Structured Improvisation

mosc · Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 7:58 am Post subject:

In September of 2003 they released the Windows version. It's very solid. They now develop on Windows.

elektro80 · Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2004 2:02 pm Post subject:

http://www.wiard.com/

Posted Image, might have been reduced in size. Click Image to view fullscreen.

The other stuff is cool too:

http://www.wiard.com/modular/modular.html

seraph · Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2004 2:17 pm Post subject:

seraph · Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2004 2:24 pm Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2004 2:25 pm Post subject:

MAX?

elektro80 · Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2004 3:08 pm Post subject:

....safe? Satanic device?
Hmm.. listen...this is NOT an electric guitar.. ok?

play · Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2004 4:53 pm Post subject:

this looks fun:
http://www.geocities.com/girlrobot4705/glove.html

Posted Image, might have been reduced in size. Click Image to view fullscreen.

nescivi · Joined: Mar 23, 2005 Posts: 94 Location: Montreal

Kassen · Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 7:18 am Post subject:

After reading about them on the Ableton board I picked up one of these puppies to add tro my small arsenal of "controlers nobodie knows how to play". So far it´s looking realy nice, suitable for both editing and real time improvisation. Fortunately Live alows for keyboard controll of nearly any function in the program. While I was at it I replaced my normal mouse with a marked down "razer Boomslang" which nicely matches it.

I think there is a lot to be said for gamer´s devices in music. First of all they get marked down after a while since many things in the gaming world have a very short life cycle. I also think it´s a large advantage that they are designed to look as sleek and "alien" as possible which removes some of the "work feel" of the computer¹. Perhaps best of all; they are designed to have lots of functions under your fingertips.

I think a major advantage of things like these is that there is not yet a dogma on "how it should be played", nor on how sonological parameters should be mapped to controler functions. This invites thought and experiment on the nature of the sound and what one intends to do with it. Secretly I suspect this might be the prime advantage of such controlers (well, aside from getting lightning fast with functions like "copy", "paste" and "duplicate"...).

¹At one performance in Rotterdam miss Nescivi remarked about her controlers that "mice simlpy aren´t very cool". Well, mine now has a sort of reptilian structure below a partially transparent outside....

rbedgar · Joined: Dec 20, 2005 Posts: 110 Location: Sunnyvale, CA

The "edge" that I've run into often with new controllers is mastering them enough so that you can play them with enough intention and expression.

My current solution is to use a MIDI guitar to play, trigger and modulate it's own sounds, the sounds of the MIDI controller (Roland GR-33), and samples in a modifying environment (the software program VSampler3, accessed through SONAR).

At any moment I can modulate a sound through MIDI functions within the GR-33, but also through sample mod functions from VSampler3.

For sequences, I feed what I do into a mixer and then into a Boomerang loop box, where I can record segments (long or short) of what I play, play over them, and further modify and edit the playback in real time.

For music source, at the moment I'm using a simple song I wrote. However, except for lyric and instrument samples, I'm not playing against anything pre-recorded--I lay it down live, segment by segment.

For an example, www.robertedgar.com , play the Flash video of "Duchamp Stripped". The source song is viewable too: "If Duchamp Drew Beautifully".

A further note relating to the hardware aspect of this thread: In the early 1970s I got off on Stockhausen's use of potentiometers and filters to modulate live musicians on works like his "From the Seven Days", and still love those pieces. But usings pots and wheels and ribbon controllers with performances of more standard music were (for me) frustrating, because of the loss of connection between modification and the expressiveness of each note played live on a standard instrument. I felt that the modifying envelope(s) should be available for each note played or a phrase, decidable at the moment of my playing...by me!

So, for better or worse, I've put together an amalgam of traditional instrument, hardware and software that provide a way to deliver a very wide range of sounds--concrete and traditional--that are selectable and modifiable in real time by the player.

I certainly don't consider this the only way to go (I don't consider "only ways to go" except for the present moment and for myself), but this is where several years working with this problem have led me.

deknow · Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2005 3:23 pm Post subject:

...this would be cool to use with live i think:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/77ba/

deknow

Kassen · Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2005 6:00 pm Post subject:

deknow · Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2005 6:56 pm Post subject:

yeah. if i were using live, i'd get one immediately (hint hint, kassen, get one and tell us how cool it is). oh, if only there was aftertouch........

deknow

Kassen · Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2005 7:21 pm Post subject:

Live uses a especially nice system of user definable hotkeys but Live is harldy the only system to have one...

Ok, I'd like one but I already have a Nostromo Speedpad and a E-MU Launchpad here and I jsut spend 500$ on a new soundcard so...

morbius

I have digital sequencers like in the Motif ES, the MPC-2000, and even the MS-2000, and the dotcom analog Q119's, and they all have their atributes for composing. But for me, nothing inspires (in a sequencer) improvisation like the 960/962 (originally Moog, and now available from dotcom). Posted Image, might have been reduced in size. Click Image to view fullscreen.

The ability to actually 'play' the sequencer (as an instrument, itself) while it is running, just like heard by Tangerine Dream, Redshift UK, and others, really is hard to beat. You can set it up to run with either MIDI syncing from other workstations/keyboards, or with click-tracks from your recorder. This would be the 'structured' side of it, I suppose.

But you can also let it be the master with only you controlling it for pure improvisation. Here is a video example video in wmv format http://www.unisynth.com/user/Siliconsequences1256K_Stream001.wmv

To a degree, you can do this same sort of thing with other analog sequencers, providing you have enough of the other kinds of modules to 'make it fly'. Here's an example of two Q119's, which I'm playing in an improv manner: http://www.unisynth.com/user/One%20Takes%20-%20Fun%20with%20Sequencers%20-%20Dangling%20Participles.mp3[/left]

Kookoo · Joined: Nov 20, 2005 Posts: 42 Location: Austin, TX, USA

My day job is game developer, so when I read this thread I remembered that I have one of these laying around from previous PS2 work:

http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=302&products_id=3833&likref=smartjoy.com

So I hooked it up, installed MIDI-Yoke NT, and installed Rejoice

http://www.fireballtrailers.com/rejoice/

And it works like a charm. Unfortunately, although the buttons on the Dual Shock are analog, XP didn't recognize them that way. But, still, it's a lightweight, palm-sized controller with four axes and something like 16 buttons Smile

And PS2 controllers come in wireless varieties too! I can see it hanging from a mic stand already...

Now I just need to find a use for it...