Zyklus Improvisor, real-time harmonic sequencer

[UncleAge]

Messing around into the weee hours of the morning and I started to wonder what it would be like if I could drop midi files onto the layers on a given track...hmmm... I mean, I like the "realtime/live" aspect of recording the input, but it seems like it would kick it up a notch if you could load/drop midi files as well. Just sayin...

[Spitfire31]

Are all settings back to default, or just the slot settings? In the latter case you must store it to scene 1 first before saving the song, because this scene is loaded when a song is loaded.

Hi,

Just downloaded Improvisor 505_04, ran a quick test on Intel Mac, 10.6.8, and now Save/Save As… works, after a fashion.

Files do get written and when I open them in Text Edit, they're full of stuff.

However, when I Load a saved file from within Improvisor, all settings seem to be reset to defaults, not to the values that were saved.

So, the glass is half full, or half empty…

Best,

Joachim

Caveat: I haven't even started to touch Improvisor functionally - I just changed a lot of track values, Saved and then Loaded, with the above result.

I should have suspected driver error…

You're right of course - I hadn't stored the Scene.

Sorry for the noise and a big thank you also to the Mac techs!

During the holidays I'll start delving into Improvisor and try not to post any more nonsense.

/Joachim

[bronswerk]

I should have suspected driver error…

You're right of course - I hadn't stored the Scene.

Sorry for the noise and a big thank you also to the Mac techs!

During the holidays I'll start delving into Improvisor and try not to post any more nonsense.

/Joachim

Well, you're not entirely wrong It's indeed a little awkward that you have to store a scene into scene 1 first before saving. Maybe in a future version I will add a "edit scene" that reflects the current screen settings and that edit scene is remembered and called when loading a song.

@UncleAge
Using standard midi files is something I thought about, but what if there's all sort of data that ZI can't handle at the moment? I would have to scan the file, check for errors, transform it into the appropriate format that ZI uses etc. Technically very difficult..

[UncleAge]

@UncleAge
Using standard midi files is something I thought about, but what if there's all sort of data that ZI can't handle at the moment? I would have to scan the file, check for errors, transform it into the appropriate format that ZI uses etc. Technically very difficult..

PM sent.

[bronswerk]

PM sent.

Email back.

[trackzone]

Midi mapping of at least important functions is still not possible I think? For example muting tracks, selecting layers, selecting arpeggio settings, saving and recalling snaphsots, selecting scenes, program change, bank select, midi channel select, all via midi notes or cc. e.g. right-clicking on a gui element: midi-map, use note or cc on your midi hardware controller.

So currently you have to use all the time your mouse for doing any setting changes?

[bronswerk]

Midi mapping of at least important functions is still not possible I think? For example muting tracks, selecting layers, selecting arpeggio settings, saving and recalling snaphsots, selecting scenes, program change, bank select, midi channel select, all via midi notes or cc. e.g. right-clicking on a gui element: midi-map, use note or cc on your midi hardware controller.

So currently you have to use all the time your mouse for doing any setting changes?

It's impossible to map all controls to a hardware controller unless it's a iPad or so. But what works in combination with a Korg NanoKontrol are:

NanoKontrol > Function in Improvisor:

Faders 1 -8 > Volume Slot 1-8
Rotary pots 1-8 > Transpose layers
Upper buttons 1-8 > Arm slot (record)
Lower buttons 1-8 > Thru on/off
Play > Global Start/stop
Record > Global Record on/off
Forward > Clear current record
Rewind > Restart
Loop > Select next layer(for recording)

I've written a pdf file (see the Files>Documentation section of the yahoo group) with all the corresponding midi CC numbers.

[trackzone]

Yes, I saw this file later, however under win xp, I had troubles with midi thru playback via midi-yoke inputs and midi-yoke outputs. I suppose it is due to problems of Max midi port use, somehow. I just have the feeling midi port use in Max is not very reliable. I could not get it to work, then midi thru worked, but I could not sync it to an external midi clock. In short: I could not really test Improvisor at all, which is kind of frustrating a little.

[trackzone]

Are there any examples how the mapping among sequence notes and the transposition via the incoming detected chord notes happens? For example how are sequence notes splitted/decomposed into smaller parts and shifted along the chord notes? Timewise or in a different way?

[bronswerk]

Are there any examples how the mapping among sequence notes and the transposition via the incoming detected chord notes happens? For example how are sequence notes splitted/decomposed into smaller parts and shifted along the chord notes? Timewise or in a different way?

Sent PM.

In the meantime I'm working on an update.
added:
- list editor for editing sequences
- a more advanced transposer, it interacts with the harmonizer
- GUI overhaul on certain areas of the program

[memyselfandus]

Download link?

[jeremysdemo]

Download link?

you can download at Yahoo user groups found http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/zykl ... r/messages

you'll need MAX to run it,

Bert did port this as a stand alone but it seems he has moved onto another looper project, hasn't been much activity over there, if you are lucky he will respond or send you a link to the stand alone file like he did me back in Feb.

sorry I wouldn't feel right about sharing my file without his permission.

jerm

[bronswerk]

Zyklus Improvisor can run as a stand-alone program but you must have the Java Enviroment 6 installed on your computer to run it. It is a Max program after all, but the runtime of Max is build into the Improvisor program.

The "another" looper project is the successor of Improvisor, but development is really slow. I'm involved with a musical project right now as a programmer/engineer that takes much of my spare time. And to be honest, the amount of work that is lying ahead of me (read this new version) is daunting to say the least. In fact it will be an entirely new program written from the ground up. The current Improvisor took about 1.5 year, but with all the other previous versions (not published) and early studies with Artwonk it was more like 5 years. Well, time flies by.

[jeremysdemo]

Zyklus Improvisor can run as a stand-alone program but you must have the Java Enviroment 6 installed on your computer to run it. It is a Max program after all, but the runtime of Max is build into the Improvisor program.

HEy Bert, good to hear from you.

I understand it runs as a stand alone, but the problem for me was the .rar files at the yahoo groups (6 of them?) I didn't understand how to download and use them without MAX, until you gave me personally the Zip file with an application file in it (which I appreciate), I could not try it even tho I had Java 6 runtime.
I suppose other users like memyselfandus would encounter the same thing unless they are computer savy or have an app to open .rar files.

my apologies for inferring that it required MAX, apparently it just requires someone a little less ignorant of file extensions than myself.

The "another" looper project is the successor of Improvisor, but development is really slow. I'm involved with a musical project right now as a programmer/engineer that takes much of my spare time. And to be honest, the amount of work that is lying ahead of me (read this new version) is daunting to say the least. In fact it will be an entirely new program written from the ground up. The current Improvisor took about 1.5 year, but with all the other previous versions (not published) and early studies with Artwonk it was more like 5 years. Well, time flies by.

I know the situation all too well, currently I am programming a midionly looper in Pascal (using Usine), talk about a blast from the past they taught that in high school in the late 80's early 90's as an early older language! lol

I'm still trying to learn/understand MAX and not sure if it is suited for my needs (UMPC's with very low resources, eg. OQO's, Viliv S5, Asus rE2) so musicians like me can do improvisation using MIDI on the road and stage without having to lug a laptop around along with making seamless transfers of ideas from their home PC's to their portable devices and back.

I am toying with the idea myself of a MAX based MIDI looper with DSP disabled but early test on my UMPC's is not proving to be successful.

I certainly look forward to what you come up with next!

all the best bro, and thank you for your effort and generosity.

keep shinin

jerm

[jeremysdemo]

Messing around into the weee hours of the morning and I started to wonder what it would be like if I could drop midi files onto the layers on a given track...hmmm... I mean, I like the "realtime/live" aspect of recording the input, but it seems like it would kick it up a notch if you could load/drop midi files as well. Just sayin...

I did mean to ask Bert or someone more familiar with MAX about that,

from what little I know from the tutorials if you use [seq] to write to disk other attributes are limited (but you can edit midi notes in a piano roll for example), while if you use [mtr] you can save data from any object and recall it later.

I'm assuming Bert and Bill used [mtr] since there are many variables that are savable to scenes and are able to be recalled form a saved scene or external file (even midi note data).

Midi import seems to have it's own challenges since you have to define ahead of time what BPM the data is going to play and/or be imported at along with which data (and MIDI has a lot more than just notes) is going to be included on the import, bar lengths etc, these things are not to my knowledge standard in midi files, for example you may have a file that has midi data far further than the last note off, and that last note might not end on a even beat...importing something like that into a standard 32 beat measure would either cause all the notes to stretch or shrink causing all kinds of weird things, yes the data would be there but it would be formatted to whatever framework you have previously designated a track to.

It's my understanding from Using Zyklus that pitch bend for example has been excluded from the runtime for the simple reason that it would cause unwanted problems with the harmonizer and other features of this generator. So you may have a midi file with a C5 note recorded with pitch bend up making it a C# or D5 when imported it would just be a C5 and would change the whole progression from what it began as, that's just one example there are 127 CC's of data to consider along with velocity, then you have program change, midi channel....all this data could be potentially changed upon import depending on the settings in your hardwired tracks/scenes.

making some type of bridge that would take all the midi data and transfer/convert it to objects in MAX while ignoring and excluding certain data (like the space after the last note off) would be daunting to say the least and the results might not please everybody since there are midi files with space and data after the last note people would want to keep in their imports. NOT impossible but pleasing one person in this case could upset a hundred others....

but I digress....


keep shinin

jerm