#21

Yeah, could do all sorts of comparisons as well. Probably easiest to do without learning algorithms and just go with regular temporal measures (like baseline to max voltage over x amount of time gives you an ‘up’ value, and same for the ‘down’ side of the s curve.

#22

yep! i just like the concept of “training” a firmware to your specific way of playing.

#23

Dear god that Ian Chang video. This is terribly exciting stuff. Regretting never getting that drum kit… Guess it isn’t too late though :slight_smile:

#24

I know with these things you need to get a bit crazy about the preamp to get reasonable low-frequency performance, shoot for 20Meg input impedance or something stupid. Wonder if it’s possible to ‘tune’ the inherent low-pass filter of this circuit down to 0.1Hz or so through judicious choice of transducer & preamp. Maybe simply measure the exponential decay associated with the spikes & apply a fixed Wiener deconvolution FIR filter in digital domain.

This makes me think gate extraction & adsr envelopes could be fun on aleph - just start by shooting for a reasonable-sounding autowah then follow the white rabbit…

one obvious but nevertheless interesting thing about solid body electric guitars is they convert vibration -> analogue signal without making much sound. What small hand percussion instruments have been designed which share this strange quality?

wasn’t familiar, but yes it seems to be essentially the same idea - what if that table they’re banging on was not a table but something like the springboard or other random stuff using different beaters & strikes to generate audible transients, then using those to trigger karplus, dsyn or other kinds of digital resonators.

2 Likes
#25

I tried out Impaktor last night after @glia recommended it [thank you!], and it does take into account the source material fed in – I think it’s a combination of mixing it in and having it influence the character of the synthesized sounds as well, so I was using different strikers and hitting glasses and whiskey and scraping combs against the mic all to a pleasing mix of sounds and textures.

It might not quite as advanced as what you had in mind, but I know that I’m certainly going to get well more than the $5 I spent on this out of it. The synthesis engine is rather interesting/deep as well, I was pleasantly surprised. Pretty impressive physical modeling stuff, but also very nice for harsh noise/weird tones as well. Throw in on board looping and recording (which I didn’t realize came as part of the deal) and you’ve got a pretty capable little device.

I think ultimately I’ll get the most use out of it just treating it like any other instrument hooked up to the mixer and run through some send fx et al, but even on it’s own it’s a joy and could be potentially quite useful.

1 Like
#26

After doing some more research (this thread was quite useful), and generally wrapping my head around stuff, I think I have a clearer idea of the modules needed/wanted.

As far as funky function generators Just Friends actually looks really badass. I had’t looked at it in detail until today, but that coupled with the swoop could cover a lot of function (and oscillator) ground.

So a couple dedicated sound sources to start with (fourses for analog gristle, and ERD for digital gristle), a filter (sprott), some function generators (swoop, just friends), a VCA of some kind (don’t know which yet, veils looks good, but kinda big), and then the ES stuff to tie it all together. (probably some utility spackle in the mix as well I’m sure)

3 Likes
#27

it’s been said many times on this forum, but JF + Cold Mac is a great combination, and would give you a weird version of many of the utilities/function generating abilities you’re talking about. JF alone is wonderful for this as well!

#28

I know this is an old thread but I’ve been considering incorporating the Sensory Percussion drum triggers into my live setup. I’m new to modular/electronics but have been playing drums for about 15 years now. Seems as if there is a lot of possibilities available using MIDI routing from their software to a Midi/CV converter.

Anyone else using modular/sunhouse together? So far it seems like Masonself is the only one I can find.

Check out this video from the amazing Masonself:

1 Like
#29

He’s definitely really good at the combination. Much better than others I’ve seen trying to do the same thing.

I’ve got a single SP trigger which I’m looking to incorporate in a similar way (technologically, not aesthetically), but baby steps.

My main gripe with the SP stuff is that I would it would speak OSC, or at least 14-bit MIDI since if you’re doing something like in Mason’s videos, you’re only working off a 7-bit resolution going into (infinitely resolute) CV, which is a shame. I’m certain their internal computations on the machine learning side of things is really detailed and fine, but that data sadly doesn’t leave their app/ecosystem.

1 Like
#30

Interesting, so you’re saying the MIDI information sent to ableton is not high resolution? Sorry I’m not totally up on all of the intricacies of MIDI.

#31

In general, values - both the velocity of a note event, and the value of a control event, in MIDI are only 7-bit (0~127). MIDI also has a high resolution control event (NPRN) which gives you 14-bit (or ~16k levels).

However, as far as I can see, none of the Sensory Percussion controls are continuous - they are only measured and sent upon a drum hit. (I could be wrong about this - but nothing in the manual leads me to believe otherwise.) As such, the major concern is only if a 7-bit too coarse for the range being measured.

There are only three things that are measured in the SP: Timbre (really position on the head of the strike), Velocity (how hard you hit), and Speed (they say how fast - but I’m not sure what this means, nor the relationship between it and Velocity). In all cases, 7 bit range is probably well matched the degree of repeatable control you can get over the parameter.

The only concern comes if it is continuous and mapped to something with a wide range like a filter frequency with a range of over two octaves…

In short - I wouldn’t worry about the 7-bit mapping of controls on the SP.

The Jambé, for comparison has 10-bits out into its synth engine - but importantly, these pad pressure signals are continuous and can continuously affect the sound after the strike. Here, when mapped to pitch bend, for example, it matters.

3 Likes
#32

Thank you for that explanation @mzero. A little bit of it this is still going over my head, but it makes sense I think. I’m not 100% sure of exactly how I’d like to implement the SP stuff, but it would be nice to leave drum duties to myself instead of the op-z while having some control over certain modules at the same time with some creative MIDI routing.

@Rodrigo: what have you attempted so far with the SP? Curious to hear about your experiments.

#33

Nothing terribly interesting or significant. Mainly a couple proofs of concept to test things out in Max.

Both of these are using the SP software to only send MIDI, everything else is in Max.

This sampler one plays a bit from a loaded buffer with the position of center/edge determining where in the buffer it plays from, with the dynamics controlling the volume of playback and how long the bit of audio is:
http://rodrigoconstanzo.com/bucket/SP%20Sampler%20Test.m4v

And this one is controlling some synthesis stuff. I don’t remember what is controlling what, but it’s mainly things like center->edge, dynamics, with the rim click making a new random preset:
http://rodrigoconstanzo.com/bucket/SP%20Synth%20Test.m4v

1 Like
#34

Woah I totally missed this reply @Rodrigo.
This sounds really rad.

I actually also popped into say my SP dreams got crushed today as I had to allocate those funds to an SPD-SX for this pop gig I do. Was considering doing the Sensory Stuff in a live application but I was absolutely terrified of crosstalk issues on stage after talking to some friends who have them.