Adventures in music, composition and home-made electronic instruments.
I'm not trying to be a RU-vid star (luckily). I love writing music, but I need motivation. I started this channel with a commitment to posting some original music each week, and I saw my composition skills increase very slightly. It has developed now into a place for my general music-making, sometimes with my musical electronics projects.
The videos may feature anything from 3-voice music aimed at retro computers to full orchestral scores. It may simply be rendered by my notation software or Logic Pro, or it may be performed by an 8-bit computer. Or maybe performed by me on real instruments. For my own performances of my rock arrangements of 16th century music, see Canzon Cataclysmico at Bandcamp canzon-cataclysmico.bandcamp.com
Yes, 16th century music with modern rock instruments works really well, I think. When I found this music, I wanted to play it but it's not the most exciting piece. It's beautiful but it would bore me a bit if I were listening and not playing, so I'm glad it's had a reasonably positive response. Thanks for checking it out!
Well that was lovely as always. I've done some digging... Orlando was born in the Spanish Netherlands so MAYBE he's referring to something "topical". Apparently this was published in 1584, so what William was around then of interest to someone in the Spanish Netherlans... William the Silent, maybe, who was assassinated in 1584 but not conquered!
Thank you for the research, that's great. I wouldn't like to think that I was honouring ana rogue but since he had some beautiful music composed for him, he couldn't have been that bad.
I will throw a like to anything that includes 2 recorder parts in different octaves. I still it's amazing how you get such great tones out of a recorder and a SM57. Good call to add the bassline. It probably would've felt a little empty without that but it really solidified the beat.
I was happy with the drums and electric bass. Yes, it would have been a little monotonous without. It was a bit of a struggle because the music was written in 4 half notes, which you just read as 4/4 but Logic wanted to drum it twice as fast. It took some messing around to persuade it to drum slowly enough! I recorded three of the five parts on the original music (and video'd the actual takes) but iMovie will only let me split the screen in two. it takes more faffing around to get more of you on the screen so I just showed a couple of the parts initially and then mainly the top part. Thanks for watching. I wanted to play it but I don't think it's the most exciting music to listen to.
Thanks so much for this video. Nice to see the Yamaha MSX there. In 1985 I worked for Max Neuhaus on the team building an acoustic paintbox for a network of MSX's (in Forth) for an acoustic art installation in Carnac., France. I subsequently bought the exact MSX config shown in the video and happily used it for many years.
I'm glad that brought back memories. I've had an eBay alert for one of those Yamahas set up for quite a while but haven't managed to acquire one yet. It's always good to have a chance to play with them at shows like this. Making music with a network of them sounds amazing.
I just purchased a couple of these from you, they look great! However, is there a chance that a firmware update could flip the note layout so that it plays left to right? Most tongue drums and handpans are set up this way, and I think this would help it be a huge hit in that community.
Yes, I'm sure that will be happening. I went for a layout that seemed to be common for tongue drums, but the question of being able to flip it has already come up. (for left-handed players actually.) Eventually there may be some kind of total configurability of the mapping, but a simple left/right flip in the menu would be useful to many I think. Since the drum has the opposite of the direction that the kalimba goes, I get confused and would rather have some consistency there. Thank you very much for your order, they are on their way.
@@midi_in a bank of user customized scales would make this soooo useful for me (so that I can copy the scales of the physical drums I will be playing simultaneously) , but even just mirroring the layout will be incredible. I’ve been playing tongue drums for ages, and had kinda been dreaming something like this existed in such a manageable form factor. Then I looked at your Etsy page a little more and saw you had a midi kalimba, my other favorite instrument! I’ll get around to 3d printing a battery housing and case for these sooner or later. If it turns out well I’ll sent you the STL files if you’re interested. Can’t wait to mess around with these 🙏
@@et7420 if you are maker-minded, and you're thinking about battery power, then there are undocumented and unpopulated footprints inside both devices for a jst-ph 2-way socket and schottky protection diode. These will power the device if a battery is fitted that gives 3v - 5v. There's little room inside the kalimba for a battery, but loads of space inside the drum. It's not fully thought through, there is no arrangement for switching it, but maybe this will all be helpful to you and you may prefer to use that than simply using a power bank and the micro-USB.
Definitely looking forward to seeing your clone of the Music 5000. That was my first "real synth" in the late 80s. And I still miss the AMPLE language.
Now that I've said it in a video I've got to go for it! I've been assured it's a nice build, so I hope it will be. I'm a huge fan of Forth and so I was attracted by the similarity.
Thanks for checking out the video Mitch! I wish I'd been capable of catching and interviewing everyone but Tony has done that so I hoped a quick walkabout would do. I was genuinely into your Vernam cipher concept and wanted to link to your videos but I found later that everything I'd seen about it was on Patreon. Will you be publishing something about it publicly soon?
I was a little worried when there was nothing on Sunday. This was an interesting walkabout. It bought back quite a few memories. I had an apple 2 for a time, I am glad that you showed an interest in early cubase. It is also amazing that you showed the Sid. Thank you for an interesting video.
In a strange way it's encouraging that Sunday's absence was noticed. Apple II's are less common here and so it's always fascinating to see them. I recently acquired a nice, working G3 iMac and Cubase was one of the programs that I've installed. I'd assumed that I'd be able to route the output to some kind of audio generation but it seems that it's necessary to have a hardware MIDI interface so that's where my own exploration has stalled. It was good to have a quick tour of the program from Matt on Sunday.
Love it. I wish I could have been there. FYI, I am actually a ham radio/synthesizer nerd and I am always amazed at the similarities between the two. Understanding one doesn't require a huge leap of faith to understand the other: just a change of perspective! Cheers!
I wondered why there was no Sunday vid. 😆 You are certainly right about the computer and the synthesizer growing up side by side. That was such a cool collection of 80s tech in one room. The FGTH Juno was a cool sight. I laughed when you said there needed to be an Amiga to maintain the balance of the universe. 🤣 It looks like you had a lot of fun.
It's nice that you missed the Sunday video. In the past when I've been busy for the weekend, I"ve recorded something in advance and scheduled the release. But I spent Thursday and Friday preparing my exhibit and had so much going on in my head that I couldn't spend the time or get my head into the right place for the Sunday Jam. It certainly was a lot of fun. Very good atmosphere and a great mix of exhibits.
When the music first started, I was expecting it to evolve in a different manner and direction. Pleasantly surprised the way it did turn out. It was developing into something very emotional but it unfortunately ended too soon. it's funny how our brains can be pre-conditioned to expect certain patterns. Cheers!
@@midi_in It started out with a somewhat solemn feeling, at least to me, and then it became upbeat. As I listen to it again it is possible I was distracted when it first started.
Perfectly enjoyable, the cello is gorgeous. A lot of my old efforts are on Atari diskette, I am not sure how to recover them, something I shall chase one day.
Thank you. These are my earliest efforts in GarageBand, possibly as early as mid 2010s (they open up in Logic, which I use now, because it's basically the same program.) Before that I did some tracking on Amiga and before that 4-track cassette! I don't think I really want to revisit any of those projects!
Oh wow. That's a crazy coincidence with the poem. Ironically, I did something similar years ago (using a heartbeat as a drumbeat) but mine did not come out anywhere near this good. Now your video is making me want to revisit it. I like the way the bass comes in with the lyrics, that really worked. The groove was subtle but it was just enough to convey a constant forward motion.
That is a coincidence. I'm getting a lot out of revisiting very old projects so I hope you will too. I was pleased with what I'd done with the heartbeat and it just took a bit more tweaking. Im glad you noticed the bass. I liked the part that I played, it's at a cross rhythm with the second harp part that also comes in at the same time. Pleased with that but then I covered it all up with the voice! One uncertain thing is that Rosen's starting point was a train, which is a fast rhythm (link to his performance in the description and I recommend that) so I didn't know whether it would work with something more meditative. But it does seem to! I guess a rhythm is a rhythm whether it's fast or slow.
It's my attempt to mass-hypnotise the entire world. Yes, he certainly is a lovely man. I think him and Roger McGough in one room would probably cause some kind of singularity.
Okay. First and foremost... I want to know more about that level meter on the wall behind you. That has my attention. Oh and Bransle de Punk is the greatest name for a track. 🤣I really liked the way the guitar and recorder overlayed so perfectly in the early part of the track. Then the distorted guitar comes in and really adds energy... and the mix was on point.
Ha! I'm glad you noticed it, I deliberately angled the camera to show it. I'm keeping my project logs on Hackaday but unfortunately I'm having trouble with the site at the moment. The recent videos on my 'second channel' have some demos. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tiK6NZ-84PI.html It's basically neopixels with ice cube trays as diffusers.to make a 12x12 display. I enjoy writing the software and that's just one of the demos / utilities I've put together. (I have more of the trays and will be expanding the display.)
The funny thing about going back to an old project is that you think you can improve everything (play better performances, get better sounds) but in fact I found some guitar sounds in that project (amp and pedal setups) that sound better than the sounds I've been getting recently. I started to re-record the rhythm guitar parts but it wasn't sounding as good as the ones that I did originally. I was able to improve the mix though. I obviously intended to do something more punky, which I haven't really achieved there. I didn't have the energy to take it further in that direction so late on a saturday night! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Pogo dancing eh, I saw Wednesday Adams pogo dancing recently which is odd because when you were playing guitar with your hair over your face you looked a bit like cousin it. Sorry couldn't resist. It warms up this tune.
I assume this is using a one-dimensional proximity sensor instead of a three-dimensional capacitive field? Would make it tricky to play as a thereminist, since the normal aerial fingering techniques wouldn't work and you can't move your hand along the straight vision line. Also if the amplitude control is reversed it would need some relearning. But it's compact and simple. Might be interesting to try!
You are right, the sensors are one-dimentional (lidar - very accurate and not affected by ambient light). Well they have a bit of a cone. You can affect the reading by changing the shape of your hand, but someone used to a real theremin wouldn't be able to use the same techniques. It's essentially a distance measurement. Pocket-size and convenient while still being very useful was definitely the goal here.
Most people just consume and complain. What have you built lately? The hardware isnt that complicated but the software for a complete general midi patch with all the bells and whitles for multi sid is a LOT of work.
Pretty sure everyone here will agree that what we see in the video is infinitely more "fantastic" than being a bitter old man whining on the Internet about something he can't do.
It does seem to cope with un-messed-around-with MIDI files pretty well. One issue I was having when sending MIDI to Arduinos is that it was easy to overload the processing when having to filter out lots of MIDI content for other channels. It was also an issue whenever a DAW/etc created a MIDI file with per-note expression - typically continued breath control or similar messages. I found I'd have to filter out dynamic expression and related MIDI commands to keep things running smoothing... that is one reason I ended up making a MIDI router/channel filter. I'm guessing from the sounds of things you're not finding things like that an issue?
I've not seen an issue at all when sending data into MIDISID. The RP2040 pretty much has hardware serial i/o with a small buffer and interrupt. I've had something choke on my MK60 keyboard, as it's constantly sending a stream of FE 'I'm alive' messages but MIDISID has no problem. I've heard about some hosts complaining about the stream of CC messages that e-ther sends (although I've never found any information about the maximum rate that you can send CC messages?) so there's rate limiting on that now which is configurable.
@@midi_in depending on how many voices you configure to use on each chip. Say you decide to use all 3 voices on each chip and use a mono signal 6 note polyphony, but a 18 voiced monster. If you decide to confogure in stereo maybe use 2 voices per chip giving you a 4 note polyphony but in stereo as you have 18 voices to play with. Eaggerly awaiting updates! Ps is there enough depth to be able to stack the chips ontop of the original chips via extra sound boards?
@@VintageSamplers that's right. I've been focusing here on receiving a .mid file, but for playing a keyboard or composing your own music, you could have multi-note polyphony with multiple voices per note. That's an exciting idea itself.
Thanks Doug, I really didn't use my TST much back when I bought it. It's fabulous that the maker has revived it! That has made me want to do more of this, maybe something more musical not just percussion next time.
Thanks for the encouragement! I'm thoroughly enjoying listening to .mids with this setup. The sound is awesome with the volume cranked up. At the same time, some mids sound better than others. Over time I'll improve various aspects of the software. But I'd be worried that someone would hear my demos and then be disappointed when they tried other tunes.
@@midi_in Don't worry about that. 99% of your customers are probably geeks and the rest buys a product like this for experimenting with sid-sounds. Ofc you should cherry pick mids that sounds the best for your demos.
@@midi_in Maybe you could build and sell the beast as a "black box" edition to keep the cost down? Skip the display and the encoders and use a single board that fits in a standard plastic enclosure.
@@burgerbee5169 This really became a possibility when we covered all of the parameters with CC control codes. (That was a popular request right from the beginning). And MIDISID is modular already, the top 'UI' boards being connected to the main board with a simple 4-way cable with a plug on each end. This allows the user to separate it all and use their own choice of case if they want. That means that the Beast could have the UI part fitted, or the main board would work standalone, in some other kind of enclosure / case. I'm getting a clearer picture of how this would all look / work now :-)
@@midi_in Another thing I was thinking about is the velocity problem. Maybe you could duplicate a note if there is one voice/channel free and the velocity is over 100? Something like that. But I guess you have already tried that. May sound strange when the amount of free voices/channels shifts over time.
Wow. That was awesome! I love the Pink Floyd cover on SID. Great idea with the L, R, & C channels. It sounded really full and thick. Good luck with the museum talk. I think those folks are really going to like it. it's very clever.
I've been wanting to do this for a long time and have been puzzling over certain issues. Then after agreeing to go to Cambridge again this year, it all came together very easily and very satisfactorily! Thanks for watching / listening.
Thank you. Yes it does. Program change changes the patch that's applied to the current channel / voice and there are a bunch of CCs mapped to MIDISID's parameters, see Appendix F in the manual peacockmedia.software/midisid/MIDISID_manual.pdf
@@nethoncho That's how MIDISID started with me. I wrote software for a C64 with a Datel MIDI cartridge but I wanted a row of knobs to play with settings like ADSR and filter. (And something more portable and easy to set up than a real C64! LOL) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eqmnEuaswi4.html
Oooo...I would be interested. Any chance there can be some built-in sounds in this? BLE midi? I'm doing some work with seniors and would have loved to get something larger (like the Neotone which is too expensive) but I think this might work. I had a Sansula app for iphone/iPad ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-X2Cz-fceies.html which had really wonderful exotic scales but I think they didn't update it for the more recent phones so it keeps crashing everytime I launch. But I remember that those would have been great for use with seniors. When life is characterised by loss, being able to produce beautiful sounds without much physical ability or prior musical knowledge can do so much to grow their sense of accomplishment.
built-in sounds and bluetooth are both longer-term goals. These instruments have immediate gratification because they only offer notes from the scale or mode you've selected. Thank you for your interest.
I wanted this to be about the music rather than "hey please buy my stuff" so didn't put a link anywhere. But since you asked... peacockmedia.software/drum/
