thisnameistaken Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 The thing that always frustrates me with pedals is how I struggle to get them to play nice together, doing stuff like sharing tempo or envelope info, and limited options in terms of modulation of effects over time which is something I'm always wanting to do more of. So I thought I'd look at Max/MSP and try to get a decent live bass FX setup happening in software - I'm a software developer by trade so it's easy to patch together the stuff I want. I'm aware that latency is going to be a problem, although this can be mitigated to some extent with specialist interfaces (and decent software design of course). I downloaded the demo last night and so far I've designed a good tap tempo patch and wired that into an LFO generator with various waveform outputs, and controls to vary frequency division and the duty cycle of the pulse output, and I've got the interface arranged in a way that it'll be easy to plug it all up to a MIDI foot controller. So in a day I've already got a lot of features that I can't get from off-the-shelf hardware, and I can use these controls to modulate or trigger pretty much anything, and also sync to other software. I'm now working on an ADSR envelope and an amplitude envelope follower. I can imagine there are things that will be best done in a stomp box; I doubt I can produce a good fuzz, and good-sounding pitch shifting may be too processor-intensive to be practical, but so far this software approach looks so easy and flexible (and cheap!) I'm surprised more people aren't doing it. So is anybody doing it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plunkrock Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 I did a lot of stuff in Pure Data (http://puredata.info/) when I was in art school but nothing too intense, mostly triggering samples with sensors and the like. Very fun program, would probably still be messing around with it if I had time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thisnameistaken Posted April 26, 2014 Author Share Posted April 26, 2014 I am still weighing up whether to license Max when the demo expires or try Pd. On the one hand I'm from Yorkshire so cheap is great, but on the other hand Max looks to be quicker to work with, and I'll be 40 this year so time is fast becoming a more valuable commodity than money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plunkrock Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 If I were going back to it now I'd probably go with Max, I didn't have much cash at uni so Pd was the best option Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plunkrock Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 Not that I'm rolling in cash now, mind you! Haha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thisnameistaken Posted April 26, 2014 Author Share Posted April 26, 2014 Well yeah, but a Max license and a Softstep 2 to control it would still be cheaper than the stomp box setup I'm currently using, and it's not like I have a whole lot of pedals really. More than my guitarist but that's mostly just to make sure he knows his place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elephantgrey Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 So your program would input tap tempo and output a/various waveforms over midi (as if its a midi expression pedal), with ADSR coming soon? or have i gotten this completely wrong? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thisnameistaken Posted April 27, 2014 Author Share Posted April 27, 2014 I'll only be using MIDI to adjust parameters in the software (so I can control settings with my feet, rather than a laptop), but all the signal processing will be done in software. The generated waveforms and envelopes I'm developing now will be used to modulate parameters on effects, but all the effects themselves will also be in software. I guess I could output these signals as MIDI data and, for example, control my M9 and my Wahoo with them, but the idea is to try to replace as much of my pedalboard as I can. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elephantgrey Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 What are you planning to run the software on? something like a laptop, a raspberry pi type micro computer, or a steam machine type small PC? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thisnameistaken Posted April 27, 2014 Author Share Posted April 27, 2014 An RPi would be really neat but I don't really have time to get that set up and I don't know enough about audio processing in Linux. I've got a Macbook Pro which I used to use for work a couple of years ago but is now fairly redundant, so I'm using that. Plus I've already got an audio/MIDI interface for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elephantgrey Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 [quote name='thisnameistaken' timestamp='1398630603' post='2436047'] An RPi would be really neat but I don't really have time to get that set up and I don't know enough about audio processing in Linux. I've got a Macbook Pro which I used to use for work a couple of years ago but is now fairly redundant, so I'm using that. Plus I've already got an audio/MIDI interface for it. [/quote] cool, ill be interested to hear how this moves forward. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annoying Twit Posted May 11, 2014 Share Posted May 11, 2014 I wrote a simple s-curve distortion for Max/MSP. It didn't sound too bad. There are plenty of patches around for frequency domain pitch-shifting in Max/MSP. It would be up to you to decide whether it sounds good enough for you, but if you have Max/MSP already, you can easily try it out and see what you think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thisnameistaken Posted May 11, 2014 Author Share Posted May 11, 2014 (edited) I've got a bit sidetracked with trying to get an analogue octaver type sound, and I'm not doing very well, and it's making me think I might be better off sticking with pedals given that I've got three OC-2s on my board. :/ I know I could just continue to use some stomp boxes plus Max for other stuff, and I may end up doing that, but I was really hoping I could ditch the pedal board altogether, otherwise I'm going to end up with a pretty complicated rig and lots of stuff to lug, set up, tear down, etc. The more I think about it though, I think of all the stuff that a laptop would be useful for in my new band, syncing effects to the drums, triggering samples and so on. I may end up needing a laptop on stage anyway. I just hate lugging loads of stuff! Edited May 11, 2014 by thisnameistaken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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