The Jensen Studio

Nick and I have been hard at work in the studio and we’ve got something new for you!

Impertinent

Read more…

3 Comments

(Or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love Computer Generated Music)

I thought I’d explain how I made some of the funny sounds you hear on the Studio website. I’ve been getting into Computer Generated music and effects. I want to explain just what Joe Pimentel and I did to make this song.
Two Chords (from Running with Scizzors)

First of all, Joe didn’t make all of those sounds himself. As the name implies, he’s just playing two chords on the guitar. The extra notes are generated using a computer program called Max/MSP. Max/MSP is a graphical programming environment. You can program patches by creating boxes (“objects”) and connecting them together with patch cables (just like a modular synthesizer). You can do cool things like sync it up to Ableton Live and send out MIDI messages (that’s how synthesizers talk to each other). Here’s the setup I used:

+ +

The Digitech Whammy is a cool guitar pedal that will transpose playing. My favorite part of the pedal is that you can control it through MIDI. All the real magic happens inside the Max/MSP patch. Every 8th note, MIDI messages are sent to the pedal. Those messages can either change the mode or the level of the transposition. You can hear the mode changing at the beginning of the song and the level changing at 0:40. At 1:00, I use both.

But wait, there’s more! At 0:50, I add another effect. I also set up a gamepad to control Joe’s guitar sound even more. My Max/MSP can understand the joystick on the gamepad and send its position out as MIDI messages too. So, I can make big sweeps and glissandos by moving the joystick quickly from side to side. It sounds like something you might hear on a Nintendo!

You can see the insides of the Max/MSP patches here. Click for bigger images.

I’ve used this trick a few more places. Don’t worry, you’ll be hearing more from Max/MSP soon!

The Odyssey (from AAD2)
Warning! This is a 20-minute Jazz odyssey! Skip straight to 10:55!
Experiment #1
I sent this to my uncle Joe to prove that Max/MSP wasn’t a waste of time. :)

Also, I’ve been working on some stuff with Nick lately. We’ll be releasing that soon!

1 Comment

Andrew, I made a song that I think you’ll like. It’s called Song for Andrew and it’s on the Nick Jensen Podckast. It’s like that music that you listen to all the time!

Add Comment