#3

Works amazingly well with the hi-hat!

#4

A few years ago, when i was alone on stage. Found this radio session on the web. Nostalgia seeing my old setup !

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#5

Vangelis knows what’s up:

Screen Shot 2015-08-29 at 2.35.28 PM.png708×463 358 KB

http://vimeo.com/80936319

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#6

Couldn’t find a good way to mount the camera so you could see aleph and feet, so demonstrating with hands (and yes i did consider putting shoes on my hands to fool you, but then i sobered up)

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#7

so this is to say, when you play live, you do in fact use the pedals on the aleph? and then what is occupying your hands?

spectacular sounds in this video-- so much great variety from so little gear.

#8

yup… i really need to make a better video :smile:
normally i’m playing guitar with my other hands.

until i make that better video i can explain how the scene works.
One encoder controls the loop length of the buffers. So I start it around 10 secs and play various guitar notes/riffs in a scale while turning fx pedals on off (in this case distortion+ring mod, part of the variety of sounds) then i stop the buffers recording (SW 1+ 2). There’s 2 metros going, each one repeatedly playing a random position in the buffers. Left footpedal chooses a new random position, right foot pedal changes the meter division for the second metro. The other encoders just change the direction/bitrate/cutoff for the buffers, and the other switches drop the octave for either of the buffers.
What I’d normally be doing though is leaving one of the buffers recording. Then it’s like dueting with an unpredictable improvisor. each time you hit the pedal you get a new note/texture to play against, and what you’re playing is constantly grabbed/repeated along with it (in a different rhythm).

I’ll get some whizzy tripod and try to film the whole thing tomorrow :slight_smile:

(other method I’m enjoying is setting loop to 10 secs or so, play some kind of texture in, then reduce the loop length to 8 secs, play a totally different texture from a new source, reduce loop length again and repeat. Then i turn off recording for one/both of the buffers with SW1+2, and wind the loop length back to 10 secs. then you get a real music concrete collage effect.

1 Like
Instant harmonic companions
#9

got a clamp - maybe this one explains the foot pedals better
(and adds to my mission to prove that monome equipment is good for things other than clean tone electronica, much of it is totally beautiful, but sometimes I think the tonal flexibility of these units is underplayed)

8 Likes
#10

@dspk nice. Very Mogwai.

#11

Once I get a bigger eurorack case (being built now, the current one is a Cell90 and overflows a bit already), I’ll definitely get a Walk module. Like many people doing electronic music, I typically don’t use my feet when performing so something like that can open lots of possibilities for direct live interactions with the instrument…

#12

There is a certain deliberateness to the footswitch gesture. Even in moments where my hands are not so occupied that I couldn’t activate a function with the touch of a finger, the feeling under foot of such a physical action seems to engage a different part of my mind.

In performing with the Aleph, I’ve used a footswitch to punch-in to looping buffers, inspiring a highly rhythmic approach to sampling; grabbing small snippets, fluttering passages, twos and fours. The gesture itself becomes part of the instrument - not just cueing up sounds to be layered into a loop, but articulating the capturing isolated from the technical alignment of sound sources.

I’ve only recently begun to explore the capabilities of Walk in my creative process, but I’m excited by this gesture in a modular format. To be able to impart change and events across multiple elements of a system in a visceral way. I see expansions on the above technique where a footswitch begins a compositional shift while beginning the sampling of directly. Stomping through progressions, or the expressive edge cases when alternating pedals via the XOR & AND outputs. Performing with a sense of ‘pulse-width’ and using that overlap to expand the timbral possibilities through a hyper-simplified interface.

More than anything I’m excited by this simplicity. The modular environment is a wonderful space to build complex structures, where a solitary event can be coupled with an unfolding series of changes. Walk on.

1 Like
#13

oh! why have i never used the pedal to cut into the buffer! such a good idea- better make a new scene now.

@Galapagoose will you ever share any of the scenes/apps you’ve made? it does feel like apart from the @Test2 and myself no one ever shares anything they make? :frowning:

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#14

I have every intention. I’ve been holding off because my sampler sounds terrible at any tempo other than 160bpm… I haven’t had much time to work on it lately, but promise to post it up eventually!

#15

oh it’s an app? be great to see/hear it ( 160bpm is a great tempo anyway)

did you ever make any scenes for BEES

#16

First thought…

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#17

holy angry cow! that is next level.

#18

this is going to be more epic when i get my monome rack with foot switches and can lose the second shruti and other dude:

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#19

The vangelis video is gone unfortunately. Didn’t see the original upload, but think this is a mirror:

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#20

Yeah, that’s the right one.

#21

So maybe nobody else is as fixated on these things, so feel free to merge this somewhere if it gets stale. I’m not much of one for weird gestural controllers and things like that, but we’ve only got two hands and sometimes you want live control or potential control over a lot of different stuff via physical changes. So, I always find myself looking for stuff I can use with my feet. There have been a lot of good controllers or pedals over the years that can do CV, audio, routing, midi, volume, expression, some mix of the two, so on over the years, and I think theres lots of potential in their use or mis-use for both studio and live playing, as well as opening systems/instruments up without adding a new row to your euro or adding a new synth to the studio. So I’m not just talking strictly synths or guitar pedals here, more just in general, and especially things which can be used or repurposed for both. So, a place to share ideas, tricks, DIY projects, so on…

Maybe the simplest and most obvious being things like A/B/Y switches which I’ve used a lot in different set-ups for swapping around both audio and signal paths. At least for audio you can get some pretty complex changes going on using a pedal looper, though maybe someone knows (I don’t) if there are any that can also pass CV?

Currently on my list is to pick up a couple of keyboard foot switches. Especially those that have a polarity switch you have a pedal that can either be used as a momentary switch for CV or almost like a very primitive foot controlled ‘gate’ for audio/CV, or a very fast temporary mute switch.

Unfortunately a lot of the more versatile/interesting options always seem to get discontinued, maybe because they don’t come cheap and people get more excited at the idea of buying a new effect rather than a controller. Source Audio had the Reflex, Moog the MP-201 which seemed like the most flexible I’ve come across, and the classic Korg MS-04 which I have been waiting for years now to pick up at a decent price.

Anyone else using things like this with their instruments?

#22

It is indeed a shame there aren’t more options. Not stand alone, but you could go pretty far with the doepfer foot pedal module and accessories: