Comments for Trnsfrmr

Comment on Bytes, Nibbles & Bits for CoreMidi by Bruce

Bruce — Fri, 21 May 2010 06:02:03 +0000

Thanks, that’s a help. When I wrote pattern based, I meant parts actually, a la the Alesis MMT-8. It will alos be a live recorder (packetlists) Don’t know if that changes things. I work best that way, assembling chunks of different and similar sounding parts into songs. Thanks again for your time and thoughts.

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Comment on Who needs multitasking! by zaklady bukmacherskie

zaklady bukmacherskie — Mon, 17 May 2010 16:35:51 +0000

It’s big pleasure to read your articles, will back here soon

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Comment on iPad is a winner!!! by Josiah Russell

Josiah Russell — Fri, 14 May 2010 10:42:56 +0000

i am planning to buy an iPad since it looks lighter than a regular desknote and i don not use much of the features of a laptop.”.’

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Comment on Bytes, Nibbles & Bits for CoreMidi by Robert

Robert — Sun, 09 May 2010 05:03:44 +0000

Comment on Bytes, Nibbles & Bits for CoreMidi by admin

admin — Sat, 08 May 2010 06:20:46 +0000

@Robert
I’m posting this without having had much time to think it through.

I think timing shouldn’t be a big problem. Maybe you could deliver timestamped midi data in 2 measure chunks. Or you could make the chunk size dependent on the tempo of the pattern. The faster the tempo, the higher the chunk size.

As far as how to structure it all, I would probably approach it like below. Mind you, I haven’t spent much time thinking about this.

Song
attributes: name, tempo, followSongOrPatternTempo?
has a playlist

Playlist
has a list of slots.

Slot
attributes: length
has one pattern

Pattern
attributes: name, tempo, length, swing
has 16 tracks
belongs to Song

Track
attributes: name, length, resolution, output, loop
has many steps but resolution determines which steps are active
belongs to a pattern

Step
attributes: active?, accent, index
has one note or controller message
belongs to a track

Note
attributes: pitch, velocity
belongs to a step. time_stamp can be derived from the step.

Comment on Bytes, Nibbles & Bits for CoreMidi by Robert

Robert — Sat, 08 May 2010 05:14:56 +0000

Thanks for the post, and congrats on the paying gig. One of the challenges with my own project is figuring out how to handle the data I will be recording and outputting. It’s a pattern based beast, so will have a minimum 99 patterns of variable lengths, each with 16 tracks…and each track will have all the packet/packetlists and other data associated with that. Not sure how best to ’struct’ all that. Then my other technical wonderment is going to be how to time all that on the way back out and still deal with interface updates, etc.? There’s not much roadmap for all this. Blogs likes yours and others are helpful, since googling on CoreMIDI provides not much information.

Comment on Bytes, Nibbles & Bits for CoreMidi by admin

admin — Fri, 07 May 2010 14:45:55 +0000

Lol. Shame on me. That weekend never came. I’ll return to the project sometime this month when I’m done with a paying gig

I created a virtual receive port and I went as far as logging the received messages and updating my midi activity monitor. I’ll post what I have done so far and hope you find in useful. If not, I’ll post my complete parser soon.

This is the midiReadProc from my virtual receive port.
static void midiReadProc(const MIDIPacketList *midiPacketList, void *readProcRefCon, void *srcConnRefCon) { [[JXMidiSystem sharedInstance] updateReceiveActivityMonitor];


	int i, j;

	MIDIPacket *nextPacket = (MIDIPacket *)midiPacketList->packet;

	for (j=0 ; j < midiPacketList->numPackets; ++j)

	{

		for (i = 0; i < nextPacket->length; ++i)

		{

			NSLog(@"--%02X", nextPacket->data[i]);
		}

		nextPacket = MIDIPacketNext(nextPacket);

		NSLog(@"MIDIPacketNext");

	}
	//left nibble is 0x9A >> 4

	// right nibble  0x9A % 16

	// status bit >> 127

	//y = ((x >> 4) & 0x0f) | ((x < < 4) & 0xf0); swap nibbles

}

Comment on Bytes, Nibbles & Bits for CoreMidi by Robert

Robert — Fri, 07 May 2010 09:35:45 +0000

Did you get your parser done before you bailed on the project? If so, please do post or email it still. I am working on a 16 track sequencer and I need all the help I can get. Thanks for your other CoreMIDI posts. (All two of them).

Comment on yamaha motif xs vs korg m3 in 60 seconds by alfred gori

alfred gori — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 03:22:12 +0000

Hi Admin and thaks for your prompt reply.The reason im keen on being able to record on step mode is that there are certain written passages that i couldnt even beggin to decifer let alone play unless i hear them first.
Does the M3 have step mode recording where i could for instance write half a bar of half note triplets in 4/4 and tie it over to a doted quarter note followed by 16 32nd notes for one beat and so on!? Sometimes i get transcribed solos that are pretty radical and would like to hear what they would sound like.
Well my freind….thanks to your input and others ive narrowed my choice to either the motiv xs or the M3.I like the idea of being able to save your sequences on a usb device.
or be able to hook up a cd burner and download your song to a cd.
How does it work with the motiv? Must you use Q base and acomputer to download into a cd?
Well my freind…again thak you for all the input!!

Comment on yamaha motif xs vs korg m3 in 60 seconds by admin

admin — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 18:44:44 +0000

@alfred gori
Hi Alfred, what you heard is correct. The XS has no step recording but I didn’t find that to be a huge limitation since you can set a 100% quantize strength, loop and record your notes in realtime. Even better, you can use the play fx to push or pull note start, adjust note velocity/pitch non destructively. Using just PLAY FX, you could start by recording a bars of straight C notes; shift the pitch on the downbeats to play kicks, shift the pitch on the upbeats to play snares, shift the pitches other beats to play a hi-hats and push the time on alternate beats to create a swung feel.

You could also use the arp to generate the basic rhythms and tweak them later to personalize them. If I remember correctly, the latin and Brazilian arp patterns are quite well played. The possibilities are endless really.

You should take a look at the Play FX section in the manual. I think its a brilliant feature and the bonus is that its non destructive.

As far as the Roland Fantom G, I don’t think I can give an objective opinion about it. As much as I loved my MV-8000, I have a bias towards Roland synths. Typically, it takes me just a couple of minutes to get a song going on a workstation but I sat at one for about 15 minutes and was unable to grasp the interface.

Comment on yamaha motif xs vs korg m3 in 60 seconds by alfred gori

alfred gori — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 22:17:26 +0000

Excellent input on the comparison and contrast of m3 vs motif xs!!
Id love to hear what your thoughts are on the fantom g series as im undecided in which of the 3 to purchase!
heard a comment that you cant sequence via STEP MODE in the yamaha motif xs series! is that true?
I mostly write latin jazz and Brazilian type of music so lots of syncopated notes etc.Loading step mode sometimes saves me time!
Anyhow…thanks again for your inpuys and hope to hear more of your comments in the near future!!

Comment on NI Maschine Review. First Impressions. by admin

admin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:30:53 +0000

I find it pretty straight forward actually. Pad velocity can only modulate sample start, amp envelope decay, filter cutoff and volume. As far as I can tell, it isn’t possible to modulate the loop point. All other parameters can be modulated simply by going to the appropriate page and turning a knob. If you need to record your modulation, all you need to do is turn the knobs while holding down the auto write button. It is refreshingly simple actually. You don’t even need to be in record mode to write the parameter automation.

I’m running the version 1.5 beta at the moment and that borrows the macro controls feature from massive, fm8 & absynth. Essentially, it allows you to assign 8 knobs to 8 arbitrary parameters per group. By giving you instant access to these parameters, you don’t have to page to tweak them. You could for instance assign the 8 knobs to filter cutoff for 8 different tracks in a group or you could assign 1 knob to sample start of track 1, another to filter cutoff of track 7, yet another to fx send of the entire group and another to LFO rate. The permutations are endless. Its is worth repeating that each of the 8 groups gets its own set of 8 knobs. Sweet!

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Comment on NI Maschine Review. First Impressions. by DC

DC — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 01:05:03 +0000

So how is the maschine for modulating thngs like sample loop points or filter paramteres using pad velocity etc?

I do glitch and leftfield electronica and I like to mess about with loop points of samples a lot (It makes some crazy glitching effects) is this easy in maschine?

Comment on Mac Pro Noise Culprit x1900Xt Dust. by admin

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:50:41 +0000

@B-Nice I see a ton of people on boards blaming their snow leopard upgrade and graphics programs as the culprits but I bet a good percentage of them just have their pro cages clogged up.

Comment on Mac Pro Noise Culprit x1900Xt Dust. by B-Nice

B-Nice — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:03:46 +0000

I had this same exact problem. My Mac Pro was ridiculously loud and it was driving me nuts. Lo and behold I pop it open and there is a giant wad of dust clogging my video card. *facepalm*

Comment on yamaha motif xs vs korg m3 in 60 seconds by admin

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:39:39 +0000

@apophenia
I’d only consider 64mb of memory a limitation if you care about the Xpanded libraries or if you intend to use the M3 as a full DAW to record long audio sections like entire vocal or guitar tracks. For “normal” use, such as instruments sampling, resampling a few bars and snatches from records, I found I never used my memory expansion. If you are more of a programmer, I’d recommend you put the money towards the EXB-Radias expansion. It was a lot more bang for the buck in my opinion. You’ll get a lot more sonic variety from the Radias board than you will from the same old tired brass and woodwinds

Comment on yamaha motif xs vs korg m3 in 60 seconds by apophenia

apophenia — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:15:16 +0000

finish your review please–this is all interesting. Do you think that 64MB RAM on the M3 is a serious limitation?

Comment on Who needs multitasking! by Stuart

Stuart — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:55:58 +0000

i wanted Google Latitude running in the bg while i do other things… so i want some.
I see your desk picture, who are you to talk against multi-tasking.

Comment on Virus TI OS4 Arp Matrix by Stuart

Stuart — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:28:26 +0000

Will there be one for the IPad?

Comment on Who needs multitasking! by NY2G

NY2G — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:22:58 +0000

BUT!!! You know what DOES multitask? ………. a BSOD!

1. Throws a beautiful blue hue on your face
2. Loses your hard work
3. Pisses you off

When will apple learn?