hive mind music (Was Re: Using Phrazer live - pros & cons?)

["Michael LaMeyer" <m.lameyer@verizon.net>]

I'm a little all over the place, but here's some thoughts, off
the cuff ....

> pro - i don't have to shut down my band when gil travels.
>           would possibly move the band towards a more
electronic sound;
> change is good

got that

> con - lack of dynamic,
>           lack of natural ebb & flow in improvisational music
>           stability (is it gonna crash?)

right

> > What are your requirements?
>
> intuitive interactivity. we play a very stream-of-conciousness
kind of
> improvisational thing; i don't want to have to become dj
bobdog, but i
> would like to be able to shape the movement of a tune by
activating
> different tracks as the mood calls for it. kinda like being
able to do
> variations on a theme each time a specific set of tracks is
used. we
> definitely do not want to play the exact same thing every time
we load a
> set of tracks (or a "song" if you will)

Hmmm, it seems possible to do a lot of pre-production and try to
architect as many different feel/part variations, but that
doesn't sound very intuitively interactive, and you'll still
need some way to determine which part plays when and the most
accessible ways would be musician triggering (dj bob) or
sequencing (perhaps with dj bob determining which sequence plays
when = dj bob).  Seems like you're begging for something that
will respond to the players dynamics in some way, and I haven't
stretched acid to that point yet, didn't think actually that it
would necessarily be very conducive to that approach.  Unless
you can use all prearranged parts, and then hit a switch when
you want to 'hold' a pattern or move to the next one.

> > Are you asking about the useability
> > of this program specifically?
>
> yes i'm looking for reviews/opinions of phrazer as a live
tool, but i'm
> also interested in reading folks' opinions of using sonic
foundry acid
> live since phrazer seems to based heavily on acid.

Haven't used phrazer, have used acid.  If defining a bunch of
regions based around phrases and mapping them to footswitches or
or triggering via sequencer or something would work for you,
then this software might do it.  As far as stability, can't
speak for mac, but on pc (and probably any system) the best
thing to do would be to dedicate a machine to this function,
don't put on anything you don't need, and test first,
rigorously.  And have an identical backup machine handy to plug
in (hardware failures can just happen) or you'll be sorry.  I
think it would probably be pretty stable this way, but I've
never tried using acid as much of an interactive tool, just a
straight up compositional one.

If you're going to use samples, I think sticking to a few base
patterns, defining regions around various parts of the mix,
triggering the regions playback via midi noteons manually or
with a sequencer, and maybe dropping in fills and such manually
somehow, would be an approach that the software might be best
suited for, but not you.

I've pondered this question myself.  I think you may need to
look beyond something like phrazer or acid, but feel free to
experiement of course.  Others may have gone here with that
software, but I haven't yet.

Having said that, here's a brainstorm ramble:

Depart from traditional percussion arrangements.  I was
considering taking atomic elements of electronic percussion and
processing them so that they have more of a rhythmic element
besides *Wack!, quickly fade to black*.  For example, instead of
having a kick drumish sound consisting of a click and a sine wav
fading out, what about a kick drum with more than one *wack* in
it (so to speak) or different kinds of *wack* that imparted some
kind of rhythmic meaning and would make that atomic sound more
like a rhythmic phrase, without necessarily becoming one itself.
Get a waveform convoluter and see what happens when you convolve
a trad. percussion sound with something else entirely, like
crickets, or speech.  Get a bucket of various tidbits like these
together and see what happens when they overlap, patterns would
form.  In other words, stop considering a drum sound as a drum
sound necessarily separate from other drum sounds (like kick
versus snare versus hat, etc).  Give your kick some hat groove
aspects, make your snare hit trail some bleeps or something at
the end.

The real groovy trick would be to get stuff like this happening
in response to your playing of course.  I play around with a
piece of shareware software called Tuareg, a wav arranger with a
very simple interface premise that leads to some very intuitive
arrangement futzing.  I posted a blurb on it a while back in
response to a query regarding audio plugins, even though it
wasn't an audio plugin (oops, sorry Rick), and I'm not
suggesting you could use this live (needs a new version with
zero-crossing processing and external midi control of all
functions), but I've literally started out with a single pattern
and easily come up with a dozen or more interesting variations
in the span of a half hour, just by futzing with the gating and
rearranging tools.  Those two elements alone had tremendous
potential.

One idea I had was to somehow use midi or instrument audio
signal/voltage (this would be best imho) to act as a control
element that had some kind of direct relationship to what the
musicians are doing, have some way of manipulating this
relationship (perhaps by having one musician's signal modulate
another's), and then plug this into both tone generation sources
and direct modulation of said sources through triggered gating,
delays, or some other kind of processing.

For example, let's say you've got a guy on bass playing some
notes.  Split the audio signal from this instrument into two
channels.  One channel would go out to the mix like normal, the
other channel wouldn't end up directly in the mix at all but
would be used as a control signal.  Maybe gate this control
signal to give it more of a switchlike shape (on/off, low/high,
etc).  Then, send this signal to a triggered gate, or set of
triggered gates, perhaps after sending it through some kind of
delay that would track tempo from the bass signal itself, or
some other signal like a tap, or the midi clock from a looper
device or sequencer.  Now, feed a tone source consisting of
either prearranged rhythmic loops (perhaps cross faded with
other loops, and have the cross fade controlled by some other
signal - like another musicians audio, or even percussive
sounds/loops generated by the other musicians like string
noises, instrument body tapping noises, or synths played by
other musicians, or whatever).  Now, imagine a band of musicians
all generating these signals and interrelate them in various
ways, and stand back!!!  The result might be hard to control or
predict, depending on the complexity of the interrelationships,
and what the musicians are doing.  But the potential for
something interesting and dynamic is fascinating, and this
approach would be just as applicable for other types of
arrangements besides percussion (like having the musicians
trigger volume/filter/other envelopes for each other, or for
each other's delayed signals that wouldn't be audible until
triggered).

*brains begin oozing out onto the floor*

Of course, it might be kinda tricky to get that tight ass,
swinging funk groove with this approach, ya never know.  Nothing
like a drummer but a drummer, maaaaahhhhhn .....

Love,

Mike