Midterm congrats!

Dear Loadbangers,

I'm really pleased and proud with how you all did tonight - "Project 1" was a big success! Let's build on it and make our early-December gig in the Krannert Art Museum something to remember. I have two goals in mind for December:

• Work with video (Jitter)
• Work in ways and with people you haven't tried yet.

For Monday I would like to look over folks' patches from tonight and look for the good things, and the things that could be improved. The main patcher people will probably have some thoughts about how to improve their patches, as well.

The December gig should have no more than 50 minutes of music, I'm guessing; so we need to start figuring out who will be writing (or "writing") pieces, how long they will be, who will play in them, etc. The people who did the main patching this time, I'm going to ask you to let others come to the fore; maybe you can concentrate on Jitter, or on fine-tuning what you already have. If you haven't done much patching yet, roll up your sleeves and get ready to work! Thanks again and have a good weekend!

Setup for Friday

People at Smith Hall, 5:30
- Alex, Ming-Ching (busy with dress rehearsals), Dee, Cheryl, John

4:45 - moving equipment
- Jinok, Dale

6:00
- Adrian, Daniel

6:30
- Mackenzie, Justin

Sound check order - starts at 6:35 (reverse performance order)
- Alex & Ming-Ching
- Jinok, Mackenzie, Cheryl
- Adrian & Cheryl
- Alex, Justin, Cheryl & Ming-Ching
- Daniel, Justin & Dee

Fridays gig

A will send out a duplicate email of this post.

  I don't think its a good idea to put the computers at front of house position. Part of the appeal of pieces like this is that the people and the computers are part of the performance. I do have some ideas that can help us out tomorrow though.   

  First off, I believe I can provide some stage monitors which will make things easier to understand what is going on while on stage. 

  Secondly, I will try changing how things are routed. Instead of putting the microphones through the interfaces, I will put the microphones direct into the mixing board, send those signals out to the interfaces, then take the output from the interfaces back into the mixing board. That means the signal coming to Jinok and John's interfaces will be line level. So be sure to set them appropriately. 

  My reasoning for all this is so that I will be able to have independent control over the amplitude of each individual instrument. Only problem with this is that I will not have control over the amplitude of sounds being played back off the computers. This means we need to get a balance figured out during sound check.

  Does anybody else have a car we can transport some equipment in starting at 5:00pm tomorrow? Its not that much stuff. Two monitor speakers and an amplifier. Anybody who is available to help set up at 5:30 would also be appreciated. There will be more setup time involved in this performance. Let me know.

-Dale

Beckman liveblog

Dear loadbangers,

I'm liveblogging the Beckman gig - first of all, a big thanks to Dale, Jinok and Ming-Ching for helping with the setup; and to John and Jinok for letting use their computers and interfaces - that's a big deal! And thanks to Ming-Ching for getting us an extra gig Friday night - it'll be great doing the concert twice in a row!

For tomorrow night's concert, we will need the performers to be earlier - it's not good to be setting levels etc. while the audience is already there, it makes us look unprofessional. If we have another daytime concert (which is unlikely), you'll just have to miss your classes to be here on time.

Our strategy of using two computers seems like it's working! For tomorrow night, let's see if we can avoid moving mics around more than necessary. Also - Adrian suggests putting the laptops in FOH position, next to the mixer. That might be a very good idea - Dale do you think we can do that? OTOH it's cool to see the laptops onstage.

Daniel, Dee & Justin - I'm not sure what happened in your piece, but the combination of gamelan and electric guitar sounds really good. Let's devote extra time to sound check on this one tomorrow, and do it last, so it's ready to be the first piece. Dee, double check your electric guitar rig - make sure the laptop is facing you, so you can visually check that your levels are OK.

Ming-Ching, Justin & Alex - nice piece, I think it's very successful - the highs were really maxing out though. Dale had your highs entirely down, but it was still painful at times. I don't know if we can get monitors for tomorrow night or not - I wouldn't count on it. But it'll be a little easier to hear in Smith.

Mackenzie & Ming-Ching - good job. Try to act more like a "performer" - it seemed (to me) like you were sound-checking or practicing, and never really went into performance mode. Just play one or two short/long notes as a soundcheck to make sure everything is working; then start your piece. Try to make it more integrated, so it really sounds like a piece of music.

Adrian & Cheryl - good job. I'd like to draw attention to Adrian's posture behind the computer; you can really tell he is performing as a musician, not just sitting back there.

Jinok - good job. Can your beats section fade out more gradually next time, to make a smoother transition into the ending?

Alex & Ming-Ching - good job - try to have some sections in the middle with the vocal samples where M-C stops playing in the middle of the rolls - that would make it more obvious that M-C is controlling the sample playback (if he is).

LoadBang404 Set list

1. Daniel - "Arc" Zither, Electric guitar
   
2. Ming-Ching - "My Silent Loneliness, Under a Starry Summer Night" Zither, glock, viola
   
3. Ming-Ching/Mackenzie - "Syrinx" Mackenzie, flute
   
4. Adrian/Cheryl - "Titles are so hard" viola
   
5. Jinok - "E-Arirang"flute and viola
   
6. John/Alex - "Bangers and Math" Alex w/drum controller
   

Patches by:

• Daniel
  
• Adrian
  
• Alex/John
  
• Jinok
  
• Ming-Ching
  

Performers:

• Cheryl - va
  
• Mackenzie - fl
  
• Ming-Ching - glock
  
• Justin - zither
  
• Dee - elec guit
  
• Alex - drum controller
  

Beckman gig

Thursday, Oct. 23, 12:20 - 12:50ish - about 30 minutes

- Cheryl & Adrian (Cheryl has class until noon)

- Daniel, Justin, Dee

- Alex and Dale (Dale will be running sound)

- Ming-Ching and John Nichols (John has class until noon)

- Jinok & Mackenzie (Jinok has class at noon; M. has class until noon)

Cars: Justin & Dale

Speakers: JBL (from Guy, Siebel)

Mixer: Mackie 1402 (from Guy Garnett, Siebel)

Mics, cables, and stands: Dale will bring 2 from Krannert

Interfaces: Jinok's Alesis; Steve's @$%ty M-Audio

Computers: Steve's MacBook Pro; Dale's MacBook Pro

performance chance?

I'm thinking if we can have some pieces play on friday 24th in smith hall since there seem to be a concert. anybody interested?

Question

Folks, should we begin to advertise our gig? some of my friends are asking about this. I want to make an event on facebook. but we have not come up with a name for our ensemble or our gig yet. any idea? and also, posters?

Classes directory

Jake Rundall has kindly set up a directory where we can all upload patches or soundfiles. In the CAMIL lab, simply double-click on the Classes disk icon and navigate to 404B. Here are more detailed directions for both Windows and Mac:

Connecting to the CAMIL Server using AFP on Mac

If you use a Mac outside of class, or have access to one, you can easily connect to
the CAMIL server from outside the lab.

1. Click anywhere on the desktop to make sure Finder is active.
2. Choose Go -> Connect to Server (or Command + K)
3. Insert the following address: afp://camil.music.uiuc.edu/
4. Click Connect, and login using your CAMIL username and password
5. You will be prompted which "Volume" to mount: choose Classes, your homefolder, etc...
6. It's best to eject the volume by dragging it to the trash when you're done with itConnecting to the CAMIL Server using WinSCP on Windows

WinSCP is a free, open program for file transfer that runs on Windows. You can download WinSCP from winscp.net. When you install the program it is fine to do a "Typical Installation." The following instructions assume that you chose "Norton Commander interface" during the installation process.

To setup and use WinSCP, do the following:
1. Install and run WinSCP
2. Configure the connection as follows:
Host name: camil.music.uiuc.edu
Port number: 22
User name: your CAMIL username
Pasword: your CAMIL password
Private key file: leave blank
Protocol: select "SFTP" and check "Allow SCP fallback"
3. Save the connection configuration by clicking "Save...." The name it suggests (yourNetID@camil.music.uiuc.edu) is a good name to use. You can click the box to save your password with the configuration if you want.
4. To login, select your configuration and click "Login"
5. The first time you connect the program will warn you that the server's host key is not found in your cache. You can click "Yes" to continue connecting and add the server's host key to your cache.
6. If you didn't save you password with the configuration you'll be asked to enter your password.
7. You'll then see a screen that shows files in your computer on the left and your CAMIL account home folder on the right. You can copy files to and from your computer and your CAMIL home folder as well as other locations on the CAMIL server (the Classes folder, etc...).


Navigating Tips
1. "Parent directory" button - takes you to the folder that contains the folder you're currently in
2. "Root directory" button - takes you to the root level, or top level, of the server
3. "Home directory" button - takes you to your home folder
4. Setting up a shortcut to the Classes folder:
a. Go to your home folder
b. Go the Files menu and select New -> Link
c. Fill in the info for the shortcut:
Link/shortcut file: put a name for the shortcut (i.e. Classes Folder)
Point link/shortcut to: "../../../Library/WebServer/Documents/Classes"
* enter exactly as shown above without quotes, then click "OK"
5. To copy a file, simply click and drag it from the version on your computer to the appropriate folder on the server (i.e. the "Submit" folder or a subfolder of "Submit").

sfplay~ and poly~

Inspired by today's class, Daniel and I did a search on the Cycling 74 MSP forum for "sfplay~ and poly~" and lots of good stuff came up:

• the list of all search hits
• info on sfplay~ and its buffer size (different from the buffer~ object)
• someone with 50 sfplay~s, who decides to learn about poly~