Thoughts
So, the first of the entries from Sicily. We’re working on a new performance, Textures, and Angela is having difficulty working both on Ninnananna and this too. I am having problems getting SuperCollider to work with basic MIDI protocols, which seems crazy, but I’m going to start and see if there is a way of doing it with RubyCocoa instead. I think I’d be spending less time doing really basic things instead of wasting my time on such a convoluted and non-intuitive programming language.
Some thoughts: visual feedback (and tactile, I’ll get to that) seems such a basic thing that many of the programs for advanced musicians working with computers are incapable of supporting in a simple and stable way. SuperCollider has crashed a number of times when I’ve been here, doing simple things, it is buggy and prone to disaster. The problem is that ixiQuarks would be a great tool to use live with MIDI control, if only it worked. Live seems to be much better (more stable), but is too fixed around the quantised loop paradigm. If I could control external AUs from within, and liberate the loops from the ‘warp’ function, it would be perfect, especially by routing all the audio through SoundFlower, from ixi, Max etc. With Max/MSP again, there are problems with control, even though it is quicker to program than SC.
The solution at the moment is:
Route all audio through SoundFlower – Jack destabilises programs and cannot remember setups.
Send ixiQuarks audio through MaxMSP, in order to control levels etc using MIDI.
Use loops and sequencing in Live in order to maintain a structure in performance.
The solution in the future is:
Have a standalone control program – Max, SC, RubyCocoa – that sends data (MIDI/OSC) to the others.
Have multiple sound producing programs – Max, ixiQuarks, SC, MetaSynth – that are controlled by the above program and routed through soundflower.
That way we can have an external, controllable fx rack and keep everything as independent as possible, and finally integrate external interfaces such as the Arduino.
* OSC and Ruby – already sorted
* MIDI and Ruby
* Audio and Ruby