Beat Connection 32
Beat Tools: Multidimensional Control
Here’s a koan for your day: How do you express multiple dimensions when you’re stuck in only one? A few companies like ROLI, Expressive E, Sensel, and stellar designers like Roger Linn, Keith McMillen, and the late Don Buchla (to name precious few) have tried to answer this riddle in the musical realm. With devices […]
Beat Tools: MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression)
I’m going to ask you to do something today: spare a thought for the old keyboard. Whether at school, in the living room or at a music store, everyone at some point in their life has plopped themselves in front of one and struck a note. Intrinsically, we know how they work. On acoustic pianos […]
A Journey to MIDI Guitar Land: Part III
Do you know when I had the most fun using a MIDI guitar controller? When I forgot I had a guitar in my hand. It feels liberating to say this but: using the guitar merely as this vessel to do other far more interesting things with it was beyond revelatory. In this post, I’ll share […]
A Journey to MIDI Guitar Land: Part II
Not many dedicate a whole post to what you can’t do with something, but allow me to break a cardinal rule for a reason. Do you ever have one of those “a-ha” moments when things just click? I have to say, I had one quite recently when going through the land of guitar MIDI control […]
A Journey to MIDI Guitar Land: Part I
Lions lying down with lambs. Hams being stuffed into turkeys. Keyboards being turned into keytars. Guitars being turned into MIDI controllers. There are many things that many people consider an aberration (if not an abomination). Once, I felt the same way. But then I tried to turn my electric guitar into a MIDI controller. It […]
Beat Techniques: Ambisonic Music Production
Ambisonics is a phrase used to describe a way of listening to sound beyond the mono and stereo world we’re normally exposed to through headphones and speakers. Ambisonics is immersive audio coming to you from all angles — left, right, north, and south. If you’ve caught any of the previous Beat Connection posts, you’re probably […]
Beat Tools: Generative Music Software for iOS
Where were we before? First, I covered what “generative music” is, and its origins. Then, I wrote of taking generative music out of the sphere of pen-and-staff-paper and into the world of software — and pointed you toward the desktop-computer-based software that can help you add computer-generated compositions into your creative space. Today, we go […]
Beat Tools: Generative Music Software for PCs
As I wrote the title of this post, I suddenly realized: “There is nothing sexy about the words “generative music.” Just hearing them places you in the land of people in lab coats, looking at Matrix-like code, and listening to really unmusical, experimental music. After you know what generative music is (see: prior post covering […]
Beat Roots: Understanding Generative Music
On this edition of Beat Connection we dive into the macro idea of this thing called generative music. Some of you may not know it, but in some fashion you’re experiencing (or have quietly experienced) the rise of it. From apps like Endel, to things like YouTube algorithms generating playlists for you, we’re living in […]
