on the script selection page?
