"live" context : How does JS listen his fellows mu

[don_don]

I play in a small jazz group (2 guitars and 1 double bass) and JS seems to have the characteristics of the ideal drummer i have been searching for since such a long time …

However I do not have a clear picture of the way it interferes with the rest of the group into a live context.

As a human I have my ears to listen to the other musicians I am playing with. What’s about JS?

How does JS listen his fellows musicians? (a mic I guess but, coming from where) ?

I do not have a clear picture, can somebody enlighten my mind on that ?

Thanks

[Ralph @ Rayzoon]

The audio jam of Jamstix does not analyze the musical content of the audio signal, which would be too CPU-intensive. It analyzes the dynamics of the signal and adjusts the dynamcis of the drums accordingly. It also operates certain play rules based on dynamics, such as crossticking and hihat/ride switching. So the content of the drum performance is based on style/drummer selection and the audio jam affects how that content is performed.

[don_don]

Yes, but how does JS analyse the live audio content ?
I still do not understand where is the interactivity between the musicians and JS. It works either in stand alone mode (like a rythm box) or is interactive and is listening a sound (musiacians in my case) he is supposed to cooperate with.
I am still very confused.
Can you clarify that ?
1000 thanks

[Sheppol_A]

I've never envisaged using Jamstix live but I would treat it as a Drummer with manners and brains.

It won't turn up late.
It won't expect you to pick up it's kit.
It won't try and steal your girlfriend.
It won't spend 3 hours tuning it's kit before the gig because it never learnt a,"Real" instrument.
It won't get drunk and say it plays better that way.

HTH

[Ralph @ Rayzoon]

Yes, but how does JS analyse the live audio content ?
I still do not understand where is the interactivity between the musicians and JS. It works either in stand alone mode (like a rythm box) or is interactive and is listening a sound (musiacians in my case) he is supposed to cooperate with.
I am still very confused.
Can you clarify that ?

JS analyzes the dynamics of the audio signal, the way the overall volume changes. This leads to interactivity just as volume does with a drummer. When you play quieter, JS may switch to crossticking. Even quieter and it will start to drop some kick or snare notes. Play louder and the drums are louder, JS may switch from hihat to ride and some accent ratios go up. Very similar to what many drummers do when listening to the lead instrument.

It is also interactive in that many players counter-react to the way JS reacts to them. Again, quite similar to human interactivity. What it does not do is dramatically change the style of playing in response to harmonic or rhythmic qualities of the audio signal. That is still something we are working on for future versions when CPUs are more powerful.

[sonicviz]

I use JS extensively for live playing, though its online not on stage.

The dynamics are analysed through the included audiom8 plugin.
It analyses an incoming audio stream and does spectral analysis to determine the power or volume levels of the audio, then outputs control messages to JS to control the dynamics of JS. Essentially an envelope follower. It would be very cool if audiom8 could also be enhanced to send CC messages on selected midi outputs so you could utilise this for different instruments! *hint hint*;-)

Your best approach in a live context is to designate one instrument as the Master control instrument and feed this into your onstage DAW running JS2/Audiom8. This instrument would most likely be one of the guitars that would be playing *most* of the time, though you can set the minimum play level of JS if this guitar goes completely silent.

This aspect of JS could be enhanced a lot actually, to include smoothing and mapping curves to get various response dynamics. At the moment it is pretty linear, but once you get a feel for it and set the songs dynamic range you are good to go as long as you can control the input instrument dynamics used to drive the different levels.

EDIT: whoops...Ray sneaked his reply in while I was typing this up...any chance of some enhancements to audiom8/dynamics control ray?

[Ralph @ Rayzoon]

This aspect of JS could be enhanced a lot actually, to include smoothing and mapping curves to get various response dynamics. At the moment it is pretty linear, but once you get a feel for it and set the songs dynamic range you are good to go as long as you can control the input instrument dynamics used to drive the different levels.

EDIT: whoops...Ray sneaked his reply in while I was typing this up...any chance of some enhancements to audiom8/dynamics control ray?

There is a input velocity map in the 'Options' dialog where you can customize the response for your specific play style.

[sonicviz]

doh! of course;-) I used to use that, been set on linear for a while now...so...never mind...

What about adding a smoothing function in addition to this? FruityLoops has it on their control dialog in addition to the map. It controls the responsiveness of the control, so you can go from instant snap off/on to smooth tail offs.

[Ralph @ Rayzoon]

We had something like that in JS1. We'll look into bringing that back.

[sonicviz]

ty!