okay, kids

[xoxos]

so, things coalesce, and it's that time again.

over 8 years since breathcube.. and almost 4 since new blend

i'm out of the se or vst sdks and using win32, which hopefully will be compatible with contemporary windows versions.

the intent for breathcube is a musical automation, not as an instrument. ..and for general audiences, not for musicians (though predeliction may be otherwise).

i'll probably be recycling a lot of the code from new blend.. i'm happy with aspects of the sequencing (some.. i can also see overly strong influences in my technique). new blend's failing was (apart from an array bug that popped up in the last days before the dc deadline) bad voicing.. i'd squeezed this into the last week and eg. the levels made it difficult for most people to appreciate what was there. i have some new methods to work with, eg. frequency domain synthesis. (the deadline on new blend ended before the melodic/lead parts were built).


i'm going to petition the public for input for a while, a thread in the developers forum will probably pop up soon. i do not intend for this project to ever function as a musical instrument, which makes some ideas easier to develop (eg. no midi output). i'd like to have some consideration for where the project might lead, so if you have thoughts, ideas, on what you expect from an automatic music generator, please elaborate.

eg. if you look at new blend, tempo has a lower and an upper bound. this is eg. less meaningful when you consider the meter variance.. the lower/upper work pretty well, maybe another abstraction would be preferable.

my "potentiating failing" is that i do not have an advanced knowledge of music theory, which has allowed me to innovate in stochastic method. not always effectively i am very cautious when i approach absorbtion of knowledge.. so eg. someone recently pointed out to me that zappa discussed formula.. i'm not sure how much i'd like to be influenced by his thinking.. the scope of this task biases me towards open ended solutions with more variation and more potential to be disjunct..

to summarise, it looks like a new generator is what i want to be working on for a while. comment, or sing out if you want to play too.


about xoxos..

as i've been saying for the last year, my motivation to participate in the vst industry has essentially dissipated due to the shifting social import of diversity in vst over the last decade i've enjoyed being who i have been here, and of course extend gratitude to the like-minded, corroboration, et al.

i no longer intend for xoxos to be seen as a place where you can get stuff you'd like to get elsewhere except for cheaper, or whatever. i am making no pretense of social benefit hereon. i also think the world has moved too much (internally and externally) to validate the original objective of the breathcube project (a memetic diversifier). what do i say next.. you get one guess.

i do make use of the paucity of income from vst sales.. there aren't a whole lot of vst i'm driven to make any more.. ..so i expect to change to sort of a kickstarter format, where a purchase buys antecedent breathcube versions as they are released.. and i get paid before spending god knows how long before i finish..


i have difficulty focusing on being extricative, and as i've said, i have significantly less motivation to develop for my previous reasons. some of you were paying attention over the last several years, you understand... so note that my drive here is neither that of the idealist or of the capitalist. it's real minimal, if there's any drive at all, i'm well tired of the dickheads in this business, and i've done so much listening now that i prefer the birds to music.


so send me your money, tell people to expect innovation from moi, and don't be disappointed.




what you got?

[highkoo]

Well, I have no money.
They took it all.

Fwiw, New Blend remains one of the most impressive pieces of audio software Ive ever seen. I also 'dont get' why people didnt 'get it'...
I mean, it is not exactly useful for production, but its pretty thoroughly mind blowing.
Recycling that code has a lot of potential, imo.

I saw this the other day and I think this guy should buy a couple bits of New Blend from you with some of his Mitsubishi moneyz....
http://vimeo.com/42921558
Imo, his project is lacking in that area, but would be something pretty special if New Blend, or some iteration of it, were doing the driving...

Good luck with your new direction!
Kick Starter might be just the place for your kind of work.

[The Telenator]

So, I finally come looking for the genius behind all of these charming, unusual and sometimes delicate creations and somehow land on this thread. Not only this, but I check to see if the initial post is from yesteryear and it's not. It's current.

My experience with the name xoxos and any of these plugins began on the very first day of trying to understand this whole business of what VST meant and what these bits of software are. It was overwhelming at first -- I had just left my last comfortable studio setting where everything aside from my actual playing was usually handled by someone else. My disconnect with much of studio technology began right around the time things left tape and scissors and went solidly to digital.

And so I had myself a DAW now. I remember that one of the highlights of those early days, as I struggled to understand how everything worked and fit together, is that I somehow came upon your plugin that featured bird sounds. Amid all of my constant confusion back then, it really made my day.

It wasn't full of flashing lights and promises of 'cone rattling, unique and never-before-heard sounds, of the phattest of basses' and it didn't want my wallet or the bizarre fanboi allegiance I'd already spotted in every advert and on every forum.

But you could get it to sound like a convincing bird without wading through dozens of pages in a manual, too.

Since then, I've sometimes wondered if the few small blessings such as this and Ichiro Toda's Synth1 and perhaps fuzzpilz's Oatmeal are what kept me pressing on and not hitting the X on that DAW and deciding to simply chuck it all and return to my instrument.

So thanks for your part in that.

It's only now that the dust has settled and much of dealing with digital audio and MIDI has become almost second nature have I found the time to look for where these birds came from. I suppose I should have known I'd find similar sounds and creations there, but I knew almost nothing back then. I've learned that a lot of this entire field is filled to the brim with rubbish and idiots, more than any art form I've ever seen, but there are also some good things to be found as well.

[xoxos]

thank you for the appreciation topics for another conversation in there.

the format is changing from "song" based to continuous (eg. more like a dj mix). "complete" songs were legacy from bc1. i think it hinders the output with unnecessary repetition and formalism as the objective is to be entertaining and not theoretical.. it's going to be easier to build as well.

[Rathead]

so, things coalesce, and it's that time again.

>snipples<

so send me your money, tell people to expect innovation from moi, and don't be disappointed.



what you got?

How much money do you want? People expect nothing but innovation from vous. It will be hard to live without disappointment but, for you, I will try.

what you want?

[highkoo]

I have heard that at a certain donation level, the tote bags become super sized.

[abstractcats]

I've been using, Water on some new tracks, its really cool, Arpped

[Rathead]

I have heard that at a certain donation level, the tote bags become super sized.

Damn, that's the kind of thing I just can't resist....

[xoxos]

I've been using, Water on some new tracks, its really cool, Arpped

i've been using stoq a fair bit and considered improving the impulse spectrum and event algorithm.. and resonator.. not enough to do it

what i want.. pretty much weed, and fire, quiet, food and shelter in that order. my original intent for the project is effectively defunct and without a visualisation of the precise effect i can't claim to want or need anything. i can still see the project having some benefit as a result of chance, not of effort.

i'm not sure what i want it to be as i'm taking the old result and finding ways to improve it, but not to a locus. the ultimate and unachieved model for new blend was experimental, to create spaces in eg. 11 count rhythms for the listener, outside of cultural space. i'd like to preserve this function. i'd more like to approach conventionality, eg. using atonal sounds like samples are used to hold interest in dub music more than exclusively tuned parts and percussion.

i'd welcome persons wanting to collaborate in their field, persons with more knowledge of any 'theory', mixing or progression or patching schemes.. not necessarily people who can code. if someone can explain a method used for accomplishing a musical task, eg. if you use a variable yet reliable procedure for pads.. or mixing/processing drums.. anything procedural.. i'd certainly like to have the ear of someone more practiced at windows and structures programming to discuss things with. (atm i have all the knowledge to make the standalone work, i've got a memory leak in my bmp loading routine and to find it myself i need to reread a hundred pages of petzold, which is about the most unpleasant thing i can imagine doing, and i've had several jobs working with manure. i'd love to have some knowledgeable person fish that one out of my app skeleton).

i'd also strongly welcome those who could take a moment to imagine the use of algorithmic music in their life, eg. (more than 'check this weird thing someone made out') used in contexts where recorded music is used, in the car, at home relaxing, and how you would intend to interact with it. like one day you come home in a particular emotional state and whereas a person may play their favourite song in this condition, what would you say to the machine.. request diffusive music.. focused music.. take some specific and run with it and see if it poses any questions.

what would people expect and want..


i wish people to anticipate novelty exclusively from themselves.. don't love me or others of this kind.. i will only betray you..

[Rathead]

I can see 3 ways in which I might use an algorithmic music generator.

1) As a toy. I find it therapeutic sometimes to just fiddle with things. Sometimes I set up complex arrangements of synths and effects in my DAW and set off a couple of random MIDI files downloaded from the net. A happy hour then ensues mixing and mangling and fiddling about. Goes nowhere but often leaves me with lots of ideas to follow up in composition.

The proposed music generator could fill this need too, if it accepted parameter changes in real time and could smoothly morph to the new parameter values. The more tweakables the better for this, as long as the results are audible in real time and there is an ability to reset to a 'sane' value, or perhaps a 'return to previous' function. Being able to set limits to parameters, and possibly also 'lock' some parameters, is also essential to allow you to 'zoom in' on a developing idea before it disappears.


Hope this is what you are looking for.

I will expand on the other uses in separate messages.

rgds
rat

[abstractcats]

i've been using stoq a fair bit and considered improving the impulse spectrum and event algorithm.. and resonator

Cool! I don't know, Stoq, I do like the name, though

What would be cool from xoxos? Something Granular, even better, a fully modular, granular synth. I'd love to work on that, as beta testing and preset design.

[xoxos]

i'm strongly biased towards "hands off" because making the app interactive would become the equivalent of coding a daw *and* generator together as users asked for increasingly refined control. it would shift the attention in developing away from the best hands-off results possible.. params were read at the beginning of each song on new blend, moving away from this format i'd anticipate reading params every few passages.

my original idea of application was eg. to take the place of waiting room music so we're not stuck listening to the same recordings from 20 years ago normally heard on muzak stations. (the concept of recorded vs. present time is foremost..)

stoq is largely derived from a perry cook physmod instrument.. my impulse is a bit different (i'd recommend reading the manual..). it works okay for shakers, sometimes general noisy sounds. could work better.

[xoxos]

for a better idea, imagine if you will if half or more.. of the people who make music with DAWs today were instead developing generative algorithms.. instead of bands that achieve fame, programmers were reputed.. the bar on the corner doesn't play niftydude blues band from 7-9pm, they play niftydude algorithm.. and instead of recognising old songs, you would recognise patterns and algorithms as they would be the most identifiably recurrant part.

i am not aware of any development in algorithmic music outside my own that tasks more than a single "genre" .. only cheesy "trance" apps that are more jokes.. or ambient generators (based on samples..)

this paradigm is what i am intending.. i don't care if algorithmic generators never replace intentional music (such as it is today) - i do believe there is an unoccupied space for this method to coexist.. in the same way electronic music was gradually accepted.

if instead my goal were to make algorithmic generators as composition tools, i could milk the f**k out of people as everything i produced would be novel to practically everyone but me.. we'd still be here a decade later, me releasing slightly improved products and collecting a new license fee for each one, like people develop synths. that's why there hasn't been a circuit 2 or a hyperion 2 or a skunk with 16 steps and 4 parts and a few extra features, because i'm not a bastard. i'm not interested in coddling the current paradigm.. computer music is elitist consumerism, new releases support this instead of challenging and expanding our ideas. releasing just about anything now serves to corroborate consumerism simply by its availability in the marketplace format.

[chris_b]

xoxos, have you ever considered the realm of game development? I think your approach to algorithmic music generation could find an appreciative audience via that route.

Check out for example Proteus, if you don't already know it, a simple exploration game with realtime synthesized audio.

A .dll encapsulating your generative algorithms where a game developer can feed in some parameters and request for a buffer to be filled with samples would be very interesting.

[xoxos]

extremities of contemplation have approached this line, eg. bands of procedural players.. octopus playing a guitar on a surfboard, bongo under a palm tree et al.

2d games are hampered by the above mentioned bmp loading error (developers know this.. the app runs for about three minutes or so then the system graphics freak out because the handles have run out). would love to solve that. they're less fun to code without sprites

i've done 3d projection but can only wireframe. solid is on the list as i've harboured some game ideas.

i've had two "big names" in game audio (one big enough that i recognised) contact me asking for dlls, unfortunately as a borland user the documentation hasn't been available since last century

big regret is declining game dev with some kids i used to work with.. my contemporaries aren't interested in informing me for various reasons. i knew that i'd learn a lot more from them than they would from me, and, at two decades their senior, they'd have had to explain a lot for me to keep up in retrospect, i expect my benefit would have eventually recompensated them.