The Experiment Station...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
Another Experiment, this time mostly digital. (Sorry, synth nrrrds.) I just scored all of Twisted Tools’ stuff, and their newest, Scapes, really caught my ear. It’s kind of hard to describe in detail, largely because I’m not entirely sure what’s going on, but it is essentially six granular engines that can either respond to input, internal oscs, or via the Reaktor sample playback jobby. There are four mod sources and a sequencer that can mod the grainStuff and fire the internal sounds and such.
I’m using two in this little piece. The first one you hear right away; the chain is Axon->Scapes->Reaktor->Rough Rider Pro, with a send to Eos. The mix in Scapes is 100% wet. The second one I fade in starting at about 45 seconds, and this one is using Scapes’ internal sounds, and is then hitting Discord3. You can pretty much watch the screen of the laptop to figure out the rest. Phosphor->Discord3 is the next sound to come in, followed by Tattoo, and then I start playing the TETR4->Eventide TimeFactor chain via the Manta.
It’s kind of fun using my live rig to make music; the PC has every plug-in under the sun, a terabyte of samples, and the highest of high-end summing rigs and hardware effects hanging off the ass end. With my little live rig, I’m limited to Audio Damage and Native Instruments products, and no samples to speak of, other than the loops I’ve made of my own material for my live set. The limited environment is refreshing and inviting. Let’s just say it’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.
10 comments
Twisted Tools is some great stuff! Colorflex is a really cool take on sequencing.
I used to have every plugin under the sun
Now I stick to Ableton, NI and Audio Damage stuff... and my own library of recorded samples.
It's a nice place to be creative and importantly... fun to use
How do you have the keys on The Manta mapped? I'm guessing that one would do six octaves from left to right with an extra key on the end of each row for samples maybe?
I love this.
Like.
Nice...
Reaktor me loves...
Massive Drum Computer most awesome and overlooked feature.. crossfading randomizer ...which has nothing to do with crossfading the way you think it would, .map format though= fail.
@Mike: For simplicity's sake, I just have it mapped to three octaves of chromatic notes laid out like a normal keyboard. For a live setting, I don't have the brain power to wrap my head around different mappings for each song.
-CR
There's a lot of technology to learn and you have to kind of decide "Is this the path for me?" There's no way you have the time to learn everything.
For example, I don't understand Max/MSP or Ableton Live. I'm not proud of that --- I could probably do some powerful shit if I learned either one of them --- but I just haven't put in the work.
And yes, it hurts my pride every time someone says "Live?!? That's the easiest thing in the world!"
Reaktor, on the other hand, I spent some time trying to learn during a period when I was really sick and couldn't do anything but use my laptop. (No guitar playing for two years, which killed me!) So for some reason, I like it and consider it more user friendly than most people do.
That being said, there are Reaktor senseis and I'm not one of them. Clearly the Twisted Tools people are! Jesus Christ.
- c
Speaking of learning new tech, I'm determined to get my brain around Axon tonight and really know how to use it instead of seeing it as this thing I can barely control.
- c
@beauty pill: I thought I was the only on that saw Live as NOT the easiest thing in the world... I've ditched my pro tools setup though so Live is getting easier by default I guess. I'm diggin' the looper...
Comments are closed on this post.