Is Anyone Here Using Music Wonk?

[braincell]

I was playing with the demo of Music Wonk last night. Does anyone in here use it? It's an algorithmic composer. I found some interesting patches in it.

[kensuguro]

I remember someone posted this here a while back.. Maybe I should give this a ride.

Not sure if you remember, but I made a techno (bad techno) generator for SIGGRAPH a while back..

[braincell]

Yep I remember that program you wrote. You should try it. You probably would be better with it than I am. The limitations are you can't save anything with the demo, also I think the external sync clock doesn't work so don't try that either hehe. I'm not really technical but if I play with it I can get some good loop sequences from the factory patches which I would edit in Cubase.

http://algoart.com/

[astroman]

I faintly remember having used the non-graphical version a couple of times as one of my very first midi programs
... years ago in the days of the Celeron 333 and the SBLive

cheers, Tom

[braincell]

You can load DNA sequences from the factory patches or the internet and it makes music from them. At first it was a boring patch but it has what I would describe as invisible patch cables. He should make the visible like in SC but anyway, I simply randomly connecting the many parameters and it made a really cool sound. I guess I will buy this.

[garyb]

i faintly remember the writer of this program getting a bad time from a couple of members of this message board, and then watching him explode on us....

[braincell]

Not the recent time he was here.

[Neutron]

Yep I remember that program you wrote. You should try it. You probably would be better with it than I am. The limitations are you can't save anything with the demo, also I think the external sync clock doesn't work so don't try that either hehe. I'm not really technical but if I play with it I can get some good loop sequences from the factory patches which I would edit in Cubase.

http://algoart.com/

i tried it a bit today, you can actually save midi as its playing with the button next to play, and it let me save it. (i was using 64 bit standalone ver at work)

so if you make something u like at least you can save a midi file and put it in your sequencer.

Maybe you should try plogue bidule as well it can do all kinds of things like this as well as process midi input. look this guy used it to make his kaoss pad in to a kaossilator.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWNGVe4zD08

[braincell]

Thanks! I just tried it and you are right. You record, stop, and press the save midi file icon on the toolbar. Now I can try and get the most out of this.

I noticed the presets sound random yet somehow musical. It would be less robotic if he had included a way to sequence the velocity the same way as the pitch in some of these patches. Probably you can but that isn't implemented in the patches. Some of the interesting sounds I got from making it go really fast which is using it more as a synthesizer than a sequencer. Your ear can't hear the individual pitches in that case, just a strange sound.

[braincell]

I'll try plogue bidule thanks! It looks more pro with VST and Rewire. I will try the demo. It expires in 3 months but only the registered people get the VST. I hope Rewire will still work.

Love the banners on this site. This person or people must do a lot of drugs.

[Neutron]

I'll try plogue bidule thanks! It looks more pro with VST and Rewire. I will try the demo. It expires in 3 months but only the registered people get the VST. I hope Rewire will still work.

Love the banners on this site. This person or people must do a lot of drugs.

no they are just french canadian

[braincell]

I just tried bidule. It's not an algorithmic composer. It's like a cheap version of Scope. I didn't get a sound out of it yet but I think this is not what I'm looking for.

[braincell]

I got a beautiful melody out of Music Wonk with some editing today.

[valis]

Bidule is NOT a cheap version of scope. It can host Vst & Vsti's but there's much more afoot if you explore the other bidules. The central user interface is skinnable, but most of the core bidules are relatively boring in terms of their UI. If you can look past that there's quite a bit of power for things like FFT processing of audio streams (for resynthesis or to generate input for your algorithmic stuff) to algorithmic midi composition. The difference is that the routing is node-based (rather than structured in a way to give you a certain result) and the individual elements are more suited to being building blocks than ends in and of themselves. Check the forums for interesting bidule patches to see what can be achieved.

One of the most interesting things about bidule (to me) is there's no centralized midi clocking, though there is a centralized audiorate that you work in. This means you can have multiple internal & external clock sources to derive midi clock/tempo from, and you can manipulate that clock as many times & ways that you want (dividing down or using it to drive iterative functions, etc).

This isn't to say that it's better than Artwork (nor is it worse), it's just a program with quite a good deal of depth that you won't get from a quick glance after installing. I'm willing to bet that Scope didn't reveal all the first time you fiddled in it either. There's no reason not to explore Artwonk or whatever you prefer, but being overly dismissive of the areas you aren't exploring is silly. Personally I played with Artwork only once or twice but I find a lot that appeals to my workflow in Bidule. It's especially useful to me alongside Scope on my secondary workstation here, and I believe Xite4Live has seen some of its live potential (though probably more as a VSTi host).

[braincell]

Sorry I didn't realize that. I was just glancing at the patches (it doesn't come with many). One of them looked like a typical Scope patch. Like I said, Music Wonk is good for me because I can just play with what it comes with. I think Kensuguro might like Bidule though.

[valis]

Certainly if you're getting results go with it, but just wanted to give the bidule app a bit of backup from my perspective