‘UPIC system’ (Unité Polyagogique Informatique du CEMAMu) Patrick Saint-Jean & Iannis Xenakis, France, 1977.

Iannis Xenakis and the UPIC system
Iannis Xenakis and the UPIC system

Developed by the computer engineer Patrick Saint-Jean directed by the composer Iannis Xenakis at CEMAMu (Centre d’Etudes de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales) in Issy les Moulineaux, Paris, France, UPIC was one of a family of early computer-based graphic controllers for digital music (Other including Max Mathews’ Graphic 1 ) which themselves were based on earlier analogue graphical sound synthesis and composition instruments such as Yevgeny Murzin’s ANS Synthesiser , Daphne Oram’s ‘Oramics‘, John Hanert’s ‘Hanert Electric Orchestra’  and much earlier Russian optical synthesis techniques.

UPIC Schematic
UPIC Schematic

Xenakis had been working with computer systems as far back as 1961 using an IBM system to generate mathematical algorithmic scores for ‘Metastaseis’; “It was a program using probabilities, and I did some music with it. I was interested in automating what I had done before, mass events like Metastaseis. So I saw the computer as a tool, a machine that could make easier the things I was working with. And I thought perhaps I could discover new things”. In the late 1960s when computers became powerful enough to handle both graphical input and sound synthesis, Xenakis began developing his ideas for what was to become the UPIC system; an intuitive graphical instrument where the user could draw sound-waves and organise them into a musical score. Xenakis’s dream was to create a device that could  generate all aspects of an electroacoustic composition graphically and free the composer from the complexities of software as well as the restrictions of conventional music notation. 

UPIC Diagram
UPIC Diagram from a film by Patrick Saint Jean in 1976

UPIC consisted of an input device; a large high resolution digitising tablet the actions of which were displayed on a CRT screen, and a computer; for the analysis of the input data and generation and output of the digital sound. Early version of the UPIC system were not able to respond in real time to user input so the composer had to wait until the data was processed and output as audible sound – The UPIC system has subsequently been developed to deliver real-time synthesis and composition and expanded to allow for digitally sampled waveforms as source material, rather than purely synthesised tones.

The UPIC System hardware
The UPIC System hardware

To create sounds, the user drew waveforms or timbres on the input tablet which could then be transposed, reversed, inverted or distorted through various algorithmic processes. These sounds could then be stored and arranged as a graphical score. The overall speed of the composition could be stretched creating compositions of up to an hour or a few seconds.  Essentially, UPIC was a digital version of Yevgeny Murzin’s ANS Synthesiser which allowed the composer to draw on a X/Y axis to generate and organise sounds.

Since it’s first development UPIC has been used by a number of composers including Iannis Xenakis (Mycenae Alpha being the first work completely composed on the system), Jean-Claude Risset (on Saxatile (1992), Takehito Shimazu (Illusions in Desolate Fields (1994), Julio Estrada (on ‘eua’on’), Brigitte Robindoré, Nicola Cisternino and Gerard Pape (CCMIX’s director).

More recent developments of the UPIC project include the French Ministry of Culture sponsored ‘IanniX’ ; an open-source graphic sequencer and HighC; a software graphic synthesiser and sequencer based directly on the UPIC interface.



Images of the UPIC System


Sources:

Iannis Xenakis: Who is He? Joel Chadabe January 2010

http://www.umatic.nl/

http://patrick.saintjean.free.fr/SILOCOMUVI_UPICPSJ2012/CMMM2009-UPIC-CNET-SILOCoMuVi1975-77.html

‘Images of Sound in Xenakis’s Mycenae-Alpha’ Ronald Squibbs, Yale University, rsquibbs @ minerva.cis.yale.edu

IanniX project homepage

One thought on “‘UPIC system’ (Unité Polyagogique Informatique du CEMAMu) Patrick Saint-Jean & Iannis Xenakis, France, 1977.”

  1. You can find the engineer thesis of Patrick Saint-Jean at the Libray of La Cité de la Musique Paris-Pantin and at the library of the Rouen University (France, Iannis Xenakis Founding). Good reading.

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