Segue

A few packages hit the desk today, including the Mackie 1202 VLZ3 which replaces the rather heavier and larger console mixer which has been the staple for Segue and the odd Silent Shadow gig over the last year or so. Most excitedly, the Monome 40h kit has arrived. Unfortunately I don’t have time to assemble it this weekend, as I fly out to Hong Kong on Saturday and will be busy eating noodles, buying robots and getting custom Kung-Fu suits made simply because, well, that’s what you do in Hong Kong. I think. But I’m very excited about coming back to put this together for the gig at Bar Soma. Check more photos of the new Monome kit out on the Segue FlickR page.

I’m quite excited to explore the world of Monome for the contradictory reason that there isn’t anything entirely special about it. Which is rather what the makers think as well. The magic happens simply by enabling a certain set of possible interactions with music. I’m a programming geek, so I have a lot of ideas for the Monome and I can’t wait to explore the fantastic patches that the user community has developed. Most people reading this, if you made it past the subtle More tag above, probably still have no idea what it does.

In short, the Monome is simply a box with buttons. It is driven by software on a computer and enjoys a similar sense of programmability as the Jazz Mutant Lemur, which I gave back in recent months. Yes, gave it back, and yes, I wasn’t pleased with it in the end. The concept is sound, but the programming interface wasn’t as fluid as it could have been, with the absolute deal-breaker of an unresolved issue that saw the Lemur simply dropping out a few times an hour. Which means a few times a set my primary control interface would stop working. Unacceptable to say the least, and that’s without considering the sticker price of this thing in Australia. Having said that, it was a joy to use it to write the Segue remix of Guise (which I’ve rambled on about previously), and I’m grateful to Ellaways Music for sending it to me for so long.

As for the Monome, the common uses are with software like Max/MSP and Ableton, where it can serve as a simple drum machine interface, as a clip and sample trigger, as a performance interface or simply as a means to sit in the dark and stare at flashing lights.

For me, I anticipate this operating as an interface to trigger clips and music events, as a sequencer (such as the drum machine example able, so I can construct sequences live on the spot) and as a nice tool for some warped sample mangling. Or, to be honest, as something to stare at flashing away in the dark if I get bored during soundcheck…

Tags: 40h, Jazz, Kit, Lemur, Monome, Mutant

This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 1:14 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.