ah ok. i’d be curious to discuss details of what doesn’t jive privately. pspseq -at- dspmusic -dot- org if you’re willing. this is my first attempt at a UI of any kind. by virtue of the fact that i wrote the program, i find it easy and fast to use, but i’m definitely not in the best person to judge! :)

The aleatoric comment was aimed at the origins of PSPSeq, with your chiclet hardware. I wasn’t dismissing it as a random pattern generator. Sorry if my wording was vague (as it usually is). I like the trigger chance settings, they are very useful.

no worries, just wanted to make sure it’s known that PSPSeq can be used as a ‘normal’ sequencer quite easily. in fact, the default trigger percentage when entering hits is 100%, so unless you actively decide to use the probabilistic capabilities, you won’t ever run into them.

that sounds about right; i’m getting around 13-16 voices on PSPSeq and the main CPUs (333MHz MIPS R4000 vs 312 Xscale) are roughly the same.

i’d like to port PSPSeq to a few platforms; sounds like palm might have to be one of them…

It’s the interface alone that needs work. Maybe it’s me. Sonar for some, Cubase for other; a wok for some, a flat grill for others. The software is very good, and and allows for very creative work. I just don’t jive with the interface.

The aleatoric comment was aimed at the origins of PSPSeq, with your chiclet hardware. I wasn’t dismissing it as a random pattern generator. Sorry if my wording was vague (as it usually is). I like the trigger chance settings, they are very useful.

Even more reason for me to finally buy a GP2X.

Polyphony depends from the processing power of your Palm. My Zire 72s (purchased for 120 € on eBay) delivers 16 voices. Maybe there are 2 or 3 more voices possible but then the ui will became unusable slow.

Steve
Well, I think both Sony and Nintendo are going to be mostly dead-ends for homebrew stuff, mainly because it will profit them very little in the long run.

honestly i agree with this. this is a business for both of them and don’t need to cater to us. that said, i still believe that -right now- it’s good to use the tools avaialble and do with it what you can, especially when they are as powerful as a PSP. if PSP homebrew becomes too painful, i’ll probably move over to the GP2X.

Thomas
PSP is not really attractive for music stuff. Because of his touch screen the DS could do those jobs better.

i think DS is perhaps more compelling for live performance because of the touchpad/native non-linear interface, but in terms of processing power i don’t think it can compete with the PSP. for composition the PSP is quite nice. plus its LCD is phenominal and i believe it has more pixels on its one screen than both DS screens combined. i don’t think the ability to display as much data as possible can be underestimated.

If you want a really mobile music device go for a Palm with Bhajis Loops and you got a really flexible sample based virtual studio for few bucks.

hey that looks pretty good! it has a lot of features i’d like to include in PSPSeq. how’s the polyphony? i would guess the PSP is faster and has more predictable performance, but i really don’t know.

The Cody
PSPSeq is a neat idea right now. It still has a while on it development yet before it gets to a point where it’s a viable composition software. PSPSeq comes from a aleatoric composition style; every step has a percent chance of triggering. Honestly, for music on the PSP, I still use a GB emulator and LSDj.

what’s missing to make it a viable composition program? have you tried the latest version yet? it’s actually wrong to dismiss PSPSeq as primarily aleatoric; you can set the percentages to 100%. where’s your aleaticness now??? ;)

using the probabilistic sequencing (the term i use) is quite useful for writing non-repeating drum patterns where you make the main hits 100% and then the little fills and inbetween spots something less than that. it’s more of a carryover shortcut from when i was coding all my music in assembly language, but i think it has some value within the PSPSeq GUI. if it means you can avoid constantly rewriting a couple tracks to keep a loop interesting, then it’s done its job. computationally, it’s for all intents and purposes, free.

PD, Pure Data (a free software similar to MAX, and made by MAX’s original author), has also been ported to the GP2X.

now -that’s- something i need to check out!

I’m intrigued by GP2X, as well. Too bad it doesn’t have a more interesting interface, a la the DS stylus (unless I’ve missed something and that’s possible in future).

The GP2X is for more interesting for music. LGPT, the piggy, has it’s own 8 internal channels and 16 midi channels. When they get the EXT -> Serial Midi, or EXT -> USB Midi Interface, I will purchase a GP2X. PD, Pure Data (a free software similar to MAX, and made by MAX’s original author), has also been ported to the GP2X. These has been talk of using PD as a plugin of sorts to LGPT.

That said, the reason people like these ideas (aside from sheer novelty) is that the mass-market devices are always going to be cheaper, a lot of us own them already, and some people actually like the multitasking of devices as game systems or PDAs. There are also people who like the unique game system inputs, the sylus, and even the PSP game pad.

I do think there should be a market for both. The one thing you haven’t mentioned is the Linux angle, which should make it possible for people to customize a device for their needs and get just the kind of solution I think you may be imagining.