My Favorite GMS Generated Melody So Far

Posted on May 12, 2009 by John CS Keston

I’ve been spending most of my limited spare time practicing with the GMS in preparation for tomorrow nights performance in Minneapolis. While practicing tonight I produced this melody. I was controlling the sequencer with a blinking led, spinning top and randomly looped this sequence of notes.

I’ve since built a track around it with more loops from the GMS, but it sounds good on its own. The nice thing about this technique is that everything I capture is MIDI, so if I get a good melody, but don’t like the sound, it’s easy to change the timbre, tempo, transposition, etc. In other words, beyond being a performance tool, I can use it effectively for composition and idea gathering.

My Favorite GMS Generated Melody So Far

GMS Practice Track Number 3

Posted on May 11, 2009 by John CS Keston

top_lights I’ve almost finished with my initial round of tweaking and bug fixing on the GMS, so I’ve finally been able to put a bit more time into actually using the software for its intended purpose. My most recent work with it involves a companion document in Ableton Live that loads a number of virtual instruments into about nine separate MIDI tracks. Ableton provides the external sync via the Apple IAC (Inter-Application Communication) drivers. In turn, the GMS sends MIDI note on and off data to the instruments in Ableton. Using this method I can live loop on various tracks and build a multi-timbral composition in real-time. Here’s an example for a recent practice session.

GMS Practice Practice Track Number 3

GMS Practice Track Number 2

Posted on May 10, 2009 by John CS Keston

This recent practice session illustrates the use of external sync and live looping of MIDI data captured from the GMS in Ableton Live.

GMS Practice Track 2

GMS Live Loop Experiment

Posted on May 5, 2009 by John CS Keston

Today while testing some code I had written to help lock in the GMS with external MIDI synchronization, I made a brief recording of live looping the output from the sequencer by capturing the notes in Ableton Live. Ableton was also acting as the clock source. The new feature works by initializing start times to the nearest quarter note. This way if the sequencer produces an odd number of fractional durations a simple start and stop of the GMS with the space bar will lock it back onto the quarter notes provided by the master clock. This may be a precursor to how I end up using this instrument once it is a complete package.

GMS Live Loop Experiment

GMS Audio Captured During MAW Outing

Posted on April 30, 2009 by John CS Keston

This eight minute segment of audio generated by the GMS is from the first eight minutes of our most recent MAW (minneapolisartonwheels.org) outing.

This was my first chance to take advantage of the presets feature, but the performance led me to expand the octave setting to include adjustments for the top and bottom octaves. During this performance the octave setting was limited to only allowing the top octave to be lowered. This made it so that instruments with a limited range, like drums, are difficult to play since much of the screen might be inactive.

MAW Outing Segment