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Re: Todd Reynolds' EDP Etudes



Duuuuuudde...

Thank you so much for your thourough addressing of my issues...

I'll do my replies in all caps to be clear... And you WILL hear the tune...
As soon as I've been able to lay it down...  And I'm trying to grab a file
from phil so I can share the chart with you.. It'll just be a standard midi
file though..., unless I can print it as a pdf...  Perhaps...

On 3/31/02 2:29 AM, "Andre LaFosse" <altruist@altruistmusic.com> wrote:

> todd reynolds wrote:
> 
>> Dear andre...
> 
> Yo Todd!  Sorry for the delay in replying... just got back into town
> this afternoon.
> 
>> Todd here...  An ardent fan, by the way...
> 
> The feeling is mutual, good man.  Thanks for posting the new
> Max/MSP-related sounds...  WONDERFUL stuff!  (As is the non-MAX stuff of
> yours I've heard, as well.)
> 
>> I posted some issues I'm having earlier today...  Subsequent to reading 
>your
>> offer, I wonder perhaps if you might have some advice... I hope my 
>posts are
>> clear enough...  It's using the edp in a completely composed setting...
> 
> I'll try to address your questions as best I can (which honestly isn't
> saying a whole lot!)
> 
> ...though I must admit I'd probably have an easier time of formulating
> an idea if I could hear the tune itself.  Depending on how quickly you
> need to undo layers, how many layers there are, how they get built up in
> the first place, and so forth, it might be easier to try and answer.
> 
> But:
> 
>> Basic concept of this etude is... Build up 5 loops, then play over it
>> removing one loop at a time, leaving original two...
> 
> My first thought is, "OK.  Could you not simply use NextLoop to
> backtrack from Loop 5 back down to Loops 1 and 2?"  I know you touch on
> that later on...

THAT IS THE ROUTE I'M TRAVELING, WITH THE ABILITY TO TRIGGER EACH LOOP AT
WILL WITH MY MIDI FOOTPEDAL.  THIS IS INDEED THE BEST OPTION.  THE PROBLEM
IS NOW RECORDING SMOOTHLY BECAUSE IN NEXTLOOP WITH AUTORECORD, YOU MUST LET
IT COMPLETE THE CYCLE BEFORE THE NEXT LOOP WILL ENGAGE... IS THAT
UNDERSTANDABLE?  SEE NEXT QUESTION...
> 
>> Barlines are seamless, so
>> cannot have double button pushes...
> 
> I'm not totally clear on what you mean here... which double button
> pushes are you thinking of, and what is it specifically about the
> textures in the loops that would make such button pushes unfeasible?

I'M RECORDING WHOLE NOTES OVER WHOLE NOTES... SO AT THE END OF A LOOP, OVER
THE BARLINE, I HAVE TO MANAGE A SMOOTH CONNECTION...  SO DOUBLE FOOT
MOVEMENTS WOULD NOT BE FAST ENOUGH TO DO THAT... WHAT I HAVE NOT TRIED YET,
HOWEVER IS HOW TWO COMMANDS SET TO ONE BUTTON WOULD WORK... I'LL LOOK THERE
NEXT...  IMAGINE THIS THEN...

TRIGGER RECORD, PLAY EIGHT BARS, END WITH OVERDUB
RECORD ANOTHER EIGHT BARS, HIT NEXTLOOP, AND YOU'RE IN WITH MULTIPLY ON,
TURN MULTIPLY OFF, AND YOU'RE SET RIGHT?  YES, BUT NOT IF YOU HIT NEXTLOOP
AGAIN, 'CUZ IT WON'T SEE THAT UNTIL IT'S RUN IT'S COURSE THROUGH THE CYCLE.
ON YOUR SECOND PASS THROUGH LOOP 2, YOU CAN HIT NEXT LOOP TO GO TO LOOP 3,
AND SO ON...  THIS IS THE CURRENT ISSUE...
> 
>> Having moreloops set to 5, by the
>> way...
> 
> I'll suggest a different approach here in a second...
> 
>> First, the Undo option... Seems to take two button pushes to have 
>anything
>> happen anyway, then only partially undoes...  So virtually unreliable...
> 
> As Cliff so astutely pointed out, Undo is a deceptively complex thing.
> And honestly, I don't personally understand it very well myself.  (That
> says very little about the EDP, and very much about my own lack of
> studiousness in that particular regard.)

NOPE, UNDO JUST IS TOO FINICKY TO DEAL WITH IN REALITY, I'VE CHECKED THE
ARCHIVES, AND THINK I UNDERSTAND IT PRETTY WELL, BUT IT'S NOT THAT RELIABLE
ANYWAY...  LONG PRESS OR SHORT PRESS...  NO DISRESPECT TO OUR FRIENDLY EDP
OR KIM OR MATTHIAS...
> 
>> Next, the Nextloop option...
> [snip]
>> then cycle back
>> through the loops, back to loop 2, then back to loop 1, etc...  The 
>problem
>> is that I don't really have the time at the end of the piece to go 
>through 5
>> whole cycles to undo one level at a time using nextloop...
> 
> If you have SwitchQuant set to either On or Confirm, then you could jump
> from any loop to any other loop, and you could do so either manually or
> quantized to the length of each loop.  Would that make matters easier?

YES, IT IS EXACTLY AS YOU DESCRIBED...  SWITCHQUANT IS ON...  AND IT'S
HELPFUL TO HAVE IT TRIGGERED TO THE LENGTH OF THE LOOP..., IN FACT
PERFECT...  IT'S JUST THE LINEAR NATURE OF GETTING THE MATERIAL IN THAT IS
CURRENTLY THE PROBLEM STATED ABOVE...
> 
>> Well, now I've confused myself...
> 
> I'm afraid you're not the only one!  :()
> 
>> Questions... Is there something about undo that I'm missing?  Such that 
>a
>> button depression would actually immediately take off layers without 
>going
>> through a whole other cycle?  Yes, there is plenty of memory 
>available...
> 
> One thing to be aware of is that the Undo feature uses a software noise
> gate.  The purpose of the gate (so far as I understand it) is to divide
> each successive overdub into a different partition in the EDP memory, so
> that when the input level drops below the threshold of the noise gate,
> the memory allocates that as the end of one "chunk" and the beginning of
> another "chunk" which can be dealt with via Undo.
> 
> But depending on how noisy your input signal is, you could potentially
> be filling up a lot of memory with extraneous sounds that are quiet
> enough to not really hear, but loud enough to be above the noise gate
> threshold.  (I have that problem with guitar pickup noise from time to
> time).  You might try closing Overdub after each new phrase you layer on
> top, just to make sure that the memory isn't spilling out beyond the
> musically intended end of the phrase.
> 
> NO idea if this is at all relevant to your problem, of course, but I had
> to try and make myself feel useful somehow!  :)

AND YES IT'S RELEVANT, I'M SURE...  BUT I'M DEFINITELY ABOVE THE GATE... 
I'M
GOING TO SAVE THIS EXPLANATION FOR MY OWN ARCHIVES THOUGH AS I CONTINUE TO
DELVE INTO UNDO SOME MORE...

> 
>> And is there a way of using nextloop as a sort of overdub function?f
> 
> One thing I do a lot of is setting AutoRecord to On, and LoopCopy to
> Sound.  This means that after I've recorded something on loop one, I can
> instantly copy that to another loop via NextLoop.

YES, THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I HAVE IT SET UP...  THANKS...
> 
> And as soon as you're in the next loop, you're multiplying cycles out.
> If you wanted the length of the new loop to be the same as the initial
> one, you'd hit multiply again in order to keep it down to one cycle
> length (or however many cycles you want.)

SO RIGHT HERE IS WHERE THE ABOVE MENTIONED PROBLEM STARTS...  I HIT 
MULTIPLY
TO HAVE IT DO ONE CYCLE ONLY, BUT CAN'T MOVE TO THE NEXT LOOP FROM THERE...
> 
> One other idea I have is to use MORE than 5 loops in the piece.  Even
> though your etude may be composed for 5 distinct compositional units,
> that doesn't mean you can't use more than 5 EDP loops in the sonic
> representation of those musical figures.
> 
> You might think about allocating some of the 9 possible loops as "short
> term" deals, which would only be accessed once or twice in the duration
> of the piece.  Your followup email made reference to wanting to overdub
> something once and then erase it... so what if you copied a loop to,
> say, Loop 6, overdubbing as you enter the new loop, let it repeat once,
> and then switch back to the loop you copied from originally, never going
> back to Loop 6 again?

I'M STILL TRYING TO SEE HOW I CAN USE THIS IDEA, HAVEN'T QUITE MADE IT
YET...
> 
> Jeez, I'm getting dizzy.  :)

PLEASE LIE DOWN...
> 
> Tell you what, Todd... let me know if this makes any sense, or is in any
> way relevant to what you're trying to do.  If not, maybe someone else
> here has some insights.
> 
> If nothing else, I might have some other ideas if I can actually hear
> the piece in question.  We can work out a way to do that if need be
> (this is genuinely interesting stuff to me).

SO HAPPY TO BE JAMMIN' WITH YOU...  NOW I KNOW THESE CAPS SEEM LIKE I'M
YELLING, but really, I'm not... I'm quite happy and calm... Thanks andre...
Check me out, see if I'm right in my assumptions or am I missing
something...  Thanks for your participation...  I'll be performing this one
on April 8th in manhattan, if you happen to be passing through...  Best to
you, of course...

Todd


> 
> ANYWAY...  hope this has been of at least some help.  Or amusement, at 
>least!
> 
> Take care,
> 
> --Andre
>