Midi Device for Music Installation Piece

[jaack]

Hi

Please excuse my naivety here - I'm only at the beginning of researching this.

I'm trying to find (or build) a system which generates random notes, at random velocity, with random tempo all within a set scale of notes. Ideally this would all be able to be modulated and control the randomness of this somehow - setting the max and minimum levels / controlling modulation. 

Basically I've been developing the music within Ableton - sending a sequence of midi chords to an arp set to random, with a velocity randomiser (with defined max and minimum settings) - also have some of these controls modulated using the midi lfo max patch set to random. 

Now I'm looking to find hardware which would be able to mimic that set up - without the use of a laptop. 

First thing that comes to mind would be a midi player (to store the midi chords) which would then send to some kind of complex arpeggiator?

Apologies if this doesn't make that much sense. Would really appreciate any advice at all 

Thanks

 

[gerald.wert]

There is a random pattern generator in the midibox sid that might fit your need. It sounds like you have something really specific in mind and if you can lay it out programmatically you may be able to implement it in Midibox NG. NG gives you a platform where you can script what you want your application to do in a text configuration file. You would need to build a core and a midi io for what it sounds like you want to do. Take a look at the Midi box NG user manual and see if it is what you are looking for.  

[jjonas]

MBSEQv4 has many randomiser features, many of which would seem offhand to match your criteria. Have a look at the User Manual and the Beginners Guide  and search the pages for "random".

It might not be easy to understand at first the terminology used in connection with the MBSEQv4, like what are trigger and parameter layers etc, and thus the possibilities and limitations. On the terminology, have a look at the Beginner's Guide section 1.2. Basic Concepts.

With that said:

There are two trigger layers for random events, Random Gate and Random Value. The first plays the note in that step at 50% likelihood, and the second plays the note in the step one octave lower or higher than the original note. There is also a parameter layer for note probability (whether a note in a step will be played or not), adjustable between 0–100%.

In addition there is a Random Generator, there is a good explanation in the User Manual (seach for "random generator page"), and some info in the Beginner's Guide (section 6.3. Random generator).

There is also a Humanizer effect to introduce random variation to velocity etc, search the User Manual page for "fx humanizer" (see also "fx limiter").

Notes, randomly generated or not, can be forced to scale. See the Beginner's Guide section 6.2. Force To Scale and seach the User Manual page for "fx scale".

Offhand I can't think of a way to have the tempo randomised, except by making MBSEQv4 a slave unit and controlling the tempo with an external source.

[Hawkeye]

Hi jaack,

welcome to MIDIbox! :-) I fully agree with jjonas, MIDIbox SEQ is probably what suits best. If you have a bit of C programming knowledge, it should possible to create what is required - many features are available by the software already and would "just need to be broken out" to direct user interface controls, e.g. wire a tactile switch to randomize the track notes, add an encoder for modifying "humanizer" values and so on. Tempo randomization (within limits, e.g. +/- 10% up/down from the current speed) would also be a quite simple feature, or you could use non-randomized tempo controls, MBSEQ  supports an encoder to directly set the BPM. You probably would not need a full control surface interface, just the core and a few DIN inputs (again: read ucapps.de! :-))

Many greets,
Peter