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Not sure this is best place to put this (and sorry quite long!), please move it if you feel it’s better suited elsewhere.

As part of a semi-forced depth year (preparing to move to another country meant selling most hardware) coinciding with a broken CME Xkey, I’m looking for ways to make my laptop a more expressive interface for music. Honestly, I’m just sick of buying plasticky MIDI controllers too, but can’t justify the cost of grid / arc combo right now.

So, I’m now hooked on this idea of being able to make music with just laptop / headphones. But it needs to be more fun than drawing notes into piano rolls.

One quick idea I threw together was a M4L patch that uses the trackpad to set velocity of MIDI notes. I can play notes from the laptop’s keyboard into Ableton, adjusting velocity with the trackpad while I play. It’s not perfect, but it’s helpful.

Then I started thinking about the keyboard as a kind of limited grid substitute, where instead of LEDs, the visual feedback is all happening on the laptop screen. Could the keyboard be a useful input to an MLR-style app? Or a multi-track xox sequencer?

Just thinking out loud here really… Anyone else doing this sort of thing? Anything existing tools I should be checking out?

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Maybe check out https://teropa.info/musicmouse/

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You may want to also checkout the prosody max4live collection by @andrew. In particular, “spondee” and “synecdoche” are both devices built for the computer keyboard and trackpad.

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Ah wicked. This is great, many thanks!

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I have used music mouse in the past, but I am always amazed at how awesome it is. Laurie Spiegel is a true wizard.

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Fingerpinger still works, and is very cool if Max is one of your things: https://www.anyma.ch/2009/research/multitouch-external-for-maxmsp/ you can get all the multi-touch info + pressure.

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hey yall,

i’d like to incorporate synth bass and/or bass guitar sounds into new work
…i have aalto, kaivo, max and ableton at my disposal…any suggestions?

worst case scenario i’ll steal my brothers guitar but would rather keep this in-house/in the box for convenience

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Depth year continues. Everything in the music corner is gone apart from Echophon, Digitakt, and keyboard. 0-Coast and everything else are in storage for a while.

Have to say, I really like it.

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Awesome, thanks! Multi-touch stuff looks really interesting.

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My depth year is starting with an overhaul of all my selfhosted storage projects.

Currently looking through my two big ZFS vaults so I can get everything redundantly packed away nicely. Then I’ll pull the vault disks and reformat the base systems :slight_smile:

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I must say that my GAS is firing up again. No plans (or money :sweat_smile:) to buy anything, but I’ve started watching demos and doing research on other gear again. That inspired me to do some more research and experimenting with stuff I already had. Revisiting manuals and trying different combinations of gear has been very fun.

I have been picking up more odds and ends (cables and power supplies I didn’t have) and it feels good to be spending on things that will extend the use of instruments I already have.

That being said I’m considering buying a big Pedaltrain after seeing some other people use them for synth rigs. I think it would really help me organize the stuff I already have, being able to route cables underneath keyboards and pedals would make things a lot more compact. Plus the soft case would be nice for transportation. On the other hand it’s kind of a bigger purchase than a sustain pedal or a new shirt, so I’m going to reflect on it more.

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I have just finished an Instagram cull to help staving off GAS (gear makers, demo and review makers). A bit annoyed that so many musicians on there make the gear the focus of videos, as opposed to, herm, the music.

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I agree. Although I must say, I also agree with the musician/insta personality shipwreckdetective (are they on lines?) about how sharing information about gear and techniques can help inspire people to learn more about the tools that might resonate with them.

It’s a tricky balance, because sometimes those videos seem like advertisements. They also remind me of old album liner notes which would include specific instruments in the credits. It helps the listener understand where the sound is coming from.

I have a love/hate relationship with that element of the “Instagram age of music”.

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Apologies if this isn’t what you’re looking for, but would a Launchpad running Launchpad95 help? It offers Push-like functionality in terms of the x0x sequencer and a whole load of other things. I picked a couple of Minis for about £30 a piece and running them with Launchpad95 has been a huge eye-opener

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Thanks for making me aware of this guy - right up my street!

Over the past few evenings I’ve been dedicating myself fully to understanding Ableton, in particular the Drum Racks. My intention was to use the student discount I get from the MA in music research that I started formally on Tuesday to purchase Suite as I only have Lite at the moment. The thing is, though, the more I explore Drum Racks, the more I find it absurd that I would need more than 8 tracks (which is the limit when using Lite) which means that I’m finding it hard to justify spending hundreds on Suite. The one thing I don’t have, though (and was thinking I could cover with M4L) is a tape echo - specifically an emulation of the RE-201 Space Echo. I have used the Reaktor ensemble that Jesse Voccia created (check the user library, it’s astounding) but have only got the trial version of Reaktor so that isn’t a viable option. As I had already made the provision to purchase Live Suite, I will allow myself to purchase whatever solution I can find for my tape delay VST conundrum without beating myself up and considering myself a depth year failure!

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oh absolutely, I get a lot out of gear videos, but I still find the gear distracting and would rather have anything else, sometimes.

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I’m becoming obsessed with technique videos - especially Ableton ones. Drum Racks have been such a revelation to me that I can’t get enough of them. It’s like having an MPC that is secretly 8 banks of 132 pads - except even that sells it insanely short!

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Yeah! I have been using Ableton for years but I only recently started to explore drum racks and realize how little I knew!

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You might want to stay with Lite, but in case you go Suite - the included Ableton Echo is really good and very tweakable. It also, of course, has lots of presets that probably emulates different tape echo classics in different states (new tape, old tape, dirty capstan, worn motor etc :wink: )

Regarding racks. Drumracks, Instrument racks, Chains, Audio effect racks + Max4Live. = the possibilities are infinite. Really deep. If that’s a good thing, or if the constraints of eight tracks is. Well, that’s the question.

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Ah, that all sounds incredible! I’m so impressed with the amount that even the ‘free’ version can do that I’ve no doubts about the power of a fully operational death star!

I’m not ruling out purchasing Suite, just that I might do it towards the end of the year before my student discount disappears rather than as soon as I register as a student (i.e. now).

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