KVR Audio

JiggSaw · Post by **JiggSaw** » Thu Dec 03, 2020 5:07 pm

What are the tools where you can play 1 finger chords with the left hand and melodies locked in the scale with the right hand?

The ones I know that can do this are Captain Chords, Scaler 2, and Chord Prism. Is there more?

WatchTheGuitar · Post by **WatchTheGuitar** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 3:10 pm

The latest version of Riffer, v3, feels much improved. Having up to four independent channels (all pushing out to a MIDI channel of your choice) simultaneously without having to create extra tracks gives it more power and it may be my imagination, but it feels to me like the generated riffs are more musical.
It's a free upgrade download if you already own any version.

ThomasHelzle · Post by **ThomasHelzle** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 4:39 pm

Yeah, it's a nice update, but I had some hope there would be more generative options.

ATM, about the only really generative thing is their infinity thing, but that re-creates everything completely (other than if you lock stuff, neither of which is ideal).
What I had hoped for is probability stuff on pretty much everything, notes played or not, velocity ranges per note, same for duration and the new density. If each of those would have a min and max per note, Riffer would be rather nice for my use. As it is, it's still a bit too static on it's own.
Also, the randomisation would be nice to have as a percentage, so things are more evolving over time than being replaced.

The global randomisation is a good starting point for me, but from there, I prefer to work with something that doesn't just change completely all the time, but way more subtly.
I can add this with something like my Midi Mangler afterwards, but I always wonder why tools like this so often are so static in their thinking, heck, even Ableton Live will have probability for notes & velocity in their version 11...

Since mathematically you can have "repeatable randomness" that you can bind to the song position, it's even possible to make those probabilities part of a repeatable workflow that doesn't rely on dragging out midi clips.
In node based 3D tools like SideFX Houdini, that is used all the time, since you don't want your explosion or procedural texture or whatnot to look different each time you render it. So you have a seed value from which your random pattern is created, each time the same. The math for that is there for ages.
No idea why that concept isn't all over the place with such semi generative sequencers, you could even have an explicit "seed" sequencer in there or make it an automatable parameter...

Also, having the four sequencers completely separate from each other isn't ideal when used polyphonically. Would be nice to be able to somehow see the other notes (different colours, faded to the background) as references.

So far I get the most out of combinations of Scaler 2, Stochas, Phrasebox and my mangler, Architect so far has been a bit too frustrating to really use as deeply as I had hoped for...
Also nice I find Chrysalid Sequencer and Arp, Obelisk, Transition, Hypercyclic, Randarp and the HY sequencers.

Cheers,

Tom

WatchTheGuitar · Post by **WatchTheGuitar** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 6:15 pm

Oh yeah it's incremental change rather than anything radical, but I do feel the results are slightly more musical than before.
Quite like having a riff section where there are notes you can anchor and depend on, but where there's room for other notes to come in and out. Normally you'd have to define what note has a probability of playing, but this is just saying 'play something here from the picked scale'.

hotmitts · Post by **hotmitts** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 6:40 pm

ThomasHelzle wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 4:39 pm
... the randomisation would be nice to have as a percentage, so things are more evolving over time than being replaced.

The global randomisation is a good starting point for me, but from there, I prefer to work with something that doesn't just change completely all the time, but way more subtly.
I can add this with something like my Midi Mangler afterwards, but I always wonder why tools like this so often are so static in their thinking, heck, even Ableton Live will have probability for notes & velocity in their version 11...

What you're describing sounds much more like what i was looking for in a MIDI generator, will have to check out your Mangler... glad I got Reaktor !

ThomasHelzle · Post by **ThomasHelzle** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 7:16 pm

It doesn't generate though, you have to feed it midi and it will allow you to mangle it with probabilities... But put after one of the more static sequencers or generators it's rather fun to make it more alive.

I didn't implement the static random stuff in there though, the hosts don't really offer it and only recently I wondered more and more about why they don't embrace that concept - I may re-visit my tools at one point and put it in.

The one for Reaktor works AFAIK, the one for Architect somehow throws an error in the latest version here (have contacted Colin on that). The Falcon one should also be working:
https://www.screendream.de/code/toms-midi-mangler

Bitwig is also great for this, modulating the factory note devices is what I very often use these days.

Cheers,

Tom

Musical Gym · Post by **Musical Gym** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 7:44 pm

WatchTheGuitar wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 3:10 pm The latest version of Riffer, v3, feels much improved. Having up to four independent channels (all pushing out to a MIDI channel of your choice) simultaneously without having to create extra tracks gives it more power and it may be my imagination, but it feels to me like the generated riffs are more musical.
It's a free upgrade download if you already own any version.

Each channel can have its own rate, so polyrhythms are possible, plus you can mix scales..., etc.
Alter key/scale/rate of all Riffs at once or independently.
Relatively mind-blowing all the settings that can be set independently to work together.

bharris22 · Post by **bharris22** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 8:00 pm

This looks fantastic - any chance you would consider making it a VST?

fairlyclose · Post by **fairlyclose** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 8:35 pm

WatchTheGuitar wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 3:10 pm The latest version of Riffer, v3, feels much improved. Having up to four independent channels (all pushing out to a MIDI channel of your choice) simultaneously without having to create extra tracks gives it more power and it may be my imagination, but it feels to me like the generated riffs are more musical.
It's a free upgrade download if you already own any version.

one of my favourite devices - seems to get under-rated a bit but the latest demo video shows off the locking features a bit more - I have noticed people thinking it is only random and that put them off

ThomasHelzle · Post by **ThomasHelzle** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 8:38 pm

bharris22 wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 8:00 pm This looks fantastic - any chance you would consider making it a VST?

If you mean my midi mangler: yes, thought about it several times already but never did a vst in my life, so am a bit reluctant to go down that rabbit hole...

If something like the LUA interface in Falcon would be available as standalone, I'd be all over it, that's really well done and cleverly implemented, but only works internal, Falcon can't output Midi.

BlueCatAudios Plug and Script would probably work for me and can export plugins... Hmmm... Downloading the demo...

Cheers,

Tom

fairlyclose · Post by **fairlyclose** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 8:52 pm

pointless - deleted

bharris22 · Post by **bharris22** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 8:53 pm

Excellent - thanks, Tom!

Another thought I had was Monome Norns. I just ordered one of these (the less expensive version), and see that it uses Lua scripts. I wonder if your Falcon script can simply be loaded into Norns, but at a minimum it would be a good project to add your mangler to existing Norns scripts. If only I had the time to learn . . . .

ThomasHelzle · Post by **ThomasHelzle** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 9:02 pm

bharris22 wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 8:53 pm Excellent - thanks, Tom!

Another thought I had was Monome Norns. I just ordered one of these (the less expensive version), and see that it uses Lua scripts. I wonder if your Falcon script can simply be loaded into Norns, but at a minimum it would be a good project to add your mangler to existing Norns scripts. If only I had the time to learn . . . .

I don't think it's directly usable, since while the language may be LUA, the whole API of Falcon is probably very different from theirs. But yeah, may be a good exercise - feel free to use my script, but it's possible that things are very different in the Norms.

@fairlyclose: Yeah, if you look at the end of my long post, I mention stochas as one I like better...

As for Riffer 3: I think it depends a lot on what you want to do, but I personally find the most interesting things happen neither with fully random recreation nor with locking parts but with incremental change.
That's my beef with the plugins from Sugarbytes too...

Cheers,

Tom

fairlyclose · Post by **fairlyclose** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 9:03 pm

seeing talk about stochastic systems I'd like to recommend having a look at SonicLabs work - some very complex, others simpler, and in Fundamental a beautiful sound source https://www.sonic-lab.com/

fairlyclose · Post by **fairlyclose** » Mon Dec 07, 2020 9:06 pm

ThomasHelzle wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 9:02 pm
@fairlyclose: Yeah, if you look at the end of my long post, I mention stochas as one I like better...
As for Riffer 3: I think it depends a lot on what you want to do, but I personally find the most interesting things happen neither with fully random recreation nor with locking parts but with incremental change.

yeah I noticed then deleted my post - just noticed Stochas has gone open source. I agree re controlled more incremental probabilistic change, seems very under represented in software.

Anything and everything about MIDI - arp, mapper, mangler, generator, chorder, controller, utility, fx etc.