notesdontmatter

Creative Computing – Week 8 – “MIDI and MSP”

I have clearly spent some ten times the required time quota on this little project, but it was…fun. Granular synthesis and MIDI control is really highlighting the creative potential of this program for me. The track I’ve recorded for this week is just a simple loop in the background, with my granul8tr8tor patch manipulating the same loop with selectable MIDI and onscreen controls.

The set-up of MIDI to control MSP is not a difficult concept to implement. Understanding how these functions need to be inserted into the signal flow is a very different story. I have had some trouble getting all effects (vibrato, modulation index, and pitch bending) to work in unison and at complimentary volume levels. I believe there is still much to be learned in the area of signal summing and the differences between modulating a signal and amplifying its output. The difference sounds obvious but it’s easy to get the result of one when you intended the other if the cables are connected incorrectly.


There are five glorious new GUI controls added to my collection this week. This is in addition to the main patch. All notable parameters are controllable by MIDI with the controller number to be used selectable on screen. I also included a small bpatcher window showing all incoming control data info so the user can quickly determine the control number of the controller they may want to use just my moving it. This makes life easier with the novation keyboards, which are notoriously inconsistent with their respective control numbering (does anyone know how to initialise them yet).


I am still very much in the discovery stages of learning the art of granular synthesis, but it already promises plenty. The patch is far from perfect, as you will see the routing of audio is quite messy and there is some interference between the quick groove playback machine and the sample in the poly instances. This is probably because they are referencing the same buffer but that’s one for next week…

Click here to link to online folder containing this week’s patches, MP3 example and images in high resolution (all downloadable separately.)


Reference:

Haines Christian. “Creative Computing – Week 8 – “MIDI and MSP.”” Lecture presented at tutorial room 408, Level 4, Schultz building, University of Adelaide, Thursday the 13th of September, 2007.

posted by David J Dowling @ 12:29 PM