The Party Van is an ‘all-in-one’ performance patch built primarily around live sampling and improvisation.

It is built to be controlled by a Monome64, but everything functions with or without a Monome.

 

Features:

2 sample/loopers with overdub, halfspeed, and reverse functionality. Each with a sample slicer/dicer, granulator, pattern recorder, and MLR (monome app)  style buttons/display. Each looper can be put into ‘lofi’ mode to simulate the Where’s The Party At 8-bit sampler that inspired each module.

A series of realtime effects (stutter, pitch shift, lofi, filter, buffer shuffler, dirt, reverb, and chopper).

There is also a “reminder” row that circularly records all incoming audio and lets you play back any of it up to 10minutes in the past. (Great for real time sampling when you missed something awesome). (monome only)

There is no quantization. And all the modules play really nicely together. You can start recording a loop while in slicing mode, or switch between grain/normal and start where you left off, or record every knob wiggle in the pattern recorder, or reverse while creating your original loop etc…

As of V2 there is buffer analysis (using Alex Harker externals) that generates dynamic presets for the slice/grain modules based on what is recorded into the first two buffers. Each “brain” can be individually turned on/off, and you can morph between the current setting and the previous one.

The patch is an ongoing project/development with upcoming additions being real-time audio analysis to input/output effect parameter manipulation, real-time concatenative synthesis, a virtual ‘media’ player including glitchy/skipping CD, dusty/grungy record, wobbly/hissy tape, etc…

How did this project use Max?

Built completely using Max/MSP.