Cyrille Martraire

Musical instruments for musicians and non-musicians, part Two.
In this post we have a look at how making a musical instrument smarter (or more music-aware) can make it much easier, especially for beginners.

Musical instruments for musicians and non-musicians, part One: Controlling the sounds

In this first post of the series we will analyse how various instruments provide control to the human player, and how this makes them easier (playability) or more expressive.

Over time I have built up a significant library of sounds, mostly single-note samples, but with some loops as well. All these sounds were collected legally, usually through online registration to loop and samples vendors websites, by following the process they propose so that we can test the quality of what they offer. Collecting samples [...]

Just like many arts, music arousal is considered to follow the well-known Wundt curve that defines the balance between attractiveness and boredom. Too much repetition is boring, not enough repetition is confusing and considered just noise. What for? Let us assert that idea to music, to generate rhythms. A very simple application of the Wundt [...]

I juste wanted to automate the creation of programs for my Akai MPC500 sampler/groove machine, for my personal needs, and I ended up releasing a piece of software to sourceforge. It is called MPC Maid, read « assistant of the MPC », here is a screenshot of the program editor: The MPC file format was freely available [...]