new app: chipchopchip

applications

- CommentAuthorearsmack
- CommentTimeFeb 6th 2010
Hello All,

New Grayscale 64 user and Max/MSP user (unless you count a brief foray 20 years ago) - here is an app I put together called chipchopchip. It is basically a 1 track mlr-style app. You load a sample to be chopped and an optional background track to loop. The chopped sample is mapped across your entire monome and the leds follow the slices as they play.

Tapping the topleft button starts the sample and it will loop when it plays through to the bottomright of your monome. Pressing a button anywhere in between will start the sample from that point and the loop will jump back to the last pressed button. Holding a button will cause just that slice to loop repeatedly until released.

If you load a short vocal sample, for example, you can get some great grain effects by holding the various buttons. If you load a long (full tune) sample you can play entire sections by letting just a row play (depending on how your original sample is chopped, etc.) Using a "loopable" sample is best for this app.

The fun thing about this is that the app is completely different depending on your source material and the length of the loop. You can go from using it as a granular slicer to an arrangement remixer. Ambient loops can be used as a choppable background to other solo instruments that you play live on top. Very cool possibilities IMO.

Also has the ability to run a vst as a master effect. I have it set to use the Zebra Reverb vst (you can change it or unhook it altogether) but I think this might be really cool using something like Augustus Loop, etc.

Should work on any monome - instructions in the patch with a quick-start.

This is the first release and only one other person has played with it - I won't tell you who to save his embarrassment in case it tanks ;-) Please make suggestions not only on features but also if you have a better way to code something in Max/MSP. I intend to write a reusable patcher to help manage more of the monome interaction and support some other app ideas I have.

Thanks and enjoy!
- _chipchopchip_1_0_b2.zip
- _chipchopchip_1_0_b2.png
- CommentAuthoregon77
- CommentTimeFeb 6th 2010
Cool! today is new app day. I love it. I will test this out tonight.
- CommentAuthorRAH
- CommentTimeFeb 6th 2010 edited
just tried it...
looks like it's going to be much fun, but for some reason my button presses are'nt registering. i can play on screen w/ my mouse, but not from the monome. led feedback is perfect.
ideas?

40h
8000
8080
/chipchopchip
- CommentAuthorearsmack
- CommentTimeFeb 6th 2010 edited
Sorry Rah,

I'm using the standard stuff - 8000/8080/chipchopchip as the prefix. The guy who tested it (jmelnyk) has a few monomes - not sure if he used his 40H or not. To be honest - I'm not sure why it WOULDN'T work. I'm new to this whole monome thing - maybe someone else can look at the code and see if anything looks odd? The only code accepting presses is the udpreceive 8000 and the route command. You would think those should work.

I'll let you know if I think of anything else - let me know if you get it working - maybe try restarting?

I made this in Max 5.1.2 for what it's worth.

Thanks egon77!
- CommentAuthorRAH
- CommentTimeFeb 6th 2010
ok.
i'm sure it's just something flukey.
i'll restart and try again tomorrow.
this looks great though, thanks for the contribution.
- CommentAuthorearsmack
- CommentTimeFeb 6th 2010
Definitely let me know, RAH - I'm anxious to know it works on the 40H.

I'm not sure that there should be anything diff regarding the protocol to receive presses but I've sent out some feelers and will see what I can find as well.

Thanks again!
- CommentAuthormaersk (dovemouse)
- CommentTimeFeb 6th 2010
sounds like amazing but simple tool for composition! i will definitely check this out later!
- CommentAuthorearsmack
- CommentTimeFeb 6th 2010
RAH - Talked to jmelnyk - he only tried it on his 40H and it worked so I'm hoping it was just a computer restart that will fix it for you.

Thanks @dovemouse.
- CommentAuthorRAH
- CommentTimeFeb 6th 2010
hey earsmack..
yep, you were right. restarting fixed the problem. it's working 100%. thanks, this is alot of fun.
- CommentAuthorBite
- CommentTimeFeb 6th 2010
it works beautifully in my grayscale! I open the patch with max 5.0.8 BTW.
Thanks!
- CommentAuthorearsmack
- CommentTimeFeb 6th 2010
Awesome! Glad you all got it working!
- CommentAuthorbibo
- CommentTimeFeb 7th 2010
Great App man! It's fun.
- CommentAuthorearsmack
- CommentTimeFeb 7th 2010
Thanks @bibo -

Any of you that get a chance to play with it please send me any suggestions you might have for improvement or new features. Or feel free to tweak it and upload an edit. Thanks!
- CommentAuthorAuditory Canvas
- CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
a max for live version of this would be awesome - have one on each track you need it on, with autofocus to track, would be perfect for mlr style chopping on long clips.
- CommentAuthorjmelnyk
- CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
amazing first app! this dude just got his first monome and max/msp license within the past month! can't wait to see what else you come up with :)

also, this app is ridiculous on a 256!

p.s. yes, tested with 40h/256 here and no issues.
- CommentAuthormudlogger
- CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
Thanks for this - Its working fine on my 40h. This is like a 2 track mlr but using the whole of the monome to play the sample instead of 1 row - i can finally do something with a hard drive full of long ambient samples!

Would like to see more mlr chopping functions -- at 4 sample drop areas, pitching, 2 pattern recorders, individual outs and preset saving - loads of potential - great stuff.
- CommentAuthormaersk (dovemouse)
- CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
im loving this :) pattern recorder would be cool.
- CommentAuthorearsmack
- CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
I'm very happy to hear you all are enjoying it.

@mudlogger - I totally agree that long, ambient samples are perfect for this...would love to hear something you do with it. I'm keeping track of all the feature suggestions - I don't want to fully recreate mlr but I do believe some features that it has are really useful in this type of app as well.

@dovemouse @mudlogger - pattern recorder is on my short list - the problem I face is this - I want to make the entire monome be for triggering slices of the sample - which leaves no buttons left for things like this. Hence, I'm trying to think of "gestures" that can be used to trigger certain functionality like pattern recording.

Consider sublooping - if you are holding down a button and press another button later in the pattern if defines a subloop. This would be a "gesture" IMO.

So - short of using a keyboard key to trigger the recording and maybe playback of a pattern - is there a way that it could be done on the monome itself? What gesture could be used to say "I want to record these next button presses" as opposed to "I'm just jamming?"

One thought I had was let's say you start recording a pattern, then when you are done you immediately press the upper-left and bottom-right buttons at the same time - this tells the app "take everything I just played since some previous threshold and treat it as a pattern, play it back, etc." The same thing could be done using the upper-right and lower-left buttons so you could have 2 pattern recorders this way. Pressing any button cancels the pattern playback and goes back into live mode.

There are lots of things to think about when trying to think "gesturally" if you will, but I think if you get it right you can come up with new performance mechanisms that can be exciting to play with.

Thoughts?
- CommentAuthorearsmack
- CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
@auditorycanvas sorry i didn't address your comment directly - i originally picked up m4l when i got into this whole monomess :-) but have since enjoyed playing with max outside of live moreso. i know the conversion to a m4l patch is relatively straightforward (i think) and may mess with it at some point but if someone wants to build it while they wait i would be cool with that.
- CommentAuthoremergencyofstate
- CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
haven't tried this app yet but I LOVE the idea of using gestures to trigger functions.
- CommentAuthorlokey
- CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
i know theres some debate over this, but ive always been fine with the pages and molar approaches to holding down an 'edit' key and a second button to trigger functions. Hold the lower right, press another key...

although i would prefer the buttons to be closeby so that they can be triggered with one hand, rather than reaching across the whole device...
- CommentAuthorearsmack
- CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
Good idea @lokey - as long as the buttons wouldn't be used (on purpose or by accident) during performance then I agree. I'm going to think about this some more but am open to any ideas on what might be the best approach.

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new app: chipchopchip