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Looper's Delight
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<P><FONT SIZE=-1>This is part of the justification of KYMA where you have a dedicated</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>external audio engine to execute your looping and signal processing</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>programs. Systems like this and MARS have very powerful programming</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>environments for the musician to design their own performance algorithms.</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>More and more, development environments such as these combine complete</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>flexibility in terms of your sound designs, and easy, intuitive graphical</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>programming languages. (info on these systems can be found at</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1><A HREF="http://www.emf.org/sites/software.html">http://www.emf.org/sites/software.html</A>.)</FONT> <P><FONT SIZE=-1>It's just a matter of time until most all of our gadgets will offer some</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>level of this kind of interface. A significant issue for me is, "what am I</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>gonna do with it once I have it." For that reason alone, I spend a lot of</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>time on my powerbook hacking MAX/MSP. In performance I get more realistic</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>about stuff like looping and either cart a couple of dedicated fast</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>computers along with me , or trim down the real-time signal processing on</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>my notebook computer and farm it out to my Echoplex, jam man, Boomerang or</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>EH16.</FONT> <P><FONT SIZE=-1>In some cases, like making rich ambient textures, the latency just desn't</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>matter and it is a reasonable price to pay to be in control of more aspects</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>of what your signal processing device is doing. We're certainly in a</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>transition period between hardware and software based models for our toys.</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>It's pretty exciting. Especially in performance areas like looping (which</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>isn't that "expensive" in terms of computer processing and won't incur as</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>much latency as more complicated signal processing) this technology is</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>offering new creative, idiosyncratic opportunities for musicians. It also</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>frees us from our traditional relationship to signal processing device</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>makers where we can often grovel and beg for a simple feature that would</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>make a world of difference to our music, but won't ever be implemented</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>generally because it isn't important enough to the market as a whole.</FONT> <P><FONT SIZE=-1>cheers,</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>crb</FONT> <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR> <P><FONT SIZE=-1>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>Curtis Bahn</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>iEAR Studios, DCC 135</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute</FONT> <BR><FONT SIZE=-1>Troy, New York,</FONT> <BR> <BR> <P>I would have to agree with the opinion that external dsp based audio systems kick butt in a general and nonspecific way, and that we are moving away from obsessive software/hardware based systems... I'd have to say that I'd sell out immediately to the first company that created an audio system that was built like a killer-computer (dedicated to audio processing) but incorporated both the physical design features and the functionality of the audio equipment that all this PC/Mac stuff is trying to emulate... <P> There are a number of systems out there that combine ISA/PCI cards w/ external rackmountable interfaces. The most exciting of these that I've been blessed to look at and drool at is the Layla system. I'm not certain whether or not this type of system fits in to the same category as KYMA or MARS, I'm guessing its just a bit less powerful than these systems.... then again, Layla isn't $4000.00, so whats to be expected. <P>uh oh, my mind doth wander....me done fergot me point....... gotta go to work. <P>bye bye. <BR> <BR> </HTML> </html>