links for 2009-09-09
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Episode 20090907-0913 Excellent downtempo dark grooves Part 1 is very Chill, with Part 2 getting out there quite a bit.
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Make your own dry erase board, out of any board/wall
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Some people are using this for the APC40
Weekend/APC40
So I played a show this weekend at the Hexagon, for More or Less’ Labor Day cookout extravaganza on Sunday. I’ll post some pics when I get them uploaded.
Saturday I picked up an APC40 Guitar Center was having a good labor day sale, it was a somewhat impulse buy. I’d been turning over the idea of picking one up for a while, but when I had the opportunity to take $50 off I was all for it. This device is really nice, what makes it nicer are the efforts that some have made to create a way for it transmit OSC to use with Max/MSP and other patches.
Currently I’ve used 64step (which I attempted to use for a live jam on Sunday), and MLR. Today I got the Reaktor patches created by kid Sputnik to work. This excites me because I’d like to figure out how to just use midi in Reaktor so I have access to all the knobs. Stay tuned.
links for 2009-09-05
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This looks pretty in depth, haven't tried it out yet.
Inspiring tools
My recent digs into the Reaktor user library inspired some new tool design for Ableton Live’s Racks. Last night I wanted to create some glitchy drum patterns, there are a plethora of tools for such in Reaktor, but I felt creative. I made a new rack that creates random drum hits from velocities, with a selectable glitch chain after it. When I replace the samples in it with my own I’ll put it up here. It creates very interesting glitchy hat like patterns but it could be used with any sound type.
I first started making this tool with another program, I was using the patching environment VVVV to create a random CC generator, but either my virtual midi wires were crossed or it was spitting out too many value messages because it was not communicating with the knob it was assigned to very well (it was assigned to the Chain Selector). Finally I decided to use the velocity plugin, in a random mode, and put the drum hits at different velocities. Then I use a velocity plugin after the randomization phase to put back a little oomph.
The exercise was quite fun, but it exposed some weaknesses in my ability to patch useful tools. I need to work on this.
links for 2009-09-03
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Hadn't seen this one, giving it a go now
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interesting forum I hadn't seen before, will be worth a scan later I think.
Another night plumbing the depths..
of the Reaktor library. Some super super gemstones found.
Need to make a massive update where I post the ones I like.
links for 2009-09-02
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Seeedstudio arduinome parts list.
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hawt atari posters
Futurist Manifestos of Art and Music
So I was googling for “intonarumori” a term I wasn’t familiar with, in relation to a reaktor ensemble that Richard Devine recommended on his twitter feed (“IntonaruMori v v1.1″ by Rick Scott).
I found this interesting site with a collection of Futurist manifestos. Here’s are some excerpts:
From “The Art of Noises” by Luigi Russolo:
- Futurist musicians must continually enlarge and enrich the field of sounds. This corresponds to a need in our sensibility. We note, in fact, in the composers of genius, a tendency towards the most complicated dissonances. As these move further and further away from pure sound, they almost achieve noise-sound. This need and this tendency cannot be satisfied except by the adding and the substitution of noises for sounds.
- Futurist musicians must substitute for the limited variety of tones posessed by orchestral instruments today the infinite variety of tones of noises, reproduced with appropriate mechanisms.
- The musician’s sensibility, liberated from facile and traditional Rhythm, must find in noises the means of extension and renewal, given that every noise offers the union of the most diverse rhythms apart from the predominant one.
- Since every noise contains a predominant general tone in its irregular vibrations it will be easy to obtain in the construction of instruments which imitate them a sufficiently extended variety of tones, semitones, and quarter-tones. This variety of tones will not remove the characteristic tone from each noise, but will amplify only its texture or extension.
I found these manifestos fascinating, unfortunately they seem to be written primarily by fascists. 
links for 2009-09-01
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Some very cool looking Reaktor ensembles