Along with applications for designers and artists, we’re now accepting expressions of interest from musicians of all shapes and sizes – but only until April 2nd, 2010. If you’re interested, get in touch with a short paragraph about yourself and your music, and a link to some of your tunes online. Contact details are here.
Just a quick update to the Live 2 Processing work…
Now with added colour.
…the main goal here was to get Processing to send messages back to Ableton Live. These come in the form of OSC signals, which bang out MIDI notes that I’ve assigned in the Max For Live patch. I also worked the percussion effected rectangles, so they are now responsive to individual drums (kick, snare and hats).
Whilst I’m still learning, it’s quite nice being able to use a graphical programming language, as opposed to a language-based code – flashy lights keep me more satisfied than sexy syntax. Once again, here are the patches for you to (mis)use as you will…
The other night, Gentleforce invited me around to help with the audio/visual collaboration between himself and Julapy, for his upcoming album launch performance(s). Gentleforce will be performing with Ableton Live, so it was a bit of an opportunity to start working with Max For Live, to get his computer talking to Julapy’s excellent live openFrameworks based visuals.
I don’t know a great deal about openFrameworks (other than it quickly becoming the tool of choice for many live/interactive visualists), but it does seem to have much in common with Processing, so whatever I work on should port fairly simply to openFrameworks. I’m still finding my way around Max For Live, so the wonderful (and free) Live 2 Processing plugin by Wiggle was a perfect place to start. It wasn’t long before Julapy weaved his magic with openFrameworks and was receiving peak audio values from Live via OSC.
It’s been a while coming, but we’re now ready to announce the musical line-up for the Spring/Summer 09 Finders Keepers markets in Sydney. With the exception of two artists, everyone performing will be on their Finders Keepers debut, making for a fresh and diverse music stage once again.
I just arrived home from stopping by the local to check out a (friend of a) friends’ band. They weren’t bad, but we did find ourselves making note of the bass guitarists dance moves – something akin to a chicken, pecking at seed. Which started the discussion: are bass guitarists a little bit wrong in the head? They seem to be lost somewhere between the show-pony lead guitarist and the awesomeness of smacking the hell out of a drum kit. Without the ability to play more strings than fingers, nor ambidextrous enough to flail around like a muppet, they’re left with a sad and dark little corner of the stage, propping up something patronisingly titled ‘the rhythm section’.
Care to tell me that I’m wrong and I’m also a jerk? Please do in the comments. When I return from our mojito-fueled Mexican party on Friday night, I shall promptly respond in a clear and concise manner, with more drunken thinkings.
To say there is a lot of buzz around the launch of Max for Live is something of an understatement. It’s done nothing short of send Live-loving music geeks into a frenzy around the potential for new ways of processing audio and connecting technologies. This last point is what I’m interested in, and seeing as I’m doing a lot of chatter around OSC for my Sound Media 2 / Advanced Multimedia Authoring project, I thought I should take a quick look at what Max for Live means for anyone else dealing with OSC.
MaxMSP and its (less attractive, but nonetheless charming) open source cousin PureData both allow for custom routing of not just audio signals, but a wider range of protocols. MIDI has been hanging around for a long time now, and it’s ability to communicate a large amount of data is pretty poor. This is why we’re now looking to protocols like OSC to deal with higher bandwidth inputs.
When I began working on my data[origin] project, I did take a look at the ability to tap into the LiveAPI via Python script, but pretty quickly I realised that with my limited knowledge of code, I was going to spend more time trying to understand it than moving forward. In the end I converted OSC to MIDI, which has it’s own set of problems but was a little bit more entry-level friendly. The addition of Max for Live will basically make OSC natively available within the Ableton environment.
In addition to the routing power of Max, there will also be live visual capabilities in the form of MaxMSP’s sister software, Jitter. This makes the package more exciting to me, because it will mean that much more can be done directly out of the single Ableton environment. It also makes the US$299 price tag (for owners of Live 8 – more confusing if you’re not an owner) a little more palatable.
Of course, if you’re just a music producer, Max may not offer you enough to justify the high price tag. I think it’s a more interesting prospect for those looking to extend live performance from the laptop to allow inputs from weird and wonderful controllers and output to screens, lighting, or really anywhere that your imagination takes you. If you’re a Live 8 user, you can download the public beta of Max for Live. I’m doing just that and will report back with my experience over the next couple of weeks.
Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner. Before it all went wrong and he fell off stage.
Seeing as you all snapped up the Mixed Peas mix like nothing else, I thought I’d put up another old one for y’all: my set from Void in March, 2008.
It was a grime special and whilst the mixing isn’t top shelf, it’s probably one of the most enjoyable sets I’ve ever played. Grime has a special place in my heart – it’s got loads of energy and definitely doesn’t take itself too seriously. My only regret from this set was not having the crowd response recorded as well. I’m not a huge fan of rewinds, but the madness after dropping Wiley – Wot Do U Call It? was priceless. If I didn’t take that one back to the beginning, I’m pretty sure there would have been a riot. Good times.
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It really blows my mind that I put this mix together in August, 2005. What is even more surprising is that I still get asked about it.
It’s no secret that I’m no longer a part of the Sydney dubstep scene, but back in 2005, myself and Eli were amongst literally a handful of people in the entire country, trying to get this style of music heard. For me, this was when the sound hit its peak – before a glut of bedroom producers hit the halfstep formula like there was no tomorrow. I’m in danger of being back in my ‘grumpy old man’ hat now, so I’ll move swiftly along…
Mixed Peas was a set that I performed at the now defunct Frigid night, supporting Hermitude (and as someone who prides themselves on playing music that no one else has – the pinnacle of my DJ achievement). Over the years, I gave away every CD copy I had burnt and between my loss of interest in DJing and a high incidence of exploding computers (back up your files, kiddies), this is now the only copy that remains. Unfortunately, it’s a mediocre 128k MP3, but hopefully it makes a few people out there happy.
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