i am looking forward to the new 64 and 128, i would love to get a 128
but i don't think i can get enough money, so i think i might settle for
a 64. i play guitar for a band and would love to incorperate it into
some of our songs. i was wondering if anyone knows some of the things i
could do with the guitar and monome together. i am a big fan of daedelus
and i was watching a video on youtube, and saw that he samples a guys
voice from the microphone on stage..
http://youtube.com/watch?v=84Zw-B9pwZ0
skip to about 7:45. i was wondering if this is possible with a guitar or
if it is really complicated. i was also wondering if the buttons could
trigger some effects or a combination of effects through the computer.
if you have tried anything like this or if you have any ideas that might
be possible with a guitar please let me know, i am just curious of the
possibilities.

you can do that with a 40h/64 or whatever and software downloadable from 
here. not hard at all. it'll take some practice (what daedelus does is 
HARD), but the actual technical setup/software side is easy.

i tried to put together a video showing this, but it looked a bit shit.

as for triggering effect, sure, you can do that with any midi 
controller.

thanks for the reply. cool, i figured it would just take some practice. 
so what software would have effects that could be triggered by a monome? 
and also what would be the best way to have my computer in my setup 
(guitar and amp)?

Any audio processing software package that receives MIDI and/or OSC (in 
other words, pretty much all of them) can be set up to be 
controlled/triggered by the monome. Popular choices around here include 
Max/MSP, Ableton Live, and NI Reaktor, individually or in various 
combinations.

Most programs will also offer some level of support for VST (and/or AU) 
plugins. And plugins exist to do a lot of guitar-centric effects. NI's 
Guitar Rig and IKM's AmpliTube are two fairly comprehensive packages of 
software models of classic amps and effects (that run stand-alone or as 
plugins). It's easy to very quickly create an overly complicated (or 
pleasantly complex, depending on how you look at it) software chain 
beyond what you could even imagine setting up with hardware.

At the most basic, all you'll need is an audio input device to plug your 
guitar into (that then plugs into USB or FireWire on your computer), and 
an audio processing program. Then you route the audio out from your 
computer/soundcard/IO device to your amp.

There are runtimes, demos, and lite versions of most software packages, 
so that you can get a feel for what works for you. And for where the 
monome might fit in.

thanks. sounds good. i think i might just do this instead of getting a 
million different effect pedals, i don't mind the complication.

to be honest, once you work out a system you like, i don't think it is 
more complicated than using pedals. i hardly use my pedals any more - 
i've got loads, but it's just too much of a hassle plugging them in when 
ableton live can do the same things and more.

against my better judgement, i put a little video here. it's kind of 
hard to tell what's going on. but this is all done with software from 
this site.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6timpqgfdZk

(i kind of enjoyed doing that. i might do a better one soon)

> against my better judgement, i put a little video here.
that's a great video, thanks!  I've used _mlr so I can tell what's going 
on, I haven't tried any live resampling though, looks pretty 
straightforward and usable without interrupting the work flow.

also worth pointing out, is that daedalus uses mlr live, which is free 
on this website.  it allows for realtime recording and looping of live 
recorded and pre-sampled audio (loop files).  thats or ableton, or both, 
will probably be your best bet.

> against my better judgement, i put a little video here.

I really enjoyed the video too. Inspired me to spend the last half hour 
playing my guitar through mlr as well. I had encountered trouble with 
audio input and sampling live with it in the past, and had pretty much 
given up for a while and only really played with pre-recorded samples. 
Got it to work this time though, and had some fun. No vid from me, but 
perhaps I'll think about setting something up.

thanks guys. the live input does some things better than others, i find. 
it7s hard to click the "go" button, then get your hands to the guitar. 
limits what you can do. it's good for building up washes of sound. not 
so hot for precise loops like with a boss pedal or whatever. i imagine 
it7d be cool to put a synth through it though. i love it when a plan 
comes together.

is this how tehn uses mlr live? live sampling the glockenspiel? that set 
for dublab (posted on here somewhere) kind of sounded like that. brian?

Okay. Not that anyone asked.

It gets a little boring in the middle. But you've got to start 
somewhere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgVkXi06KfQ

wooot. nice one. are you using the stock mlr there or have you modded 
it? it looked like you had more than 4sounds going at once?

nice 'stang stephen. i liked the vids, thanks guys.

stephan and revbean, very nice guys!

stephan, i love in particular the way you sampled the guitar without the 
attack transients, honestly if i didnt see that fender (jazzmaster? 
awsome guitar!) in your hands, i wouldnt even have realized it was a 
guitar.

> are you using the stock mlr there or have you modded it?

It's the stock mlr. I've got a version that I've hacked up some, 
primarily to run each group out its own channel for individual 
processing in Live. I've thought about using more groups, but recently 
I've come around a little bit on the issue.

mlr + metallophone

i think a midi footpedal mapped to "go" would be really effective. i 
believe the most recent version has midi hooks for that button.

who knows a good foot pedal solution? something simple, of course...

foot pedal is ideal, for sure.  i've mapped the buffers to eight 
separate buttons on a separate page so i can fire any one of them off 
with a single button press (no toggling between).  faster, but still 
hard to do while you're using your hands to play something else.

the weird thing is that mlr seems to always quantize buffer recording to 
quarter notes;  i.e. direct to the click it has going.  once i figured 
this out, it was a lot easier to record loops exactly as i wanted them. 
plus you can buy yourself a tiny bit of time that way (part of a quarter 
note, at least).

in a bout of ridiculous self aggrandizement, i did another one. i'm a 
lot happier with this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBuKDbjJDew

brian - for the uninitiated, what's the difference between a 
metallophone and a glockenspiel?

larger bars, lower tones, diatonic with replaceable bars... i have one 
made by suzuki, from an old elementary school i think.

Stephen: Nice video - very inspiring...

Hey, I noticed a familiar blue glow on your hand a few times - do you 
have a Sonic Impact Super T power amp, perchance?  Love mine.

thanks mate. the blue glow is from one of these: 
http://www.3dconnexion.com/products/3a1d.php

i got it to use as a midi controller. a guy wrote an OSX HID to midi 
converter app for it, but i can't find the site anymore. it's cool, but 
i've yet to figure out a useful role for it.  it's fun to be able to map 
6 CCs to one controller though. map those to macros of a impulse drum 
rack in ableton, fire up muon and you've got yourself some instant IDM.

wow, never seen those before. they loook great, a huge advance over the 
powermate (which is aweful).

how's the resolution on the rotation?

> who knows a good foot pedal solution? something simple, of course...

Hack your own from a USB keyboard:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/08/02/get-loopy-with-the-diy-10-ableton-footcontroller-no-soldering-required/

> how's the resolution on the rotation?

hmm... to be honest, in a midi controller context, it's kind of hard to 
use. i haven't got pd to recognise it as a HID device yet, only as a 
midi device via that app i mentioned, so it's hard to say whether it's 
the app or the  hardware, but it's really hard to control. it's fun for 
doing huge mental filter bank sweeps (watch the speakers...) or spacey 
effects stuff, but it's hard to do anything prescise. it also springs 
back to the center position when you let go, so you can't  move to a 
value and stay there.

that said, i'm sure it's great at 3d navigation stuff, which is what it 
was designed for. i need to try that... not really my field though.

top notch build quality - the base is a solid block metal.