Thursday Monome time

Spent some time with the monome tonight. What’s cool is that G’s been playing with Reason and composed the main beat! Is that normal for six-year-old?

edison

dang.

edison – tonka truck from edison on Vimeo.

monome + guitar

Be sure to jump into it a bit, around 4:00 / 5:00 mark.

Edison, monome performance

I love watching this guy play, very slick indeed.

monome track, untitled

A little monome fun over the weekend. I should probably rerecord this track; it’s a bit sloppy getting started and falls apart in the end. On the other hand, I was holding the iPhone with one hand so there’s that. Samples are all original, composed in Reason. Running the mlrV app for playback (it’s pictured in the video).

Slice beat juggling app

Coming soon for iPhone and iPod Touch is Slice, a circular, WAV chopping, Monome-MLR-style app for real time slicing and chopping of beats. It certainly looks interesting.

ro + 256 + milkcrates + monks

Another nice monome performed piece. It especially like the first 2 minutes or so. Amazing what variety you can achieve with just a few samples and well placed slicing.

Monome, edison

This is a great monome groove you all should see and enjoy. Reading the Vimeo post the device in the middle is made from 16 arcade buttons… which makes this all the more awesome.

mrcury monome

I found this little monome jam over on the vimeo.com/monome channel and really loved it. It’s very complete and cohesive, and the Oasis sample is perfect. It starts to pick up at around 1:55 and really grows again around 3:09.

Make something new

In following with the theme of “make something new” I spent some time with Reason the other night. As much as it’s fun to pull up a preset synth or electronic sound and play away what I really appreciate about electronic music and synthesis is creating sounds that have never been heard before.

That’s what really fascinates me about this whole electronica / synthesis / monome / music world, the fact that there are so infinitely many variables that you can quite quickly create a sound or tone that is truly unique. No one has ever heard it before and unless you save that preset or patch no one will ever hear it again.

Following this thread on through it’s good to note, too, that not all tones you produce are musically viable, usable, or even pleasant. But sometimes you do discover something excellent. Other times you just have fun exploring, turning knobs, discerning relationships within the confines of the programming.

Tonight I found a new sound. Yes it was fun. Yes, I do have some reasonable level of understanding as to how I made it. If you look at the screenshot from the patch I programmed I’m pretty excited that I could reasonably explain to you how each module interacts with the other, how the sound is constructed.

Alas, it’s not a musically viable tone (though I did play it with the monome). That’s where the art exists, I suppose.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

[photopress:Picture_1_1_2_3_4_5_6_7_8_9_10_11_12_13_14_15_16_17_18_19_20_21_22_23_24_25_26_27_28_29_30_31_32_33_34_35_36_37_38_39_40_41_42_43_44_45_46_47_48_49_50_51_52_53_54_55.png,thumb,pp_image]

Renoise

I spent the evening experimenting with some new electronic music programs and have come across one that’s captured my interest. It’s called Renoise and is what is referred to as a tracker. Take a look at the screen shots and you’ll see it’s a different beast from the typical timeline-based music program. Therein lies its charm.

I won’t go into great detail but this wiki article will explain everything you need to know about trackers. It reminds me a lot of Jeskola Buzz, the first audio program I cut my teeth on back in the early 2000s. Fun times.

What I do like (aside from the wicked cool interface and look) is that Renoise allows the use of VSTs. I know there are many other DAWs out there that do this, but I appreciate that Renoise is affordable ($80 US) and refreshingly simple. I’ve yet to delve into feeding Renoise with the monome, but once I make the plunge to purchase it (I’m still playing with the demo), I’m sure I’ll fully explore melding them together.

What can it do? Tonight, in about 30 minutes, I used the demo of Abysnth as a VST plugin, along with some of its stock sounds, to create this. It’s really a simple musical phrase. I manually pulled up the faders to control the audio. Given more time, it could get much more complex and musically valid. But I’m just having fun here.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

[photopress:Picture_1_1_2_3_4_5_6_7_8_9_10_11_12_13_14_15_16_17_18_19_20_21_22_23_24_25_26_27_28_29_30_31_32_33_34_35_36_37_38_39_40_41_42_43_44_45_46_47_48_49_50_51_52_53_54.png,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:Picture_2_1_2_3_4_5_6_7_8_9_10_11_12_13_14_15_16.png,thumb,pp_image]

monome track 04-2009-05

Here’s a new monome track for you to enjoy. It goes a little long, over 6 minutes, but was comprised of just 5 samples, all sliced and diced, chopped and monomed for fun. Sample built from scratch in Reason (project file here) and samples performed live… no overdubs.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

mp3 version (5.7 MB)

Note the nice filter sweep at 2:19 (and again at 5:36). I discovered how to map the monome’s orientation (with the internal accelerometer) to the filter frequency.

DIY Lemur / monome

You need just a few pieces, but this video demonstrated how to make your own monome / lemur emulator with a Wii controller and an LED light.

monome track

*** UPDATED 3/16 at 9:45am, track replaced with much better recording ***

On this lazy Saturday I spent some quality time with Reason and the monome. This is what I came up with. At some point I’ll record some video performing this, but an mp3 will have to suffice.

technical notes: this is a direct recording, mistakes and all, no final edits. The sample set is all created from scratch in Reason (using the Electromechanical refill), and samples were live cut on mlr_Aes Edit 0.3.

mar14-2009-track (mp3)