{"id":976,"date":"2019-02-13T01:49:32","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T11:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/way.net\/waymusic\/?p=976"},"modified":"2024-11-06T10:37:37","modified_gmt":"2024-11-06T20:37:37","slug":"a-breathtakingly-thorny-bite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/way.net\/waymusic\/2019\/02\/13\/a-breathtakingly-thorny-bite\/","title":{"rendered":"A breathtakingly thorny bite"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">With a nod and a tilt <g class=\"gr_ gr_25 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling multiReplace\" id=\"25\" data-gr-id=\"25\">to<\/g>&#8230;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"560\" height=\"420\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/way.net\/waymusic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/usb-midi-breath-bite-controller-2.jpg?resize=560%2C420\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-978\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/way.net\/waymusic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/usb-midi-breath-bite-controller-2.jpg?w=560&amp;ssl=1 560w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/way.net\/waymusic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/usb-midi-breath-bite-controller-2.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Finally getting around to giving my Christmas present a workout! I got a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tecontrol.se\/products\/usb-midi-breath-bite-controller-2\">TEC Breath and Bite controller 2<\/a>. Here I try it out for atmospherics on this <em>almost<\/em> ambient piece. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/l7odPRhDoMA?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is really fun. I can already control two things from my guitar by where I pick and by the MIDI volume knob. The <g class=\"gr_ gr_287 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del\" id=\"287\" data-gr-id=\"287\">breath<\/g> and bite controller (hereafter just &#8220;breath controller&#8221;) adds four more very expressive controls, bite, breath, tilt, and nod. The first 45 seconds is setting up the loop, then the synth comes in, Dmitry Sches&#8217;s excellent Thorn, controlled by the guitar and the breath controller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My partner stopped in to hear the concert in my little home studio and said I looked funny when doing it, but hey, you gotta give a little, right?  Next time, I&#8217;ll do a split screen of that for your amusement, <g class=\"gr_ gr_4 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace\" id=\"4\" data-gr-id=\"4\">buyt<\/g> I have to pick up my studio to make it video-worthy, so don&#8217;t hold your breath! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p> <br> <br>The instant feedback of controlling through the breath is strikingly intuitive, so I could bring things to the edge but back off before they spilled over into mayhem. <\/p><cite>Rich<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Setup<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>GEEK alert<\/strong> The setup is my&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/way.net\/waymusic\/?s=godin\">Godin xTSA Midi Guitar through an Axon AX50 midi processor<\/a> (just sends midi data to the computer, no onboard synths). This feeds an audio and MIDI guitar signal to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.plogue.com\/products\/bidule.html\">Plogue Bidule<\/a> running three plugins. The MIDI is processed through Dmitri <g class=\"gr_ gr_13 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace\" id=\"13\" data-gr-id=\"13\">Sches&#8217;s<\/g> amazing synth, <a href=\"https:\/\/dmitrysches.com\/products\/thorn\">Thorn<\/a> (I have the still-formidable <a href=\"https:\/\/www.musicradar.com\/computermusic\">Computer Music<\/a> version). The guitar gets amped through Mike Scuffham&#8217;s awesome <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scuffhamamps.com\/\">S-Gear<\/a>. The sound is a &#8220;jangle&#8221; preset I wrote which you can get <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scuffhamamps.com\/forum\/9-presets\/7857-non-vox-jangle\">here<\/a> (make sure you scroll down and get the second one, not the first). The amp output gets split, with one signal going to the mixer and the other to an oldie but goody: the late Carlos Mateo&#8217;s elogoXa <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uv.es\/ruizcan\/\">elotTronix XL<\/a> <g class=\"gr_ gr_12 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace\" id=\"12\" data-gr-id=\"12\">frippertronics<\/g> looper with the input <g class=\"gr_ gr_18 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace\" id=\"18\" data-gr-id=\"18\">switched<\/g> on and off with a slider so I can replenish the loop if need be, but otherwise play over it. The guitar plays into two loops simultaneously, one 9 seconds and one 8 seconds, to give 72 variations before repeating itself. I also added some wild <g class=\"gr_ gr_14 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace\" id=\"14\" data-gr-id=\"14\">autopanning<\/g> to the loops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The song<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first 45 seconds are just setting up the loops. At 45 seconds, Thorn CM fades in, played by the midi channel of the guitar and the Bite and Breath Controller.  Instead of using the synth alone, or trying to sound like some other instrument or emulation, I use the Thorn to work with and add expressive power to the guitar sounds.  The synth is running one of its built in presets, &#8220;PAD Duster,&#8221; that I have tweaked.  I wanted to use Thorn&#8217;s built in matrix to connect the Breath Controller to the synth, but it turns out to be not possible yet, probably coming in a future update.  Bidule has a great paramater-mapping facility though, so it works out fine, but I can&#8217;t pack the breath controller into a Thorn preset just yet.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A side note<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">MIDI learn on most DAWs is difficult with the breath controller because you have to isolate your movements to only trigger one CC at a time, so for example, you can&#8217;t nod at all while tilting your head. In practice this is nearly impossible, a problem also with the Source Audio <a href=\"http:\/\/way.net\/waymusic\/?p=678\">HotHand<\/a> and anything else that maps CCs to an accelerometer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Setting up the breath controller<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The breath controller comes with an app to program its response (see the video).  I set it up for my lung capacity and bite, and calibrated it to my head tilt and nod.  You can set the output for each of the four functions to any CC, pitch bend, or aftertouch.  I adjusted the curves quite a bit to get a good response for me, and it worked great once I did.  The curves and the attack and decay settings are particularly helpful in smoothing out the CC response.  For the guitar MIDI CC1 signal, I have to smooth it out separately in Bidule, so the curves and other adjustments in the breath controller are nice; so is the visual feedback, which you can see in the video.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Controlling Thorn<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I controlled Thorn&#8217;s synth parameters by first removing the one modulation wheel control from the mod matrix, since I would be using my guitar controller to send the CC1 signal.   Then I set the following two CCs from my guitar and the four from the Breath  controller as follows:  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Guitar:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>CC1 (mod Wheel) controlled by pick position between neck [0] and bridge [127] of the guitar and smoothed out in bidule ==&gt; cutoff frequency on Thorn CM&#8217;s clean low pass filter<\/li><li>CC7 on guitar ==&gt; synth volume<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Breath Controller:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">(I put the color code from the app in so you can follow the video easier) <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>CC2 Breath ==&gt; noise oscillator pitch. RED<\/li><li>CC3 Bite ==&gt; filter resonance. GREEN<\/li><li>CC12 Nod ==&gt; delay feedback. BLUE<\/li><li>CC13 Tilt ==&gt; distortion drive: AQUA<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Results:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The instant feedback of controlling through the breath is really responsive and intuitive, so I could bring things to the edge but back off before they spilled over into mayhem. I had a blast tilting my head up to create endless feedback echoes and tilting to the side to grunge out.  Breath seemed a natural choice to <g class=\"gr_ gr_9 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling ins-del\" id=\"9\" data-gr-id=\"9\">hook<\/g> into the noise oscillator.  I tried it first on noise volume but then had better results connecting it to the pitch of the noise, which is where the massive sub bass whoops come from.  Bite went to filter resonance, which meant when I dug in on it, the filter would get really resonant.  Too much fun!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> TEC Breath and Bite controller 2. Here I try it out for atmospherics on this almost ambient piece. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/way.net\/waymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/way.net\/waymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/way.net\/waymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/way.net\/waymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/way.net\/waymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=976"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/way.net\/waymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1517,"href":"https:\/\/way.net\/waymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976\/revisions\/1517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/way.net\/waymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/way.net\/waymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/way.net\/waymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}