The Logic Off Topic list

I don't get it. What is the advantage of using an Arpegiator? You have so 
much more control using Logic and the pencil - you can see what you are 
doing, you can fine tune to a  much greater extent, and you can save.  
With a keyboard arp, its more of a performance thing it seems.

The same thing about hardware step editors. Its child's play in Logic. 
why bother with an external unit?

Ursprungligt meddelande-----
  Från: david@... [mailto:david@...]


  --- In logic-ot@y..., "Per Boysen" <per@b...> wrote:
  Speaking about arpeggiators I found a very cool one for the Logic 
  environment the other day. It's called IGA (Instant Gratification 
  Arpeggiator) and put together by Len Sasso.

  Hello,

    I feel like I might biting on a joke here, but I'll take the chance. 
  Is there really an "IGA" from Len? If so, can I get it somewhere, and 
  play around with it? I need some instant gratification. :o)

  d 
   
  Oh no, I'm serious. There is a real IGA! I got that environment with the cd I bought from http://www.swiftkick.com/. I did a fast check there right now and could not find the IGA among the stuff Len gives away for free - guess you have to buy the cd or the download version to get that one. IMHO it's well worth the money.
   
  ciao
   
  per 


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

-----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
  Från: GAmoore@... [mailto:GAmoore@...]


  I don't get it. What is the advantage of using an Arpegiator? You have so 
  much more control using Logic and the pencil - you can see what you are 
  doing, you can fine tune to a  much greater extent, and you can save.  
  With a keyboard arp, its more of a performance thing it seems 
   
   
  One advatage I like with using arps is that you get LESS control, which can sometimes be a good thing. Think about playing in a band. You really have no control at all over the other instruments besides the one you treat by yourself - but somehow the music can sound great anyway. You never know if the bass player will bring a new fuzzbox, or whatever... Working with arpeggiatoros you do not work on the small level (penciling away in the matrix editor) but you are throwing huge chunks of musical parts at different synth/sampler instruments . I would say that in a sense you have better control on a more general level . And another thing:  If  some lines are aimed to play extremely fast and then it helps a lot to also hear them fast when composing. 
   
  Try this one: "Why did Charlie Parker have to play so fast? He would have much better control if only slowing down a bit!"  ;)
   
  regards
   
  per
   


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Thoughts from the mind of GAmoore@..., 19-06-2001:

>I don't get it. What is the advantage of using an Arpegiator? You have so
>much more control using Logic and the pencil

With an arp you don't have to move your fingers.  Esp handy if you 
don't know the difference between a C and a D...

-- 
     Hendrik Jan Veenstra
     email: mailto:h@...
     www:   http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html

--- In logic-ot@y..., Hendrik Jan Veenstra <h@k...> wrote:
> Thoughts from the mind of GAmoore@a..., 19-06-2001:
> 
> >I don't get it. What is the advantage of using an Arpegiator? You have so
> >much more control using Logic and the pencil
> 
> With an arp you don't have to move your fingers.  Esp handy if you 
> don't know the difference between a C and a D...

Ouch! Slam, dunk, 2 points.
Now seriously, an arp isn't as easy to play as you think. Try using an arp with 'harmonically complex' songs. I've been working on a song lately, in which I use a Fm7 - Em7+5 progression. And I was using an arp to play that progression. It was difficult to find an interesting tune to sing with that arp line.
As someone else said, it can also make other musicians think rythmically differently.
And how about the variations you can get with the sound? Try using a modular synth and you'll see what I mean. Try the VAZ modular demo, to be found at http://www.software-technology.com/downform.htm. That is if you have a PC.
Yoonchi.

Well, I am not experienced in this kind of music at all, but I'm having
quite a bit of fun with Logics environment objects, including arpeggiators
and (especially) chord memorizers. And no, in contrary to what Hendrik Jan
said, I don't use them because I don't know the difference between a D and a
C but because of all the new soundscapes that all of a sudden appear.

I made an extremely small example you coud get here:
www.saschafranck.de/arpchords.zip
(Note: This requires an existing EXS, and you should try to keep the file
structure intact as otherwise the EXS won't find its instrument which I
included as well - no worries, the complete file is only 52KB though).

When you open it you will hopefully see an arrange page with two very simple
sequences, the opened EXS at the bottom, a small audio fader at the left and
two small environments showing cable switchers for some chord memorizers and
some arpeggiators (all made to fit my single 17").

Just press play (the first sequence should cycle) and then check out the two
included chord memorizers. I like that. The applied delays almost make it
sound kinda "arpeggio-ish".
Then switch around between the arpeggiators... actually the second sequence
makes more sense for being used with an arpeggiator, so set your cycle
around it (note, after hitting start at the beginning of that sequence it's
gonna be kinda loud because apparently virtual instruments still need a bit
more time to "lock" with environment objects - to avoid that start a bit
earlier)

IMO that's a whole bunch of different things coming out of two so simple
sequences. And actually I don't think I would've ever played such things in
realtime (even if my technical abilities were good enough to do so).

Oh, don't forget to play around with the EXSs ADSRviaVEL, Cutoff and
Resonance parameters all throughout this.

Btw, on Screenset 2 you will see how everything is cabled, on Screenset 5
you will find the click and ports layer which contains an octave switcher
(which - I noticed that after uploading - is set to one octave down) and
another version of the chord memorizer thing which you could switch on if
you'd like to have those chords recorded - and of course in combination with
the realtime chord memorizer thingy it'd be good for even more madness.

Hm, excuse my kinda lame environment layout, I know I could've used aliases
and stuff, but I usually reorder things that often, so it wouldn't make
sense for me.

As said, not exactly my way of making music but I'm having fun with such
stuff though.

Sascha

>With an arp you don't have to move your fingers.  Esp handy if you 
>don't know the difference between a C and a D...

well they're both white keys - look the same to me

....actually I think there are two types of arps - one is where you hit C 
with one finger and this whole arrangement plays in the key of C 
(including other notes) - the other kind, which I 'grew up on' on the 
Memory Moog, was where it only plays what your fingers are pressing. If 
you press CEG, you may get CEGCEGCEG... or decending GECGECGEC.... or 
CEGGECCEGGEC (up and down) or CGEGCGEGCGEGEGEGCGCGCCCGEEGC (random)., And 
if you let go of G, you get CECECECE or whatever. 

But again, I don't consider these 'ready to record' pieces of music. 
Maybe useful for getting some ideas.

Thoughts from the mind of yoonchi@..., 19-06-2001:

>--- In logic-ot@y..., Hendrik Jan Veenstra <h@k...> wrote:
>>  Thoughts from the mind of GAmoore@a..., 19-06-2001:
>>
>>  >I don't get it. What is the advantage of using an Arpegiator? You have so
>>  >much more control using Logic and the pencil
>>
>>  With an arp you don't have to move your fingers.  Esp handy if you
>>  don't know the difference between a C and a D...
>
>Ouch! Slam, dunk, 2 points.

I was just kidding.  Still being a fan of early Tangerine Dream 
(70-ies), I could never seriously say that arpeggiators are for lousy 
players & musicians.  Their music wouldn't exists without arps...

tata,
HJ
-- 
     Hendrik Jan Veenstra
     email: mailto:h@...
     www:   http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html

Thoughts from the mind of Sascha Franck, 19-06-2001:

>Well, I am not experienced in this kind of music at all, but I'm having
>quite a bit of fun with Logics environment objects, including arpeggiators
>and (especially) chord memorizers. And no, in contrary to what Hendrik Jan
>said, I don't use them because I don't know the difference between a D and a
>C but because of all the new soundscapes that all of a sudden appear.

I was JOKING JOKING JOKING!!!!!

Gawd, do I really have to put a smiley after every stupid remark I 
make...?  Then all my msgs would contain more smileys than remarks 
:-).

Sure arps and other such tools can be very "creativity enhancing".  I 
once wrote a small piece that used a "hocket" as it's main 
inspiration: a device that sends incoming notes to subsequent midi 
channels.  1st note to ch 1, 2nd to ch 2, etc.  Very interesting if 
you use a family of instruments for that, like e.g. 6 different 
woodwinds.  Rich textures and (if you play repeating chords or 
patterns) very interesting "evolving patterns" -- i.e. stuff that's 
not on paper but which you start to hear anyway.

And the chord memorizer is funny too, yes...


tata,
HJ
-- 
     Hendrik Jan Veenstra
     email: mailto:h@...
     www:   http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html

Thoughts from the mind of GAmoore@..., 19-06-2001:

>  >With an arp you don't have to move your fingers.  Esp handy if you
>>don't know the difference between a C and a D...
>
>well they're both white keys - look the same to me

You know what I don't get?  There's this one key on my synth which 
supposedly plays a C.  And then there's another white key to the 
right of it.  But I also have this knob, which will make that second 
key sound exactly the same as the first one -- "detune" or so.  If I 
put that to -2 I get the same result.  Weird.  Isn't there some sort 
of redundancy there?  I mean, why not have all keys play the same 
from the onset then?  Much clearer, interface-wise, and saves you the 
effort of thinking about which key to hit...

genuinely puzzled...
HJ

-- 
     Hendrik Jan Veenstra
     email: mailto:h@...
     www:   http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html

>  Try this one: "Why did Charlie Parker have to play so fast? He would 
>have much better control if only slowing down a bit!"  ;)

There are a lot of differences in your analogy. But if he could slow 
down, play it perfect, then speed it back up again during performance I 
think he would do it. Also, he is actually playing and enjoying the vibe. 
When you hit the C key and it plays and arp, you're not following your 
muse, your synth is.

> Från: GAmoore@...
>> >  Try this one: "Why did Charlie Parker have to play so fast? He would
>> >have much better control if only slowing down a bit!"  ;)
> 
> There are a lot of differences in your analogy. But if he could slow
> down, play it perfect, then speed it back up again during performance I
> think he would do it. Also, he is actually playing and enjoying the vibe.
> When you hit the C key and it plays and arp, you're not following your
> muse, your synth is.

Oh, yes - not the best analogy maybe, but funny. I just wanted to show that
"having great control" on a muscally detailed level is not the big thing in
using an arp. What you gain from  arps is hearing these lines on the spot
and in real time. I wrote this in countrary to you example with the pencil
tool in Logic, that I thought missed the point.

Of course a very experienced composer won't need arps because he might
already know those scales and arpeggios as objects of their own, thus being
able to use them in his imagination for comosing. But before you get to that
point it's a BIG time saver to program an arpeggiator for trying out which
note sequences that work best for you.

If your definition of "using an arpeggiator" is "hitting a C and see what
happens" I cannot argue any more. I'm talking about a creative use of arps,
mostly software based ones.  Checking out the IGA for the Logic environment
was a big awakening for me. Here you can trig the arp with the groove form
another track while playing chords that generate sequences. You can also set
up rather detailed rules for the "arping". Then we have the whole next level
of arp use which is "sound". I definitly think you're letting your muse out
while adjusting synth filters, attack times etc to a repeating arp line.
Those things cannot be "penciled in the matrix".

Just a bunch of coins on up sides of arps.

Regards

Per boysen 


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hendrik Jan Veenstra
> I was JOKING JOKING JOKING!!!!!

Hah, of course I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW!!!!!

> Gawd, do I really have to put a smiley after every stupid remark I
> make...?  Then all my msgs would contain more smileys than remarks
> :-).

No, of course not - but I smelled a bit of that "better learn how to play
your instrument" thing again, as in one of your contributions to the trance.
I know that such comments, especially coming from an obviously clever person
can't be taken 100% serious, but there's a bit of truth in them though, no?
Now admit, goddamnit! :-)

Actually, not too long ago I was saying such things almost all the time, and
yes, I was almost serious about it. It actually changed when I've been to
some kinda of pretty much "underground-ish" rave. Not that I really liked
all the people stuffed with drugs but the music had a special quality. It
was like pumping and hypnotic. Surely not what you would usually define as
"musical artistry" but there was a lot of highly interesting soundstuff
going on, something you would never find in your average sounding
jazz/rock/pop band. IMO that can be called artistry as well.
Another experience was that I started fooling around with such sounds as
well. Started with some Korg DW8000 which I got for cheap. Originally only
meant to replace my keyboard to record MIDI events into my PC I found myself
sitting with it and fooling around with the internal arpeggiators and
filters for hours.

These days I would like to find out how to integrate all those modern
sounding things into my (admittedly) somewhat old-fashioned musical
style(s). And no, I'm not talking about the "Hey, let's replace this Fender
Jazzbass with a 303 filter" thing which quite some people seem to do these
days, I'd be more interested in really integrating it, both by means of
sound and composition. Btw, I think Massive Attack and Portishead for
example do a great job on that.

So far,
Sascha

>  > Gawd, do I really have to put a smiley after every stupid remark I
>>  make...?  Then all my msgs would contain more smileys than remarks
>>  :-).
>
>No, of course not - but I smelled a bit of that "better learn how to play
>your instrument" thing again, as in one of your contributions to the trance.
>I know that such comments, especially coming from an obviously clever person
>can't be taken 100% serious, but there's a bit of truth in them though, no?
>Now admit, goddamnit! :-)

OK, I admit...  Yes, there is some truth in my jokes.  I'm not that 
much of a musician myself, but at least I know what a Dsus4 is.  And 
I do seriously think that a lot of contemporary music would benefit 
from a bit more knowledge in this respect.

What annoys me is illustrated by the following anecdote:
I'd just bought Logic and the Digi 001, and had hooked all gear up, 
booted LA, and started playing some piano on my synth while recording 
in LA.  You know, the first fooling around with new toys.  After some 
100 bars, there seemed to be a midi problem -- random notes, note 
bursts, etc.  Later this appeared to be the now well-known midi bug 
in the 001.  However, I phoned my dealer, told them about the 
problem, and they said they'd never heard of it or encountered it 
themselves.
After some more experimenting they were able to confirm the problem, 
which only seemed to surface after sufficient time had elapsed, or 
after a sufficient number of notes had been played.  Of course I 
asked them how it was possible that no-one had ever reported the 
problem and why they hadn't run into it before -- after all, _my_ 
Digi001 wasn't the first they sold.
The answer was revealing: "we don't try out equipment for 100+ bars 
ourselves (which imo is reasonable), and (and that's the annoying 
thing) apparently none of our other customers plays 100 bars of 
piano.  Probably most of our customers play 4 or 16 bars and start 
cutting and pasting."

I don't care if some individual gets by with copying and pasting, but 
if apparently the majority of the music-making community do it this 
way... well... then I seriously start wondering what happened to 
music while I wasn't paying attention...

>Actually, not too long ago I was saying such things almost all the time, and
>yes, I was almost serious about it. It actually changed when I've been to
>some kinda of pretty much "underground-ish" rave. Not that I really liked
[...]

Sure, I know the experience, and there absolutely is talent out there 
-- even in the copy & paste league.  In once saw a DJ perform solo 
with just two turntables and a record collection -- doing this "fast 
flipping of records and scratching" thing (is there a name for 
that?).  And this guy was bloody AMAZING.  Really incredible how he 
managed to make an entirely new (and interesting!) piece of 'music' 
with just a bunch of records and turntables.  Went on for 15 minutes 
or so, and the audience was dead quiet all the time.  I was really 
holding my breath, and when he was finished people almost tore down 
the hall -- yelling, screaming, applauding.  Absolutely wonderful, 
and probably one of the most musical performances I have heard during 
the past years.

>I'd be more interested in really integrating it, both by means of
>sound and composition. Btw, I think Massive Attack and Portishead for
>example do a great job on that.

Massive Attack is ok at times, although theyalso have some extremely 
boring stuff imo.  Portishead is indeed amazing in a way.  Muscially 
they're not very talented -- simple schemes, rather lousy musicians 
-- but theysomehwo manage to get a maximum effect out of their medium 
talents.  Which I admire greatly.

I saw them play live once -- the DJ I told above was their support 
act -- and that was rather mediocre.  The lady sang out of tune quite 
often, and the piano player clearly had a hard time playing the 
bluesy piano lines live.  All in all the DJ was more impressive than 
the band :-).  Still like their CDs though.


cheers,
HJ
-- 
     Hendrik Jan Veenstra
     email: mailto:h@...
     www:   http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html

-----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
  Från: Hendrik Jan Veenstra [mailto:h@...]
  I saw them play live once -- the DJ I told above was their support 
  act -- and that was rather mediocre.  The lady sang out of tune quite 
  often, and the piano player clearly had a hard time playing the 
  bluesy piano lines live.  All in all the DJ was more impressive than 
  the band :-).  Still like their CDs though.

  Four years ago I went to see one of my fav bands Sonic Youth play a festival here in Stockholm. They had a bad day and did a lousy gig. But then Portishead entered the stage and surprised me with a brilliant set! The did not "play" much though, but the general sound and mood they created was nothing but breathtaking. And, yes, Beth was incredibly shy and sung with her back fronting the audience for about the first three songs, but it was good. To my ears even the "blue" notes went great with the context. Guess the had ha good day ;)

  per


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hendrik Jan Veenstra wrote:

[sad but true Digi001 experiences snipped]
> I don't care if some individual gets by with copying and pasting, but
> if apparently the majority of the music-making community do it this
> way... well... then I seriously start wondering what happened to
> music while I wasn't paying attention...

Well, I'm not sure if this has to do with quality or whatever, but yes, it's
obvious that things have changed a lot. I don't know whether I like it. As
I'm old fashioned, most likely I don't. I allready said so, I really like
some of the new stuff going on, but I also like listening to players who
really have their "chops" sorted.
Fortunately a relatively huge amount of my income is achieved by playing
with such people (not allways the best jobs, a lot of shitty commercial
stuff, but also some really inspiring gigs/moments), so it's all fine with
me.
The interesting thing is, that in my little home studio I hardly ever make
use of my own "chops". I really don't record guitars that much anymore but
instead I like fooling around with all the options modern technologies offer
(Logic, softsynths, effects, LOADS of cutting, looping and pasting).
On the downside, I'm not exactly productive with that, I achieved more
complete results back in the days where I had to concentrate on the basics
(4/8 track and some lousy external mixing stuff).

> Portishead is indeed amazing in a way.  Muscially
> they're not very talented -- simple schemes, rather lousy musicians
> -- but theysomehwo manage to get a maximum effect out of their medium
> talents.  Which I admire greatly.

I might agree on the live part of it (but well, I recently saw some live TV
thing which was great), but anyways, IMO you nailed it down what making
music is all about: "manage to get a maximum effect out" (of whatever). And
considering this it doesn't matter too much if someone has incredible
technical skills or not, the main thing is knowing how to use your
possibilities effectively.

Sascha

--- In logic-ot@y..., Hendrik Jan Veenstra <h@k...> wrote:

> What annoys me is illustrated by the following anecdote:
> I'd just bought Logic and the Digi 001, and had hooked all gear up, 
> booted LA, and started playing some piano on my synth while recording 
> in LA.  You know, the first fooling around with new toys.  After some 
> 100 bars, there seemed to be a midi problem -- random notes, note 
> bursts, etc.  Later this appeared to be the now well-known midi bug 
> in the 001.  However, I phoned my dealer, told them about the 
> problem, and they said they'd never heard of it or encountered it 
> themselves.
> After some more experimenting they were able to confirm the problem, 
> which only seemed to surface after sufficient time had elapsed, or 
> after a sufficient number of notes had been played.  Of course I 
> asked them how it was possible that no-one had ever reported the 
> problem and why they hadn't run into it before -- after all, _my_ 
> Digi001 wasn't the first they sold.
> The answer was revealing: "we don't try out equipment for 100+ bars 
> ourselves (which imo is reasonable), and (and that's the annoying 
> thing) apparently none of our other customers plays 100 bars of 
> piano.  Probably most of our customers play 4 or 16 bars and start 
> cutting and pasting."

LOL. This says either something about the development team of this company or soemthing about their marketing department.
Either they don't bother to develop the MIDI side of things correctly, since their aim is the audio side, or the marketing department told them "Listen guys, you gotta cut on the development, cause we can't sell that card for that price". I hope there is an update in the future this bug.

About that cutting and pasting thing: a lot of music is produced only that way nowadays. That's why the chart stuff is so boring. Cheap, fast and the same thing. People don't learn to play keyboards any more, I think. Unless you do jazz stuff, with improvisation.
So these MIDI sequencers have created some other types of musicians: musicians who only work with short fragment of MIDI or audio, which they copy and paste in an editor and add interesting nuances with realtime fx or automation.
I don't condemn this, but it makes interacting, what is a part of music to my knowledge, very restricted. You can only use the tools the editor, in our case Logic, supplies you.
What I would like to see in some of these apps like Logic is to have some ways to use it more as an instrument. Touch tracks is a step towards that.
Would be intersting to say "hey, I'm a Logicist" instead of I'm a guitarist. On second thougt, that 'cist' part there sounds nasty, :-).
Yoonchi.