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

[jim palmer <jimp@pobox.com>]

those using windows might want to investigate directmusic.
it's part of directx now and allows the composition of music
that responds to programmable input's.  
it is mostly implemented with midi and used for games,
but it's possible uses are far greater and it can do synthesis 
and sampled audio as well...

it is based on the superjam technology that microsoft acquired 
from blue ribbon sound works (anybody remember them?)

this is yet another thing that i have been meaning to get into, 
but haven't had the time...


>...
> 
> 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
>