This device helps you create musical patterns with mouse gestures. When you drag the mouse on the interface, the particles’ motion trigger notes and your gesture is looped right away, in sync with the current song’s tempo. This allows you to explore musical ideas in a way that is more instrumental that programmatic, by picking-up expressivity from human gestures.
The video below shows how to play the device. The four colors represent four layers of gestures that can be played together and are represented with gravitating particles. Each layer can have different physics properties (a different mass) and play distinct notes and chords. The created patterns are saved on the fly and can be replayed or edited later, by navigating the presets box.
Some inspiration from:
- Particles in Space, by Len Lye
- Motion Phone by Scott Snibbe
- The Lemur controller
Requirements :
This is a MaxForLive device, which means you must have a copy of Ableton Live and MaxForlive to run this device. The physics engine uses a max object based on Java, make sure you have Java installed on your machine.
Download & run :
- Download the device folder here : motionLoop (1441) *
- Drag and drop the motionLoop_xxx.amxd file on a midi track of your Live set.
- Add your favorite synth in the same track
- Press play and start dragging particles around.
* This folder has two files : the amxd file which is the actual device, and the soma.jar file which is loaded by the device. Keep both in the same folder and the device should load fine.
Contact:
This software is in early development stage. Please subscribe to get new release notifications. For questions and comments you can also contact me (see the About page) or use the comments below.
Licence:
motionLoop by Julien Bloit is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
New bike-seat fund:
This software is free, however if you like it, I encourage you to donate what you can via this secured paypal link. My bike-seat was stolen this week, your contribution will go to buying a new one and help me reduce my CO2 footprint. Thank you!
Is there a way to clear patterns that have been recorded (i.e. begin from scratch again)?
I can’t seem to find it.
Currently you can clear a pattern only for one particle at a time by clicking once on the scene instead of dragging. Adding a “clear pattern” and “copy pattern” button are on my todo list. Please stay tuned for a version update, thank you for the feedback.
Looks really exciting. Just tried it and, the mxj file is greyed out in the patch. Do I also need the mxj file called “soma.Shake —ui”?
I just reuploaded the first version (see the “previous version” paragraph of this page). This is essentially the same device except that the jar file is not freezed in the M4L device but is included as a separate file.
What version of Max are you using?
When I try to manipulate the LCD box i get drawn lines instead of circular particles
I’m running max 5 and updated java, I exported both files into a folder before dragging into ableton.
Any help would be appreciated, cheers