aha! i may have stumbled upon something here. Theres a group which develops plugins for real time software such as resolume and modul8. They have created Freeframe, a plugin utilising software which creates much more interesting visuals rather than using stock visuals from programs or using pre-rendered visuals. You could sa their just a bunch of open source effects but Freeframe makes them compatible with the main software. So what if we linked ableton with modul8 and then utilized freeframe into modul8’s visual structure? Win is what i could say about this whole endevour, i may start running some tests with resolume and see what the actual effects are like and start some inspirational development. I’d say we would most probably use modul8 over resolume on the actual show because on using both products i found that modul8 was a lot more stable on resolume. Besides its probably going to be MAC orientated anyway so modul8 will most certainly be used.

Here are some examples of what the effects can do, very nice sound wave manipulation.

It can be done! i have found a video which shows a nice demonstration of the effects of real time visuals using Ableton Live and VVVV! I have found this to be an extremely exciting event as i feel like i may be onto something solid here. Alot of this project has kinda been feeling around in the dark without the sense of touch and i finally feel a little relieved that the visuals can be done through this. The visuals in this video seem very interesting, i am not sure if they are pre-rendered or generative but i hope they have generated in real time. Unfortunately the user has failed to comment on how he has achieved such an effect so i think a little bit of playing around with VVVV is in order.

Quite tasty but cant say much about the music. As me and Elliott are now working together we came to the conclusion that we wanted to combine both our passions in music together. I wanted to bring a lot of guitar aspect into the production and Elliott wanted to bring a lot of DJ’ing into the mix. This is rather perfect for me considering i have had a lot of inspiration from Infected mushroom so i am going to enjoy this i reckon. Tommorow will be our first practice together with music, it’d be a session in whcih we would refine our sound into something concrete ready for an improv-performance. I’m excited man.

Well had a look into a visual prgramme which gets influenced by interactive sound waves. The idea was based around the inside of a plant leaf and all the living cells that float around within its space. I found it to be extremely fascinating so here are a few videos demonstrating what it can do.

I just found it to be inspirational visuals, i just need to find a program which has something similar to this in real time which can be affected by ableton live.

Well i decided to take a look into whats inspiring me sound wise in this current time, after all the project isnt all just about visuals. I have been listening to a band called Infected Mushrom lately and i have found their new album titled “Legend of the Black Shawarma” to be very intriguing. I found that they have a fantastic little clash of midi instruments and acoustic instruments mixing together with various effects and wierd tempo changes.

They apparently use cubass and ableton to create a lot of their strange sounds. They must use a MIDI pad of some kind and a hell load of keyboards. Their a 5 piece band including a dj, a drummer, a guitarist, a bassist and a vocalist. I found this to be a very interesting mixture, they appear to have some heavy metal roots which is what grabbed me in the first place. I think i like them because they are just one giant experiment, they dont really stick to one sound. I also find them to be a roller coaster to listen to, the way the songs evolve from one thing to another with such ease and yet so forced. Its difficult to describe but give it a listen.

I found this song to get really intense half way through, the control on those sounds are mega! I cant get over how much control they have over all the sound using ableton. You can really see how both metal and djing can bring such a harmony together, its absolutely delicious.

I found this song to be a fantastic instrumental. The sounds are really compelling and drag me into some sense of another world. Its like escapism in music, i absolutely love it. Or you could even say it has a lot of immersion. I would like to try and simulate some nice instrumental involving a lot of inspiration from these guys. They seem to fit the whole visuals thing and i think combining something of this style with some really cool visuals would really do the music justice.

Here are someother inspirational videos involving some software intergration. The ableton live software is used for djing and then using the jitter program in max msp the visuals are then affected.

Here you can see the scale of the objects being affected by the bass. Now i question i need to ask myself is that can acoustic sound waves be played through ableton live? Im guessing it can, i couldnt see why not and also the looping technology could be done through it considering you can loop midi sequences. So may not even need a guitar pedal at all for the guitar looping. The project is starting to get me nervous because i find myself stepping in uncharted territory here. A lot of these programs involve a lot of well….programming which is something i’d rather avoid but hey, backed into a corner here. I may need a DJ as well if theres to be any drum progression in the performance. So i’ll ask around if anyone knows ableton at all.

Well thinking about intergrating software together i stumbled on the little fact that modul8 and vvvv can work together with visuals. Which is quite baffling because their both visual programs, so i am not sure how this would them enhance eachother. Anyways here is a few videos which show a result of their potential.

I think a lot of it is 3d mapping mixed with visuals generated by VVVV. I need to have some consultation with Liam to start getting a lot more of an idea of what i could do in terms of mixing programs together. I’m getting rather afraid of their limitations.

Well having a play with this program has been quite a fun experience, yet i feel like i may be going in the wrong direction here. I’m not sure whteher this program would be able to intergrate sound into it? I need to find some more tutorials but anyways here is a basic construct i made using a simple generative sound wave utilized from the computer itself.

Here you can see b just typing osc 440~ you can generate a frequency from this program which is great.

Here you can see i have attached a midi node to the number sequencer to manipulate the actual sound using mouse movement. Reminded me of very cliche sci-fi robotic noises which i found quite entertaining.

You can then see i managed to attach a metronome to whats called a “bang” and then using a sticky node you can then program the sound wave to follow a specific melody pattern. It all gets rather complicated and i found myself getting confused on the tutorial at points because certain aspects werent explained but i think i got the general knowledge of what were where trying to achieve. The next step….how to intergrate this with soundwave software?

Well after sending an e-mail to Liam he has managed to point me in the direction of some open source software. Although our class does have 10 licenses of MAX MSP its good to take a look at alternative software for a better understanding of what i want to do. So, looking at one open source program called VVVV. Its a visualization program which can have audio sound waves affecting the visuals. I managed to find a few videos on youtube which show its potential extremely well.

I found that this piece of software is very much similar to the interface of MAX MSP. Its simply a connection program to influence pieces of hardware once again. You can see on this video that the tremors of the bass and treble affect both shape, movement and the colour of the visualizations which can be perfect for what i want to do.

Here you can see VVVV mixed with another program called salvation. Salvation is a visual programming tool used to create custom video and lighting displays. I’ll take a look into that on another blog. So VVVV has convinced me to download it, because its open source its obviously free which is fantastic to me. I’m getting rather excited.

Well looking into real time visual software Phil suggested to me to have a look at Max MSP. In a nutshell this program is mostly a connector port ready to be utilized by hardware and can be very useful for this rea of work we are looking into. I think i would be able to connect up things like ableton to Max MSp and have it read the actual audio soundwave. Here are some examples of what the program can do.

I found this to be extremely beautiful and very simplistic. Its simply shapes blurring in and out but i dont think their reading an audio input. They appear to be reading a switch input so most probably MIDI influenced, unless they keys have been possibly rigged to audio using a blur filter? Key tone would have to be taken into account. Or maybe the notes are rnadomized visuals appearing when a spike in the audio wave form has been detected?

Here is just another very basic video which shows primitive visualizations using Jitter. I’m getting rather excited into where i can take this.

Yes its a particle simulator, yes its something that i normally go on about but it interests me. I found that this CUDA program which is created by NVIDIA is a very nice looking tool which seems to have a lot of un-used potential. Imagine having these coloured balls reading different aspects of audio like bass, treble and contour?

Reminds me very much of the Sony colour picture HD advert.

The concept of this could be explored further.