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I discovered something I didn’t expect. I set Atom 2 to place notes in a 12/4 and later 6/8 context… when I open the MIDI export in Staffpad is always defaults to 4/4 @ 120 BPM and I loose all the Celtic folk or “Game of Thrones” theme rhythms that I was aiming at.
No idea why… maybe I need another MIDI recorded that embeds the proper time signature in the the file. I need to test some MIDI files to see if the problem lies with the Staffpad MIDI interpreter.
I have run into that in the past, and I recall the reason being that the DAW UI would display the time signature, but the exported MIDI file didn’t contain a time signature. The solution was to set the time signature in the target DAW and everything lined up.
Sorry, don’t remember which DAWs they were, but it was on desktop and I got the confirmation from the DAW manufacturers’ web sites (FAQs, forums, or combinations thereof).
It’s possible the same situation is occurring here.
Another experiment in importing MIDI into StaffPad to avoid pencil notation of the rhythms.
Then I went crazy using cut and paste, transposition and instrument assignments.
An improvised ensemble: Piano, Alto Flute, Viola, Cello.
I’m with Paul re Spiral Staircase, thought the first one was superb.
A hint of James Bond in the strings on Makuta Staccato ?
A Round , iBassist… etc etc all really good. Really enjoyed Fast Food Funk and also (a complete opposite to FFF) Floating.
Washing Machine… was the only one that didn’t do it for me 🤨
Throughout the orchestral sounds are very impressive, very cinematic + I like the clarity of the mixes / dynamic range etc.
You’re a talented (and productive) man 🙏
Nice you went and played catch up. I appreciate getting your feedback (or anyone’s for that matter).
Definately… in the string line that goes up and down chromatically from the 5th. “Bond… James Bond.”
Monty Norman and John Barry composers.
Thanks.
You have no idea how hard it is to get Staffpad to play really crisp rhythmic stuff. The secret is to insure that every note is really short. Otherwise, it tends to have really slow attacks and that’s a problem with fast stuff so this was a win technically if not musically.
It’s worth mentioning that StaffPad adding a “Mastering” function in the recent release and it really adds dimension and EQ benefits without doing much work. It’s only a slider from 1-100 with 25 as the recommended setting but I’ve got good results pushing it pretty far along the scale. So, a lot of the credit for the mix just comes from the tools.
Learning Staffpad automation in this one. Gradual changes in volumes and tempos that humans couldn’t quite duplicate.
Don’t even, if you don’t kn ow what aleatoric music means. If you do… enter at your own risk. Skipping forward is allowed and even recommended. I mean that contributes to the aleatoric intent, right?
I must admit, I don’t know what it means, but I decided to take a chance and listen. I like how this opened, but found it began to get a bit repetitious after about a minute and a half. How about taking the first part and morphing it into another one of your compositions.
Thanks for checking it out. I’m going to re-visit it in a month and see if anything works for me. I was created by using a script I made that outputs drum set patterns and then fed through Scaler to spread the notes across a scale using an LFO to transpose the notes somewhat randomly using Sample and Hold to change the LFO. And there’s a Koala project in there too that I was working on and didn’t get any good results from… so it was a kitchen sink project and I added a Roli Noise solo that I suspect was actually route to the bus that recorded the results because as you noticed… there a huge stretch where noting changes much so it’s only useful for audience torture. Which is actually a think in academic circles: music to test the endurance of the patrons.
I found this Chopin Piano MIDI file and I imported it and starting passing out the parts to treble and bass clef instruments.
And I panned and adjusted the Reverb and uploaded the results to SoundCloud… not 1 pencil edit (wait… I did slow down the tempo with the pencil).
Same process applied to Satie:
Absolutely lovely! Even on these cheap PC speakers. Looking forward to hearing it in headphones tonight. Very cool idea, i.e. arranging a Chopin piano solo for an ensemble. I'm sure there are many purists who would disagree. I'm not one of them. I liked it, and it's giving me some ideas.
I would love to hear Chopin’s Nocturne arranged for traditional, ancient Irish folk instruments… harp, pipes, fiddle, etc. Think about it.
OK. But that will require AUv3 apps since StaffPad has very instruments that could pass for folk instruments. Most of the magic in folk (or jazz) instruments is a crisp and accurate articulation so it can convey lively uptempo danceable music. Orchestra musicians (typically recorded in clusters) have a laid back attack and just don’t communicate much urgency. Chopin’s nocturne however doesn’t need crisp attacks so the staffpad strings and woodwinds will apply but for pipes I should look outside and import the real deal and not just select a piccolo. A MPE performance with some extra vibrato and potential sliding seems in order. Don’t hold your breath. The MIDI files are pretty easy to collect. I noticed I have a few months left on my MuseScore account so I started seeking interesting MIDI files to render and use for compositional ideas.
It's funny that you mentioned 'Don't hold your breath'! The last sentence of my original post was 'I won't hold my breath', but I changed it. You never seem to be at a loss for new ideas, so I won't.
My first thought was a group of 4-5 local boys sitting in front of the fireplace in the pub. Their families are all there and it's just another weekend night in Castlebar, Ireland. We traveled there in the late 60s and I still have vivid memories of it.
The other idea I had was to do an electronic ensemble version of a song by Ravel called 'Le Gibet'. I have the sheet music, but I might try to find the MIDI file.
Anyway, if you ever decide to do a Ceili version of Nocturne, that would be groovy!
I tried the “Folk Instruments” version of Nocturne in AUM using available instruments in AUv3 apps and I couldn’t get it to sound good.
I’m moving on to my next experiment.
Just for the record:
I like when the accompanying part comes in at 0:31. Good energy. Towards the end I started checking my headphone cable. The panning threw me off. Did you play this or use a MIDI generator?
I used “Suggester 2” to generate an 8 bar chord progression.
I input the chords into multiple instances of Mozaic scripts loaded with @_Ki scripts:
Multi-divisi 1.0 which splits the chord tones across 6 MIDI channels. This is great for sending the chord progression into Staffpad and assigning the “parts” to a string, brass or woodwind section.
In this case the middle section is strings, brass and woodwinds. It’s pretty hard to hear them since they are playing the same motes as the “audio” track which I imported from an AUM session.
The other @_Ki scripts are 2 copies of his ARP generator with one generating 1/8th notes and the 2nd generating dotted 8th notes so I get a simple poly rhythm for the instruments to render.
I took this basic set up and changed the chord progression and instruments to make this today:
I’m pushing AUM so hard there are processing dropouts in the recording even though my CPU seemed pegged around 41%. I just kept adding parts and couldn’t decide which parts were redundant.
Suggester 2 has a nice festure where you can assign the bass part to it’s own MIDI channel distinct from the chord channel which is going to be split apart so you can assign a good bass instrument and drop it’s part an octave in AUM.
I watched a video breaking down some music by Ludwig Göransson Ludwig in his “Oppenheimer” score. I took the ideas presented in the video into a Staffpad Sketch and made this:
It seems to borrow pattern wise from the ideas of Phillip Glass. Playing with the tempo like this also reminds me of Fractals where you zoom in and discover that at a new scale there are similar shapes. Of course, in this case it’s purely intentional and not something found in nature… so maybe reverse-Fractal.
Here’s the video that inspired the sketch. Ludwig Göransson is the new king of film composers, I think.
The tempo thing in this piece is cool. I made a note to use that in the future.. The thing I remember about the soundtrack is that I don't remember it, but I remember I enjoyed it. We had planned to see Barbie, but it was sold out. For me, the movie was a bit long, and I could have done without the nudity. I liked his hat. I wonder how he felt the day after. I guess if it wasn't him, it would have been somebody else. I take comfort in knowing I live directly within the blast radius of both Fermilab and Argonne. Just one bright...
Someone wrote “Odesseyi is great”. Turns out it’s a Korg Arp Odesseyi app that can only be used in Gadget to access it in AUM.
So, I set that up and created a 32 note MIDI loop and recorded the Odesseyi playing it in AUM.
I imported that audio and the MIDI file into Staffpad and added a Hip Hop Drummer Loop to save notating drums and make the mess sound more current.
If only Charles Ives had an iPad… I'm sure you probably know, but for the benefit of others… he was a successful insurance salesman by day, and wrote music at night. He never received the recognition he deserved when he was alive. I liked the bright flash at the end.
Thanks for checking these sketches out as they appear. I like the ending most of all too.
The Arp Odesseyi which triggered the sketch is probably the worst moment… maybe I’ll feel different after some distance.
Another layering of improvised parts
I must like slow sad music… enjoyed A walk to the Grave 😊
A few times in the first halves of Reel and A Christmas… it sounded like it was going to morph into Golden Brown by the Stranglers.
Keep up the good work 👍
Thanks… the comments from you, @Paulieworld and @Linearlineman keep me moving forward in short desperate steps.
I generally get into something and have the endurance to work for 60-90 minutes and then I just stop. Like the title says these are sketchpad efforts… I start with a black sheet and just start adding notes until I quit.
Anyone of these sketches would benefit from more discipline, editing and focus on compositional structure. But I just want to dip a foot in and not really swim anywhere in particular. I’m sure a lot of the readers on the forum create short sketches and won’t share them because they don’t see the value in doing so. Trust me… there is value if you get some energy from the comments and develop an audience that likes your inverstigations.
FYI: For the Staffpad crowd, there’s another interview with David William Hearn at “The Scoring Notes” podcast:
https://www.scoringnotes.com/podcast/staffpad-updates-go-beyond-just-keeping-the-lights-on/
He tells the story of how Apple asked him to demo the “piano to notation” feature for the M1 iPad announcement and yet it
took 2 years to optimize that feature for all supported devices and optimized the AI (machine learning model) for almost any piano input. To accept other instruments it would require additional ML models for each instrument type so it’s just piano.
Unlike ChatGPT which runs the model on racks of Vector Processing servers… the StaffPad ML models for handwriting and piano recognition had to be optimized to run on an iPad or Windows Tablet. In the process they also added Live MIDI input and
made MIDI file import more bullet proof. Staffpad is the one tablet app that no desktop option can touch, IMHO. But the use case is for composers that use a pencil to create music for others to play in groups.
Just 👍🏻 in general.
Thanks… in a perfect world you’d also be putting MIDI into Staffpad and expanding your palette of options but I can see how StaffPad and the price of a pencil is a huge ask for most ABF members.
I’d just love to see an orchestra inside your special world of sounds… fighting off the creatures for supremacy.