Second Quartz Test - All elements of the track Reacting to MIDI

Unfortunately blogger isn't allowing the upload of videos at the moment so i will have to use a screen grab to illustrate what was in the viewer window. The videos of the tests will be handed in on disk.

Describing the linked nodes used to create the output achieved.

PATCHES:

Patches are the principle method of applying graphics, animation and outputting data in the quartz editor window. To keep things tidy, there is a really handy macro and parenting system. This is such a handy reference tool if everything is named properly... The Process begins as in the post about Midi test one, A MIDI notes receiver is the first patch required, that is set up to receive MIDI signals sent from Live, out to the AIC Driver (language Quartz can recognise) on a bus. Each Layer of track in Live is told to send information over a specific channel that is then coordinated in the settings of the MIDI notes receiver in Quartz . It is then just a case of defining the scale of octaves required (for some reason quartz thinks that the notes are 2 octaves higher than they are... ie a midi hit of C3 from Live, would be received in quartz as C5.. something that took hours to figure out. After reading on forums and mac developer sites, it appears to be a bug with the mac osx 64 bit snow leopard version of Quartz. This is also explained in one of the MIDI youtube tutorials. Once the environment is set up, there are then a series of modulation and generator patches that enable you to apply graphics and manipulate them, according to the MIDI signals, clock, or envelopes applied in LIVE and MIDI nottes receiver in Quartz. Lines, cubes, gradients, animate and defineing parameters of these, and a full x,y,z, axis system and access to a huge range of colours. Also there are multiple free plugins that allowing for even more dynamics.

It has been hard to get grabs of specific aspects of the composition test. The colours are faint and its unclear in sections to see whats what. ....
This is the kick drum, represented as a 'line family.' The first thing was to adjust the x and y postion. Purely aesthetical at present. The next thing was to adjust the orientation of the family, again defined by x,y, and z parameters. . Once happy, i used a generator and an interpolator, chained to the start and finish point of the z and y coordinates to produce a shift and fold in the lines from left to right. Do add dynamics, i also chained the note receiver to the 'enable' modulation parameter. This in turn makes the animated line family come on and off for the 'action' of the kick drum.
These were then condensed into a macro and named as KICK.

This illustrates the cymbal pattern and part of the snare, The snare will be discussed later. The cymbal pattern has the most dynamic rhythmical influence on the track and needed to be represented in a fluid motion. I also wanted to experiment more with particle systems as i have some plugins specifically for the manipulation of PS that i will be trying soon. So again, out of live on a specific channel in to a newly set up MIDI notes receiver, and routed to a different Channel. This was then chained to a particle system, of limited parameters, however it had gravity responsive interactivity between particles which found interesting. After manipulating the size and positioning of the particles in terms of composition, i then decided to experiment with differing alpha channels and layers of colour. This yielded some results, none of which however i feel will be taken forward into the final piece. (COLOURS) the particle systems will definitely be developed further.

This relates to the snare. (woodblocks)  These to me felt fractionised. Ie because of how much musical space surrounds them, i  felt this need to be exploited and represented faithfully in a visual format. There is a Hit, a y,z axis manipulated by a generator of start and finish ponts so it swings across from out of vision bottom right into frame as a diminishing curve to nothing ( -z axis) It also flashes with a line (middle fight) this is to give the hit a 'lifeline' to the composition in the space where it is not audible or visible.
There is another layer of rhythm in this image. To the left and bottom there are lines that represent a reduced, static sounding rhythm part. This was a bad idea in the compositional of this test. I want to recreate that classic sci- fi x / y axis scroll over data. Thinking Blade Runner computer in Deckards apartment. The Ryoji Ikeda piece 'Formula,' demonstrates similar qualities. I would like this to be on and off in rhythmical time, as well as a horizontal line moving from top to bottom, and a vertical line that travels from left to right. . . . (Formula research on blog about Ryoji Ikeda for details of above description.

This line family represents the base line. On and off in time with the duration of the Midi hit, and extending in length defined by the same parameters. This created a brilliant effect. Positioned along the z axis, it was brought to beyond the camera so it was only fractionally see. The whole line family was huge, this was just the manipulated parts that i wanted visible. Again the colours are much brighter 'realtime' and span right to left in accordance with the intervals, lengths and varying patterns of the Bass track (MIDI dummy bass track). These are also velocity assignable.

A great second test. Really enjoying geting to grips with this programming language. Having downloaded plugins and patches from kineme.com, i feel the next attempt will be exponentially better.
After hours and Hours of learning, tutorials, MIDI forms and Live discussions about sending Midi, finally the foundations of the language are in place.