Curtis Rhodes Granular Synthesis

Very interesting series of videos. It reminds me a little of the debate that surrounds Jackson Pollock's painting, how it takes so much effort, creativity and genius to create something that seems, ultimately, quite random, but is the end product any more interesting than something that is truly random (and created without much effort)?

I tried to find some of his work to hear a whole piece (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzHxEIBh7fo). After listening I'm still not sure... but I definitely wouldn't mind playing with his toys :P

He comes of to me as more of the engineer type. In part 3 comments someone mentioned that AFX idolizes this guy. I can't verify that but it might well be true. One of my favorite songs of all tiem is Windowlicker and it certainly sounds like it could have basis on the what this was tinkering with from engineering standpoint rather than trying to be a commercial success story music wise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P3Wc-37pC4

Go get coagula if you like these kind of sounds:

http://hem.passagen.se/rasmuse/Coagula.htm

Way easy and fun. No analog tape recorder or mainframe needed.

added:
also checkout Paulstretch:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/hypermammut

That's very cool sounds for 1975, I was only 3 nearly 4 then.

I wrote a lot of programs on Spectrum, C64, MSX and BBC Micro (Acorn) for similar stuff. Best soundchip was on the MSX, 3 timbre with some nice sounds could be achieved via programing.
I once wired a very old 2 tier organ to all the letters on a keyboard, wire by wire and made with some programming a home made synthesizer then went out after completing it, came back, me bro had been in the room with some m8s getting stoned and did something to it and killed the MSX. :(

I was so gutted, took days soldering all the wires lol.

But hearing the guy in the video talk about it it really takes me back.

Oh I had a massive Rotating Chest, about 4ft high and 1m square, sound fantastic and he found a 3/5m jack with like speaker wire joined to it in my room, he tried to hot wire them wired into the mains and killed it, sent 240v through the input jack socket.
Running my old organs through that with the rotor on sounded so awesome, threw the sound all round the room.

Don't ya just miss them days of the first home computers. :)

I notice that the folks who made Coagula also have a granular synth app (http://hem.passagen.se/rasmuse/Granny.htm). I would like to find free variant of Propellorheads Recycle, to quickly cut up (and assign to midi keys) audio files into slightly more discernible chunks.

Even better would be a plug-in that, when a midi key is pressed for the first time, records until the key is released. Then each subsequent time it would play the sample it had recorded. So by pressing 8 keys in sequence and singing "Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do" you could end up with the first key holding "Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do", the second holding "re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do", the third holding "mi, fa, so, la, ti, do" etc. Because, you know, I "like, like, like big butts and I cannot lie, big, big butts and I cannot lie".

I'm sure this type of plug-in must already exist but I haven't had the time to do a thorough search. I kind of have this setup by assigning 25 ReaSamplomatic5000's to a single track in Reaper, then importing files into each ReaSamplomatic from another track and cropping to the part I want, but it is pretty slow going. (Each ReaSamplomatic is assigned to a single key on my midi keyboard.)

Anyone got any suggestions?

Sounds like a cool idea. Now here's why it won't work ;).

The VST protocol has two main types: Effects and Instruments. Effects have Audio Inputs. Instruments don't. Both have MIDI input.

I'm not sure whether Effects gets passed Note events -- can't think why not... Let's hope they do..! :)

So, your Audio Input goes into your Effect. Your MIDI Input goes into your Effect. You tell the Effect to start recording (first MIDI Note?). Each subsequent MIDI Note gets assigned a sample position until you finish recording (somehow).

Most DAWs switch off effects on channels with no Audio input. So you can't use the Effect for playback.

So you switch your MIDI Input to your Instrument. Now your Notes trigger playback of the recorded audio from the assigned sample positions.

Question is, how did the audio and information about the notes get from the Effect to the Instrument? That's what made me say "it won't work".

But! If you insert the Instrument before the Effect and they're both sharing the same memory (shared memory is doable) and they inherently know about each other, it might just work...

You could try asking over on KVRaudio. If it can be done, someone's almost certainly done it and the crew there < strikethru>will bite you for not knowing< /strikethru> helpfully tell you ;).

=> Latest jams! <= => Random jam <=

Lol, I know what you mean about KVRaudio, I've read a few threads there and they really don't seem to take kindly to someone who hasn't done their homework. To escape that fate I started my search anew and found something that looks promising:
http://www.muxer.nl/instant-sampler/

Unfortunately I am without access to my audio gear for another 2 months so can't really say if it is what I was looking for...

Good find. That looks pretty close - samples whilst you hold a note for the first time, plays back what it sampled based on how you hit that note next time. Up to 30 seconds seems pretty handy and there's a "reset memory" note to start over.

I'll give it a go setting up in MU.LAB and Reaper -- I'm not sure how many hosts it's going to "just work" in.

[edit]In MU.LAB it just gave me a headache of feedback on inserting the effect.[/edit]
[edit]In Reaper, it seems to work. Set up track 1 as a MIDI instrument track, track 2 as audio in. In track 2 I/O, turn off master/parent send and add a send to track 1.[/edit]

=> Latest jams! <= => Random jam <=

I'm not 100% sure I understand how you mean Anonymouse but I can do similar by recording on an audio track on Cubase, then I can cut to what I want then I run up Halion and just drag the recorded part I want to the keys I want on there. Then cutoff, res, reverbs etc can be assigned, plus loops setup pretty quick and other.

Its not quite hold, record but its not far from it.

There are some freebie ones around like Halion.

If this isn't how you meant then explain a bit more to me, I might have seen what you want or know how you can achieve it.

A handy thing about Halion is you can create patch banks and all, might be an older version free possibly.

EDIT:
Looking at that link, it looks to do similar to Halion, where different keys can play different parts from a sample. This could also be achieved by snipping up in Reaper or Cubase then drag the snipped up bits to each key on Halion.

But that one there doesn't look too bad, looks like it might achieve what your looking to do.

Thanks guys for taking the time to think about this problem (especially pljones for going to all the trouble of installing the VST). I'll definitely check it out InstantSampler when I get back online.

There must be some physical equivalent, like an RC Loop Station but where the samples aren't looped but are triggered manually?

Not sure if its still on here but I posted a link to loads of free vst's, it might still be on here somewhere.

EDIT:
I not found the link yet but I found another one that has a few freebie ones.
I'll keep looking.

Wav type -
http://www.vst4free.com/index.php?cat=loop

and Soundfont type -
http://www.vst4free.com/index.php?cat=soundfont

Granular type -
http://www.audiomastermind.com/browse-granulator-5887013-1.html

and soem more -
http://www.freesoundeditor.com/VSTSyntheng.htm

Was handy, I see Bizune and mine needs sorting out to make it work again and this reminded me so now I'm downloading it again whilst I remember.

Saw this thread over on KVR:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=81491
Looks like someone else is on the case, too...

=> Latest jams! <= => Random jam <=

Thanks Peter, I can't wait to try it out. I'm 'jonesing' pretty bad for some jammin time, so far I've downloaded 58 music-making apps onto my wife's iPod Touch in search of something to play along with... Most fun has been ZoozBeat (http://www.zoozmobile.com/zoozbeat.htm) although the loop is only 16 BPI so it's starting to drive my kids a little... ummm... loopy :P