# Inside Andrea Molino's La vérité, pas toute: The Creation of Swarm Sounds

Nicola Bernardini, Alvise Vidolin, Alessandro Fiordelmondo, Luca Richelli, Mattia Pizzato

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Nicola Bernardini, Alvise Vidolin, Alessandro Fiordelmondo, Luca Richelli, Mattia Pizzato. Inside Andrea Molino's La vérité, pas toute: The Creation of Swarm Sounds. Proceedings of the 19th Linux Audio Conference, Jun 2025, Lyon, France. hal-05096042

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Submitted on 3 Jun 2025

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<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>
INSIDE ANDREA MOLINO'S
LA VÉRITÉ, PAS TOUTE:
THE CREATION OF SWARM SOUNDS

Nicola Bernardini

Conservatorio "O.Respighi"
Latina, Italy
bernardini@conslatina.it

Luca Richelli

Conservatorio "A.Pedrollo"
Vicenza, Italia
luca.richelli@consvi.it

Alvise Vidolin
Alessandro Fiordelmondo

Centro di Sonologia Computazionale
Università di Padova
Padova, Italy
{vidolin|fiordelmondo}@dei.unipd.it

Mattia Pizzato

Sound and Music Processing Lab (SaMPL)
Conservatorio "C.Pollini"
Padova, Italy
pizmat.7@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

The paper is a technical description of a specific component of *La Vérité, pas toute*, a large scale dense and theatrically engaging work by Italian composer Andrea Molino.

Specifically, it outlines the tools and techniques developed to digitally create the “sonic swarms” that are called for in the score. Such swarms are generated, controlled and spatialized in real time and, as such, they present an interesting use case for live electronics environments.

1. INTRODUCTION

*La Vérité, pas toute* is a work commissioned by the Accademia Chigiana in Siena to the italian composer Andrea Molino in 2022. Written in 2022-2023, it is scored for 32 voices, 8 percussions, 16 mobile videocameras, fixed media recordings and live electronics. It was premiered during the Accademia Chigiana International Festival on the 14th of July of 2023.

It is a very dense and theatrically engaging work which centers around the use of words in spoken languages, traversing in total continuity the whole gamut of perceptual attributes ranging from sense and meaning down to their rhythmic and sonic properties. The concert setting of the piece is also unusual, with the public seating in the middle of the hall broadly facing each other, the percussion players distributed around the public, the conductor in the middle, the choir moving around and assuming different positions along the piece and a host of mimes who run around the hall holding small videocameras and videorecording specific details of the piece.

Among the many musical devices used to explore the dual valence of words there is a quite peculiar one, created digitally by the crew who built the performance environment for the piece. The request of the composer was to create some subliminal continuous sonic textures that would fill up the musical interstices of sections 1, 6 and 7 of the work (cf. for example Fig.1). Described by the composer as “swarms of phonetic materials flying around in the room” and hence called “swarms” during the development of the tools, these textures were created from some sonic vocal material defined and designed by the composer: short phrase fragments read by elements of the choir within different paralinguistic modes (murmurs, mutterings, blows, pants, etc.). These fragments were all recorded with extreme close-miking techniques in a soundproof booth (cf. Sec.2.2). They constituted a large database of some 800 sonic grains subdivided in various types and emission modalities.

An algorithmic tool was then created in *Pure Data* (cf.[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]); this tool is able to generate constantly different sonic swarms playing back with controlled casuality the fragments from different partitions of the database. This tool is entirely controlled in real time and as such it may be played live; it is constituted by a dynamic crop of up to 256 simultaneous generators which may read and reproduce the sonic grains thus creating swarms for which it is possible to control the density through progressive rescaling of the relative amplitudes of each grain.

The spatial disposition of the swarms may be controlled too, ranging in continuity from a totally “immersive” listening (all around the public) to a localised one virtually travelling through space.

Although this paper will focus only on these sonic swarms, the electronic part of *La Vérité, pas toute* also includes:

* spoken fragments of famous people voices

* virtual spatialization of sound sources

* dynamic miking

2. SWARMING SOUNDS

Swarms of sounds have long been the focus of many artists and researchers as a way to produce rich, moving and musical sound textures (cf.[6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16]). The development of electronic “swarming” sounds focuses on creating complex, dynamic, and organic audio textures that mimic the behavior of natural swarms (e.g., insects, birds, or fish).

Key techniques have included to date:

1. **Algorithmic Composition:** Using generative algorithms (e.g., particle systems, boids, or cellular automata) to simulate swarm behavior, which is then mapped to sound parameters like pitch, amplitude, and spatialization.

2. **Time Granulation:** Breaking sound into tiny "grains" and manipulating them to create dense, evolving textures that emulate the chaotic yet cohesive nature of swarms.

3. **Ambisonics or binaural rendering:** to create immersive, moving soundscapes that replicate the spatial dynamics of swarms.

4. **AI and Machine Learning:** Leveraging neural networks to generate or enhance swarm-like sounds, either by training on natural swarm recordings or by learning patterns from synthesized data.

5. **Interactive Systems:** Integrating real-time input (e.g., motion sensors or MIDI controllers) to allow performers or audiences to influence swarm behavior and sound dynamically.
<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1: *La Vérité, pas toute*, pag.1 (upper half)</figcaption></figure>

6. **Hybrid Approaches:** Combining synthesized sounds with processed field recordings of actual swarms to achieve a balance between realism and artistic expression.

These techniques have been widely used in film scoring, video game sound design and experimental music, pushing the boundaries of how swarming sounds can be perceived and experienced.

In *La Vérité, pas toute* only a small subset of these techniques have been used, aiming to maximize the expressivity and reliability of sound production in a mission-critical environment (large, long-range multi-dimensional music work). In particular, techniques 1, 2 and 6 have been used extensively, while sound spatialization (3) has been applied in *a posteriori* with a separate spatialization engine (cf. Sec.3, and [17, 18]).

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2: abstract scheme of the swarm generator</figcaption></figure>

## 2.1. Technical description

Fig.2 summarizes the swarm generator algorithm of *La Vérité, pas toute*.

Everything centers around a configuration manager which reads a configuration text file which looks like this:

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th>sciami.conf</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>sciami_1_1</td><td>3 1 2 3</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>sciami_1_2</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>sciami_6_1</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>sciami_6_2</td><td>3 1 2 3</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>sciami_7_1</td><td>4 1 2 3 4</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>sciami_7_2</td><td>4 1 2 3 4</td></tr></tbody></table>

The configuration file is a simple space-separated list of configurations (one per line) which get activated by the performer according to the location in the score.

The parameters of each line are as follow:

1. a string corresponding to the name of the sound folder whose content should be loaded into the sound file table; for example: `sciami_1_1` is the name of the folder used for section 1.1 of the score, etc.

2. the number of parallel swarms to be launched for the section

3. the list of specific swarm types to be launched (the list length should correspond to the number of parallel swarms)

We provide a “reading” of the first line as a matter of example:

1. (first field): the sound file path points to the `sciami_1_1` folder, which contains the `sciami_1_1.wav` file and three cue lists for three different sets of sounds (cf.2.2);

2. (second field): this is the number of sets played in parallel by the system

3. (following fields): these are the indexes of the cue list files to be used to read the different sets of files (in this case: `sciami_1_1_cue_list_1.txt`, `sciami_1_1_cue_list_2.txt` and `sciami_1_1_cue_list_3.txt`)

Each line gets interpreted by a simple configuration parser and the various tokens are sent to `creator` subpatches which create dynamically the number of `fragment_reader` abstract-
tions needed for each specific section. These are responsible for loading the cue lists for each voice in memory. Simultaneously, the interpreted configuration line is also sent to a `generator_manager` which dynamically allocates the specified number of `generator` abstractions. These will in turn spawn a variable number of parallel clones of table reader abstractions which are actually responsible of reading small sample fragments.

These table reader abstractions are actually the most intricated patches; their schematic workflow is outlined in Fig.3.

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>Figure 3: Schematic workflow of the table reader abstractions</figcaption></figure>

A `randomPicker` abstraction selects with appropriate tendency masks a specific fragments whose parameters (file, offset skip, duration) are passed to a `tabread4` object which will actually read the sound file. This selection is also time-correlated with the other clone readers to provide the “swarming” effect.

The amplitude of each sound fragment is rescaled with the following equations

$$amp = 4^{(apot_v + b)/127} \qquad (1)$$

$$r_v = 1 - 2^{n_v/127} \qquad (2)$$

where $pot_v$ is the (MIDI) value coming from the potentiometer ($0 <= pot_v <= 127$) and {$a = -0.4881, b = 116$} are linear function factors derived by simulated annealing. The resulting amplitude $amp$ is further rescaled according to the specific voice clone number that is being used ($n_v$) with the rescaling function (2), leading to the individual voice rescale factor $r_v$. The plots in Fig.4 illustrate the actual rescaling mechanism.

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>Figure 4: Density compensation functions</figcaption></figure>

The combination of functions (1) and (2) allow to simulate effectively a sort of “solo vs. tutti” effect compensating amplitude with density (fewer voices get an amplitude boost and vice versa).

The generated voices can then be routed to 5 different outputs via an `output_pipeline` abstraction as follows:

1. one of 8 channels routing (see below)

2. 4 independent mono channels

The 8-channel routing allocates the output channel according to a round-robin mechanism (the abstraction `channelize`) which will distribute each different voice on a separate channel with a $c = (n_v + k) \mod 8$ algorithm, where $k = \{1, 4, 5, 8\}$

is a loudspeaker offset, $n_v$ is the voice number, and $mod$ is the usual modulo integer division remainder operator. This 8 channel modality allows for a fully immersive experience of the swarms.

4 independent mono channels can instead be driven through the sound spatialization system (cf.Sec.3) in order to provide directed moving swarms across the concert hall.

Finally, a mono-sum of all channels is sent to an external reverberation system which can be manually adjusted according to the requirements of the hall. All in all, 13 separated and decorrelated output channels of audio are provided by the system.

## 2.2. Recording the base material

In order to prepare the voice fragment base materials, the composer has written a number of separate parts to be performed individually by several members of the choir. Supposedly, such pages are to be considered “working elements” of the score. Fig.5 provides an example of such parts (specifically, the swarm 7.2).

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>Figure 5: Example page of swarm fragment scoring</figcaption></figure>

All these fragments have been recorded by members of the choir of the Siena Cathedral “Guido Chigi Saracini” in the soundproof booth of the Center for Computational Sonology (CSC) of the University of Padua on June 14, 2023. Recordings were then followed by a post production phase in which all fragments were labeled and time-tagged to be read by the `sfreader` abstraction (cf.2.1). A truncated example of the result of the post production cue list files is shown below.

<table><thead><tr><th colspan="3">cue list example</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>2.128784</td><td>2.394422</td><td>1_01</td></tr><tr><td>4.835803</td><td>5.981221</td><td>1_02</td></tr><tr><td>8.588798</td><td>8.728753</td><td>1_03</td></tr><tr><td>10.894367</td><td>12.227620</td><td>1_04</td></tr><tr><td>...</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>227.153815</td><td>229.267867</td><td>6_05</td></tr><tr><td>230.976787</td><td>237.215820</td><td>6_06</td></tr><tr><td>238.431216</td><td>253.354804</td><td>6_07</td></tr><tr><td>256.198094</td><td>262.842258</td><td>6_08</td></tr></tbody></table>

The cue list files are pure ascii text files which have three fields:
1. the start time of the fragment (in seconds)

2. its end time (in seconds)

3. the label of the fragment

Such files can be easily created by other audio Free Software (such as Audacity cf.[19]) and can be directly read by Pure Data.

## 2.3. Man-machine and machine-machine interfaces

Fig.6 shows a screenshot of the user interface of the swarming software presented herein.

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>Figure 6: Example page of swarm fragment scoring</figcaption></figure>

The five potentiometers (1 8-channel + 4 1-channel) and the swarm selector (the yellow vertical collection of buttons on the right) are relayed via OSC to a physical control surface which is operated in concert by the live electronics performers.

## 3. SWARM SPATIALIZATION

The spatialization of the swarms was designed to address multiple musical needs that could arise during both the composition phase and the rehearsals and performance of the piece.

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /><figcaption>Figure 7: Swarm spatialization routing</figcaption></figure>

The generation of sound fragments is structured to produce swarms with a broad sonic perspective – featuring foreground fragments alongside others that gradually appear more distant, expanding in all directions. The diffusion of these swarms occurs in eight-channel audio, controlled by a parameter that globally defines the swarm’s density and depth of field (the *master_8ch* potentiometer in Fig.6).

In addition to this immersive-type swarm, other variations can be introduced, where a single swarm has a defined origin and trajectory, with specified speeds and durations. Specifically, we prepared four simultaneous monophonic swarms (*master_1-4*) with independent paths, which can be activated separately from the immersive swarm. The latter could also function as a kind of “dark matter” into which the moving swarms dissolve once they complete their trajectory.

Finally, the sum of all swarms is sent to a reverberator, calibrated to simulate the maximum desired spatial dimension, emulating the far-distant zones of “dark matter”.

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>Figure 8: A visual simulation of swarm movement</figcaption></figure>

In the final outcome, only two to three swarms were used in *La Vérité, pas toute*, with spatialization movements favoring asynchronous, randomized motion. As an example, the visual simulation of Fig.8 shows the spatialization of *Swarm 1* split into two randomized movements with very smooth transitions – one with a step time of 1500 msec and the other with 1900 msec.

## 4. CONCLUSIONS

This paper outlines the inner technicalities of the *ad hoc* software created to generate the “swarms of sound” required by the work *La Vérité, pas toute* by Andrea Molino.

Having to be played in real-time in a live electronics ecosystem, this software took the shape of a *Pure Data* set of patches and abstractions. The choice of the host interpreter (*Pure Data*) was mainly dictated by the following requirements:

* real-time operation

* fast prototyping to allow last-minute changes during production

* use of Free Software to improve sustainability of the composition itself

All materials may be found, downloaded, cloned, forked, studied and modified at https://gitlab.com/smc-chigiana/sciami-molino.git.

## 5. CREDITS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A large creative project such as *La Vérité, pas toute* needs the intense cooperation of a fairly large group of people; the technical aspects and challenges are only a small, if not minor, part of it. The musical creation is definitely the most difficult one; because of this, we owe our deepest gratitude to Andrea Molino, without whose huge work nothing would have existed.

The second most complex challenge is constituted by the actual logistics required to get such a project on stage; the Accademia Chigiana is one of the rare institutions which is willing to undertake this endeavor (and many others like this), fund it, get the necessary resources for it and solving big and small issues to reach the target. We want to warmly thank Nicola Sani who is at the head of Accademia Chigiana for having supported this project from the beginning, acknowledging also the great help from all the staff of the Accademia Chigiana and in particular from Barbara Valdambrini, Maria Rosaria Coppola and Anna Passarini.

Our warmest thanks go also to the performers, the *Coro Chigi Saracini* and its director and conductor Lorenzo Donati and the *Chigiana Percussion Ensemble* directed by Antonio Caggiano.

The intricate technical part of *La Vérité, pas toute* could not have been carried out without the fundamental participation of
SaMPL (Sound and Music Processing Lab) and its coordinator Julian Scordato, and that of the Center for Computational Sonology (CSC) of the University of Padua and its director Sergio Canazza.

Last but not least, we would like to thank all our students from the 2023 *Live Electronics – Sound and Music Computing* Summer Seminar at the Accademia Chigiana who took part to the production with many helping hands.

## 6. REFERENCES

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