I’ve written up some basic tests on the subject of sonic complexity. This is available via Gmebogosse, an online platform for music and text by Eric Frye. Gmebogosse 001 is a cassette mix by CF + essay by Duncan Laurie; 002 is a hip-hop mix by Jailblazer; and 003 is Opus17aSlimeVariation#7 by EVOL (another version of Hanne Darboven’s piece) + essay by Alexander Iadorola. My text on sonic complexity is 004: http://nul-ptyx.com/index.php/gmebogosse/004/
The tests involved generating a few thousand 1-second mono audio files at various pitches, waveforms and volumes. The analysis is based on an information-theory approach to complexity, looking at how the size of the files in different audio formats varies with frequency and volume. The audio was made by sorting sets of 200 files in order of increasing size.
