Ready to make your Ableton Live pattern programming a bit more polyrhythmic with the power of math?

In Monday’s reflections and round-up of cycles and circles, I mentioned Euclidean evenness and Godfried Toussaint’s research. The basic idea is that a mathematical algorithm for spacing pulses has a lot in common with traditional preferences for polyrhythms spanning everything from rock hits to conga patterns and musical cultures around the world.

Reader Tony Wheeler has turned those patterns into MIDI clips so you can drop patterns into Ableton Live. Drum patterns and dance music are obvious applications, but this could be an idea starter for melodic patterns or music in a variety of idioms.

Each individual pattern will sound like an isolated cycle; it’s often when you put them together that they’re most compelling. Here’s an example; Tony added a regular bass drum just to make things more grounded (it actually calls attention to the asymmetry of the other patterns).

ScaledKit by wheelmaker

Tony has another terrific tool for Ableton Live that generates the AMS files used by Operator to tune oscillators to alternative pitches, as we covered previously:
Free Utility Makes Endless Oscillators for Ableton Live Simpler, Sampler
Direct link: AMS File Utility for Ableton Live

And for harmonic experimentation, see the Circle of Fifths Chord Resource:
Circle of Fifths Chord Resource in Ableton Live

This is all fairly academic stuff, but the funny thing about it is there’s nothing stopping you from making either a dance music hit or some experimental new kind of music that doesn’t sound like it came from Ableton.

Alternative tunings for Operator oscillators and Euclidean polyrhythms? There are many tools aside from Ableton that will work, too, but whatever your tool, this could be a great way to jump-start a musical idea. Airport layover, meet musical productivity.

Updated: Another great way to go is the Eckel VST plug-in, also donationware. It works on Mac (Universal) and Windows, and since you can dial up parameters, may be easier to use than the MIDI clips, depending on your workflow – especially since you can still choose pitch. (Or, hey, grab both!) Thanks to John Larsby for the reminder:
Shuriken.se: VST – Eckel

For Dr. Toussaint’s part, you can glance over his syllabus on Discrete Mathematics — and find a reference to Tony’s Ableton experiments.

Grab the download and read more on this topic (free, donations welcome):
Euclidean Rhythm MIDI File Resource in Ableton Live [Age of the Wheel]

DIY lovers and drum machine nuts alike should be very excited by what our friend Wesen has been up to lately. Working on his projects MidiCommand and MonoJoystick, two hackable boutique music hardware gadgets for MIDI control and joystick manipulation of MachineDrum, respectively, he’s built a powerful MIDI library integrated with the Arduino development environment.

Say what?

Well, it means three things, basically:

1. There’s an evolving library of MIDI goodness with the friendliness of the Arduino, but built to do things you need to do in the real world (as tested by Wesen’s hardware and musical needs)!

2. We have drum machines doing fantastic, tasty polyrhythms.

3. The MidiCommand MonoJoystick are going to seriously rock.

Library feature set in a nutshell – and why I’m so excited:

• MIDI I/O via MIDI connectors or USB
• Display to a “GUI” (read: a screen for your DIY project)
• Tools built right into the library for MIDI sequencing, scaling, mapping, functions, LFOs … wow.
• Works with MachineDrums
• Tight MIDI Clock and sync – meaning you could build a DIY project and use it as a clock source for your software rig, if you like
• External storage

Even if that means nothing to you in that you don’t have time to build your own project, this means you could benefit from kits and boutique gear that take advantage of these functions – like the brilliant hardware Wesen himself is working on. And if you have dreamed of building your own gear like this, you’ll have some powerful new tools (including hacking the Ruin & Wesen gear, leaving them to sort out the tough part sourcing and hardware design issues).

Wesen is sharing all his code, so I could imagine this evolving into something very useful for other projects. As it happens, I’ve also been watching an evolving perfect storm of fantastic, open music hardware – more on that in the coming months of 2009. (For starters, how about this evolving step sequencer?) If these projects can mature and begin to converge, I think we could see a real revolution in the gear we use for noisemaking and control, not only for DIY nerds who love the smell of solder fumes (guilty), but novices, as well.

My New Years’ Resolution: make all this as accessible to y’all as possible, regardless of your knowledge level (which means catering both to those of you who are brand new to this, as well as those of you who know way, way more than I do so you’re at least hooked up with the awesomeness).

A peek into MidiDuino with some code samples

More MidiDuino with juicier details