Based on a Csound “voice” programmed by Canadian composer, programmer, and educator Jean Piché some years back (“incantation.orc”). I used his instrument logic after fixing a couple of instances of now-deprecated syntax and reducing max audio levels about 8 decibels to avoid clipping when “gals” and “guys” chant together. You can get an appreciation of the complexity of the original programming task by looking at Prof. Piché’s code in the PDF (link below). The formant tables (one each for femmes and hommes — he’s a French Canadian, after all) give the vowel sounds their sonic properties. Remarkable stuff he’s come up with here. I added two additional lists of pitch classes to add to the density of the sound.
Rather than have voices singing sequentially as in Professor Piché’s original, I layered them in groups: “gals 1,” “dudes 1,” “gals 2” (different random seeds), “dudes 2” (ditto), and finally “gals 2 + dudes 2.” I then took the result and mixed it in stereo and sweetened it a little with a graphic EQ. The audio level reaches its maximum at about 04:15 or so. Looping the MP3 in iTunes or Windows Media Player provides a kind of new-age-y ambiance.
Enjoy—and thanks to Jean Piché, professor at the Université de Montréal and electronic music pioneer.
Joseph Ervin Jr: Synthesizer Fan 