The Convolution Brothers
Since 1993, the Convolution Brothers, a trio consisting of Miller Puckette, Cort Lippe, and Zack Settel (AKA Convolution
Brothers number 0, 1, and 2 respectively), have presented a series of partly pre-composed, partly improvised performances
from Tokyo to Helsinki, San Diego, Guanajuato, Thessaloniki, Santiago, Montreal, Paris, to the backwoods of Tennessee.
Materials for their music is reworked extensively from show to show, often drawn from recent experience. Paper, radio, TV, and the internet plow into our homes faster and faster and louder and louder. Our ID and credit cards have attached
magnetic strips which only a computer can read. Data bases we can't access know where we live; how much money we have; how many dental fillings; which home security system. The phone rings late at night; the caller turns out to be a machine
selling a religion or a cable TV system; our own answering machine takes the call, and the Brothers, like everyone, attempt to grapple with life in the early 21st century.
The early performances were collectively called Gandy Bridge. This title was chosen by the Brothers after each of them
visited the Gandy Bridge separately. The bridge has served as a focal point for their work, combining the independent
experiences and impressions of their visits. The bridge may be a powerful metaphor for many things, but electronics are
integral to establishing the the dramatic situations created by the Brothers, and their fascination in the spectral world fuels their imaginations. While sound transformations are carried out using the formidable PD and MSP audio processing
languages, developed by Miller Puckette and David Zicarelli and using a technique developed at Bell Laboratories known as the vocoder, which allows the Brothers to stamp the timbre of one sound onto the pitch or pitches present in another—and one performer's voice inflection can be projected onto another performer's articulation, rendering a new interpretation of text material—this resulting convolution (or "audio-morph") only allows the Brothers to voice messages that may augment or contradict their original meaning, so that even while employing sounds taken from all walks of life, from the pristine
incantations of the high priest to answering machine messages to the lullaby of the suckling infant, songs of human
suffering and love which become raw material for the Brothers, these technological and poetical tools only act as a
springboard enabling the Brothers to explore their fundamental concern: connecting with forces beyond scientific
understanding of the laws of nature.
The CBs are among the roughly half-dozen masters worldwide who have unlocked the secret of real-time frequency-
domain processing (It has been rumored that both PD and MSP software were deliberately designed to make this extremely difficult in order to keep the circle of initiates as small as possible.) The Brothers have occasionally released some
information about their techniques in hard-to-find, highly specialized publications such as the 1996 IEEE Mohonk
Conference proceedings. Signal processing experts have so far declined to comment in print on the CBs' work. For reasons which remain obscure, it has proved difficult to obtain clear information from the CBs regarding their pieces. It may well be the extreme complexity and sophistication of their work which makes their attempts at explanation hard to understand.
Musicologists are also seeking to find out what might have motivated the CBs to develop their particular style. One thing is clear though: despite the rather extreme nature of some of the sounds that their computers might emit, the CBs assure
audiences that no actual harm is done to any hardware during performances.
Some concert reviews...
A review of a performance in San Diego:
"The Convolution Brothers, consisting of Cort Lippe and Zack Settel, ended the program with Gandy Bridge IV. ... This piece was definitely the most technically complex of the concert, performing real-time convolution of both sound files and their
own voices using the ISPW. One example which raised more than a few eyebrows and laughs, was a duet between Mr. Lippe and Mr. Settel, using an Otis Redding song as the convoluted soundfile. The impression they created as they jumped from
one sound to the next, was that of two kids playing....their performance contained moments of real music and novelty....
-Mark Danks, Fall 1995 Computer Music Journal , MIT Press
A review of a performance at ICMC-1997 in Thessaloniki:
"The finale for the evening's entertainment was presented by the hilarious and talented "Convolution Brothers," Cort Lippe and Zack Settel. Entitled "Gandy Bridge XI," this improvisation was the comedy highlight of the evening, and was the
funniest computer music this author has ever seen. Billed as an "ISDN" performance, the premise was that Zack Settel was
in Florida and was to perform in real-time with Cort Lippe, and that they were not completely set up or ready when it was
time for them to perform. Thus, the first few minutes were spent while they presumably fiddled around with the network,
Settel nervously and periodically querying, "Did you get the ping?" Cort was also testing out his microphone and would
whisper into it while furiously setting levels, until an enormous burst of noise erupted from his equipment, leaving him
spluttering and frantically reaching for knobs. After a few minutes of this sort of thing, Settel's video feed over "ISDN"
showed smoke pouring out of his equipment and filling up the room. Simultaneously, from offstage, a cloud of smoke was
gathering. Shortly, Settel came coughing and staggering from the wings, without pants. Needless to say, the remainder of
the performance was equally wacky, with bizarre voice processing of sentences such as "preference is to be given to
compositions in a major key" and "the double bass is to be played only with a bow," as well as the judicious use of a
PlaySkool PS-468 toy vocoder. The audience seemed to truly enjoy this gem of a performance; it was a rare moment of
humor expressed in a crowd of folks who are known for their seriousness. The ICMC should continue to encourage this sort of activity, because it allowed the audience to laugh at itself via the performers onstage and (if temporarily) drop the
seriousness of attitude in the conference setting. Certainly, the gags of the Convolution Brothers hit home, and everyone in the crowd seemed to enjoy the opportunity to laugh together. Overall, the Midnight Cabaret concert on September 28 was a terrific success and this author hopes to see many more like it. Perhaps because of implicit expectations of being
entertained, the audience was quite demanding. The normal bounds of propriety were eschewed in this context, and if the
audience didn't approve of a work, they were surprisingly vocal about it -- grumbling, hooting, heckling, and talking. While
there were situations in which this created some inappropriate behavior, it was an amazing inversion for computer music,
which has in the past developed much of the technology upon which the major commercial music styles are based, but
which has not benefited from the success of those forms. Here we were presented with a glimpse of a possible future in
which thoughtful, computer-based music might be refreshingly normalized to an "entertainment" environment, instead of
its usual place in a concert-hall. The concert progressed nicely from a very quiet and introspective beginning to a rather
raucous and hilarious conclusion. None of the pieces had more than two people on stage, which, although it made sense
given the constraints of transporting equipment, seemed a shame in retrospect. Many of the great live performances
(particularly in improvisational genres) do best when there are at least three people on stage whom to trade ideas off of.
Perhaps this is an area that could be useful for computer music -- filling up the space on stage with human beings to
facilitate more interesting live performances.
-Teresa Marrin, Spring 1998 Computer Music Journal , MIT Press
Selected Festival Performances
2017 A Presentation by Miller Puckette
IX Symposium, Le SAT, Montreal, Canada
2015 The Squeeze Theorem of Limits
The 2015 Sherwood Ebey Lecture in Mathematics, The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee
2012 Quelque Chose sous Bois
Opus Forum Festival “Lutherie et Electrons”, Le Blanc-Mesnil, France
2010 Gandy Bridge XXII, The Healing Sounds of the Convolution Brothers, Nurse Gradus ad Parnassum
New York University, Music Technology Program, NY, New York
2009 Mas Diferencias sobre “Guardame Las Vacas”, The Convolution Brothers Can’t Find the Exit
Ai-Maako Festival, Valdivia, Chile
2009 Mas Diferencias sobre “Guardame Las Vacas”, The Convolution Brothers Can’t Find the Exit
Ai-Maako Festival, Santiago, Chile
2007 Mas Diferencias sobre “Guardame Las Vacas”
Visiones Sonores Festival, Morelia, Mexico
2007 If I Did It
International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Copenhagen, Denmark
2007 Convolution Brothers’ Guide to Live Performance
PureData Convention, Le SAT, Montreal, Canada
2006 Keeping the Core Pure by Rodney Waschka, and On A Mission From Dog by Meg Schedel
International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), New Orleans, Louisiana
2005 Gandy Bridge XXI, Watch TV with the Real Experts, Music for Shovel-Optics and Computer
Offsite, International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Barcelona, Spain
2005 Gandy Bridge XX, Watch TV with the Banking Experts
real-time/non real-time Electronic Music Festival, Basel, Switzerland
2004 Gandy Bridge XIX , Watch TV with the Experts on Election Night
Offsite, International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Miami, Florida
2004 Gandy Bridge XVIII , Watch TV with the Experts
June in Buffalo Festival, Buffalo, New York
2002 Gandy Bridge XVII, Music for Whisks and Computer, Music for Duduk and Computer
Offsite, International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Gothenburg, Sweden
2001 Gandy Bridge XVI, Gandy Bridge XV
Lund Music Festival, Lund, Sweden
2001 Gandy Bridge XVI, Gandy Bridge XV
Lund Music Festival, Lund, Sweden (second performance)
2001 Gandy Bridge XVI, Gandy Bridge XV
Musikgemaket Slottet, Hamstad, Sweden
2001 Gandy Bridge XIV, Gandy Bridge XIII
Engine 27, New York, New York
1997 Gandy Bridge X
International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Thessaloniki, Greece
1997 Gandy Bridge IX
6th Annual Electroacoustic Music Festival , Gainesville, Florida
1996 Gandy Bridge VIII
Festival El Callejon del Ruido, Guanajuato, Mexico
1995 Gandy Bridge V (for Dance and ISPW)
Théâtre Contemporain de la Danse, Paris, France
1995 Gandy Bridge IV
Emerging Voices Festival, San Diego, California
1994 Gandy Bridge III
38th Rugissants Festival of New Music, Grenoble, France
1994 Gandy Bridge II
5th International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), Helsinki, Finland
1993 Gandy Bridge
Offsite, International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Session House, Tokyo, Japan
Since 1993, the Convolution Brothers, a trio consisting of Miller Puckette, Cort Lippe, and Zack Settel (AKA Convolution
Brothers number 0, 1, and 2 respectively), have presented a series of partly pre-composed, partly improvised performances
from Tokyo to Helsinki, San Diego, Guanajuato, Thessaloniki, Santiago, Montreal, Paris, to the backwoods of Tennessee.
Materials for their music is reworked extensively from show to show, often drawn from recent experience. Paper, radio, TV, and the internet plow into our homes faster and faster and louder and louder. Our ID and credit cards have attached
magnetic strips which only a computer can read. Data bases we can't access know where we live; how much money we have; how many dental fillings; which home security system. The phone rings late at night; the caller turns out to be a machine
selling a religion or a cable TV system; our own answering machine takes the call, and the Brothers, like everyone, attempt to grapple with life in the early 21st century.
The early performances were collectively called Gandy Bridge. This title was chosen by the Brothers after each of them
visited the Gandy Bridge separately. The bridge has served as a focal point for their work, combining the independent
experiences and impressions of their visits. The bridge may be a powerful metaphor for many things, but electronics are
integral to establishing the the dramatic situations created by the Brothers, and their fascination in the spectral world fuels their imaginations. While sound transformations are carried out using the formidable PD and MSP audio processing
languages, developed by Miller Puckette and David Zicarelli and using a technique developed at Bell Laboratories known as the vocoder, which allows the Brothers to stamp the timbre of one sound onto the pitch or pitches present in another—and one performer's voice inflection can be projected onto another performer's articulation, rendering a new interpretation of text material—this resulting convolution (or "audio-morph") only allows the Brothers to voice messages that may augment or contradict their original meaning, so that even while employing sounds taken from all walks of life, from the pristine
incantations of the high priest to answering machine messages to the lullaby of the suckling infant, songs of human
suffering and love which become raw material for the Brothers, these technological and poetical tools only act as a
springboard enabling the Brothers to explore their fundamental concern: connecting with forces beyond scientific
understanding of the laws of nature.
The CBs are among the roughly half-dozen masters worldwide who have unlocked the secret of real-time frequency-
domain processing (It has been rumored that both PD and MSP software were deliberately designed to make this extremely difficult in order to keep the circle of initiates as small as possible.) The Brothers have occasionally released some
information about their techniques in hard-to-find, highly specialized publications such as the 1996 IEEE Mohonk
Conference proceedings. Signal processing experts have so far declined to comment in print on the CBs' work. For reasons which remain obscure, it has proved difficult to obtain clear information from the CBs regarding their pieces. It may well be the extreme complexity and sophistication of their work which makes their attempts at explanation hard to understand.
Musicologists are also seeking to find out what might have motivated the CBs to develop their particular style. One thing is clear though: despite the rather extreme nature of some of the sounds that their computers might emit, the CBs assure
audiences that no actual harm is done to any hardware during performances.
Some concert reviews...
A review of a performance in San Diego:
"The Convolution Brothers, consisting of Cort Lippe and Zack Settel, ended the program with Gandy Bridge IV. ... This piece was definitely the most technically complex of the concert, performing real-time convolution of both sound files and their
own voices using the ISPW. One example which raised more than a few eyebrows and laughs, was a duet between Mr. Lippe and Mr. Settel, using an Otis Redding song as the convoluted soundfile. The impression they created as they jumped from
one sound to the next, was that of two kids playing....their performance contained moments of real music and novelty....
-Mark Danks, Fall 1995 Computer Music Journal , MIT Press
A review of a performance at ICMC-1997 in Thessaloniki:
"The finale for the evening's entertainment was presented by the hilarious and talented "Convolution Brothers," Cort Lippe and Zack Settel. Entitled "Gandy Bridge XI," this improvisation was the comedy highlight of the evening, and was the
funniest computer music this author has ever seen. Billed as an "ISDN" performance, the premise was that Zack Settel was
in Florida and was to perform in real-time with Cort Lippe, and that they were not completely set up or ready when it was
time for them to perform. Thus, the first few minutes were spent while they presumably fiddled around with the network,
Settel nervously and periodically querying, "Did you get the ping?" Cort was also testing out his microphone and would
whisper into it while furiously setting levels, until an enormous burst of noise erupted from his equipment, leaving him
spluttering and frantically reaching for knobs. After a few minutes of this sort of thing, Settel's video feed over "ISDN"
showed smoke pouring out of his equipment and filling up the room. Simultaneously, from offstage, a cloud of smoke was
gathering. Shortly, Settel came coughing and staggering from the wings, without pants. Needless to say, the remainder of
the performance was equally wacky, with bizarre voice processing of sentences such as "preference is to be given to
compositions in a major key" and "the double bass is to be played only with a bow," as well as the judicious use of a
PlaySkool PS-468 toy vocoder. The audience seemed to truly enjoy this gem of a performance; it was a rare moment of
humor expressed in a crowd of folks who are known for their seriousness. The ICMC should continue to encourage this sort of activity, because it allowed the audience to laugh at itself via the performers onstage and (if temporarily) drop the
seriousness of attitude in the conference setting. Certainly, the gags of the Convolution Brothers hit home, and everyone in the crowd seemed to enjoy the opportunity to laugh together. Overall, the Midnight Cabaret concert on September 28 was a terrific success and this author hopes to see many more like it. Perhaps because of implicit expectations of being
entertained, the audience was quite demanding. The normal bounds of propriety were eschewed in this context, and if the
audience didn't approve of a work, they were surprisingly vocal about it -- grumbling, hooting, heckling, and talking. While
there were situations in which this created some inappropriate behavior, it was an amazing inversion for computer music,
which has in the past developed much of the technology upon which the major commercial music styles are based, but
which has not benefited from the success of those forms. Here we were presented with a glimpse of a possible future in
which thoughtful, computer-based music might be refreshingly normalized to an "entertainment" environment, instead of
its usual place in a concert-hall. The concert progressed nicely from a very quiet and introspective beginning to a rather
raucous and hilarious conclusion. None of the pieces had more than two people on stage, which, although it made sense
given the constraints of transporting equipment, seemed a shame in retrospect. Many of the great live performances
(particularly in improvisational genres) do best when there are at least three people on stage whom to trade ideas off of.
Perhaps this is an area that could be useful for computer music -- filling up the space on stage with human beings to
facilitate more interesting live performances.
-Teresa Marrin, Spring 1998 Computer Music Journal , MIT Press
Selected Festival Performances
2017 A Presentation by Miller Puckette
IX Symposium, Le SAT, Montreal, Canada
2015 The Squeeze Theorem of Limits
The 2015 Sherwood Ebey Lecture in Mathematics, The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee
2012 Quelque Chose sous Bois
Opus Forum Festival “Lutherie et Electrons”, Le Blanc-Mesnil, France
2010 Gandy Bridge XXII, The Healing Sounds of the Convolution Brothers, Nurse Gradus ad Parnassum
New York University, Music Technology Program, NY, New York
2009 Mas Diferencias sobre “Guardame Las Vacas”, The Convolution Brothers Can’t Find the Exit
Ai-Maako Festival, Valdivia, Chile
2009 Mas Diferencias sobre “Guardame Las Vacas”, The Convolution Brothers Can’t Find the Exit
Ai-Maako Festival, Santiago, Chile
2007 Mas Diferencias sobre “Guardame Las Vacas”
Visiones Sonores Festival, Morelia, Mexico
2007 If I Did It
International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Copenhagen, Denmark
2007 Convolution Brothers’ Guide to Live Performance
PureData Convention, Le SAT, Montreal, Canada
2006 Keeping the Core Pure by Rodney Waschka, and On A Mission From Dog by Meg Schedel
International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), New Orleans, Louisiana
2005 Gandy Bridge XXI, Watch TV with the Real Experts, Music for Shovel-Optics and Computer
Offsite, International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Barcelona, Spain
2005 Gandy Bridge XX, Watch TV with the Banking Experts
real-time/non real-time Electronic Music Festival, Basel, Switzerland
2004 Gandy Bridge XIX , Watch TV with the Experts on Election Night
Offsite, International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Miami, Florida
2004 Gandy Bridge XVIII , Watch TV with the Experts
June in Buffalo Festival, Buffalo, New York
2002 Gandy Bridge XVII, Music for Whisks and Computer, Music for Duduk and Computer
Offsite, International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Gothenburg, Sweden
2001 Gandy Bridge XVI, Gandy Bridge XV
Lund Music Festival, Lund, Sweden
2001 Gandy Bridge XVI, Gandy Bridge XV
Lund Music Festival, Lund, Sweden (second performance)
2001 Gandy Bridge XVI, Gandy Bridge XV
Musikgemaket Slottet, Hamstad, Sweden
2001 Gandy Bridge XIV, Gandy Bridge XIII
Engine 27, New York, New York
1997 Gandy Bridge X
International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Thessaloniki, Greece
1997 Gandy Bridge IX
6th Annual Electroacoustic Music Festival , Gainesville, Florida
1996 Gandy Bridge VIII
Festival El Callejon del Ruido, Guanajuato, Mexico
1995 Gandy Bridge V (for Dance and ISPW)
Théâtre Contemporain de la Danse, Paris, France
1995 Gandy Bridge IV
Emerging Voices Festival, San Diego, California
1994 Gandy Bridge III
38th Rugissants Festival of New Music, Grenoble, France
1994 Gandy Bridge II
5th International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), Helsinki, Finland
1993 Gandy Bridge
Offsite, International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Session House, Tokyo, Japan