EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 18, Number 2 Chaos, fractals, and MIDI cmusic (5 messages) Desperatly Seeking Superstars Ensoniq EPS German electronic music (2 messages) Leslie speakers (5 messages) Mac Music Notation Software (4 messages) Pencils and Paper (13 messages) rec.music.synth Review Request Sys-ex dynamic patch modification (7 messages) VR and Electronic Musician Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon . You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text. The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the University of North Carolina. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 13:31:41 EDT From: JPT4@ VAXA.YORK.AC.UK Subject: Chaos, fractals, and MIDI From Jan Thomas, on the EMUSIC-D list: I'd just like to say thanks to the several people who responded to my msg re chaos, fractals and MIDI. Most replied to me personally not via this digest. Rather than repeat myself every time someone writes, I'm putting this msg in the digest for al to see. I've gone beyond the stages most people had got to - sorry, kpurcell of Liverpool (my home town!!) who wrote me a very good lecture on the subject, all of which I knew already.. however i was more interested in seeing what other people had got up to in this area. My project will be ready in September, and I'll be more than happy to swap source code, progs, cassettes &c then. Basically I'm writing three major programs on each of fractal generation, chaos and 1/f noise, which feature user input, user interaction, and will (hopefully, if I have time) be able to be transferred to another program vis standard MIDI format files, so you can run them through Notator or Cubase or whatever. The programs are not necessarily just an end in themselves but a means to an end - a sort of tool, if you like. (Bit like a sex aid, I suppose). For the choas program I just took the basic z->z kz(1 - z) and made it optionallymappable to pitch, duration and/or velocity. While the music running, you can change the values of z or k, if you're getting bored with the original output. Also, my program runs several (up to 16, if you want them and your synth can cope) od of these sequences simultaneosly, so you can have phasing &c if you want. Makes for interesting music some of it sounding like Ligeti. My 1/f program is an improvement on Richard Voss's (see Dodge and Jerse Music and Computers for version in FORTRAN, Byte mag's June 1986 article on fractal music for the version in BASIC) which I translated into C. So I wrote my own, which is much more flexible and sounds more interesting, though it is stilllexactly in a 1/f distribution. The fractal one I am still working on, but this allows you to input your own pattern, and specify what number of generations you require of the pattern, so far. Also the basic rhythmic pattern. By the way, does kpurcell happen to know David Sheppard? I'm trying to locate him for connection re education. Jan Thomas, Music Technology, York University. (snail mail address: 21 Bleachfield, Univ. of York, Heslington, York YO1 5DD) ************************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 08:53:14 EDT From: HARNDEN@AUVM.BITNET Subject: cmusic is cmusic (or anything like it) in the public domain? and is anyone else working with Gross/IRCAM Soundfiles? i finally got the structures (my thanks to the respondents!), and am starting to play with them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eric Harnden (Ronin) | V.P., Chief Engineer | Transmedia Music, inc. The American University Physics Dept.| (202) 347-8050 Washington, D.C | ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 10:37:16 MDT From: Adam Schabtach Subject: Re: cmusic > is cmusic (or anything like it) in the public domain? Csound is available via ftp from ems.media.mit.edu (although that site has been inactive the past couple of days, for reasons unknown to me). I think a couple other sites archive it, too. > and is anyone else working with Gross/IRCAM Soundfiles? i finally got the > structures (my thanks to the respondents!), and am starting to play with > them. What are they? The name certainly arouses my curiostiy, but I've never heard of them. --Adam ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 15:04:18 EDT From: Thomas Jenkins Subject: Re: cmusic sorry, the ftp site listed will not respond. I can not find another reference to cmusic with my ftp program - bert has my printouts *sigh*. I'm not checking without regards to case however, when I make that change to the program, I might find another ftp site with cmusic - I don't have time to play with it right this minute. I'll try before leaving today (maybe). tom THOMAS E. JENKINS, JR. PROGRAMMER, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA BITNET, C0361 AT UNIVSCVM.BITNET INTERNET C0361 AT UNIVSCVM.CSD.SCAROLINA.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 15:31:43 PDT From: David Rivas Subject: Re: cmusic Carl used to make cmusic available for some nominal handling charge and send out tar tapes. I don't know what they do now, but you can send mail to: sfl@sdcarl.ucsd.edu and I am sure susan will tell you what to do, or where an ftp site is, if one exists. The infamous ems Vax at mit is no longer (or soon to be no longer) among us. It's just outlived it's usefullness. The music and cognition group at the Media Lab recieved a rather nice donation from DEC of R5000's and other such machines. I spoke with Barry Vercoe about a month ago and he said that the name ems would live on and likely be an R5000 or so, server. He was putting finishing touches on a new release of csound so I would wait untill ems stabalized and grab csound then. When I was there he showed me a rather impressive demo of the R5000 actually running csound in practically real time. It wasn't doing anthing extremeley complicated but it was generating samples fast enough to play them before the job was completed. Pretty cool. Don't expect phase vocodes in real time, but simple instrument generation should be very, very fast on such machines. David Rivas R-007 Dept. of ECE UCSD La Jolla Ca. 92122 david@ece.ucsd.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 09:33:37 -0400 From: mf Subject: Re: cmusic > and is anyone else working with Gross/IRCAM Soundfiles? i finally got the All of IRCAM is! So is CARL at San Diego, etc... Michael Fingerhut IRCAM ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 17:58:04 EDT From: Rob Camp Subject: Desperatly Seeking Superstars I am producing a television program dedicated to highlighting the creative talents of the people who hang out on the networks. The programming will emphasize entertainment-oriented computer animation and music video. The program will be 1/2 hour in length which will be comprised of a compilation of videos ranging from 1 minute to 6 minutes. The program will be aired on U*NET (University Network) which is a non- profit, satellite network linking hundreds of colleges and universities across the U.S. The network features a diversity of student-produced shows. Programs are downlinked by college television stations and cablecast or broadcast to the school and its surrounding community. In only a year of existence, U*NET has been welcomed with excitement at all levels. Grants and sponsorships from corporations and foundations with an interest in the future of broadcasting and cable in America support the network. Foremost supporters have been Time Warner, HBO, and CBS. U*NET has a combined potential audience of 31 million. If you have any music videos or computer animations with soundtracks, I encourage you to submit them. All submissions will be aired. Please send your tapes to: Explicit Multimedia 2020 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Suite 430 Washington, DC 20006 Tape format can be either 3/4" or 1/2". Please include the Title, Name of Artist, College or University, and Running time of the tape. If you have some computer animation without a soundtrack or if you are interested in composing musical soundtracks, please reply by E-Mail to: Rob Camp on BITNET. I will try to coordinate something for the artist and the musician to work together on a video. I am also seeking people for the following positions: - Writers - Assistant Producers - Editors - On Camera Host/Hostess If you are interested in any of the positions, please reply by E-Mail to: Rob Camp on BITNET. Please indicate the position that you are interested in, and list any relevant experience. Rob Camp George Washington University ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 14:00:28 EDT From: Dean Swan Subject: Re: Ensoniq EPS I have an EPS with 4x memory. I paid about $1500 US total for it new. My overall impression is that it has the most features of any $2000-ish sampler on the market. It's a lot of "bang for the buck." I haven't really noticed any *major* problems with the software. -Dean Swan dean@sun.soe.clarkson.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 15:19:33 +0200 From: mdc@LIBECCIO.TECSIEL.IT Subject: klaus schulze Well, i have "Babel" a CD recorded with Andrea Grosser at the Piano, made in 1989 (or 88). I think is one of the best things i never heard from him. __________ Maurizio De Cecco ___/ \___ Tecsiel S.p.A. ___\__/___ Via S.Maria 19 56100 Pisa - Italy email: mdc@tecsiel.it (or mdc%tecsiel.it@cunyvm.cuny.edu ) phone: +39-(50)-512514 fax: +39-(50)-589015 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 14:53:29 EDT From: "R. Potter" Subject: German electronic music I've been looking everywhere for CD copies of some of my favorite electronic music that I have on vinyl -- specifically Popol Vuh and Klaus Schulze. So far I have found only 1 or 2 compilations from an outfit in Arizaona (Celestial Harmonies). Is there a possibility of German CD's -- and is there anyplace in the U.S. where I could get them? If anyone had a suggestion, please email me ap016017@BROWNVM. Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 12:10:49 BST From: Shaun Brown Subject: Leslie speakers In article <9007102140.AA05522@cshl.cshlab> you write: >Does anyone out there think there would be an interest (or a market) >for a bookshelf Leslie speaker? The measurements would be 8" x 6" x 6". > >This would not be an electronic simulation of a dopler effect, >but a true rotating speaker system, like the one made famous >by the Hammond organ. > >ANALOGASAURUS I think your best bet would be to contact your nearest musical instrument retailer. IMHO the only group that would be interested in the Leslie would be your performing older generation of organ players etc. I must say though, that although you've got the two biggest keyboard/ organ manufacturers TECHNICS and YAMAHA producing their products with these electronic leslie's on, they don't come anyway near the original leslies. Hope this helps Shaun ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 17:40:10 EDT From: THEISS@CSHLAB.BITNET Subject: Leslie speakers Does anyone out there think there would be an interest (or a market) for a bookshelf Leslie speaker? The measurements would be 8" x 6" x 6". This would not be an electronic simulation of a dopler effect, but a true rotating speaker system, like the one made famous by the Hammond organ. ANALOGASAURUS ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 09:16:00 EDT From: CHRIS@FANDMA.BITNET Subject: Re: Leslie Speakers I know I would be interested in something along those lines, dependent upon the cost. How powerful a speaker are we talking about here? Something with enough oomph to play a small club, or just a living-room studio? Of course, given my economic straightjacket, I'd be even more interested in plans that would allow me to build them myself. Seems to me there would be a market for both plans and finished product, althogh it would probably be a very limited market at best... -chris ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 14:17:18 -0400 From: Brian Adamson Subject: Re: Leslie speakers Sounds very interesting. I suppose the rotating effect is most pronounced in the higher end of the audible spectrum anyway and a fanatastic bass response might not be too important. Although something to consider is whether such a contraption give you the same sound for these reasons: Relative size of the speaker to the room. Smaller angular velocity produced for the same rotation speed by a smaller diameter rotational plane Spatial relationship of rotating components. It certaintly sounds like something worth experimenting with. Let's hear more, Brian ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 19:02:16 EDT From: THEISS@CSHLAB.BITNET Subject: leslie Sorry this took so long to add to the list, I've been too busy with my 'real' job. Liaison Posted for ANALOGASAURUS About my bookshelf leslie idea - My friend & I were figuring on building a small inexpensive guitar practice amp - just what the world needs, another cheap amp - so I thought, why not do something novel & build a bookshelf leslie. Since more & more things in life are getting portable, who wants to port around a 150+ lb leslie that could fill a church, when all they want to fill is their livingroom. I invision this mini leslie as a self powered guitar amp, or as an accessory to a home organ. I would certainly not expect this to replace the original (especially in the lower register) but it could give us latter day synthesists a chance to experience this classic effect with a drastic cut in price & size. Not many of us have the extra money/space to spare for an original leslie. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 00:14:17 CDT From: UC489745@UMCVMB.BITNET Subject: Re: Mac Music Notation Software I, too, have worked with Professional Composer in generating scores, projects, etc. in college. After the initial impression of the polished laser-writer look, however, i found that PC's inflexibility regarding placement of slurs, ties, decrescendi/crescendi and text (as often over-lapping the notes as not), i found that the polished look was betrayed by the glaring sloppiness of the actual printout, and was not worth the hassle of the rather aggravating note input process. (Sorry if i sound a little like Siskel & Ebert here). Recently my job in the Music Dept. at the university brought me into contact with HB Engraver, which has a much smoother interface, is quite flexible with placement of the kinds of things mentioned above, and looks published quality. Unfortunately, i don't own the program, so i don't know the price, but i would think that anyone who has a need/desire for a smooth program with professional results would find it worth its price. Course, you could probably buy another MIDI module with the same money, but what the heck -- what's a few voices amongst friends? bq Mackintosh UC489745@umcvmb.missouri.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 10:54:25 BST From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Mac Music Notation Software Oh, yes. Composer's copy-protected. This sucks. (I spent half a day running around trying to get output through a unix gateway to an Agfa postscript printer, with the damn key disk in my paws all the time.) Nick. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 10:52:48 BST From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Mac Music Notation Software >i found that the polished look was betrayed by the glaring sloppiness of the >actual printout, and was not worth the hassle of the rather aggravating note >input process. Hmm. I've been getting into Composer a little since my last message. I tend to agree with your comments; Composer doesn't have a great deal of intelligence about where to put text and things, so I seem to end up moving things around by hand. The note input process seems quite well designed to me, although other aspects of the interface are a bit restrictive. I bought Composer as a cheap (relatively...) add-on to Performer, so I could take the stuff I've composed and arranged with Performer and print it out for rehearsal purposes. It's fine for that (barring a few problems of convention, like how to represent loops of bars for different instruments, and how to number the bars). [bars == measures. Sorry.] I wouldn't rate it as a top-notch notation-based music package by any means. Nick. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 11:07:56 BST From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Mac Notation Software (as oxymoron) >What I conclude is, if I had >$600 to blow on notation software, I'd be likely to stick it in a bank and wait >for something better to come along. I just bought a copy of MOTU's Professional Composer for around 200 quid. It's not the most sophisticated program in the world in terms of the user interface and editing operations, but it's nice and easy to use, and the output is very good and fine for our purposes, even using screen fonts (and font smoothing) rather than laserwriter fonts. The default choice of fonts (monaco, chicago and so on) is not too hot, and requires ResEdit magic to change. There's no MIDI input or output (forget the internal speaker playback unless you're a musical masochist): you're supposed to use Performer for that. It's a bit slow to work with on a Mac Plus. We have an e-music concert coming up, and the music is all prepared (mixdown aside) and sitting in Performer on my Mac and Cubase on my colleague's ST, so we have to get decent printout for rehearsal and memorising of the live piano and keyboard parts. Composer is ideal, since (i) Performer knows about it and can write files for it (and read them back for verification), and (ii) it's dead easy to use. There's still a fair amount of work involved in ornamenting the output from Performer into a full notated form, of course. This is an old version, by the way (2.2), although it runs fine on my SE/30 under MultiFinder, despite dating from 1987. I hope I get a free upgrade to 3.0. Nick. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 04:21:00 EDT From: Craig Hicks Subject: Pencils and Paper The recent comments comparing the relative merits of notation software and good old manuscript paper, as well as the Vangelis quote, as well as the discussion of virtual instruments and controllers has got me to wondering about technology's influence on the creative (i.e., musical composition) process. Usually, when I write a piece of music, it begins with an idea or melody that I "hear" in my head, a process that I call "imagining music." I may record this idea on a microcassette recorder that I keep handy for future reference, as my notation ability is marginal. Or, I might play it into my sequencer and store it there. But most of the actual idea-work on any given piece is done away from computers and synthesizers. Rarely will I sit down at a synth, lay on the keys, tweak a few parameters, and call it soup. So, I guess what this all leads up to is to what extent do you think musical ideas are driven by technology? Or do people's musical ideas drive technological innovation? The "truth" of the matter is probably somewhere in-between. But I would be interested in reading any comments regarding your personal processes you would care to send to the list. Your pal, Craig :) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 11:25:00 EDT From: METLAY@PITTVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Pencils and Paper I find that I have no set way approaching the creative process. It depends on the sort of music I'm doing. Most of the time, I sit down with graph paper and colored pencils and drafting tools, and create a rough score for the piece. Then I sit down at the keys and start turning knobs, and out come the erasers and pencils until the thing works the way I want it to. Usually, alas, the score gets tossed aside about halfway in (unless I'm doing something REALLY complex), and I finish by ear and feel, and jot down a few notes after I'm done. Or, I can just let my hands flop down on the piano keys, and base a piece on what comes out....|-> metlay ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 16:04:37 BST From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Pencils and Paper >So, I guess what this all leads up to is to what extent do >you think musical ideas are driven by technology? Or do >people's musical ideas drive technological innovation? I find that I can get some wonderful ideas from just turning all the machines on and messing around. Playing the wrong patches through the wrong effects in the wrong key can generate some wonderful ideas. This is, I think, a very different mental exercise from coming up with musical ideas from an abstract idea for a feeling, an image, or whatever. (Maybe one is left-brained and one right- or something.) Having a good sequencing and software environment is essential, I feel, to get the structured detailed ideas and sketches recorded, mixed and arranged. Then, there's the middle bit, from ideas in the head to an overall structure with some details filled in. Trying to do this part of the job with a computer switched on is fatal. Nick. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 10:44:09 BST From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Pencils and Paper This business of written notation for ideas is a very important one, I think. I've often lost ideas for having no clear way of writing them down (or drawing them) quickly enough. I hadn't thought of using colour (as Metlay describes) - that's a good idea, since I tend to think in colours anyway. Interested parties are referred to the "language" Klaus Schulze uses, as shown on the back of Black Dance (or is it Timewind?) and the booklet in "X" (LP version only, alas). Nick. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 12:10:00 EDT From: METLAY@PITTVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Pencils and Paper I won't take credit for graphical/color notation: I got the idea from two places. One is the remarkable inner sleeve to the original Ohr release of Tangerine Dream's second album, "Alpha Centauri," which shows part of the piece in a piano-roll of graph paper and is as much art as a representation of music. (Klaus Schulze's notes from the back of "Timewind" (not "Blackdance") are a simpler version of this form, as are the notes from Jean-Michel Jarre's "Les Chants Magnetiques" that we glimpse in one of his SX-70 snaps.) The concept of color was first put forth by a French synthesist named Labat, Yves Labat if memory serves. His first solo album, entitled "M. Frog," contained several pages of color graphic scoring. (Man, I'm sorry I didn't buy the one copy that I've seen with an un-mangled booklet.) He felt that color was the ideal way to explode printed music out of the acoustic era and into the age of the synthesizer. (For those of you who care about such things, Labat was a member of the first version of Utopia, and appears on their first album, or so I'm told.) metlay ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 10:30:00 EDT From: Craig Hicks Subject: Re: Pencils and Paper Wow! Graph paper notation, colors, charts...too bad they're all scattered in the liner notes and artwork on various hard-to-find lps. Does anyone know of something that even approaches being a "comprehensive" sourebook on the history and methods of non-traditional e-music notation? I am eagerly awaiting a reply. In the meantime, I think I'll go out and buy a box of Crayolas ;) - Craig ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 15:23:00 EST From: "William R(ay) Brohinsky" Subject: Re: Pencils and Paper John Cage has put out books containing examples of non-traditional notation. If anyone can't come up with names/publishers before tomorrow, I should be able to find something. raybro ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 18:21:00 EDT From: METLAY@PITTVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Pencils and Paper If a book on non-standard notation exists, I'm not aware of it. This does NOT mean the existence of such a book is doubtful; in fact, I would be surprised to learn if such a book did NOT exist.... Perhaps one of the readers who's better connected to a University could glance through a library, maybe? Please? Or have I driven them all away? |-> I would like to note two things, though: there appear to be, to my mind, two types of nonstandard notation: 1. That which is created to free the READER from constraint 2. That which is created to free the WRITER from constraint The difference is subtle. John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen created manuscripts of the first type; in studying them and interpreting them, the performer learned to question all of the things he or she normally took for granted in performance of written material. I create pieces of the second type, because I'm not very good at reading music and the standard music notation doesn't do what I need it to do anyway. |-> So the difference may lie in whether the writer writes for his own needs, or with the needs of others in mind.... metlay PS. Do NOT use Crayolas! They smear and you can't do fine work with them. Worse, under hot stage lights they melt and run. Believe me, I know. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 08:42:23 EDT From: HARNDEN@AUVM.BITNET Subject: Re: Pencils and Paper On Wed, 11 Jul 90 10:44:09 BST Nick Rothwell said: > >Interested parties are referred to the "language" Klaus Schulze uses, >as shown on the back of Black Dance (or is it Timewind?) and the booklet >in "X" (LP version only, alas). > does anyone know anything about this notation? i have often wondered about it. does it map to anything known? does it have significant antecedents? has he published/talked about it? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eric Harnden (Ronin) | V.P., Chief Engineer | Transmedia Music, inc. The American University Physics Dept.| (202) 347-8050 Washington, D.C | ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 08:47:25 EDT From: HARNDEN@AUVM.BITNET Subject: Re: Pencils and Paper there is a book called NEW MUSIC NOTATION. i don't remember it's author, but she had a polish or czech name, i believe. the title i am sure of, however, so you should be able to reference it. it's pretty comprehensive. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eric Harnden (Ronin) | V.P., Chief Engineer | Transmedia Music, inc. The American University Physics Dept.| (202) 347-8050 Washington, D.C | ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 08:50:39 EDT From: HARNDEN@AUVM.BITNET Subject: Re: Pencils and Paper somtimes notations are devised to explicitly represent or implement unique constraints. note penderecki's clocked piano-rolls. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eric Harnden (Ronin) | V.P., Chief Engineer | Transmedia Music, inc. The American University Physics Dept.| (202) 347-8050 Washington, D.C | ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 09:59:10 EDT From: kgeisel Subject: Re: Pencils and Paper Nick Rothwell writes: >Interested parties are referred to the "language" Klaus Schulze uses, >as shown on the back of Black Dance (or is it Timewind?) and the booklet >in "X" (LP version only, alas). >Nick. I've got a xerox blow-up of the Timewind score hanging up in my studio. I still haven't figured out what some of it means... It is certainly terse. Another interesting notation is the snippets you get of Jarre's notes on Magnetic Fields. - Kurt ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 11:19:00 EDT From: STEARNS@MBCL.RUTGERS.EDU Subject: Re: Vangelis Says... Re: Nick's growing penchant for paper-and-pencil composition: yea, me too; had an argument over the weekend with a computer buff who set up my Mac -- he described glowingly how much time I would save and all I could feel was Sorry, I've been here before. I manage the beasts (computers) and have come to feel that they're only useful when 1) pretty simple and 2) pretty unob- trusive and 3) largely funded and housed by some grand institution. As for mine own part, on weekends I still function quicker with the apparatus Nick mentioned. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 18:16:09 CST From: Jason Keeler Subject: rec.music.synth Hi folx; Now that I know exactly WHAT rec.music.synth is, how am I supposed to contact it?? ...Jason ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 16:36:53 EDT From: Otto Matec Subject: Re: Review Request Has anyone worked with the relatively new publication ELEMENTS OF COMPUTER MUSIC by F. Richard Moore (Prentice Hall, 1990)? I'd be grateful for a brief opinion on the content and presentation. -OM ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 08:55:40 EDT From: HARNDEN@AUVM.BITNET Subject: Sys-ex dynamic patch modification oh.. one more thing for today... the k5 is able to modify its spectra dynamically under live control. when programming it, one can select the region of harmonics to operate on, and positive or negative slope functions, and twiddle the dial directly to make those areas of the spectrum slip up or down. in order for this to be a wavtable-mixing device (which is a good and plausible idea, mind you), the waves would have to be recalcualted the instant any change is made in the region or slope specs. do we figure this is true? how would it be achieved? brute-force sinewave adding? or a dedicated firmware fft? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eric Harnden (Ronin) | V.P., Chief Engineer | Transmedia Music, inc. The American University Physics Dept.| (202) 347-8050 Washington, D.C | ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 21:43:09 EDT From: Dean Swan Subject: Re: k5 Oh, also the K5 is the only synth I know of that can receive patch editing info via sys-ex WHILE NOTES ARE SOUNDING!!!!!!. You can edit the patch and hear the changes instantly. Very hip. -Dean Swan dean@sun.soe.clarkson.eud oops.... I meant .edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 21:41:28 EDT From: Dean Swan Subject: Re: k5 Ok, enough about this K5 thing. It is *NOT*, I repeat *NOT* a wavetable machine. First off, one can enable or disable the modulation sources for each harmonic independently. That alone disproves that wavetable theory. Mark Medovich (mark@necntc.nec.com) made a posting to rec.music.synth a long time ago that referred to the patents for the K5. It uses an clever algorithm based on a sinewave table. The only cost is that it can only produce harmonically related partials. Anyway, if I can dig up those old postings, I'll flip copies to EMUSIC-L. -Dean Swan dean@sun.soe.clarkson.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 14:06:00 EDT From: Craig Hicks Subject: Re: k5 >Oh, also the K5 is the only synth I know of that can >receive patch editing info via sys-ex WHILE NOTES ARE >SOUNDING!!!!!!. You can edit the patch and hear the >changes instantly. Very hip. Dean, I think the sequential circuits "six-trak" can do the same. At least I have been able to change parameters on patches via sysex during a sequence...I am not certain if they actually occur "while notes are sounding." Any other sequential users have any experience with this? Craig Hicks National Academy of Sciences Washington, DC USA CHICKS@NAS ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 14:31:21 EDT From: Dean Swan Subject: k5 From the discussions going on on rec.music.synth, I have gathered also that the Korg WS is able to receive sys-ex patch edits while notes are sounding. Nick Rothwell also indicated that the Juno-106 can do this also. -Dean Swan dean@sun.soe.clarkson.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 18:09:00 EDT From: METLAY@PITTVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: k5 Dean: (Ooh, he's gonna HATE me for this....) The K5 is not the only synth that can alter parameters in realtime while notes are sounding. While most synths either cut off notes or refuse to process edits until note-off (Yamaha and Ensoniq come to mind), other gear with simpler processing requirements does not, for example-- (Are you ready for the screaming?) --the Oberheim Xpander. metlay (Earplugs. What a WONDERFUL concept!) |-> |-> |-> ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 16:44:00 EDT From: MTG@CSI.COMPUSERVE.COM Subject: SysEx changes to 6-Tracks in mid-motion... >I think the sequential circuits "six-trak" can do the same. >At least I have been able to change parameters on patches >via sysex during a sequence...I am not certain if they >actually occur "while notes are sounding." > >Any other sequential users have any experience with this? Sort of... I have a 6-Track, and I do know that you can change parms while the note is still on and it affects the note. I can't say I've tried it via SysEx MIDI, but I can confirm that you can do it during a sequence with no problem. Basically, I don't see any reason why SysEx parm changes wouldn't affect what's being played. - Mark G. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 13:52:00 EST From: "William R(ay) Brohinsky" Subject: VR and Electronic Musician OK, VR freakers! I just picked up the July issue (vol 6, No 7) of Electronic Musician, and on page 30 starts an article on VR for music. Salient points of the article are the description of NASA's virtual MIDI Theremin, and the information that a company called Fake Space Labs is working on a midi interface using the Mattel Power Glove as an input device. No mention of expected cost of the interface, nor what it expects to put out as control events. I take exception to the idea that the author of the artical expresses, that 3-D displays are not as important as 3-D gesture controls for EM. That may be so after the learning curve is out of the way, but who'd like to learn to play (enter any instrument that you don't currently play, and haven't touched)________________ without being able to tell if your fingers are in the right place? Also mentioned is the Boie drum, an early 2-D version of which was shown on a NOVA program, which is described as being 3-D now, and having a midi out. Has any of our academically-oriented correspondants used any version of the Boie drum? any comments? raybro ------------------------------ End of EMUSIC-L digest ******************************