[PD] Using Pd to play drums in a band

[Austin Huang]

I once constructed a live setup in keykit to make laptop music on the fly
with a live band. It's not easy to do well (you really come to respect how
difficult it is to replicate the expressiveness of a traditional
instrument). taptempo will work in a live setting, but there are a few
tricks that help make it useable:

- You may want to compensate for latency (so that the computer doesn't come
in on beat 1 +20ms or whatever your latency is). i.e. the phase for the
beginning of the measure is shifted back by -Xms to compensate for latency

- I rigged it so that when you tap N beats (where N is the number of taps
used compute the average bpm), the taptempo would automatically trigger some
sort of sequencer module on the N+1 beat. Every instant is critical in a
live performance context...

- Speaking of doing things efficiently, I preferred to have the taptempo
take 8th notes instead of quarter notes. This made it easier to come in
within a shorter amount of time (but still have a few taps to compute an
average bpm).

~A


On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 10:27 PM, Austin Huang <austinh at cs.brown.edu> wrote:

> I once constructed a live setup in keykit to make laptop music on the fly
> with a live band. It's not easy to do well (you really come to respect how
> difficult it is to replicate the expressiveness of a traditional
> instrument). taptempo will work in a live setting, but there are a few
> tricks that help make it useable:
>
> - You may want to compensate for latency (so that the computer doesn't come
> in on beat 1 +20ms or whatever your latency is). i.e. the phase for the
> beginning of the measure is shifted back by -Xms to compensate for latency
>
> - I rigged it so that when you tap N beats (where N is the number of taps
> used compute the average bpm), the taptempo would automatically trigger some
> sort of sequencer module on the N+1 beat. Every instant is critical in a
> live performance context...
>
> - Speaking of doing things efficiently, I preferred to have the taptempo
> take 8th notes instead of quarter notes. This made it easier to come in
> within a shorter amount of time (but still have a few taps to compute an
> average bpm).
>
> ~A
>
> On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 2:33 PM, Dan Wilcox <danomatika at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> I have some some drum sample, step sequencers, and pattern saving patches
>> if you want.
>>
>> Check out : http://danomatika.com/software/rc-patches/
>>
>> On Mar 14, 2010, at 11:13 PM, Andrew Faraday wrote:
>>
>> Have you had any luck in building a step sequencer, by the way?
>>
>> > From: mr.spoon21 at gmail.com
>> > Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:26:47 +0100
>> > To: james at 4thharmonic.com
>> > CC: pd-list at iem.at
>> > Subject: Re: [PD] Using Pd to play drums in a band
>> >
>> > On 14 March 2010 13:42, James Dunn <james at 4thharmonic.com> wrote:
>> > > Quoth Carlo Trimarchi, on 14/03/10 11:30:
>> > >
>> > > Not sure if this is the best way but it might help you. It uses
>> [demux] from
>> > > the zexy library. Hit the spacebar to tap out a tempo.
>> >
>> > Thanks for your interest (and also thanks to Andrew Faraday who
>> > replied directly to me), but I think these tapping methods are hardly
>> > working fine for me. Maybe it's me - I'm unable to tap at the same
>> > time - but every tap it displays a different number. I have to think
>> > something else, maybe.
>> >
>> > Anyway, I'd like some starting point to implement a drum machine or a
>> > step sequencer. Maybe some existing patch or some particularly useful
>> > tutorial or argument.
>> >
>> > Thanks again,
>> > Carlo
>> >
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>>
>>  --------
>> Dan Wilcox
>> danomatika.com
>> robotcowboy.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
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