Issues of Ubimus Archaeology: Feedback Amplitude Modulation

This chapter provides a summary of our ongoing work on archaeological ubiquitous music, i.e. the study of the music-technology past to enhance our understanding of the musical present and to look for paths that illuminate the musical future. A key topic addressed in this chapter is feedback amplitude modulation (FBAM). This technique emerged within a search for technical solutions to address the sonically poor results of the first experiments in computer-generated sound. It is featured in two of Jean-Claude Risset’s works of the 1950–60 period and features timbral results that were either impossible or very hard to achieve with analogue technologies of the time. We present a case study based on Jean-Claude Risset’s materials, including a detailed analysis of the first implementations, their musical usage and the sonic results obtained through a newly implemented MUSIC V compiler replica.