Victor Zheng, DMA

As a computer music designer, I collaborate with composers in designing the live electronic elements of their envisioned works. Live processing is central to my job, designing processing algorithms to add the composer’s desired effects to the sound from the stage, while keeping things balanced with the performer’s natural, unprocessed sound as well as with any fixed media audio cues that need to be played.

Live processing has a certain subtlety that allows me a surprising amount of creative freedom even when I’m not the main creative force of the project. For example, even when a composer needs a comparatively clear, unprocessed signal, the difference is enormous between a simple unmoving sound versus a subtle shifting in panning that responds to the rhythm of a played or sung gesture. If they need something more dramatic, such as a granulation, I can experiment with adding some ebb and flow to the grain rate, duration, spatialization, etc. and even suggest ways to adjust parameters at certain points in the work that I think fits best with the musical form. And sometimes these little additions don’t need any direct control at all, just bobbing in the background, quietly adding some dimension to the sound. There’s always something I can do to give sound a sense of life and a mind of its own; it’s just up to me to decide how to do it in a way that synergizes with the composer’s artistic vision.