I made an amazing discovery yesterday, and can't help but tell everyone I know who will appreciate it. And where better to start than a forum full of musicians? So, I have a bunch of effect pedals laying around, including an EHX Bass Big Muff, which has 2 outputs- effect out, and dry (uneffected) out. Several years ago, I saw a thread on here or elsewhere of someone who had taken the effect out, plugged it into another pedal or series of pedals (no instrument entering the system), and then ran the output of the last one back into the Muff. So, when engaged, the distortion circuit generates noise similar to 70s-80s video game noise, and the dry out (not so dry anymore!) runs into the amplifier. Well, fast forward to yesterday. I'm halfway through with my bachelors degree in Music Composition. My interest has been a combination of the avant-garde and milimalist styles of the Modernist era. Well, I remembered this little noise generator I had fun with ages ago, and remembered I had a Sonuus I2M audio to midi converter in my room. Well, I looped up my pedals, plugged them into the Sonuus, and ran that into Finale 2012. I turned on hyperscribe (live note entry method normally used with midi keyboards) and turned the pedals on. Tweaking the knobs, I was able to generate and manipulate (to some degree) in real time, a long series of seemingly random notes. Since the different potentiometers of the pedals have various functions and values, I could alter the pitch, create a looped arpeggiation with the delay, and a number of other things. Well, after turning off hyperscribe, I examined this mess. And from it, I'm able to derive melodic and rhythmic sequences, as well as accidental polyrhythms. I had my composition lesson today (my professor is also modernist-oriented, I'd call the man a genius) and he spoke highly of this method, similar to the idea of algorithmic composition (using a number generator to create a series of notes), only I can control the parameters at will and I'm sorting through the noise to pick out the fragments I want. So, I think I'm entering a phase of minimalist atonal composition (again!), but this time extracted from technological noise. I'm extremely excited about this discovery and would like some feedback. I have all sorts of ideas for the potential this has, like if I were to get a digital delay with selectable tempo to create polyrhythmic arpeggiations with a higher level of control. If desired, I can take pictures and screenshots to show you guys the results of my tinkering!
This is just friggin' cool. I'm sorry, I have nothing intelligent to add. I'd love to hear the results.
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