Tonefiend Forum

I'm sitting here wasting time by thinking about apps/tech/combos that don't exist - or at least not in viable formats. I know that a few of us have poked the bear of live laptops and judging from the other threads, none of us are very satisfied with the results. There are ipad options now too, but they're still generally limited to one function at a time. So just to humor me (or us), what apps/functions/utilities would you like to be able to seamlessly integrate into a live setting.

I think there would be two basic categories - signal processing and generated sounds. Of course these overlap if you want your looping to be part of the digital package or you want the generated sounds to be layered onto your instrument signal. So, I'm going to suggest that our hypothetical digital dream box have a minimum of 1 input and two outputs (1 back into the guitar/instrument chain and 1 into the PA). Of course that could be expanded for stereo to have 2/4. Or the ideal box would just have 4x4 and easy routing between apps. But that's a minor concern for now until we answer the big questions.

Assume for the moment that you have sufficient processing power and i/o to run anything you want independently or concurrently.

The big questions are:
1. What apps/modules/processing would you like to have at your fingertips? (maybe categorize them by processing, generating, or both)

2a. What are some example chains of apps/modules that you would like to run concurrently?

2b. How many apps/modules would you like to be able to run at once?

2c. Where in your analog chain would you like to put this (or would you prefer multiple i/o's for different stages?)

3. Would you be happy running these all from a touchscreen or would you also prefer a programmable foot control?

If we can describe our dream gear, then perhaps we can find a way of making it materialize some day.

ooh, that's cool. That's deserving of some heavy thinking. Control is definitely the weak point of every system.

So.... lets say that we have 10-15 possible dimensions/forms of variability. For any particular song, you give it a range within a couple of those dimensions to randomly trigger from. I'd say that the simplest controls would be foot control could be used to 'hold' onto something you like and maybe just an expression pedal to increase/decrease or manipulate. The pressure plate is interesting too. Maybe a B-bender style pot built into the strap pins would be cool.

I think it would probably work best if it 'listened' to both the guitar and the drums (all or maybe just kick or snare). I think that triggering effects between instruments is worth exploring in its own right too.

Lots to think about!

I mainly use digital stuff for adding found sounds, synths, drones and creating sounds impossible in the analog domain. I have become a big iOS user in the last few years starting with an iPod Touch I used Thumbjam as one of my main apps as well as the Thereminator and the steel guitar app. Now I have 2 iPads ( a 2 and a 3) and 2 iPod Touches which can create a big wall of sound when I need it. I recently got the Audiobus app that finally allows one iOS app to feed into other apps and it seems like it will fill a missing piece for me.

Years ago I toyed with using my old Amiga 3000 for performance I had an Emu Proteus synth board with 3 midi outs and a couple of other midi outs. Used along with a great program called Bars and Pipes that used plug in tools to do many things to the midi stream like multiple outputs with note shifting, midi echo, dividing midi notes and a lot of other wonderful things it could also use the 8 bit audio in the Amiga. The main drawback was the mass of hardware and the CRT that radiates noise like crazy into everything else. I have been thinking of trying it with a LCD monitor to see if that might be more workable. I have so far not found a program that could manipulate midi like Bars and Pipes it was very unique. If there was a program I could run on my laptop PC that did what B&P did I would be using a laptop live in a heartbeat, I would even buy a Mac maybe if necessary (I supported Macs for the profs at the chem dept. and really developed a bad attitude towards them).