The Galaxy voice editor/librarian had something similar on its "Factory" menu. "Shade two" interpolated all of the parameters of one voice to the corresponding parameter of another. I forget the name of the other process but it also took two voices of your choice and created a bank of new voices using the "guide" voices as the limits of random choice for each of the parameters. When I was using a bank of Proteii and a TX816 as my touring orchestra, I wrote max patches that did this in real time. You can hear the TX816 in "Five Summer Scenes" and thereal time mutation in "Colony." Both are on my web site.

Slainte, Gary Lee Nelson Oberlin College www.timara.oberlin.edu/GaryLeeNelson

Hi Roman,

Shure I would like to help you! Could you pls send me (or to the list, so all could participate and help) your "mutator"-patch? I

It doesn't offer the nice pictures like the clavia editor, but you should be looking at pattrstorage for your 2-point interpolation needs. With some work, one could use pattrstorage to perform specifiable randomization of named parameters in a patch, too.

All that said, the G2 is a _great_ instrument and you should get one anyway!

jb

@jeremy

Is the g2 also good for noisy, droning experimental sounds? Is it really useful for physical modelling?

I had a nord modular (1.version) but gave it away, because it sounded too cold for me (but I had great fun making patches). I don

Mutation is the easy part. What was always difficult was finding the information about data format and sysex codes in the synth. Only a few synths include enough documentation about midi implementation. The Proteus manual was particularly good and the Yamaha X series became well-known because of its wide-spread use and a lot of hacking.

Here are some issues that I recall in writing your own mutator in max....

Interpolation is not linear for many voice parameters, for example these in the Proteus,,,

sample number - samples are not stored in an order that makes perceptual sense even if we knew everything about adjacency in timbral space. I created my own map based on subjective judgments and instrument classifications. LFO wave shapes - is a square wave half way between a sine and a triangle? Parameters that link controllers to synth parameters

And this in the X series... algorithm number.

Using Galaxy's random patch mutator produced a lot of voices that didn't make any sound. It was a great way to "shop" for unusual voices but I did not think of it as mutation in the usual sense - i.e. Small developmental steps.

If your synth has on-board editing things can be easier. You can use max' sysexin to watch what happens when you press the buttons on the synth. In particular you want to know the codes for requesting data dumps from the synth. Having that you can capture data, modify it in max and then send it back.

Once again I suggest my piece, "Colony" as an example of doing this in real time. Voices are loaded from the synth, bred and then sent back.

Slainte, Gary Lee Nelson Oberlin College www.timara.oberlin.edu/GaryLeeNelson

Some responses to Raman....

Midi controllers - I was referring to the connection of midi controllers to parameters of a voice patch. It would make little sense if controllers A & C were being used for some purpose and a mutation reassigns to controller B that may not even exist.

Requesting voice parameters - the Proteus, as I said, is very permissive about this. You can send messages to change individual parameters with short sysex messages interleaved with other other time-sensitive data. This also works on some Yamaha synths.

Work - some things require work. Just because a synth manufacturer didn't think a parameter should have midi control doesn't mean a composer should accept it.

Single device - I found writing custom control patches well worth the effort when I had spend >$10K on hardware synths. The idea of custom control is the very reason we have MSP.

Colony - you can hear it along with other works at

Cheers, Gary Lee Nelson TIMARA Department Oberlin College www.timara.oberlin.edu/GaryLeeNelson

On 1/27/06 4:04 PM, "Roman Thilenius" wrote:

> do not overestimate the priviledges you have. > the designer of the synthesizer decides what a parameter is > or if he documents it in the manual.

Many hardware designers were/are out of touch with "experimental" composers. Moving away from hardware synths to software like MSP, SuperCollider, csound, RTCmix and the like solve some of the problems of going down the road less traveled. I still write music for traditional instruments and I accept and revel in their limitations but once over the threshold into digital media I no longer want to do things the way they have always been done. I no longer have to.

> with the same logic you could invent new parameters where there > is also no sysex link - and rewrite the operation system of the > synth. because you are the composer.

I DO invent new parameters and relationships between parameters crossing the line between image and sound with ease BECAUSE the designers of MAX/MSP/Jitter DO understand that the invention of tools is part of the artistic process.

> and tomorrow you want to choose another president. because you > are the composer.

I don't know where you live but I have reasons beyond being a composer to choose a new president...but I'll express those views on another list - perhaps dumpthatchump.org

Cheers, Gary Lee Nelson TIMARA Department Oberlin College www.timara.oberlin.edu/GaryLeeNelson