Thor Kell

MA Music Technology
Supervisor: Prof. Marcelo M. Wanderley

Email: thor[at]tide-pool[dot]ca
Web: http://tide-pool.ca
Fax: +1 (514) 398-2962
Phone: +1 (514) 398-4535 ext. 094846

Research Interests

Mapping
Human Computer Interaction
Music Information Retrieval
Algorithmic Composition

Academic Background

B.Sc. (Music / Computer Science) - University of Victoria (Canada) - 2012
MA Candidate (Music Technology)- McGill University (Canada) - 2014

Past Projects

Mistify: Dynamically Recreating Xenakis’ Mists. Paper at CIM 2014. (paper).
Musical Mapping of Two-Dimensional Touch-Based Interfaces. MA Thesis. Info is here.
A High-Level Review of Mappings in Musical iOS Applications. Poster at SMC/ICMC 2014. Raw data is here.
Empirical Analysis of Track Selection and Ordering in Electronic Dance Music Using Audio Feature Extraction - poster presented at ISMIR 2013. (proceedings, paper)
An Overview of Musical Mappings for iOS Applications - paper presented at SMC 2013. (proceedings, paper)
The Feminest: Inferring the gender of bands from text data. Made at Tufts Hack Day, 2013.
Elvis by Elvis - performance with Ryan Groves, at ISMIR 2013
Tetris-Remix: Generative music using Tetris Attack. Made at MIT Hacking Arts, 2013.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Beethoven: Algorithmic composition meets music criticism.
Leap Re Mi: Solfege sign synthesis. Made at McGill Music Hack Day, 2013
The Ultimate Machine: Self-referential, text-based algorithmic composition. Made at Boston Music Hack Day, 2012
The Tonnetz - Building a working, cylindrical tonnetz for MUMT 619.
TimbreSurf: Controlling concatenative synthesis with a Kinect, Echo Nest Remix, and ChucK. MUMT 620 class project, 2012
How To DJ Properly: Track ordering driven by heuristics from the BBC's Essential Mix. CSC 475 class project, 2011
Kinduct: 'Conducting' using a Kinect. UVic Music Hack Day, 2011
instantmusicvideo: Mash up SoundCloud audio and Vimeo / YouTube video. Summer hack, 2010.

Professional Experience

Junior Engineer / Remix API maintainer - The Echo Nest / Spotify
Research Assistant / Programmer - CHISEL Group, University of Victoria
Web Development Intern - SoundCloud

Volunteer Experience

Co-organizer - McGill Music Hack Day 2013
Organizer - Get Excited And Make Techno, 2012
Organizer - UVic Music Hack Day 2011, 2012
Co-organizer - UVic Music Track Day 2012
Organizer - UVic Composition Sprint 2012

Music Projects

Production - SoundCloud, Dream|City, eleven, TH TMPST, The World Outside, iterate.
Composing - String quartets, orchestra pieces, solo piano, songs, improv frameworks.
DJing - House, techno, post-dubstep, post-everything.

Publications

In Proceedings

Thor Kell and Marcelo M. Wanderley. "A Quantitative Review of Mappings in Musical iOS Applications". In Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Sound and Music Computing (SMC2013), 2013.

Master's Theses

Thor Kell. "Musical Mapping of Two-Dimensional Touch-Based Control Layouts". Masters thesis, McGill University. 2014.