Been practicing using Synthesia. It's pretty excellent for what I want to do. I like that I'll be able to write my own drills to practice eventually.
Should have Rock Band 3 sometime this week, I will update once I've spent some time using my jammer to play it (not to mention trying out the guitar controller and seeing what I can do with it as an array-style midi controller).
Friday, May 31, 2013
Friday, May 24, 2013
A short update
Practicing. That's about it. Certainly noticing improvement, slow as it is. Splitting my time between practicing simple scales and arpeggios and attempting actual pieces. Only really simple stuff like "Ode to Joy" and "Turkey in the Straw" right now; just working on getting both hands involved simultaneously.
I found a piece of software called Synthesia. It's basically a free/cheap piano training program. You can run any MIDI file through it and "play" the file like a Guitar Hero song, and it also has enhanced files that separate out each hand's part. I have not yet upgraded to the paid version, though I am considering it. Between this, the GarageBand lessons and eventually Rock Band 3, lack of material to practice should never be an excuse.
One psychological issue that has come up is the left hand parts. On the Synthesia piano roll (as on a piano), the notes ascend to the right, but on a left-hand jammer keyboard, the notes ascend to the left. Oddly enough, while the mirrored layout is the cause of this mental dissonance, it's also the source of a simple solution. It's a relatively simple procedure to learn the part using my right (and more dexterous) hand first, then transfer that to my left hand; with the mirrored layout, the fingering remains 100% consistent. You definitely don't get that kind of flexibility n a traditional keyboard.
I found a piece of software called Synthesia. It's basically a free/cheap piano training program. You can run any MIDI file through it and "play" the file like a Guitar Hero song, and it also has enhanced files that separate out each hand's part. I have not yet upgraded to the paid version, though I am considering it. Between this, the GarageBand lessons and eventually Rock Band 3, lack of material to practice should never be an excuse.
One psychological issue that has come up is the left hand parts. On the Synthesia piano roll (as on a piano), the notes ascend to the right, but on a left-hand jammer keyboard, the notes ascend to the left. Oddly enough, while the mirrored layout is the cause of this mental dissonance, it's also the source of a simple solution. It's a relatively simple procedure to learn the part using my right (and more dexterous) hand first, then transfer that to my left hand; with the mirrored layout, the fingering remains 100% consistent. You definitely don't get that kind of flexibility n a traditional keyboard.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
A quick philosophy on alternative keyboards
To put it simply, they are what they are.
When one spends time reading about isomorphic keyboard layouts on the Internet, one begins to notice certain themes. Two big ones are
- evangelism
and
- resistance
The evangelists have spent some time geeking out over the concept of isomorphic keyboards and they're convinced of the theoretical advantages of their chosen layout. Maybe they actually sell their chosen layout as a product. They spend a lot of time explaining those advantages to others. This is not a bad thing---I certainly fit this description---but where things go wrong is that comparisons to established instruments (most often the piano) end up being raised. This may be the easiest way to explain the advantages of another keyboard layout, but inevitably....
The resistance gets defensive. They are not necessarily pianists, but anyone who plays a more traditional instrument and either a) gets rightfully offended that their time-tested instrument is being called inferior to some design that has existed for a century and still hasn't caught on, b) find the suggested alternative layout to be over complicated and/or unintuitive, or c) both.
Both points of view have merit.
However, I can't help but think that nobody ever discusses the relative merits of a guitar's fretboard vs a piano's keyboard or a clarinet's orientation vs a flute's. They are what they are. As far as I'm concerned, different keyboard layouts are the same way. Yeah, there are some very real advantages, but there are also disadvantages. It doesn't really matter; every instrument has advantages and disadvantages. What makes them worthwhile is how you work around the disadvantages and how you play to the instrument's strengths.
When one spends time reading about isomorphic keyboard layouts on the Internet, one begins to notice certain themes. Two big ones are
- evangelism
and
- resistance
The evangelists have spent some time geeking out over the concept of isomorphic keyboards and they're convinced of the theoretical advantages of their chosen layout. Maybe they actually sell their chosen layout as a product. They spend a lot of time explaining those advantages to others. This is not a bad thing---I certainly fit this description---but where things go wrong is that comparisons to established instruments (most often the piano) end up being raised. This may be the easiest way to explain the advantages of another keyboard layout, but inevitably....
The resistance gets defensive. They are not necessarily pianists, but anyone who plays a more traditional instrument and either a) gets rightfully offended that their time-tested instrument is being called inferior to some design that has existed for a century and still hasn't caught on, b) find the suggested alternative layout to be over complicated and/or unintuitive, or c) both.
Both points of view have merit.
However, I can't help but think that nobody ever discusses the relative merits of a guitar's fretboard vs a piano's keyboard or a clarinet's orientation vs a flute's. They are what they are. As far as I'm concerned, different keyboard layouts are the same way. Yeah, there are some very real advantages, but there are also disadvantages. It doesn't really matter; every instrument has advantages and disadvantages. What makes them worthwhile is how you work around the disadvantages and how you play to the instrument's strengths.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Another, ridiculously inexpensive, array MIDI controller
Not a whole lot to report. Trying to practice at least every other day, alternating with other exercises to improve my musical performance skills. I'm quickly learning the layout and the walls I'm hitting are more related to my own dexterity and finger independence rather than trouble finding my way around the keyboard. Nothing to do but practice, practice, practice.
Another problem with practicing is that there isn't an established method of learning Wicki/Hayden; nobody's written lessons for YouTube or written a book on the subject. There are a uppers of technique hidden around the web (coming mostly from Ken Rushton, John Moriarty, and what bits transfer well from concertina technique to a jammer), but that's mostly theory, not a systematic way of learning the instrument.
One solution that's been suggested (like so much else involving the jammer, by Ken Rushton), is using software geared toward learning piano that uses MIDI to rate your progress. One must, of course, ignore all fingering advice and all references to the black and white traditional keyboard, but you still get the advantage of seeing how well you've done compared to an ideal performance of the piece or exercise.
I've been using GarageBand's built-in lessons for the time being. They're nice, but quite short and there are only about 20 of them total. OK for now, but I can already see that I'm going to outgrow them quickly.
There are a few software solutions like Piano Marvel, but I've been unsuccessful in getting them to recognize the Axis keyboard. For some reason, they don't even want to see the raw output of the Axis, which is fully class-compliant MIDI data, so it's hard to blame the keyboard for how funky this software is acting.
The solution I'm excited to try is Rock Band 3's pro mode (which uses actual notes instead of the abstracted button pushes common to the rest of the rhythm game genre). There is an accessory that allows one to plug in a MIDI instrument to play their part. Again, one must ignore the keyboard notation, but it should be good practice for performing chords and scales in time with music. It's not a perfect teacher, I'm sure, but in combination with practice reading music and more "serious" exercises, I think it'll be a great help to my progress.
Which brings me to the topic mentioned in the title: another array-based midi instrument, this one ridiculously inexpensive. While reading up on Rock Band software, it became apparent to me that there were some great deals to be had with the waning popularity of rhythm games. Case in point: one can now buy the Rock Band 3 software (for XBox, anyway) with a Pro Guitar controller (which has a button for every string and every fret, making for something like 110 individual note triggers) for only $60. The game alone costs $30, making the guitar controller $30 as well, if you wanted the game too. This wouldn't be a stellar deal except when one considers the following:
- The pro guitar controller was released at a $150 price point
- The pro guitar controller is equipped with a 5-pin midi-out port and a robust midi implementation.
- The next cheapest guitar-style midi controller is something like $250 (although it's also higher quality), to say nothing of other array-style controllers aside from the Axis.
Seems like a bargain to me. I hope to acquire the game/guitar set in the coming weeks and will update the blog with details on both how well it works with the jammer as well as how well the guitar works as a MIDI controller. Exciting!
Another problem with practicing is that there isn't an established method of learning Wicki/Hayden; nobody's written lessons for YouTube or written a book on the subject. There are a uppers of technique hidden around the web (coming mostly from Ken Rushton, John Moriarty, and what bits transfer well from concertina technique to a jammer), but that's mostly theory, not a systematic way of learning the instrument.
One solution that's been suggested (like so much else involving the jammer, by Ken Rushton), is using software geared toward learning piano that uses MIDI to rate your progress. One must, of course, ignore all fingering advice and all references to the black and white traditional keyboard, but you still get the advantage of seeing how well you've done compared to an ideal performance of the piece or exercise.
I've been using GarageBand's built-in lessons for the time being. They're nice, but quite short and there are only about 20 of them total. OK for now, but I can already see that I'm going to outgrow them quickly.
There are a few software solutions like Piano Marvel, but I've been unsuccessful in getting them to recognize the Axis keyboard. For some reason, they don't even want to see the raw output of the Axis, which is fully class-compliant MIDI data, so it's hard to blame the keyboard for how funky this software is acting.
The solution I'm excited to try is Rock Band 3's pro mode (which uses actual notes instead of the abstracted button pushes common to the rest of the rhythm game genre). There is an accessory that allows one to plug in a MIDI instrument to play their part. Again, one must ignore the keyboard notation, but it should be good practice for performing chords and scales in time with music. It's not a perfect teacher, I'm sure, but in combination with practice reading music and more "serious" exercises, I think it'll be a great help to my progress.
Which brings me to the topic mentioned in the title: another array-based midi instrument, this one ridiculously inexpensive. While reading up on Rock Band software, it became apparent to me that there were some great deals to be had with the waning popularity of rhythm games. Case in point: one can now buy the Rock Band 3 software (for XBox, anyway) with a Pro Guitar controller (which has a button for every string and every fret, making for something like 110 individual note triggers) for only $60. The game alone costs $30, making the guitar controller $30 as well, if you wanted the game too. This wouldn't be a stellar deal except when one considers the following:
- The pro guitar controller was released at a $150 price point
- The pro guitar controller is equipped with a 5-pin midi-out port and a robust midi implementation.
- The next cheapest guitar-style midi controller is something like $250 (although it's also higher quality), to say nothing of other array-style controllers aside from the Axis.
Seems like a bargain to me. I hope to acquire the game/guitar set in the coming weeks and will update the blog with details on both how well it works with the jammer as well as how well the guitar works as a MIDI controller. Exciting!
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Software solutions for remapping the Axis-49
I realized that I didn't mention how I ended up solving my software issues. I actually ended up with two parallel solutions, each with a different application.
My primary solution is for use with Ableton Live. I use a combination of Ken Rushton's Axis Tweaker and an OSX MIDI utility called MidiPipe. MidiPipe lets me split what OSX sees as a single Axis unit (actually my two Axis transmitting on channels 1 and 2) into two separate virtual instruments. Axis Tweaker then remaps each midi stream and outputs into two separate Ableton tracks, giving me two different sounds to work with. I may start using the more advanced Midi Integrator software of Ken's if I need to do keyboard splits and have four instruments in front of me, but for now, the much simpler Axis Tweaker does the trick.
I am using GarageBand '11's inbuilt piano lessons to practice some basic skills. The issue here is that GarageBand has no ability to filter MIDI messages like Ableton does. Using Axis Tweaker, this results in two notes triggering for every button push. Instead, I use the Relayer software I had mentioned a few posts back. It's designed for microtonal work, but works fine in 12TET. The way it handles MIDI channels makes it useless for what I want to do in Ableton, but for GarageBand, it's perfect. I can only play a single instrument over both keyboards, but for the purposes of these lessons, I'm emulating a piano anyway.
I have a separate MidiPipe preset for each application (Relayer needs one in order to "hide" the raw Axis MIDI data from GarageBand). I can leave both Axis Tweaker and Relayer running and simply load up the appropriate preset depending on which DAW I'm in.
My primary solution is for use with Ableton Live. I use a combination of Ken Rushton's Axis Tweaker and an OSX MIDI utility called MidiPipe. MidiPipe lets me split what OSX sees as a single Axis unit (actually my two Axis transmitting on channels 1 and 2) into two separate virtual instruments. Axis Tweaker then remaps each midi stream and outputs into two separate Ableton tracks, giving me two different sounds to work with. I may start using the more advanced Midi Integrator software of Ken's if I need to do keyboard splits and have four instruments in front of me, but for now, the much simpler Axis Tweaker does the trick.
I am using GarageBand '11's inbuilt piano lessons to practice some basic skills. The issue here is that GarageBand has no ability to filter MIDI messages like Ableton does. Using Axis Tweaker, this results in two notes triggering for every button push. Instead, I use the Relayer software I had mentioned a few posts back. It's designed for microtonal work, but works fine in 12TET. The way it handles MIDI channels makes it useless for what I want to do in Ableton, but for GarageBand, it's perfect. I can only play a single instrument over both keyboards, but for the purposes of these lessons, I'm emulating a piano anyway.
I have a separate MidiPipe preset for each application (Relayer needs one in order to "hide" the raw Axis MIDI data from GarageBand). I can leave both Axis Tweaker and Relayer running and simply load up the appropriate preset depending on which DAW I'm in.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Completion of the jammer and Wicki/Hayden first impressions
It's been about a week since the last post. Luckily, it's all good news.
I completed my jammer (mkI, anyway) a couple days after my last post. I've attached a couple photos of the completed device. The first one should give a sense of scale and the second gives a nice view of the overall layout.
I went with a key coloring scheme swiped from musicnotation.org's article on the Wicki/Hayden layout. The white keys are the same as a piano's white keys, and the black and blue (both shades) are equivalent to the black keys. The blue keys indicate unison notes, as a handy reference when/if you need to wrap around the edges of the keyboard. Basically, if you play a dark blue key, and then play the dark blue key upward and to the left (for the right-hand keyboard), you'll trigger the same MIDI note. This color scheme also has the advantage of very nearly using the same number of each color of key as the original Axis-49 layout; there were only three keys that needed to be colored black with a Sharpie to complete the pattern (one of each other color).
I chose not to do further coloring of the keys, which is something Ken Rushton—aka MusicScienceGuy, the jammer's adoptive father—encourages. Being red-green colorblind, I tend not to respond to color-coding very strongly. (If you ever play against me in Puzzle Fighter, expect to win.) Blue is a good color for me, but the colors on Ken's jammer (seen here) all tend to blend together for me, especially the row of warm colors right next to the green.
Instead of colored keys, I want to add some tactile feedback. I haven't decided exactly how yet—something non-permanent would be nice, though nothing springs to mind. It may be as simple as dropping a bit of glue in the center of each C key.
Keen-eyed readers will see that I've applied exactly two of the 98 note-name stickers included with the Axis-49 to each unit: C and C-sharp. This has a few advantages in my mind. First, it gives just enough tactile feedback to find middle-C without looking at the keyboard (finding every other C without looking is why I want to try bumps on the keys). Second, between the stickers and the blue-colored keys, it makes semi-tone relationships on the keyboard a little easier to visualize.
As far as actually playing the keyboards? It's a joy! The shapes of scales immediately start to jump out at you. Changing between I, IV and V chords is ridiculously simple. Learning is slow (especially since I'm simultaneously learning how to read music again), but enjoyable. It's easy to see that while some things are a tiny bit trickier at first, this largely has to do with the fact that most piano lessons start with bits in C-major and A-minor; once you start going in any other key, everything gets simplified.
I must go for now, but so far I'm impressed.
(PS: I take back anything I said about the construction of these Axis units. I don't know why the screws in the bottom were loose, but after opening them to rearrange the keys and securely closing them back up again, I'm pretty pleased with the solid construction. The screws weren't nearly as soft as I had feared, and I expect these instruments will last me some time. Also good news: C-thru's customer support, while consisting of a single person, is quite prompt and eager to engage.)
Further reading: If you haven't been to the C-Thru forums yet, please check them out. There are some lengthy discussions on remapping the Axis 49, updating the firmware, etc. Invaluable resource for a new owner. They're not super active, but there's lots of information there already and at leasta few people still checking in regularly.
Until next time.
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Building a jammer
Had my keyboards for three days now. Still working on "building" the jammer, so to speak.
I fixed my hardware problems. It seems that the USB library included with the firmware updater is out of date. Once I replaced that file with a newer version and restarted, everything worked fine (under Windows XP Mode in Windows 7). If anyone needs any details, don't hesitate to get in touch with me about it.
Now just to figure out how to get my software cooperating. Basically, I'm just trying to find a software solution that will allow remapping of two different MIDI channels independently. I am hopeful, and will post my final results here as soon as I figure out what will do the trick. Hopefully I don't need to purchase my own copy of Max/MSP, but I may end up doing just that. Or perhaps I can work something out using PureData? More to come.
I fixed my hardware problems. It seems that the USB library included with the firmware updater is out of date. Once I replaced that file with a newer version and restarted, everything worked fine (under Windows XP Mode in Windows 7). If anyone needs any details, don't hesitate to get in touch with me about it.
Now just to figure out how to get my software cooperating. Basically, I'm just trying to find a software solution that will allow remapping of two different MIDI channels independently. I am hopeful, and will post my final results here as soon as I figure out what will do the trick. Hopefully I don't need to purchase my own copy of Max/MSP, but I may end up doing just that. Or perhaps I can work something out using PureData? More to come.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Axis 49 first impressions
My two Axis 49 keyboards arrived today.
They're nice. Build quality is not quite what I had hoped for; probably appropriate for what I paid ($250 per) considering how niche the product is, but I might have been slightly disappointed had paid full price. The bottom panels were screwed on pretty loosely, and the screws themselves seem to be pretty soft metal. I'm going to have to be very careful if I decide to open these up to rearrange the keys.
Other than that, I am quite pleased. The keys are spongier than I expected, but not necessarily in a bad way. The feel of the keys is actually better for velocity sensing than I expected. Glissandos are a bit difficult, but that might be a matter of adjusting how my software responds to velocity signals. In any case, the available glissandos on a Wicki-Hayden keyboard aren't the most useful things in the world.
I'm experimenting with software for remapping the keyboard layout of the Axis. I have the correct tuning working under Andrew Milne's Relayer application, but it's not the most convenient bit of software. It's relatively easy to set up, but it doesn't seem to save its settings upon closing. I'm going to get in contact with Andrew to see if one can change the default settings; otherwise I will try a few other things.
Additionally, I need to set one of the keyboards up to send MIDI on channel two. This is accomplishing by updating the firmware with a special version, the MIDI channel being the only change. Problem is, I need a Windows XP compatible computer, which nobody in the house owns. Hopefully tomorrow, I can take care of this.
Too long; didn't read: Now that my keyboards are here, I have a little bit of building and hacking to do in order to make sure they function properly as a complete jammer. With any luck, everything will be functioning before next week.
They're nice. Build quality is not quite what I had hoped for; probably appropriate for what I paid ($250 per) considering how niche the product is, but I might have been slightly disappointed had paid full price. The bottom panels were screwed on pretty loosely, and the screws themselves seem to be pretty soft metal. I'm going to have to be very careful if I decide to open these up to rearrange the keys.
Other than that, I am quite pleased. The keys are spongier than I expected, but not necessarily in a bad way. The feel of the keys is actually better for velocity sensing than I expected. Glissandos are a bit difficult, but that might be a matter of adjusting how my software responds to velocity signals. In any case, the available glissandos on a Wicki-Hayden keyboard aren't the most useful things in the world.
I'm experimenting with software for remapping the keyboard layout of the Axis. I have the correct tuning working under Andrew Milne's Relayer application, but it's not the most convenient bit of software. It's relatively easy to set up, but it doesn't seem to save its settings upon closing. I'm going to get in contact with Andrew to see if one can change the default settings; otherwise I will try a few other things.
Additionally, I need to set one of the keyboards up to send MIDI on channel two. This is accomplishing by updating the firmware with a special version, the MIDI channel being the only change. Problem is, I need a Windows XP compatible computer, which nobody in the house owns. Hopefully tomorrow, I can take care of this.
Too long; didn't read: Now that my keyboards are here, I have a little bit of building and hacking to do in order to make sure they function properly as a complete jammer. With any luck, everything will be functioning before next week.
Monday, April 22, 2013
The Beginning
I'm learning to play a new instrument and I wanted to document the process, both for myself and any others that might be interested.
Why might others be interested in what is typically a mundane, grueling process best kept to oneself for the sake of others' sanity?
Simple. The instrument I'm teaching myself to play is called a jammer and is quite novel. Probably fewer than one hundred folks out there in the world have played one, and it doesn't seem as though more than five or six people have made an effort to discuss it much on the Internet. Even the musical layout that the jammer is based out, the Wicki-Hayden system, remains relatively obscure, used primarily in concertinas and home-built hobby instruments (like the one I'm learning on).
In any case, isomorphic keyboards (any keyboard that preserves fingering patterns anywhere on the keyboard, like the Wicki-Hayden) should be of interest to anyone who, like me, finds the traditional piano-style keyboard to be frustrating and limiting creatively. In that capacity, I hope this blog can be inspirational.
The concept of the jammer can be summed up as such: you have two Wicki-Hayden (W-H) keyboards, one for each hand. The right hand plays a traditional W-H while the left plays a mirrored layout, which preserves all fingerings and patterns when you switch hands. In this manner, one needs only learn a single pattern rather than the twenty four (one for each of twelve keys times two for each hand) that a piano layout requires.
I have two Axis 49 keyboards on their way to my house right now, and I plan on remapping these neat little controllers to W-H. Until they arrive, all I can really do is parrot back the theory that's already well-covered elsewhere on the Internet, and is well summarized on the relevant Wikipedia articles thanks to the jammer's resident Internet evangelist, Ken Rushton. If anything I've talked about so far is remotely interesting, check those Wikipedia articles out and come back in a couple days when my Axis 49 keyboards come in.
(PS: C-Thru Music is currently running a sale on Axis 49s, selling them for half their normal price ($250 instead of $495). This is a fantastic deal in my opinion; all other commercial isomorphic keyboards are well over $1500, and even a DIY solution offered by analoguehaven will probably run you around $500 all told. Until someone like Korg jumps on the isomorphic hardware bandwagon (unlikely any time soon), this is absolutely the lowest barrier to entry anyone is likely to see in the near future. On the other hand, if you own a tablet computer, there are a number of isomorphic keyboard apps that are quite capable. I like Musix, personally. Unfortunately, these software solutions, while nice for trying the isomorphic concept and auditioning different layouts, lack the tactile feedback of a hardware controller, which is entirely necessary for the level of performance I hope to attain on my instrument of choice.)
Why might others be interested in what is typically a mundane, grueling process best kept to oneself for the sake of others' sanity?
Simple. The instrument I'm teaching myself to play is called a jammer and is quite novel. Probably fewer than one hundred folks out there in the world have played one, and it doesn't seem as though more than five or six people have made an effort to discuss it much on the Internet. Even the musical layout that the jammer is based out, the Wicki-Hayden system, remains relatively obscure, used primarily in concertinas and home-built hobby instruments (like the one I'm learning on).
In any case, isomorphic keyboards (any keyboard that preserves fingering patterns anywhere on the keyboard, like the Wicki-Hayden) should be of interest to anyone who, like me, finds the traditional piano-style keyboard to be frustrating and limiting creatively. In that capacity, I hope this blog can be inspirational.
The concept of the jammer can be summed up as such: you have two Wicki-Hayden (W-H) keyboards, one for each hand. The right hand plays a traditional W-H while the left plays a mirrored layout, which preserves all fingerings and patterns when you switch hands. In this manner, one needs only learn a single pattern rather than the twenty four (one for each of twelve keys times two for each hand) that a piano layout requires.
I have two Axis 49 keyboards on their way to my house right now, and I plan on remapping these neat little controllers to W-H. Until they arrive, all I can really do is parrot back the theory that's already well-covered elsewhere on the Internet, and is well summarized on the relevant Wikipedia articles thanks to the jammer's resident Internet evangelist, Ken Rushton. If anything I've talked about so far is remotely interesting, check those Wikipedia articles out and come back in a couple days when my Axis 49 keyboards come in.
(PS: C-Thru Music is currently running a sale on Axis 49s, selling them for half their normal price ($250 instead of $495). This is a fantastic deal in my opinion; all other commercial isomorphic keyboards are well over $1500, and even a DIY solution offered by analoguehaven will probably run you around $500 all told. Until someone like Korg jumps on the isomorphic hardware bandwagon (unlikely any time soon), this is absolutely the lowest barrier to entry anyone is likely to see in the near future. On the other hand, if you own a tablet computer, there are a number of isomorphic keyboard apps that are quite capable. I like Musix, personally. Unfortunately, these software solutions, while nice for trying the isomorphic concept and auditioning different layouts, lack the tactile feedback of a hardware controller, which is entirely necessary for the level of performance I hope to attain on my instrument of choice.)
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