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Description
This is another experimental Max/MSP patch of mine called "Out of C4." The new and concept of the piece is taken from a combination of two pieces. First of all my piece "Individualism, Collectivism" http://www.macjams.com/song/13743 and secondly Terry Reily's Minimalist Piece "In C." The elements of these pieces used as inspiration:
·The use of repeated motives in a set order (in this case there are 16 motives, not 52 as in "In C")
·A level of indeterminacy involved with the change of motives (the timing, not the order)
·The use of multiple tempi (As with "Individualism, Collectivism").
·The control of the tempo of a track in relation to others, so tracks have the ability to go in and out of sync with each other.
The patch itself contains 4 tracks, each of which has the 16 motives pre-programmed into them. The user/performer actually does not play any of the notes, instead controlls functions the dynamics, the key of the tracks, when to start moving to the next motive (each track will then change within 20 seconds), the tempo of each individual track and most importantly when and how the tracks can sync to each other.
As I found with "Individualism, Collectivism" just the slightest change of tempo easily causes tracks to go out of time with each other and the maths used to correct these changes has to be relatively precise. So a large amount of the time I spent working on this patch was used in working out how to program the patch to do this for me live (as opposed to pre-planned with I.D.)
The two ways I've created for the tracks to sync together are:
1. The tempo of one track will increase or decrease over a few seconds up to the tempo of other track and then will correct itself so it is in sync with the quaver pulses (within 5 m/s) of the other track. This means that both tracks will be in time with the same tempo, but the motive that they are playing may be out of phase.
2. The tempo of the first track will adjust itself so that on the first beat of the 5th of the second track, both tracks will start the motive simultaneously, and the first track will revert back to its original tempo. The can be used to bring two tracks at the same tempo back into phase (so they are playing the same notes at the same time, like normal people), or to sync two tracks so a common polyrythm (such as triplets over quavers) can be heard.
Now all of this is very interesting and all I'm sure... but does this actually sound any good... and if it doesn't... what possible use does it have.
One possible future for ancestors of this patch could be in a live DJ like situation. Say I've got a texture happening and I want to bring in a new loop. At the moment, the normal choice would be to just fade it in volume wise... but with this kind of thing I could just start it playing at speed 0 and have it speed up to normal speed and then sync with the texture I've already got going automatically. Another possibility (especially if I work out how to get Max/MSP to do calculus) could be that I could get loops to slow down to a half time groove or speed up to other cross-rhythms all with the click of a button.
And of course a major benefit is that I can choose which track in particular everything is being synced to... so each tempo change can either be global, or completely independant (so no other tracks are effected).
Eitherway, I still hope you enjoy the piece.. and thanks for reading.
·The use of repeated motives in a set order (in this case there are 16 motives, not 52 as in "In C")
·A level of indeterminacy involved with the change of motives (the timing, not the order)
·The use of multiple tempi (As with "Individualism, Collectivism").
·The control of the tempo of a track in relation to others, so tracks have the ability to go in and out of sync with each other.
The patch itself contains 4 tracks, each of which has the 16 motives pre-programmed into them. The user/performer actually does not play any of the notes, instead controlls functions the dynamics, the key of the tracks, when to start moving to the next motive (each track will then change within 20 seconds), the tempo of each individual track and most importantly when and how the tracks can sync to each other.
As I found with "Individualism, Collectivism" just the slightest change of tempo easily causes tracks to go out of time with each other and the maths used to correct these changes has to be relatively precise. So a large amount of the time I spent working on this patch was used in working out how to program the patch to do this for me live (as opposed to pre-planned with I.D.)
The two ways I've created for the tracks to sync together are:
1. The tempo of one track will increase or decrease over a few seconds up to the tempo of other track and then will correct itself so it is in sync with the quaver pulses (within 5 m/s) of the other track. This means that both tracks will be in time with the same tempo, but the motive that they are playing may be out of phase.
2. The tempo of the first track will adjust itself so that on the first beat of the 5th of the second track, both tracks will start the motive simultaneously, and the first track will revert back to its original tempo. The can be used to bring two tracks at the same tempo back into phase (so they are playing the same notes at the same time, like normal people), or to sync two tracks so a common polyrythm (such as triplets over quavers) can be heard.
Now all of this is very interesting and all I'm sure... but does this actually sound any good... and if it doesn't... what possible use does it have.
One possible future for ancestors of this patch could be in a live DJ like situation. Say I've got a texture happening and I want to bring in a new loop. At the moment, the normal choice would be to just fade it in volume wise... but with this kind of thing I could just start it playing at speed 0 and have it speed up to normal speed and then sync with the texture I've already got going automatically. Another possibility (especially if I work out how to get Max/MSP to do calculus) could be that I could get loops to slow down to a half time groove or speed up to other cross-rhythms all with the click of a button.
And of course a major benefit is that I can choose which track in particular everything is being synced to... so each tempo change can either be global, or completely independant (so no other tracks are effected).
Eitherway, I still hope you enjoy the piece.. and thanks for reading.
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screamalexz
i think it sounds pretty cool. kinda like video game music. sounds like it took alot of work