On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 6:04 PM, mark francombe
<mark@markfrancombe.com> wrote:
>What I usually do not like with some generative music software is that they utilize random.
Couldnt agree more... I once programmed in SynthEdit a generatve vst called IChing... although LOTS of fun in building it.. it was used by me in exactly ONE track... Somehow.. the idea, that non musicians like Eno, find so facinating, that "the rules of music can be programmed" thus opening up the world to infinate amounts of ambient muzak, just leaves me cold and feeling slightly sick.
To wipe out the use of randomness in one bold statement however Per, is a tad premature, if you dont mind me saying so. Random parameters can be very subtle, and can add elements of reality and life to an otherwise cold sequence.
Certainly. That's why I put a "ususally" in there. A little random makes no harm. For example it works very well with the Spectrasonics Stylus RMX drum software plug-in. But it's definitely not the random per se that makes the resulting music sound good but the human operator's desicions on how and when to apply random.
Looking at your design concept, it seems that you envisage a new musical instrument, something with feel... however with sequenced 8,12,16.. you will end up with a metronomic thing...
Good point - but don't you forget that the grid with the dots are not a sequence to be played back but rather a sequence to play back a certain sound that you throw at it? Throw no sound into it and it stays silent. The way to throw sound into it is to kick a foot pedal while playing. If kicking the pedal between two notes you will sample the silence and the looped riffing will stopp. By constantly changinig the sound content of the sample you can create variation.
I should know, its what I LIKE... (if you are into modulars, you have a soft spot for the old Tangerine Dream sequence thing) but your tool could be really cool,
That sort of sequencing would be quite typical for my Steppo thing. But its difficult to compare because the my point is that the musician crates the sound and contineously puts new sounds in it to be sequenced. So what Tangeringe Dream dows by manually tweaking cut-off filters on the synths while sequnced, the musician/songer does by his lead melody playing. Constantly snagging new slices from whatever notes he sings in order to change the timbre of the sequence pattern. then there is also this other option to swap patterns and finally to tweak a pattern as you go. Three ways to create variation from a concrete audio sound input.
if instead of physically placing ALL the beats onto the grid (or grids, if you are switching between) why not use some element of randomness, like a probability value to place 10% swing factor on beats?
I see your point. But 10 percent is way too much for my taste. I could use 2 to 4 percent, that's what I like. A groove parameter would be nice, yes. But I think it would be difficult to program. However, if creating this beast as Live 8 plugin (by using the Max For Live add-on) I guess it would be easy to hook it up on Live 8's global groove factor system which is very good (what I mean with "good" here is that it does not interfere with notes that should not be grooved, like if you triple the speed of the pattern for the last quarter note to make a kind of fill with super fast notes ("squarepusher style sounding" trick). But I have no doubt it would sound very cool even without those groove factors or swing factors. A lot of sequnenced music that I like do not use that at all, for example Tangerine Dream. Other of my sequence fav bands from the histrory of modern music are Ministry and YoungGoods. Totally swing free, not one percent there and it sounds awesome because it's flat and stiff. I think if you don't like "flat and stiff" you should be able to "jazzify" it quite a bit simply by the variation you create by changing the sound of the sample (kicking in new audio sliced into the machinery on a regular basis)
If I can just find a sampler that will let you sample into RAM in real-time from an audio input there is already a finsihed sequencing machine for it in Numerolgoy. But I have not found any such sampler. So I'm pestring Jim at Five 12 to put real-time sampling into a sampler as part of that application. There you have a great global swing factor system too - better than Live's in my humble opinion becaue you can PLAY the swing factor while the sequences are running and make the total machinery very organic.
OR.. I was thinking of something that placed beats dynamically based on the PREVIOUS bar... the program would have to detect you playing, and quantise to nearest 16th, but if you played legato and slowely, the program could detect that you wanted to go that way and start to remove beats from the grid... however if you start a frenetic passage, it could add beats, so it would change its playing style dependant on your playing style..
There you go again with another great idea. But it's sort of contradicts my point, since I don't want to make a machine that "follows" a human player or "generates music". I want to make an instrument to play while you play another instrument. Like keth Jarret uses his left hand while playing somethiing with his right hand. If you and your guitar are Keith Jarret's right hand, then my Steppophonic would be Jarrets left hand. The two hands do not "follow" or even influence each other - they can go off into totally different directions, contrapunct stuff that makes sense only when heard together - and this can only happen because he is in control of both his hands, leading them from a musical vision.
per