Olivier Bélanger - teacher and audio software developer

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About

Olivier Bélanger (1977) completed, in February 2009, a doctorate in electroacoustic composition at the Université de Montréal, under the direction of Jean Piché and Caroline Traube. His work has focused on creating a model of singing voice synthesis and algorithmic controls of synthesis tools.
Since 2003, he is a lecturer at the Faculty of Music at the Université de Montréal where he teaches courses on digital signal processing theory and audio programming. Over the past twelve years, he has taught audio programming with Csound, MaxMSP, Puredata, Python and Reaper's plugin language JS.
As an audio software developer, his projects focus on algorithms for audio synthesis, sound transformation and new environments for audio programming and live coding.

Thesis

His thesis Le cycle des voix is composed of four sections.

The development of a source-filter singing voice synthesis.
The development of a virtual model of the didjeridu.
The creation of the audio scripting environment Ounk.
The use of these tools in the compositional approach of Le cycle des voix.

The seven pieces of Le cycle des voix can be listened to on SoundClound.

Sound engineer

From 2000 to 2005, Olivier worked as technical director and sound engineer for Code d'accès and Réseaux des arts médiatiques.

Teaching

MCT-2541/45 - Projet: lutherie audionumérique 1 à 4 (individual follow) - UdeM
MUS-1321 - Analyse, synthèse et traitement des sons - UdeM
MUS-1323 - Création musicale en langage Python 1 - UdeM
MUS-3327X/6327X - Création musicale en langage Python 2 - UdeM
MUS-3324X/6324X - Algorithmie et effets audionumériques 1 - UdeM
MUS-3325X/6325X - Algorithmie et effets audionumériques 2 - UdeM
M08 313 94 - Éléments d'acoustique - Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal (2007)
Member of the organizing committee for the JIM2015 (Journées d'Informatique Musicale 2015).

Softwares (in chronological order)

OLPC-TamTam - Member of the development team of OLPC-TamTam. TamTam is a suite of four music and sound related activities for the XO.
Ounk - Ounk is a Python audio scripting environment that uses Csound as its engine. This project is deprecated, see pyo instead.
Cecilia4Csound - Cecilia is an audio signal processing environment using Csound as its audio engine.
Pyo - Dedicated Python module, written in C, for digital signal processing.
E-Pyo - E-Pyo is a simple IDE especially configured to edit pyo audio programs.
Soundgrain - Soundgrain is a graphical interface where users can draw and edit trajectories to control granular sound synthesis.
Cecilia 5 - Cecilia is an audio signal processing environment aimed at sound designers. It uses pyo as its audio engine.
Zyne - Zyne is a Python modular synthesizer using pyo as its audio engine.
CookDSP - DSP library for Reaper’s plugin language JS.
QLive - QLive is a cues-based software to help the creation of mixed music (live instruments + electronic). QLive is currently in alpha stage.

Awards

Teaching excellence award (educational innovation component), Université de Montréal, 2014.
Second place for pyo at LoMus2012 music software contest, AFIM (Association Française d’Informatique Musicale), 2012

Publications

Bélanger, O., Traube, C., Modélisation du didjéridou et de ses modes de jeu, CIM05, Université de Montréal, 2005
Bélanger, Traube, Piché, Designing and controlling a source-filter model for naturalistic and expressive singing voice synthesis, ICMC, Copenhagen, 2007
Bélanger, O., Ounk - An audio scripting environment for signal processing and music composition, ICMC, Belfast, 2008
Products of Interest, Ounk: Audio Scripting Environment, Computer Music Journal, Summer 2009, p119.
Ounk and pyo published in The audio programming book, MIT Press, Richard Boulanger et Victor Lazzarini, Boston, 2010
Bélanger, O., La programmation audio avec Python, GNU Linux Magazine France, éditions diamond, volume 157, 2013
Bélanger, O., Pyo: A Dedicated Module For Digital Signal Processing, Pycon 2014, Montréal, 2014
Bélanger, O., Cecilia 5, la boîte à outils du traitement audio-numérique, JIM 2014, Bourges, 2014.
Bélanger, O., Création dynamique de plugiciels avec le langage JS de Reaper et la librairie CookDSP, JIM 2015, Montréal, 2015.
Michaud, P., Bélanger, O., Paris, L., Le Projet Q-Live, JIM 2015, Montréal, 2015.
Bélanger, O., Pyo, un module python dédié au traitement de signal audio, Rencontres Francophone de Lutherie Augmentée 2016, Neuchâtel, Suisse, 2016
Bélanger, O., Pyo, the Python DSP toolbox, ACM MultiMedia 2016, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2016
Bélanger, O., La création d'interfaces graphiques avec WxPython, GNU Linux Magazine France, éditions diamond, volume 200, janvier 2017
Bélanger, O., La programmation audio multicoeur avec Python, GNU Linux Magazine France, éditions diamond, volume 203, avril 2017

Workshops

Ounk, A Python Audio Scripting Environment that uses Csound as its Engine, McGill/CIRMMT, 2008
Pyo, Making Sound with Python, McGill/CIRMMT, 2012
Création de plugiciels audio avec le langage JSFX de Reaper, UdeM, 2015

Music

2001 - Tryptique, 12 minutes, music for flute and real-time processing.
2002 - Miron, 6 minutes, video and music all shooted at Miron factory in the Port of Montreal.
2002 - Ounky Tonk, 10 minutes, Real-time octophonic music. Diffused at Rien à voir 13 (03.2003).
2003 - Douce tempête du matin, 8 minutes, acousmatic music. fourth place at Jeu de temps/Time Play contest in 2003, available on the CD Cache 2003, CEC.
2004 - Douce tempête du midi, 15 minutes, acousmatic music. Real-time version writen in 2006 for the automated music concert Les machines à communiquer, produced by Code d'accès.
2004 - Douce tempête du soir, 10 minutes, acousmatic music.
2005 à 2009 - Le cycle des voix, 45 minutes, 7 algorithmic pieces for voice synthesis.
- no. 1 - Drone
- no. 2 - Paysages
- no. 3 - Modulo
- no. 4 - Déphasage
- no. 5 - Chorus Morph, selected for diffusion at ICMC 2008, Belfast.
- no. 6 - Reich
- no. 7 - Choeurs, selected for diffusion at concert Con Sordino, organized by Point d'écoute (2009).
2010 - Creation of the Radio Pyo (now maintained by Tiago Bortoletto Vaz), a web streaming server diffusing algorithmic pieces written with Python and Pyo. Among others, we can hear Run, Pulsar and Degradation.

Some of these musics can be listened to on SoundClound.

Video Links

Contact

email: belangeo@gmail.com