Decentralized harmonic synchronization in mobile music systems

Abstract

A system for decentralized synchronization of musical agents is presented, inspired by Mirollo and Strogatz' pulse-coupled oscillator model of the synchronous flashing of certain species of firefly. While most previous work on pulse-coupled oscillators assume fixed and (close to) equal oscillator frequencies, the presented system tackles the challenge of different starting frequencies. Open source implementations in Puredata, Max, and Matlab are provided. Test results for setups of six nodes show that nodes reach a state of harmonic synchrony, where fire events coincide and oscillators display integer-ratio frequency relations.