HOLDING THE CIRCLE

published by Dino on Sun, 05/01/2016 - 16:41

Traveling with Electronics : Holding The Circle

 

one gives birth to two

               two gives birth to three

                              three gives birth to all things

                                                                               

                                                                               .....lao-tzu

 

  

This month we are going to take a circular look at rhythm and my new favorite drum machine, and you know I luv me some drum machine.....but first I'd like to invite you to look at this short video which will better set the stage for our journey into the circle  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UphAzryVpY  .....Now wasn't that a cool video!

 

 

 PATTERNING (video) more tutorial videos

Patterning by OlympiaNoiseCo. has quickly become my first call go to drum machine!

It is very sophisticated yet very straight forward to understand and to use. Because it employs a circular interface (like the video above) you can very quickly program any rhythmic sequence (in any time signature you choose), from the lamest 4-on-the-floor to the most intricate and ever evolving pan-rhythmic, organic, breathing, structure of beats that you can imagine. It comes with a wonderful set of very diverse samples and it is dead simple to import and edit any sonic event you want from your personal sample library. If you have an interest in exploring rhythm and have been less than impressed with the rather narrow vision of so many of today's drum machine options I highly recommend spending an hour with PATTERNING! I doubt you will regret it. 

 

 

 POLY (video)

Poly by James Milton was one of the first apps I tried when I started doing music on iPad in 2012. It's hasn't seen much love from the dev since then, but just recently got support for AudioShare, which makes it much easier to load in your own samples.

Poly takes a slightly different approach to using the circle in that, the distance from the center of the circle determines the rate of repeat for each sound (circle) that you place in the larger circle. Rather clever and makes it very easy to create wonderful poly-rhythmic, ensembles of sound that you can manipulate further by re-arranging the sound-circles within the larger playing circle. POLY is truly unique and very fun.

 

 

 SECTOR (video)

Sector by Kymatica is the most insane fun you can have with a sample and a circle!

I still have yet to fully wrap my head around, just how this thing does what it does (Jonatan you are a madman:-), but I will use it whenever I want to create something rhythmically unique with a piece of audio. More often than not, the resulting groove gets exported as a new sample which I will perform in Samplr. Kymatica has created some of the most elegant apps out there today and SECTOR is no exception to that very high standard. Not for the faint of heart and Highly Recommended!

 

  

 RHYTHM NECKLACE (video)

Rhythm Necklace by Meara O'Reilly & Sam Tarakajian is a simple shape based sequencer. I use this more as a teaching tool, a very sophisticated poly-rhythmic metronome, rather than something I would perform with (lack of landscape support being one issue), but it is a wonderful and easy to use aid for learning. Circle based sequencers provide a fresh and powerful way to visualize rhythm!

 

 

 XRONOMORPH (video)

Xronomorph by Dynamic Tonality takes this circular / shape based approach to understanding and creating rhythms into the realm of QWERTY keyboards and pointy-clicky things (that would be lap-top land), with this very interesting and free piece of software. I have not tried it myself, but felt that it belonged in this posting.

 

 

It's interesting how at a certain point in time a new perspective is just in the air. 

  Well, that just about closes the circle on this one.

I did want to mention regarding last month's DinoBlog, Caught Up In Crazy , that I did update my iPad 4 to 9.3.1 and.....so far, so good.....my iPad 2 is staying put on 7.1.2.

 

 

***update 5/7/16***

 MOOG MODEL 15 APP (video) more video

Moog got into iOS early on, with the now classic ANIMOOG app - now they have recreated the iconic MODEL15 modular synthesizer ($10K worth of hardware) as an iOS app - once again pushing the envelope of what can be done on a 64bit iPad. If you have any interest in modular synthesis, this is a must buy on so many levels! 

 

until next month then.....safe travels.....dino