the watmm GAS thread

[pcock]

finally paid off my eventide PitchFactor and im now lusting over an Erbe-Verb.

[acid1]

I want an erbe verb as well but I'm looking very carefully at that eventide space pedal.

 

Sound demos seem to blow the erbe verb out of the water and its cheaper :/

[auxien]

WANT STATUS FUCKING ACTIVE

 

 

http://cdm.link/2017/10/ivy-epic-240-step-hardware-sequencer-sound-installation/

 

 

Obviously you can't actually buy this or anything like that. This seemed the appropriate place to mention it no matter.

Edited October 23, 2017 by auxien

[pcock]

I want an erbe verb as well but I'm looking very carefully at that eventide space pedal.

 

Sound demos seem to blow the erbe verb out of the water and its cheaper :/

i already have the eventide space, and yes its an absolute definite buy from me. the erbe verb is totally different though, every parameter on CV? gonna be making some crazy stuff running my prophet through that. 

[TubularCorporation]

I'll be getting my first real chunk of extra pay of the season and most of it is going toward a Tanzmaus for the new live project, but the Nava kits are back in stock as of last week and it's pretty tempting to put the rest of it in to one of those for the future. I wouldn't have the money t get an enclosure or the time to build it for quite a while, but those old 909 components aren't going to be around forever and it sounds really, really good (yeah, the 909 is a ridiculously overused sound but there's a reason for that) so I can kind of justify getting it now while I still can and then building it sometime next year.

[Guest Chesney]

 

 

Obviously you can't actually buy this or anything like that. This seemed the appropriate place to mention it no matter.

 

 

Damn you! got me excited for a minute until I read^^^.

This sort of thing has been my dream for years. 

[sweepstakes]

WANT STATUS FUCKING ACTIVE

 

 

http://cdm.link/2017/10/ivy-epic-240-step-hardware-sequencer-sound-installation/

 

 

Obviously you can't actually buy this or anything like that. This seemed the appropriate place to mention it no matter.

Real talk though, for all intents and purposes, this looks fucking terrible.

[Guest Chesney]

yeah not ideal at all. But I do want a seuencer that has physically more than 16 steps that can control multiple sources with different lengths. With a pitch pot for every step. Kinda like 4 or more Analogue Solutions Oberkorn linked into one unit.

[auxien]

Yeah, I don't know that something like that would be useful, I just think it looks very cool. The video really gets my mind seeing the sounds trigger in different ways.

 

Looking at the Oberkorn you mentioned, see that 'limits' it in ways. Infinitely more useful, of course, but there's something very freeing about seeing the sequence path across that long extent physically. It feels more like I see the sounds activate in my mind, I guess.

 

I'm getting a little heady for the GAS thread, sorry. If I was like RDJ and had rooms and rooms of equipment and tons of money on shit, I'd definitely build one of these, though I'd maybe add in some extra buttons and maybe a knob on each step as well so you could really go fucking crazy.

[Guest Chesney]

Yeah, exactly! I mean, things like these are not that practical but i'd love like 5-6 knobs per step and 64+ steps, maybe 128 haha.

1 for pitch, velocity, gate, decay, level and maybe one for something like a free, per step level (like a manual random lfo) which can be CV/CC'd to whatever parameter on the gear you're controilling.

That would literally be a mass of knobs! like an aphex gig :0 ha jk

[psn]

Get a couple of BCF2000's and hop into Max.

[Guest Chesney]

I have 2 BCF's I use for control but never tried max. I can't bring myself to work on screen in that way, it looks so unfun. However, I know what it is and what it is capable of, it's insane! just not for me.

[auxien]

I was just thinking that with an ultrawide monitor or a dual monitor setup you could get a pretty close replica of that 128+ length sequencer going on a computer screen. Obviously you lose a lot of the feel by it being software versus hardware, but I like the idea of a 128 step length LED-style strip running across the top of a monitor while underneath you have means to control it.

 

I may try and draw up a design for the UI and see where it takes me.

[TubularCorporation]

If you had the skills to modify the firmware and possibly develop some custom hardware you could go up to 256 steps if you based it around the Midibox SEQ. or just use a bunch of BCR2000s and a standard Mbseq v4. Obviously not an off the shelf solution but easier and more flexible that starting from scratch.

[sweepstakes]

The problem to me is that with so many knobs stuff is no longer right within reach. So a second context switching control lile a pad bank on the mpc actually seems more effective than another 4 dozen faders.

[thawkins]

You know, with some google glass (or whatever the state of the art in augmented reality right now is), it is probably possible right now to build some minority report style overlay visuals to give you a visual representation of that 1000+ step sequence. And then it's probably possible to dynamically map things so that if you have a hardware control surface like the BCR2000, you can select the subsequence that you want to fiddle with, so you don't just have to twiddle your fingers mid-air. I'm like 90% sure you could set this up with Max and some AR toolkit.

[sweepstakes]

Yeah, exactly! I mean, things like these are not that practical but i'd love like 5-6 knobs per step and 64+ steps, maybe 128 haha.

1 for pitch, velocity, gate, decay, level and maybe one for something like a free, per step level (like a manual random lfo) which can be CV/CC'd to whatever parameter on the gear you're controilling.

That would literally be a mass of knobs! like an aphex gig :0 ha jk

Non-rhetorical question - how would this differ from an Elektron where you have parameter locks? I mean there's obvious ways but what's kind of the essential experiential difference that having all those knobs per step?

[auxien]

You know, with some google glass (or whatever the state of the art in augmented reality right now is), it is probably possible right now to build some minority report style overlay visuals to give you a visual representation of that 1000+ step sequence. And then it's probably possible to dynamically map things so that if you have a hardware control surface like the BCR2000, you can select the subsequence that you want to fiddle with, so you don't just have to twiddle your fingers mid-air. I'm like 90% sure you could set this up with Max and some AR toolkit.

Yeah but then I've gotta wear Google Glasses or a VR helmet like some sort of nerd or something. We make abstract electronic music alone in our rooms, we're not nerds.

 

 

there's something very freeing about seeing the sequence path across that long extent physically.

So I just wanna emphasize this is why it or something similar interests me. Seeing those dozens and dozens of LEDs lined up and the 'sounds' tracking back and forth and firing in that format is what intrigues me, what sparks my mind. on my Push in the step sequencing mode for note entry is great, but i'd love to 'zoom out' physically like you can do on a screen, to show 64, 128, or more, 'steps.' I can do it without that zooming out, but when if I'm in Ableton and I view an entire clip that's say, 32 measures long, then I can really start to 'feel' the section of the song, how it's going to move and breathe and all. Viewing it in an 8 or 16 measure chunk is workable obviously, but it's not ideal for me personally. Something like the device I linked really drives that home in my mind.

[sweepstakes]

 

there's something very freeing about seeing the sequence path across that long extent physically.

So I just wanna emphasize this is why it or something similar interests me. Seeing those dozens and dozens of LEDs lined up and the 'sounds' tracking back and forth and firing in that format is what intrigues me, what sparks my mind. on my Push in the step sequencing mode for note entry is great, but i'd love to 'zoom out' physically like you can do on a screen, to show 64, 128, or more, 'steps.' I can do it without that zooming out, but when if I'm in Ableton and I view an entire clip that's say, 32 measures long, then I can really start to 'feel' the section of the song, how it's going to move and breathe and all. Viewing it in an 8 or 16 measure chunk is workable obviously, but it's not ideal for me personally. Something like the device I linked really drives that home in my mind.

OK I kinda feel this... I kind of get this feeling when I have my Octatrack and Monomachine running side-by-side. 

[thawkins]

 

Yeah but then I've gotta wear Google Glasses or a VR helmet like some sort of nerd or something. We make abstract electronic music alone in our rooms, we're not nerds.

 

 

Sure, I suppose there's also a way to stick a small projector on some stand and do stuff like this: (skip to 1 minute mark):

 

Edited October 25, 2017 by thawkins

[psn]

It would certainly be possible to custom make something like that, but the cost would be insane. 64 steps x 5 parameters is like minimum 800 dollar just in potentiomers. Then add the rest of the parts, a huge custom panel, plus the time to solder up a few thousand connection points.

Edited October 25, 2017 by psn

[TubularCorporation]

It would certainly be possible to custom make something like that, but the cost would be insane. 64 steps x 5 parameters is like minimum 800 dollar just in potentiomers. Then add the rest of the parts, a huge custom panel, plus the time to solder up a few thousand connection points.

 

Well, the soldering wouldn't be so bad.  A couple thousand points is a long afternoon or two for me and I'm not that fast at it.  I haven't timed myself or anything, but the biggest build I've done so far was around 1200 parts and it took one long day, mid morning to an hour or two after dinner.  That's at least 2500 solder points.

 

EDIT: that's on a PCB, if it was built on perfboard or something it would be a lot slower.

 

The cost of parts would be insane for sure, though.

Edited October 25, 2017 by RSP

[Guest Chesney]

Yeah you could def make something, there are loads of options but time is tight right now so it's not for me to be looking into, I have far too many half worked projects open to half arse another.

 

And yeah, I have some Elektrons so I can do nearly all of what I am talking about in reality but I guess I get enjoyment out of the physicality of things like the 8 step sequencer on my CS30, it's so simple and fun to use i'd like to replicate that in a monstrous way.

The fact you're not knowing what note/pitch you're hitting with that dial is great, you're just using your ears, no stepping just a sweepable pitch. It's liberating.

I had a future retro Mobius and loved it but once I got an Elektron it was a bit defunkt, although it still wasn't ideal as you had to program the notes. That, 4 times as long and with a pitch knob per step would be fun as hell for me. And some directional, skip,seq options would be the icing on the cake. If Elektron would implement more things like these then... who knows.

[TubularCorporation]

Yeah, I wouldn't personally want a sequencer that big, although I do appreciate control-per-parameter stuff in general.

 

Also, once you have that many steps it starts to really push up against the limits of the brain's ability to recognize a repeating pattern anyhow, so it starts getting less and less practical from a purely compositional perspective.  Short term/working memory only persists for about 30 seconds, so any pattern longer than that will be perceived by the brain as continually new, rather than repeating (there are ways around this, obviously, but as a rule of thumb repeating patterns in music that are meant to be perceived as repetition should be kept well under 30 seconds).  That means that a 128 step sequence running slower than about 240bpm usually won't be heard as a repeating pattern.  That doesn't mean it isn't useful, but it does mean that there might be more manageable ways to create a comparable experience for the listener (like, say, a 32 or 64 step sequence with some kind of generative elements that keep it from repeating exactly the same pattern. Something like the mighty Klee sequencer, maybe.

[auxien]

Yeah, I wouldn't personally want a sequencer that big, although I do appreciate control-per-parameter stuff in general.

I definitely would want a sequencer that big. Not ONLY a sequencer that big, but I'd definitely love to use it sometimes.

 

Also, once you have that many steps it starts to really push up against the limits of the brain's ability to recognize a repeating pattern anyhow

Good.

 

so it starts getting less and less practical from a purely compositional perspective.  

Wrong.

 

 

Short term/working memory only persists for about 30 seconds, so any pattern longer than that will be perceived by the brain as continually new, rather than repeating (there are ways around this, obviously, but as a rule of thumb repeating patterns in music that are meant to be perceived as repetition should be kept well under 30 seconds).  That means that a 128 step sequence running slower than about 240bpm usually won't be heard as a repeating pattern.

Good.

 

 

That doesn't mean it isn't useful, but it does mean that there might be more manageable ways to create a comparable experience for the listener (like, say, a 32 or 64 step sequence with some kind of generative elements that keep it from repeating exactly the same pattern. Something like the mighty Klee sequencer, maybe.

I do stuff like that all the time, but I also like longer, less repetitive sequences. This is very easy to do when dealing with traditional instruments performed by musicians, but difficult to do easily in software/hardware/with electronic music. I've gotten relatively good at it with software, but the more options the better. And using it with hardware is also something I do a lot (especially since much of my hardware is often controlled by software) but the more options, the more tactile feel and visual feedback from real instruments that I can get, generally, the better. The Rytm (and all the Elektron stuff with conditional trigs) is really useful in that sense but it's still not quite as quick as I might like for writing. Maybe in actual functionality it's simpler on a smaller device like that, but I can't help but want to try something larger and with more options on a sequencer. I'm watching the video on the Klee right now and it's certainly a very interesting machine that I'd never heard of, I'm definitely intrigued by it.

 

Btw RSP I'm definitely not being snippy in my response, I just wanted to cut it up to show really where my mind/way of approaching the same facts and ideas differs. :)