emulating a no-input mixer.

[swishniak]

everyone has or knows someone who has a mackie 1202 lying around, right?

great patch, liesuremuffin!

[re:dream]

Hmmm I tried to get a matrix mixer here in Cape Town but they are pricey. And then I got sidetracked by melody and harmony.

I would be interested in learning your setup for experimenting with digital feedback.

[Khazul]

Hmm - I wonder if the feedback+latency situation gets any better with feedback loops when you use a device with through-audio monitor and a sidechain input and lookahead set to 0ms. You usually need a compressor in the chains anyway to keep the volume level clamped down.

For eg, static the device at the beginning of a chain, enable its sidechain and enable the monitor mode (blue headphone symbol) and set its input to post-fx of the track it is in. The gain/mix then should serve as a feedback control.

I don't have live open at the moment to fiddle. Ive used live devices with sidechain input before with monitor mode on as a way of cross routing audio signals between tracks into a rack etc. Just wondered if it might work better for feedback then returns. No particular reason why it should, but you never know

[re:dream]

.. um, post redacted

[re:dream]

Hmm - I wonder if the feedback+latency situation gets any better with feedback loops when you use a device with through-audio monitor and a sidechain input and lookahead set to 0ms. You usually need a compressor in the chains anyway to keep the volume level clamped down.

For eg, static the device at the beginning of a chain, enable its sidechain and enable the monitor mode (blue headphone symbol) and set its input to post-fx of the track it is in. The gain/mix then should serve as a feedback control.

I don't have live open at the moment to fiddle. Ive used live devices with sidechain input before with monitor mode on as a way of cross routing audio signals between tracks into a rack etc. Just wondered if it might work better for feedback then returns. No particular reason why it should, but you never know

This is interesting, I would like to know more.

What do you mean by through-audio monitor? Why do I need a sidechain? I have come across this. People using a compressor or a gate with monitor listening enabled. But I don't know why you need to do that. I just route the audio ('audio to') around between audio tracks. Is there an advantage to using monitor listening? (Or is it that earlier versions of Live did not have an Audio to other audio track function?? I can't remember).

I have managed to get find a discussion on IDM forums where someone posted rack that uses monitor listening

http://nwrecords.com/storage/tutorials/ ... etwork.alp

But I can't for the life of me figure out what is going on

[TomViolenz]

-

[re:dream]

A number of hours later, some observations and questions:

Yes, racking a series of chains, each with a compressor essentially used as a listener, gives you huge flexibility/

Clearly one's biggest challenge in creating a feedback system is taming out of control feedback. A compressor on its own just does not cut it. Even with threshold set as low as possible and the ratio at inf, feedback is quickly out of control. I have had better results with a chain of utilities, racked, gain control set to a macro inversed, and then linking that to an envelope follower. Which is a kind of crude compressor, I guess.

I am also seeing a huge CPU load.... Even with just one feedback loop going through a very simple loop, CPU usage spikes very steeply. Not sure what I can do about that. Could it be the M4L envelope follower?

Any advice?

[Angstrom]

If anyone would like an example Live set, here's one

No Input Mixer Live Set
it uses the Send/Return matrix strategy, If you press the main play it will start evolving because I twiddled the dials a bit.

Of course, the sound will vary depending on your Soundcard drive buffer size. Mine is set at 96samples. If yours is different it will sound different.

If you take a look at the devices you'll see what I am doing, there are two main Tone Generators, and I have EQ8's showing spectrums on them so I can pick my tone frequencies. I have a 'resonation' channel which is a waveshaper thing. I also have a couple of very very long Delays to add interesting repeats if I get a good wibble happening. Also a fat-assed reverb, just to add some environment to it.

I've managed to produce some quite varied output from this one Live set.

[re:dream]

this is very cool, thanks!