Re: software multilooper

[Andrew Pask <andrew@kaleidacousticon.com>]

Most cool news indeed about the progress.

I would be into checking out what you have gotten yourself into
but alas I know no C, I guess this is what you're writing it in.
Any Max patches, fire them over.
I'm really interested in the pulse detection part.
I have a couple of patches which concern themselves with
"listening" to what is going on around them and reacting with similar
"busyness" to what it hears.The problem for pulse detection is that even if
a patch only listens to the front of every note, which is hardly suitable 
in
a playing situation, it still is very easy to bog it down with information
if you're trying to decipher it all at the same time.And mike placement for
acoustic sound is a pain in the ass too.
In order for a patch to recognise its own output, a significant amount of
time has to be taken up during which it can't recognise anybody else.This
amounts to any pulse detection of acoustic playing being deaf for part of
the time, hardly suitable.
So my workarounds are currently going in the following directions.

First, I'm using a dedicated "pulse time" channel into MAX.I've stopped
trying to get Max to listen to everything, and am using one thing, a sound,
or a certain note, to be the source for the pulse detecting.Then it can
extrapolate away from there until it recieves another bang or two and
"gracefully and delicately" shifts itself to where the new time may be.
Maybe it can work as a footswitchable "tempo learning time" so that you can
set up things relative to what's going on around you.Pretty hard to play,
whichever way you cut it.

Next, and this is where I'm stuck, I'm trying to implement the idea of
sudivided beat into the patch. Say you're banging away at 1/4 note = 132 
and
all of a sudden Max hears a triplet out of the gloom, it doesn't switch the
tempo to 1/4 note = 396, it knows you're playing over a swung pulse and
doesn't lose it.Actually I think this whole area is a complete nightmare,
and I'm not surprised there aren't any tempo following externals.Maybe 
later
when we all have G6s or something.......
If you have any algorithms for pulse detection I'd be glad to try and
implement them in Max.

I left this on the list in case it might stir any thoughts in the other Max
loopers I know are out there, maybe we can develop an outline of a useful
looping app on this list (and get someone else to write it of
course,hehehehehe)

L8r

Andrew