All of my previous projects have come to a dramatic halt these days while I spend more time educating myself with some real programming skills.

Not having a lot to show for the past couple months, I thought I’d simply share my opinions on some of what I believe are the best book/tutorials available for those looking to dive headfirst into computer programming, creative code, and/or interactive media installations.

First off, the book that is essentially responsible for allowing me to think that I have any business whatsoever writing any kind of code:

Learning Processing by Dan Shifman

All of the information in this book is so clearly laid out. For those who aren’t familiar with a programming language yet, this is probably the best resource to get you started. Even though the book is specific to Processing, for beginners it provides a very solid background in the most important aspects of the writing code, minus the hassle of learning lower-level languages.

I should mention that most of the books available on Processing are worth the read, however Learning Processing seems to be especially geared to explaining programming to beginners.

Currently, I am working my way through:

Programming Interactivity

Programming Interactivity is a book meant for designers not computer programmers. It’s focus is more concerned with seeing your interactive design ideas come to life rather than being a crash course in oF, Arduino, and Processing. I enjoy how the author presents some theoretical ideas on the theme of each chapter before getting into the nuts and bolts of the associated code, as well as some transcripts of interviews with some creative code pioneers.

If you have previously read, and fully internalized, Learning processing, most of the Processing Examples will seems like review, however, this comes in pretty handy when looking at the oF and Processing code side by side.

Sometimes reading a long explanation of what one line of code accomplishes seems exhausting. I found it much easier to grasp the oF syntax through looking at an example of the same program written in Processing first.

I must point out here that I am aware of many major difference between the two languages and this type of side by side comparison is not always possible, or even the best way of understanding what is going on. Maybe it is just my weird learning style, but when possible, I found reading the processing code first, then looking at the some program in oF was the quickest way for me to grasp what was going on.

Before Reading

If you plan on reading and following the examples in Programming Interactivity, do go ahead and bookmark the errata page. There are more than a few mistakes, which is really the only criticism that I have for this book. If you are completely new to programming in general, as I am, it also is worth your time to look at some basic tutorials on oF as a supplement to the book itself. Particularly, one by Zach Gage, who has created some of my favorite iPhone apps.

For graphical programming languages,

such as PD and Cycling 74′s Max/MSP/Jitter, I would recommend looking at the tutorials that come bundled with the software itself first before moving on to any other resources.

I’ve had much more experience working with Max/Msp than PD, and on this blog I have often linked to one of my favorite Max/MSP resources, a set of tutorials by Peter Elsea which has helped and inspired me quite a bit. These tutorials were written for Max4 and are starting to look a bit dated, but the amount of knowledge they contain makes them well worth the read.

The Cycling 74 website also has an amazing tutorials section, which relatively recently got a nice makeover. I would highly recommend checking out the series of tutorials by Gregory Taylor on using LFOs as midi pitch generators. Once your finished with those, check out my versions of his patches, and then go create something awesome of your own!

Learning how to put Pure Data to better use has been a task that I can’t seem to pull of the back burner. There are a few good reasons for using PD as opposed to Max/MSP. Other than it being free, a knowledge of PD will allow you build RJDJ scenes, which was what made me decide to finally give it a try.

Other than the documentation you can find on the PD website I would also recommend a book by Andy Farnell called:

Designing Sound

The sample chapters that you can view for free should give you plenty to work with, and even though the book deals mostly with PD, the concepts involved will help anybody interested in computer audio. There is even a wiki page dedicated to re-creating the examples from his book in SuperCollider.

iPhone Resouces

I’ve posted quite a bit of projects on this blog using Max/Msp and TouchOSC as a way of creating nice looking iPhone interfaces for a variety of purposes. This is a pretty good solution because it frees me from having to learn Objective-C and creating my own UI interface, but it also leaves many things to be desired.

• Max/Msp is expensive and many people prefer PD, SuperCollider, or other programs
• Not everyone wants to run a program in the background just connect route the TouchOSC messages properly
• Native Apps are always more desirable

As a result I’ve begun to look into iPhone programming and so far there’s been a few good resources that I’ve found. There is a great new site on the Envato network, MobileTuts+, which also has some tutorials on Android devices as well. AudioTuts+ is my favorite and highly recommended so I am expecting a lot from this new site. I haven’t gotten too far with Objective-C so far, but I recently got a copy of Learning iPhone Game Programming: A Hands-On Guide to Building Your First iPhone Game (Developer’s Library), which has been a good introduction. It’s a little off subject since it deals with developing games for the iPhone, but its simple approach has been quite informative for me, and fun.

Feedback Please

That’s about everything that has been keeping me awake nights recently. If there are any other great books or tutorial resources that you feel should be mentioned, then please leave a comment. I hope that everyone can find something new here to keep them busy and learning new things.

maxBreakwell.com - Music, Sound Design, and Multimedia Art Experiments

After too long a delay I finally finished my first version of a TouchOSC based transport for Ardour. One of the most difficult aspects of this project was the sheer number of Ardour’s functions that can be controlled via OSC. Deciding what to incorporate into the layout and what to leave out took hours of consideration and experimentation. I tried to keep everything as streamlined as possible only using using functions in my layout that I thought would be of the most use.

As I discussed in my previous post, you will need to run Max5 patch in the background to allow better communication between TouchOSC and Ardour. Please go ahead and download the .zip file which contains the TouchOSC layout, .maxpat file, and a .mxf file as well.  Even if you don’t own Max/Msp/Jitter, the patch should work fine using the Max/Msp runtime version, which is free to download.

First, run the Max5 patch and you’ll see a very boring screen that looks like this:

Like the window says, there isn’t much to do other than to just run it in the background and have fun, but there are a few things to be aware of. Make sure TouchOSC is using the correct ports. You can change them in the patch window or on your iPhone/iPod Touch. If you are using your home’s wifi internet connection you probably won’t have to change the Ardour IP adress or the iPhone IP address, but if you setup a direct network between your computer and iPhone then you will have to change these addresses in the patch window.

The labels on the TouchOSC layout should be fairly self-explanatory, but I’ll show a picture here of each page and briefly describe what everything does.

Page 1 (displayed above)

Play — Toggles the play button

Loop — Toggles the Loop button for playback and recording

Rec — Toggles the transport Record button (In order to actually record to a track, that track must also be record enabled)

Red Fader — This will control level of whatever track is listed first in the editor view

Add mark — This will add a mark at the location off the playhead

Prev. Mark & Next Mark — Moves the playhead to the previous or next mark

Stop — Stops playback and recording

Start & End — Moves the playhead to the Start or End marker

RW — Rewinds Track

FF — Fast Forwards Track

Red Dial — Scrubbing

Save, Undo, & Redo — Saves file, undoes the last action, redoes the last undo

Page 2

Punch In – Toggles the ability to use a Punch In marker while recording

Punch Out — Toggles the ability to use a punch Punch Out marker while recording

Nudge — These two buttons will nudge the playhead back or forward by the amount of time selected in the Snap Mode section of the transport. I believe the default amount of time is 5 seconds

Snap Modes – Scroll through the options: Grid, No Grid, or Magnetic

Snap Choice — Scroll through the various grid subdivision options: CD Frames, SMPTE frames, SMPTE seconds, SMPTE mintues, seconds, mintues, Beats/32, Beats/16, Beats/8, Beats/4, Beats/3, Beats, Bars, Marks, Region Starts, Region Ends, Region Syncs, Region Bounds

Edit Point — Scrolls through the options: playhead, marker, mouse

Toggle Visual State — You can use this multitoggle to save up to 12 unique grid views. With one of the toggles in the “on” position press the Save State button and the current visual state will be saved on that toggle button. You can then switch between saved visual states easily in your project.

Global Record — This button record enables all of the tracks. It would be nice if pressing it again would disable all of them as well, but unfortunately that not how this OSC command works with Ardour. What you see is what you get with this one.

Page 3

This page allows you to control the zooming parameters of your project. The purple focus buttons modify what Ardour will in zoom on. For example, pressing the mouse button, then repeatedly pressing the green In button would zoom closer in on the location of the mouse cursor.

In — Zooms In

Out – Zooms Out

Session — Sets the zoom so that the entire session can be viewed in the editor window

Region — Sets the zoom so that the selected region can be viewed in the editor window

RegionXY — *Use with caution* Sets the zoom so that the selected region fills the entirety of the editor window. The dangerous part is that I haven’t found and effective method of getting the screen back to normal. Pressing the Session or Region buttons won’t do the trick, but if you have saved a visual state you can get back by using the appropriate multitoggle button.

*I recommend using the 1st visual state to save the session view. This way you can use the RegionXY function and still get back to normal.*

Toggle – Toggles between the current and previous visual state

Center – Centers the playhead in the editor window

Playhead – Sets the Zoom Focus to the location of the playhead

Mouse – Sets the Zoom Focus to the location of the mouse cursor

Edit – Sets the Zoom Focus to the edit location

Page 4

Set Loop Edit Range – Sets the loop points to the area selected in the editor window

Set Loop Region – Sets the loop points to the region selected in the editor window

Set Punch Edit Range – Sets the Punch In/Punch Out markers to the area selected in the editor window

Set Punch Region – Sets the Punch In/Punch Out markers to the region selected in the editor window

Two Green Play Buttons – These buttons are a little confusing, and sometimes a little unreliable, but I still found them very useful. The top button will play from the mouse cursor position to the end marker, and then, move the playhead back to a selected edit point. The bottom button will play from the mouse cursor position to a selected edit point, or, from the selected edit point to the mouse cursor position. Understand? Just try it out while your editing some files. I found that it helped me out quite a bit.

Split – Splits a region file at the edit location

Crop – Crops a region to the selected area in the editor window

Raise – Raises the region above any other regions that may be overlapping on the same track

Lower – Lowers the region beneath any other regions that may be on the same track

Export – Opens the options menu for exporting the selected region

Naturalize – Moves the Region back to its original position

Normalize – Increases the amplitude of the region to its highest level before distortion occurs

Reverse – Reverses the region’s audio file

That’s about it everything. I did my best to create this layout with only the most useful commands, grouped together by page depending on what functions I though might be used together the most.

After using this layout last night for a few hours I felt good about my creation, but I do believe that I would like to make some adjustments and upgrades along the way. If there is anything that you feel is particularly good, or awkward about this TouchOSC layout, let me know and I’ll take everything into consideration for the next version I get around to making.

Until then, I hope that everyone enjoys using Ardour and TouchOSC together while editing and recording music!

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Ardour is a very inexpensive open source DAW software that runs on Mac OS and Linux though the use of the Jack Audio Connections Kit. It is essentially free, however a small donation will give Mac users the ability to save AU settings with a project. In addition to it being open source, many of its functions can also be controlled through OSC.

Considering the high price tag on most DAW software I was a little skeptical of the stability and usefulness of something that was basically being given away for free. No rewire support and its dependency on Jack also made me wonder if it was worth the time exploring.

After using Ardour for a few weeks I have to say I was wrong to ever doubt it. I have found it to be a very stable program that is fully capable for most applications, and the use of Jack to route audio has worked flawlessly on my MacBook Pro so far. In fact, being free from the constraints of what is rewire-able has actually opened up some creative possibilities that I though wouldn’t have been possible before.

TouchOSC Transport

Many of Ardour’s functions can be controlled through OSC. There is an article on the SuperCollider wiki that will give you the most basic commands, but by downloading and viewing the source code I was able to find many more features that can be controlled.

Because Ardour supports recieving OSC commands, I was hoping that I would be able to have my iPod running TouchOSC communicate directly with Ardour, without using any other software such as Max/MSP, PD, or OSCulator, as a sort of middle-man to format the data correctly. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

Ardour wants to recieve an OSC message that looks like this:

/ardour/transport_play

However TouchOSC always sends a number after the command signaling either and on or off state:

/ardour/transport_play 1

Because of this I’ve been working on putting together a simple Max5 patch that will re-format all the TouchOSC messages to the proper syntax that Ardour is expecting, which is probably all for the best since there are some other parameters that need a little customizing as well.

I am planning the TouchOSC layout to be 4 pages. The first two shown below are mostly transport functions. The next two will feature zooming, track selection, and individual track functions.

Ardour, Jack, and Max/Msp

Max for Live has been getting tons of attention these days, but all together it can be a rather costly bundle of products depending on what you already own. Jack makes it very simple to route audio from an Ardour track, to Max, and back through the Ardour master fader.

The documentation that comes with Jack explains very thoroughly the basics of routing audio around your computer. There is also a Jack plug-in that provides even more routing flexibility, but I can never get the plug-in to work properly with Ardour. It does however work with Max5. I’m not sure if this is a bug in Ardour, Jack, or just something about the way my computer is set up.

I remember having lots problems a couple years ago trying to perform similar operations with Cycling 74′s Soundflower. Jack takes a little time to set up properly, and depending on the variety of your projects you might need to create several different routings, but it seems to work rather well.

This might not provide you with all the same bells and whistles of Max for Live, but it does give you the same basic functionality. Also, in the spirit of free software I should point out that this works equally as well with PD, a similar program to Max/MSP that is free, or any other program you might want to use.

Potential Drawbacks

There are a few things to be aware of with Ardour.

There is no Rewire or VST support. The developers of Ardour point out that the reason for this is that legally these technologies cannot be used in open source software.

However, if you are computer savvy enough, and don’t mind compiling the program yourself, apparently there is a way to include the ability to use VST plug-ins. This hasn’t been too much of a problem for me since Ardour does support the AU format and most of the plug-ins I like and use work just fine as an AU plug-in.

Even though Jack can route audio in between applications like rewire, what it doesn’t do is sync one applications transport to the other. Syncing feels a bit hackish at the moment, but Ardour does support using MMC and MTC, so there are options. QJackctl is an alternative GUI for Jack that has a transport feature that in theory you can use to sync applications. I haven’t tried it yet so I can’t say how well that works.

A cheap professional grade DAW

In these tough economic times, when the price of creative software soars high above what most people can afford to pay for it, and software piracy is essentially common place for anyone looking to get ahead in the digital media world, I am surprised that more attention hasn’t been given to this amazing product.

Though this does seems to be changing. Just minutes after I started writing this post I noticed a new article about Ardour with some great videos on audiojungle. Whether your needs are simple, or complex, I think Ardour is an amazing and affordable option.

If you are excited about me finishing the TouchOSC transport layouts and accompanying .maxpat, leave me an inspiring comment to help speed up the process.

If you would rather have the accompanying patch be in PD format, please let me know.

maxBreakwell.com - Music, Sound Design, and Multimedia Art Experiments

After my previous post, Jitter Kaleidoscope and other Cool Effects, I decided to spend some more time with the Peter Elsea Tutorials and see how else I could mashup my photos. His tutorials on the [jit.repos] object gave me a lot to work with, and for those who are more mathematically inclined, I’m sure these simple examples could be taken much further.

Photo Mashups with Jitter

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During what free time I have, I usually devote my energy to music, or all things audible for that matter, but recently I have begun experimenting with creating visual effects as well.

Original Image

Kaleidoscope Effect

Original Image

TrigWave Effect

Original Image

Warp Effect

Original Image

Kaleidoscope Effect

Original Image

Mirror Effect

Original Image

TrigWave Effect

Original Image

Spiral Effect

Original Image

TrigWave Effect

Fireworks Jitter Effects

For more amazing Kaleidoscope Images please check out Evgeny Kiselev’s flash experiments on CreativeApplications.net.

maxBreakwell.com - Music, Sound Design, and Multimedia Art Experiments

Now that the TouchOSC editor has arrived the first thing I did was sit down and create a more appropriate layout for the drawbar control application I made for my Nord Electro 2.

Download the .maxpat version here.

or the Runtime version here.

You can view the original post here if you want.

What’s New?

As you can see in the picture, the layout now has 9 faders to match each of the Nord Electro Drawbars. I also inverted the direction of the sliders to match the direction of the Drawbar LEDs.

There are two pages, the first page (green) controls the upper drawbars, and the second page (red) controls the lower drawbars. The custom GUI now makes it less confusing with no funny workarounds for only having 8 faders.

Setup

In order to setup everything properly you will need to have both the MIDI-IN and MIDI-OUT of the Nord Electro connected to your computer. You will also have to configure the settings for the TouchOSC application to talk to your computer over a network. TouchOSC comes with excellent instructions on how to do this. After that, open up the patch that I made and configure the settings there and you should be up and running.

When you run the patch you will see a screen that looks like this.

* First, look on the Network page of the TouchOSC application and put the number from the Local IP address box into the iPhone ip box on my patch.
* Insert the Port(outgoing) number into the recieving port box in my patch, and the Port(incoming) number into the sending port box.
* Then, double click midiin and select the name of whatever device you are using to connect your Nord Electro to your computer.
* Do the same with midiout as well, and that should be it.

There is also some basic midi information that is displayed, however I spent absolutely no time on how this application looks since it mainly functions as the “glue” that holds everything together. The real fun is in using TouchOSC to control the drawbar settings.

Also, I could not figure out how to make the settings on TouchOSC change automatically when I switched from one program setting to the next. For instance, If you switch from program C8 to C7 you need to do a quick MIDI “dump” so that TouchOSC can display your current drawbar settings.

It sounds a little complicated, but it’s pretty easy. Press SHIFT + LEFT OCTAVE SHIFT (DUMP), make sure that the Nord Display says ‘Ct’, and hit the red store button. You will see the TouchOSC application update itself with your drawbar settings. Once you have set the type of MIDI dump that you want to ‘Ct’ it will remain that way when you access the function again. This makes it easy to hit SHIFT-DUMP-STORE really quickly when you want to change programs.

Electro 3 Users

I created this to work with my Electro 2, but according to the Electro 3 manual the MIDI Control numbers for the LED drawbars are the same as the Electro 2. Technically, this means that everything should work the same on an Electro 3, but I haven’t tested it on an Electro 3.

Feedback

Get TouchOSC Here

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After hearing some subtle yet effective use of the wah-wah pedal on Yusef Lateef’s album, Yusef Lateef’s Detroit Latitude 42º 30º Longitude 83º, I was compelled to attempt writing my own “wah” effect patch in Max/MSP.

I’ve been tinkering with this patch for a few days now, and even though I know it’s surely not perfect, I think it sounds reasonably cool. Also, I’m tired of messing with it, so I figured I just post it here for anyone interested, or anyone who can provide some advice on how to make it better. Here is a short sample.

Bear in mind this sample is to display the sound of the effect not my guitar playing. I didn’t spend much time focussing on “getting guitar part right” if you know what I mean.

/*See post to listen to audio*/

If you like, please feel free to download a copy of this .maxpat here.

I think it’s a decent first effort, but there are some digital “noises” that I hear in the patch that make it slightly unappealing to me.

The Research

First, I did a small amount of research on the frequency range I should be working with. I used this page as a quick reference for the ranges, and this page as a more in depth explanation, complete with schematics. I don’t understand electrical schematics so thoroughly, but the page served as good a springboard for ideas.

This is what the final patch looks like:

Besides the guitar playing on Yusef Lateef’s album, I was also inspired by a tutorial on the Cycling 74 website on creating a Max5 guitar processor. Specifically, I was interested in the Adding an EQ/Filter section during part 2.This section of the tutorial is great because it very simply explains how to effectively combine a variety of filters to be used on a signal.

The Process

I estimated a workable range for the [filtergraph~] objects from the first two websites that I mentioned above. After some experimentation, I settled on 400Hz to 1800Hz, with decibel range of .0625 to 16..

I also decided that using two filters moving in opposite directions would be the way to go for maximum “wah” effect. As the bandpass filter on the left moves up through the frequency range, the resonant filter on the right will move downwards.

The expression pedal that I use with my keyboard is a Roland EV-5.

The patch is set up to receive the midi data from the pedal and scale it to the desired frequency range. Because I want the resonant filter to move in the opposite direction from the bandpass filter, I used a combination of [* -1] followed by a [zmap] object to reverse the data values.

Finally, the two filters get combined via the [pak] object like in the tutorial I mentioned above, and now we can use this effect on whatever comes in through the [ezadc~].

Conclusion

Like I said it’s not perfect, but it sounds alright to have some fun with, and more importantly, I was able to enjoy playing with dynamic filter effects and live audio. Maybe I can create some more interesting effects if I remove the limitation of trying to replicate a piece of gear that is probably best made from resistors and capacitors.

It would also be nice if I could make a VST/AU version of this to use within a DAW, however, Max/Msp is not going to allow its users that functionality unless they purchase Max for Live, and even then, your plugins will only work with Ableton Live.

Don’t get me wrong here. Ableton is awesome! Hopefully one day I have enough money to buy Live 8, but considering the price of Max5, Ableton, and now Max for Live, it looks like a sound designer/musician would have to drop roughly $1500 just to create effects with Max in Ableton. Seems a bit extreme.

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After some time of procrastination and a brief period of inspiration I finally got around to further developing the project that I started in my previous post on MIDI Generating LFOs. There are two big additions included in the second version of this patch. The first is that I borrowed some aspects of Gregory Taylor’s excellent new tutorial on the Cycling 74 website, and the second is that I added TouchOSC support to create cooler ways of controlling the new parameters. Here is a short example of what it sounds like through one of my favorite synths.

/*See post to listen to audio*/

In my previous post, I presented a list of things to work on for the next version. I got around to some, but not all of it, and despite not wanting to put forth poorly done projects on the internet, I just decided to let this one go in its current state. I’ve taken it about as far I as care to for the moment. The list from my previous post look like this:

The Future

I don’t consider myself anywhere near being done with this project. While writing this post I realized a few things that I could have done better.

• The idea of scaling the LFO’s output (-1 to 1) to match a series of notes is cool, and if those series of notes are an aurally pleasing scale that’s even better, however I think I could improve the way I am doing this. Once I started playing with the LFOs I noticed that scaling the output down to just 8 notes sometimes doesn’t generate all that much variety. On top of that, if we use a full major scale for instance, with certain parameters the LFO might get suck undulating between the 4th and 7th tones in the scale, which might not exactly be the sound you are going for. In the next version I am planning on using less tones over more octaves. Maybe instead of the full scale, just the tones that I think will fit nicely, then have them span over maybe 3 octaves to give the LFOs more range to generate numbers within.
• Using only one LFO to generate velocity values seems to lend itself to fairly predictable values being out put. For instance a single square wave will produce a very high velocity, followed by very low one, then a high one again….etc. The second audio clip is a good example of this. In the case of that sample, I think it created a sort of cool bell-like sound with the synthesizer, but it doesn’t have much versatility. For the next version, I think I’ll also add another one, or two, LFOs that can be summed together for velocity values and see how that effects things.
• As much as I enjoy staring at all of this overly complicated looking mess, I think I’ll also have to spend a bit of time working out some more useful and informative GUI elements in Max 5’s presentation view.
• Lastly, making LFO generated Synth parts that move with a harmonic progression is all fine and dandy, but it doesn’t mean much unless I can link it up with an existing composition, and have a full song to show off. That will be my work for the next week or so, hopefully something totally awesome will come of it

The first problem I had was the note values inside the [coll] objects. I changed the note values in each [coll] object to a pentatonic scale over 5 octaves (the range of my keyboard). I made some adjustments to the scales I am using and when they get triggered to go with another song I am currently working on. To me this provided much better results. If you listen to the audio examples from my first post there are points when the note sequences sound a little off, I think the example above sounds a little more natural, at least in terms of something that is completely computer generated.

I also made the observation that using only one LFO to generate the velocity data was a little boring for me, so I did go ahead and add another LFO. Now, on the right side of the patch you can sum together 2 LFOs to generate MIDI velocity data. Realistically, at this point I was starting to feel a little like Spinal Tap bragging about amps that go to 11. Why not just make the original LFO more useful? In fact, that is exactly what some of the other additions from Gregory Taylor’s tutorial did, which I’ll get to later.

The third goal I gave myself was to add some improved GUI aspects to the patch, which I did do to certain extent. What you see in the picture above is essentially the bare minimum you need to use the patch. The left side controls generation of note values, and the right side the velocity data. You can view each individual LFO that you are using and the summed result underneath.

The new sliders and the window on the right of each side of the patch are what I took from Gregory Taylor’s tutorial. For an in depth explanation of what is going on with these controls I would highly recommend reading the tutorial. What I use them for here is to solve the problem of selecting an appropriate range for my data output and, better yet, performing realtime adjustments. Being able to play with the velocity parameters and “move” around the range that I am working in generates a much more interesting piece. Also, moving up and down, scaling the ranges of notes the LFOs utilize allows me to focus on certain timbers at different times throughout a progression.

I’d like to offer a big thanks to Gregory Taylor for solving a whole bunch of problems for me!

Finally, being able to “mouse” around with all of these parameters to make sound is cool and geeky, but I thought it would be better to use TouchOSC to control my patch. I thought at first that using sliders would be the thing to do, but after some consideration I realized that two xyPads would be the way to go.

I used the 2 xyPads on the 3rd page of the Mix2 layout. The picture here is rotated to the left ’cause that’s the way I like to hold my iPod when using TouchOSC. I programmed my patch so the X value of each Pad controls the rangle of values to be used by the LFO’s output data. As you move from left to right on the Pad, the bar on the [rslider] gets wider indicating a larger range of data from inside the [coll] can be used. The Y value of each pad allows you to move the selected range data up and down within the entire range of what is inside the [coll] you are using. As you move up and down, the grey bar on the [rslider] will stay the same size, but will move up and down though the whole range of the [rslider].

The red xyPad is used for controlling note data, and the green  one for velocity data. Playing the parameters of my new patch with xyPads was probably the best thing for the patch. Finally an efficient way of manipulating the range and velocity of randomness without having to stare at my laptop and keep one hand on the mouse at all times.

After having some fun with the xyPads, as one final addition, I decided to add a slider that would move through the various time values for each note being generated. I got kind of bored hearing straight notes all the time and thought this might be a cool way to add some variety.

I used the red slider on the first page of the same Mix2 layout. Using this slider you can increase the time value of the notes being generated. This also effects the time values for the velocity data being triggered. This might not always be the best thing, but its the way I am doing it at the moment.

That’s about it for where I am right now. Once again, I am posting this patch on my downloads page. If you have TouchOSC, and want to use it with this patch you will have to adjust the IP address and Incoming Port to whatever you are using before it will work .

Please feel free to leave comments or write me and email and tell me what you think.

maxBreakwell.com - Music, Sound Design, and Multimedia Art Experiments

This is an early rough draft of a composition I started working on recently. It utilizes the Max/Msp patch that I wrote about in my first post on Midi Generating LFOs. At the end of that earlier post I listed four things that I wanted to work on for the next step in this project. I haven’t done any of it. Except to sync up the LFOs in my patch to a musical composition. So far the piece has an electronic drum track, keyboard, and the Max/Msp patch – as well as a handful of other effects. Hope you like it!

/*See post to listen to audio*/

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A few weeks ago, I finally got around to thoroughly reading a very dense tutorial on the Max/Msp website about using LFOs as semi-Random number generators. I’m always looking for newer and hipper ways of adding an amount of randomness to computer music – so why not use MIDI generating LFOs?

The tutorial by Greg Taylor starts here, and in its three parts contains a wealth of know-how on MAX.

I agree with his statement that,

Max is really just about messages, numbers, and lists and how you move them about;

As a newcomer to Max/Msp this article answered many of my questions. It also did a good job of plugging some of the advantages of MAX 5 at the same time. Specifically, the ability to link different elements to MAX’s global transport, and the new presentation view, which although it is cool, I usually put off spending time on.

You can download all of Greg’s examples at various stages of development through the tutorials, but considering how enlightening this tutorial was for me I decided to create my own, somewhat pared-down version, as a learning aid.

The first thing that I did was create 3 LFOs and add them together. What I did was pretty similar to the tutorial, except I added a [umenu] object that that allows you to choose between sine, saw, triangle, and square waves. The three are summed together and displayed below. The fourth LFO, all the way on the right I use to separately generate the velocity for each midi note that gets sent out. I thought this was a nice addition to explore for generating some variety in velocity values. I’ve also considered using more than one LFO here too, but I haven’t gotten around to that yet.

The inside of the [p wavetype selector] object look like this:

If anyone out there has any suggestion on better ways of doing the math here please let me know. Signal math is definitely not one of my strong points. I literally just copied most of it from the MAX 5 tutorials. Once the LFOs are summed together I sent the signal to a series of objects that scale the range of the signal output (-1 to 1) to the range of 0 to 7. I set the range at 0 to 7 because I wanted the [coll] object to contain a scale of 8 notes, the first note being in the 0 position. I had this vision of the end result being a somewhat atmospheric pad sound, but at the same time have that pad utilize notes based around a particular tonal center.

The picture on the left shows where the scaled values (between 0 and 7) are sent into the [p coll selecter] object(my apologies for the misspelling of the word “selector”). I’ll explain what goes on inside this object in just a sec. The metro toggle box must be on so that the [umenu] object can select at what rate to generate MIDI notes. Again, the [umenu] object contains all of the recognizable note durations in Max 5. An overview of this syntax can be found here.

This section of the patch decides at what rate to make notes, and from which scale. The various scales are held in a series of [coll] objects inside the [p coll selecter] object. After seeing the way Greg Taylor uses the [coll] object in his examples, I thought it would be cool if I could contain a scale within a [coll] and then, via the transport, trigger different scales of notes at different times during a composition. This way I can have the LFO generated soundscapes move with the harmonic progression of a song. In order to achieve this effect, I placed a series of [timepoint] objects along with the [coll] objects inside of the [p coll selector] object which looks like this:

Here you can see each of the colls labeled with the scale that they contain. Eight notes each. (I do know that this harmonic progression is far from standard, but whatever, I thought it sounded cool the other day) I am using the timepoint objects to trigger the different colls when the chords need to change in the progression.

That is how each midi note is generated. Creating the velocity values is pretty much the same procedure displayed on the right side of the patch. You can see this in the picture of the full patch near the top of the post. Both the midi note values, and the velocity values get sent, via [send] and [receive] objects, to the section of the patch displayed below.

The midi notes sent from the [r collpattern] object, the velocity values, and the note duration values all get sent into a [makenote] object to create the MIDI-off notes, things can get pretty noisy if you leave out his object! After that, the numbers are packed, formatted, and sent out the “from Max/Msp 1″ option, available by clicking on [midiout]. I also copied and pasted the various chord containing  [coll] objects to the upper right portion of the front page. Greg posts an awesome “coll loader” patch on this page that allows you to use your midi keyboard to populate the colls. A highly recommended download for adjusting the coll values on the fly while keeping your brain working in musical terms and not in terms of MIDI note values.

I ended up routing this out to some synths in Ableton. Here are a few short samples that I like. At times they seem quite musical, and at others, fairly chaotic. The midi data can also be recorded. So at the very least it can be a fun brainstorm or spring board for better ideas.

/*See post to listen to audio*/

/*See post to listen to audio*/

/*See post to listen to audio*/

At the bottom of the page you can see where I have copied and pasted the MAX 5 help patch for the [hostsync~] object. This is just the beginning of me working on having the MAX transport link up with the transport in whatever DAW program I am using. At the moment I am using a demo version of Ableton 8. Right now the [hostsync~] object is just there to provide visual feedback, but the part of the patch on the bottom right (pictured below) allows the toggle box to start both transports at precisely the same time. The addition of the [timepoint] object will create a 16 bar loop on the MAX transport. Unfortunately, for the time being loops points must be set independently in both MAX and Ableton. I suppose in the future with the addition of Max for Live this could be an easy thing to implement, but for now, I haven’t spent the time on finding a way to have loop points mirror each other in both apps.

The Future

I don’t consider myself anywhere near being done with this project. While writing this post I realized a few things that I could have done better.

• The idea of scaling the LFO’s output (-1 to 1) to match a series of notes is cool, and if those series of notes are an aurally pleasing scale that’s even better, however I think I could improve the way I am doing this. Once I started playing with the LFOs I noticed that scaling the output down to just 8 notes sometimes doesn’t generate all that much variety. On top of that, if we use a full major scale for instance, with certain parameters the LFO might get suck undulating between the 4th and 7th tones in the scale, which might not exactly be the sound you are going for. In the next version I am planning on using less tones over more octaves. Maybe instead of the full scale, just the tones that I think will fit nicely, then have them span over maybe 3 octaves to give the LFOs more range to generate numbers within.
• Using only one LFO to generate velocity values seems to lend itself to fairly predictable values being out put. For instance a single square wave will produce a very high velocity, followed by very low one, then a high one again….etc. The second audio clip is a good example of this. In the case of that sample, I think it created a sort of cool bell-like sound with the synthesizer, but it doesn’t have much versatility. For the next version, I think I’ll also add another one, or two, LFOs that can be summed together for velocity values and see how that effects things.
• As much as I enjoy staring at all of this overly complicated looking mess, I think I’ll also have to spend a bit of time working out some more useful and informative GUI elements in Max 5′s presentation view.
• Lastly, making LFO generated Synth parts that move with a harmonic progression is all fine and dandy, but it doesn’t mean much unless I can link it up with an existing composition, and have a full song to show off. That will be my work for the next week or so, hopefully something totally awesome will come of it

Please leave comments and let me know what you think. I am posting a copy of the .maxpat file here if you’d like to use or modify it. Of course, if you download this and create something even better than I could have done, or imagined in the first place, don’t forget to give me a shout out and send me link so I can check it out!

CLICK HERE to continue on to MIDI Generating LFOs Pt. 2

maxBreakwell.com - Music, Sound Design, and Multimedia Art Experiments

This Post has been updated. Please click *HERE* to view the new post

Many people have written about how awesome the TouchOSC application is for iPhone/iPod Touch, and I also agree. I’ve been having tons of fun with it on my iPod in combination with Max/Msp creating little custom control apps for various projects.

Get TouchOSC Here

One of the geeky fun things that I did was create MAX patch that allows me to control the Hammond Organ drawbar settings on my Nord Electro 2 via my iPod Touch. Of course, the buttons that control the drawbars work well enough, but I thought it would be nice to be able to see all of the settings for both the upper and lower drawbars at the same time — and be able to manipulate them both simutaneously!

• There are still some issues with this setup, and I’ll explain them in this post, but it works well enough for me to enjoy as is.
• You can download my MAX patch on the Downloads Page. Feel free to use it and/or modify it all you like. I have posted it in .maxpat format and in .mxf format so that wont need to have to buy the full Max/Msp software in order to use it. If you don’t have MAX, and want to use the .mxf file you will have to download the MAX runtime environment which is free to download here.
• Technically, I believe the .mxf file should work on both windows and mac, but I have only tested it on mac.

In order to setup everything properly you will need to have both the MIDI-IN and MIDI-OUT of the NE2 connected to your computer. You will also have to configure the settings for the TouchOSC application to talk to your computer over a network. TouchOSC comes with excellent instructions on how to do this. After that, open up the patch that I made and configure the settings there and you should be up and running.

When you run the patch you will see a screen that looks like this.

• First, look on the Network page of the TouchOSC application and put the number from the Local IP address box into the iPhone ip box on my patch.
• Insert the Port(outgoing) number into the recieving port box in my patch, and the Port(incoming) number into the sending port box.
• Then, double click midiin and select the name of whatever device you are using to connect your NE2 to your computer.
• Do the same with midiout as well, and that should be it.

There is also some basic midi information that is displayed and you can click on the lower and upper drawbar bubbles to see a simple display, however I spent absolutely no time on how this application looks since it mainly functions as the “glue” that holds everything together. The real fun is in using TouchOSC to control your keyboard’s settings.

Using the Mix 16 Layout on the Touch OSC application as a digital conroller for the Nord’s LED drawbars, the first and most obvious problem is that there are 9 drawbars and only 8 faders on the Mix 16 layout. The first 3 pages of the Mix 16 layout look like this

Mix 16 Page 1

Mix 16 Page 2

Mix 16 Page 3

*The fourth page is a bunch of multifaders that I am not using for this patch*

On pages 1 and 2, what I did as a workaround for not having enough faders was to make the three vertical faders on the first page control the (16′) (5 1/3′) and the (8′) upper drawbars. Once you switch over to page 2 you have control of the (5 1/3′) through the (1′) drawbars. For me this created the least amount of awkwardness.

Page 3 controls the lower drawbars. What I did here was different. The faders on Page 3 control the (16′) through the (1 1/3′) drawbars, then if you want to manipulate the (1′) drawbar you press the toggle button underneath the  fader controlling the (1 1/3′) drawbar (the fader furthest to the right) and now it controls the (1′).

This setup for the lower drawbars made the most sense for me because I usually like to use the Split feature so that I can have a more “bassy” sounds on the lower end of the keyboard. This isn’t always the case, but again it seemed the most natural way to deal with only having 8 faders.

When you move the faders on your iPhone/iPod touch you will see it reflected on the drawbar LEDs, and also, when you move the LEDs on your Nord you will see it on your iPhone/iPod touch.

To me this would be kind of useless by itself, but what I like to do is have my iPod on Page 3 so I can see the lower drawbar settings while the Nord itself is showing the upper drawbars. That way I see everything and control both at the same time.

Also, I could not figure out how to make the settings on TouchOSC change automatically when I switched from one program setting to the next. For instance, If you switch from program C8 to C7 you need to do a quick MIDI “dump” so that TouchOSC can display your current drawbar settings.

It sounds a little complicated, but it’s pretty easy. Press SHIFT + LEFT OCTAVE SHIFT (DUMP), make sure that the Nord Display says ‘Ct’, and hit the red store button. You will see the TouchOSC application update itself with your drawbar settings. Once you have set the type of MIDI dump that you want to ‘Ct’ it will remain that way when you access the function again. This makes it easy to hit SHIFT-DUMP-STORE really quickly when you want to change programs.

Feedback

Again, feel free to download and use as you see fit. Please leave comments and/or email me here with any of your suggestions. I created this patch a few months ago for my own use and I’d like to add some more features to it if I can find the time.

As I was writing this, it occurred to me that I might be able to use one of the toggle buttons to send a message to the NE2 to trigger a MIDI dump and update the drawbar settings. Also, if I routed the audio through MAX I could add different effects and maybe use the XY Pad and mutifaders for something too.

Since creating this patch I realized that Nord has come out with an Electro 3, which seems to be a massive improvement, essentially solving many of the problems I have with the Electro 2. The Electro 3 now includes reverb, which I always wanted, and also the ability to edit and upload custom sounds, which I also really wanted. I am now highly jealous of all Electro 3 owners. If you are an Electro 3 owner and want to try out this patch, please let me know if it works. Have fun!

maxBreakwell.com - Music, Sound Design, and Multimedia Art Experiments