ParamDrum TR Edition from Peter Dines on Vimeo.

Imagine a machine that lets you walk a thin line between control and chaos. You’ll be tweaking it, for sure – you’ll want to invest a sufficient amount of time shaping its sounds and adjusting its instruments to alter its flightpath. But once set in motion, it will give you variety and delicious insanity.

That’s the idea behind Peter Dines’ ParamDrum, a Reaktor drum machine with granular goodies inside providing sample manipulation and a set of clear sequenced controls for adjusting parameters. The “Param” bit refers to the parameters you’ll control – pitch + sample select + speed + size (of the sample) + smooth (granular) + swing. These parameters are unleashed against a sequence that you’ll likely never fully control – but that will never feel like it’s simply on autopilot, either. You can then load your samples into three players, which can be conceived as bass + clap/tom/snare + hat or something else entirely.

It may sound out of control, but “control” in the MIDI sense is essential. You can control step probability with MIDI velocity, tap in sequences with MIDI notes, and record playable automation with MIDI CCs from your hardware encoders. Pete has worked out a lovely template for Native Instruments’ Maschine controller, for instance.

ParamDrum, then, becomes a factory for variations. It allows you to iterate through plenty of results you don’t like to the one that’s perfect, for production or performance.

ParamDrum is a cheap US$12.50, though you do need a copy of Reaktor 5 (also included in Komplete) to use it. The upside is, it’s editable, and you get Pete’s immaculately well-organized patch macros, so it’s something you can modify easily or use as a model for your own patches.

Full details on Pete’s noisepages page, Modulations, which is also a new repository for his thoughts on sound design, Reaktor patching, SuperCollider learning, and other music technological geekery.

ParamDrum
modulations@noisepages

Planet ParamDrum

The other cool thing about ParamDrum in our throwaway technological world is that it’s already started to attract a little community of users.

Loopy C, master of strange sounds, has turned ParamDrum into his personal “hyperdrummer” for a track called Jah Frazzin Zooks, which he describes in a kind of experimental abstract poetry:

‘Frippish’, vari-tempo spectralisms meet Ornette Coleman-influenced electronica, hyperperformance machines jamming in the cafe at the end of the Universe (which for some reason look like fractal vaginas? (above)). Duo form.

The full track can be heard at his blog:
Jah Frazzin Zooks

Brettwiththedobro has a screencast (above) showing his own rig, with custom samples and the combination of Kore and Reaktor for control. (If you’re interested in the Kore and Reaktor combination, Pete’s previeous video tutorial is a great place to start.

This is a screen capture of Peter Dines Reaktor ensemble ParamDrum. I replaced the samples with my own kitchen/dobro sample map and hooked it into Kore to control various parameters. Fun, weird loops are a cinch.

Pete is also working with me on OpenSoundControl implementation in ParamDrum, which could enable cross-country ParamDrum collaboration, and via a project I’m building, visualization of parameters in Processing. Stay tuned.

Performance with Cubie from sadmb on Vimeo.

Music sequencing as a Rubik’s Cube-style game, or hypnotic, kinetic rotating wheels – your piano roll won’t know what hit it. New musical art is set to be performed in Argentina, but you can download both tools, free.

Computer interfaces for music date back decades now, but with ingrained notions of hardware sound sequencers, linear media like tape, and hundreds of years of notation in staves and bars, old habits can be hard to kick. Yet it seems that suddenly, a younger generation of audiovisual composers is exploding notions of how musical interface and sequence could work, fully embracing a virtual space in which they themselves have come of age.

Next month’s spectacular-looking 404 Festival could make anyone want to book a flight to Argentina. Two highlighted artists from this festival for me really embody the possibilities of new sequencing metaphors. Both are built in Java.

At top, Cubie by Sadam Fujioka of Japan is free, downloadable software that combines audiovisual performance and game in a rotating cube.

Cubie is a software instrument which provides innovative idea of musical performance, differs from existing musical performance system such as musical notation, DJ systems, DAW systems, etc… It has a novel concept incorporating a new interactive technique based on puzzle games. Music is represented from highly saturated colored letters on a 3D cube. Almost unlimited number of melodies and rhythms can be created from a combination of those letters, and it can be changed on real-time by operations based on puzzle game. Those playful operations push a performer to play repeatedly and get the skill of performing with Cubie. Cubie is free software and you can play just like sadmb do.

More information in both Japanese and English at sadmb site (with lots of other software, as well). Built in Java with the use of JSyn for synthesis.

http://sadmb.com/

If these cubes feel overly rigid to you, though, and you don’t like the mechanical repetition of these lines, enter the crazy, spinning world of Hiroshi Matoba.

Hiroshi Matoba: OVERBUG from antjeverena on Vimeo.

Overbug is a music-performance tool designed to compose Minimal and Dance Music.

Through looping and newly arranging sound patterns, called ‘Bugsounds’, the program creates complex, polyrhythmic sounds. Overbug differs from conventional linear controlled music sequencers, which arrange the sound into a linear timeline from left to right. In Overbug the sound arrangement of the repeating music loops is equal to the visual abstraction of circular actions which built the interface through circles.

I showed a very early sketch I was working on last year of a circle-based sequencer, also built in Processing, though (cough) my chops are nowhere near Hiroshi’s. I was more interested in using the circles to subdivide cycles, as in Indonesian music. Seeing this piece is a major kick in my pants to try to work on my project a bit more and go a different direction.

Here’s a demo video explaining how this works:

More information + free download (just updated this month):
http://www.dominofactory.net/Overbug/

If You’re in Argentina

Don’t miss a terrific-looking exhibition of Japanese works and the rest of the
http://www.404festival.com/
(info in Spanish + English)

These two works clearly belonged together, but I feel bad for not featuring any Latin American (or Argentinian, specifically) work — those of you associated with 404, if you’ve got hot tips, send them in.

The tireless developers behind the modern tracker Renoise announced a new beta on Tuesday. While the devs themselves are calling this a “maintenance and improvements release”, they’ve introduced enough bug fixes, new features and workflow improvements, along with multiprocessor support, that any other company would have slapped a new major version number on the top and called it a day.

Here’s a short list of the changes:

• Multiprocessor support
• Much-improved preset handing for internal FX devices, including user presets & A/B preset compare buttons
• MIDI driver improvements: support for WDM drivers and improved timing on MME drivers
• Improved MIDI Clock Slave support, with more live jamming-friendly features
• MIDI device sharing on Windows
• MIDI hot-plug support on OS X
• Automate-able states of internal devices
• A whole host of new internal FX types: Bus Compressor, Maximizer, Chorus, Distortion 2, Gate 2
• Also adds a new “Velocity Device”, which lets you automate other FX parameters via the (MIDI) velocity of live played or recorded notes.
• Many improvements to the LFO device, including user-drawn waveforms
• Various improvements to other internal devices, including the EQs, Gainer, Delay, Flanger, mpReverb (now v2), Phaser, Compressor, etc.
• Added beat, 09 effect, ms and sample rulers to the sample editor. For working with sample offsets using the 09 effect, this is a godsend.
• NNAs adustable now per sample, rather than on entire instruments

The full list with more detailed descriptions is available here: http://www.renoise.com/board/index.php?showtopic=13301

Quite the list for a humble point release.

While Renoise might not appeal to you as a sequencing solution (I myself have pretty much stopped using Ableton Live and now do everything with either Renoise, Five 12’s Numerology or my trusty MPC), you have to respect their responsiveness to their users. This is a company that actually listens to its users and works at near light-speed to fix outstanding bugs.

For those of you who have never worked with a tracker before, don’t be mistaken: Renoise is not a toy, but rather a serious tool for music (noted users include Venetian Snares and virtually the rest of the breakcore community). Given its 49.99 Euro pricetag, I’d say it’s the best bang-for-buck sequencer on the market.

Ed.: I’m eagerly awaiting ReWire support and/or ability to run as a plug-in, to make it easier to integrate this app with others (though it does support plug-ins). But this looks otherwise terrific. Let us know if you’re using it, or if you give it a try.

As seen in the video from last month’s Music Makers event, LittleGPTracker is a tracker for Linux-based GP2X and GP32 systems. The GP-series boxes are terrific little game machines that, unlike proprietary commercial game systems from Sony and Nintendo, are completely open. (Well, even if there is a certain pleasure to hacking PSPs, Game Boys, and DS machines to play homebrew anyway.)

LittleGPTracker’s interface is modeled after LSDJ, the cult favorite tracker for Game Boys. That interface can be archaic at first if you’ve never seen trackers, but with adjustment, many swear by its unique approach to structuring patterns — it can push users in less linear directions than more conventional sequencer interfaces.

Because the GP isn’t a Game Boy, though, you get some major extras. There’s sample playback, in the form of 8 monophonic 16Bit/44.1Khz stereo sample playback channels. And you can drive external hardware (or even computers) using MIDI.

If you want to try out LGPT before you buy a GP, or if you want some tracker action at your desk as well as on the go, you’re in luck. There’s a desktop version available for Windows, and now even one entering testing on Mac; Linux might follow. Of course, you get made fun of by the developer for running the Windows and Mac releases instead of the mobile versions.

LittleGPTracker Home
LGPT on the GP2x Wiki