Musical+Tools

This is a page for finding out about tools and concepts relating making music with computers.  my interests are in the following

...Pd patches
 Pd allows for superior connectivity among different software tools. With a little setup you can connect ideas through data. I enjoy making patches that allow such creativity to spawn. Essentially being able to open up more commercial products and allow the set of options that Open Source Software allows. Through musical analysis, OSC messages, the use of tables, routing and math Pd navigates the data that is digital music.

Currently looking at issues of syncing midi clock over a network and with multiple software programs, and hardware devices. Also simple patches to analyze audioStreams and send the data over a network through OSC to communicate with Gem, and Processing. As well creating the opposite interaction where data gathered from motion tracking and pixel information is sent OSC to and then routed as a midi message into Ableton live via processing->network->Pd->midiYoke->Ableton.

...VST ideas, implementations, gui design
created an Overdrive and Tremolo Vst Effect based on some code i found in DAFX and on euphoriaaudio.com. This was my first experience looking at MatLab and dealing with vector multiplication.

created a simple biquad filter, first vst was succesful it worked and was based on the classic biquad equation on musicdsp.org

slowly working on some code which turn one program into another based on two selected presets and a fader



...Arduino built controllers
in the works is a plan to build midi or OSC foot pedal for use with GuitarFX and visuals. Right now I believe I need 4 whammy style pedals and an array of toggles. using this pedal to connect to Pd/Gem and Processing through OSC and to Ableton through midi it will became a visual music interface of sorts.

...Ableton concepts
On a clip moving the loop length during playback creates a very dynamic live tool Setting warp markers to new beat structes reinvents simple rhythms Using warp markers you can stretch and shrink the beat to create very grating sounds from the samples being played at different rates Slice to midi any clip and add an arppegiator. Applying a Gate in way that the computer can not process the audio buffer in time before the signal crosses the threshold of the gate creates distortions or glitches in the part, used in conjunction with a sidechain creates related sound artifacts On a pc use PdVst to load Pure Data Connect audio with Jack

...Guitar meddlings
my current setup consists of a nylon electric guitar with piezo pickups in the bridge. I like to boost the mids and keep everything else relatively flat for a buttery to bright to crunchy sound depending on right hand dynamics. Running into compression, reverb, delay creates a general sound that varies in density based on parameter choices. Also adding gain after a while reinvents the sound a bit.

my favorite fx chain of recent has been simply volume pedal, compression, reverb. this creates a lot of ambience especially in conjunction with pick noise, harmonics, and other string noise.

just bought a Digitech Whammy Pedal, have wanted one for years and am looking forward to integrating this and a DL4 into the above Fx chain, maybe even my wah wah if decides to work again.

...Controllers
 Wii -- setup a wii controller in pd but made no projects yet Lemur -- made a patch to control the session view in Ableton Live MicroKontrol -- my go to control surface got love all the options but you sacrifice this for feel Oxygen 8 -- simple, effecient, practical useful for everything

...Spatialization
mostly 8 channel, see A/V performance

...Propellerhead Reason workflow
favorite midi sequencer, to bad you can't send midi out. sounds good by itself but reason is better suited for developing ideas and then using other software to build on top of it. create and get out. it can't all be from one thing.