Hear the G2M in action with different inputs

All general pitch-to-MIDI thoughts, suggestions, complaints, etc.

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slate
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat May 15, 2010 5:35 pm

Hear the G2M in action with different inputs

Post by slate »

Good afternoon,

You can hear the G2M controlling a Virus TI Snow and a Roland Sonic Cell at
my Reverbnation Slate page (note the alphanumeric URL):

http://www.reverbnation.com/5la7e

You do NOT need to become a fan or submit your e-mail address to listen to
or download any or all of the songs. Just enjoy them! Free music can be good
music. :D

The G2M was used in every song on "Ylla Redux," a sci-fi short story presented as
a musically "illustrated" audiobook that carries on where Ray Bradbury's "The
Martian Chronicles" left off. Songs are a mix of ambient, orchestral, jazz, with
a touch of steampunk.

The G2M handles all of these inputs even better than I had hoped:

• Korg Kaossilator
• Vocals (I sang ooohs and aaahs)
• Sounds of birds and frogs
• Sounds of a windchime mike'd with a Nady RSM-3 ribbin microphone
• MP3 recording of Native Intruments True Strike Percussion library
• MP3 recording of another song.

A few more tips and tricks before I close:

+ The G2M converts notes MUCH faster than I can play. Some artifacts that
sound like noise are actually the hardware synth responding to the dense
MIDI note stream. Percussive pitched instruments (like organ patches)
are very sensitive to this.

Solution 1: program "patch remain" and give the amplification envelope a
slow attack, as rapid a release as possible, and a moderate decay.

Solution 2: use the Kaossilator's built in arpeggiator to get "clean" breaks
between notes.

Solution 3: find a different patch that does not use vibrato, reverb, tremolo
or rapid panning. This limits the patches, but don't ignore what may at
first seem undesirable. The G2M can produce some great effects of its own
because it samples and converts its pitch input so quickly.

+ The G2M will pitch-bend (as specified) if it gets two notes that differ
widely, which can make the synthesizers' output, well, weird.

Solution: on the patch that sounds "out of tune" turn portamento off and
set the pitch bend range to zero (no bending at all). If that isn't enough,
then you may want to add a second input stream and separate the notes
that the G2M handles from those that are well out of range of the musical
line that is causing the problem. Pianos work well with this tweak.

+ You need more than one input to the G2M.

Solution: Buy a mono-to-mono Y-adapter and use the G2M "boost" switch
to deal with the attenuation of a pair of mixed but not amplified signals.

In all cases, the G2M behaved EXACTLY as specified, which means it took me
a while to learn how to work with it. Give a few songs on the Slate site a
listen. "The Shunning," "Migration to Nix Olympica" and "Ylla's Blues" are good
examples of what the G2M can do.

I am sure I haven't begun to tap its potential!

Cheers!

Slate
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