Holed up in the guest bedroom of his parents' house in Roswell, Georgia, Richard Devine conducts a seven-computer, 2,800-MHz symphony of bells, robotic utterings, and bass lines. Although musicians have worked with computers since the '50s, "I take it to the extreme," says the classically trained pianist. Running an NT server, a G4, two G3s, three PCs, and various custom-built synthesizers (one of which has a heat-sensitive keyboard that generates tones based on how close his finger hovers over a given key), the Kennesaw State University senior programs and sequences roughly 35,000 stored sounds using apps like Logic Audio and SuperCollider. He also writes the code that allows his computers to autonomously change the tempo, time signature, and velocity values. The 25-year-old released his first album on Schematic Records in January, and his compositions will be part of the Whitney BitStreams exhibit (www.whitney.org) opening March 22. "It never gets old," says Devine: "As processor speeds go up, the crazier my music gets!"
ELECTRIC WORD
New Weave
Star Market
Swing Theory
Super Conductor
Jetropolis
Time Sync
