Zyklus Improvisor concept

Quote: bronswerk wrote on Fri, 03 October 2008 03:34
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> Below an short explanation what Zyklus Improvisor is all about.
>
> (This is the foreword of a detailed specification of the original Zyklus Improvisor specification.
> NB: polyphonic transposition was removed in a later specification. The usefulness was uncertain.)
>
> What is Improvisor?
> The Zyklus Improvisor will allow a user to control up to 8 synthesisers at a time, switching them
> on or off, zoning and transposing them as required. Any synthesiser can also be arpeggiated or
> played by a sequencer in addition to being played ‘live’, and these sequences can be recorded
> ‘on the fly’ as creative instincts arise. The music need never stop. Additionally, up to four different
> sequences or variations can be recorded in real-time for each active synthesiser and Improvisor
> will allow 8 different ‘scenes’ to be stored for each of the 128 Songs. A scene represents which
> sequence is playing on each synth, how it is being played and so on. This provides incredible
> flexibility in being able to build up and improvise within a song, varying its elements in ways that
> would be difficult to achieve using conventional sequencers.
> But that’s just for starters... All running sequences can independently loop on any bar or beat,
> can be transposed from the keyboard and triggered in various ways to give different effects.
> Even polyphonic transposition is included whereby playing a chord can start the sequence
> running at various pitches simultaneously. In fact, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of
> combinations of the various triggering and manipulation controls. Each sequence or arpeggio can
> also run at precise ratios relative to the global tempo for some great effects, plus the dynamics of
> each note in the sequence or arpeggio can be controlled from any other sequence or arpeggio.
> Not only that, but each note in each sequence or arpeggio can also be sent to alternative
> synthesisers. ALL of this can be controlled easily in real-time without any interruption to the music.
> A user will probably find that many of the features of Improvisor are being used more often than
> others. Every control on the screen is thus able to be mapped to an external hardware MIDI
> controller. There are a few other features in the proposal which are less exotic but nevertheless
> useful. For example, just before a performance where you will play say, 28 songs, you find that
> one of your synthesisers is not working. Since this particular synthesiser is used in most of the 28
> songs, this would create a massive problem since all the outputs to that synth would have to be
> mapped to an alternative synth for every song. Improvisor provides a convenient global remapping
> facility for just this sort of situation. Not exactly a feature to get excited about, that is, until you
> come to need it...
> The Zyklus Improvisor is thus first and foremost designed for live performance where a number
> of synthesisers must be centrally controlled in a manageable way. The extensive improvisation
> facilities are entirely optional but are always there should experimentation and improvisation be
> your thing.
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You can do all of this in some way in Ableton Live, so if it's just about whether you can do all of that then I'd suggest not reinventing the wheel. If, however, the goal is to 1) learn in the process of creating and 2) have an environment that is suited to your specific way of working as Stefan said, then by all means, go for it. Just be aware that the "unconventional sequencer" angle has long been tapped by the Abes at this point.