A little under a year ago, in April 2004, I started working on a simple audio manipulation program in Max/MSP for looping and combining audio files already on my hard drive. Frustrated with shaping my thinking to fit linear audio editing environments, I wanted to create a tool that was more fluid to re-contextualize and re-experience samples seeing little action buried in unfinished audio projects. Some of my most rewarding musical experiences have come from stumbling upon unexpected combinations of sound that just work.
Anyone who has improvised with other musicians probably knows that feeling when everyone spontaneously lands on something out of nowhere that really clicks.
LUPR is a good start at facilitating that experience. Since LUPR runs from a BPM clock and can save out .aifs, it’s easy to fiddle around while recording LUPR’s output, and drop the result into an Ableton Live or Digital Performer project. I rely on it now as a fresh way to generate some interesting source material and breathe new life into old samples. Now you can download LUPR and play around with it for yourself..
Tips:
When you open LUPR, click the button (‘open main folder’) to specify the main directory LUPR will pull samples from. Because LUPR will look through subdirectories, I usually pick my main Digital Performer directory and it pulls in all the audio clips from my various projects. Anything with white text and a black bg is either a pulldown or something you can enter a number value into. So you can view all the samples LUPR found by clicking on the pulldown to the left of the start button.
Press space to start playback. LUPR is basically one set of modules (in a horizontal row) repeated four times. Each row has an etcha-sketch like module for you to draw into, a buffer module, an envelope module, a clean signal module and a fader module. Draw something random into the etcha-sketch module. Based on the x and y coordinates of the points of the lines you drew, LUPR sends out ‘bangs’ (control signals) at the rate specified (ex: 0.5 representing eighth notes) at the given BPM to the other modules in that row. This is way less complicated than it sounds; the bangs automate some of the other modules parameters.
The buffer module’s output is sent to both the envelope module and the clean module which even have their own filter and auto-pan capabilities as well as their own volume slider (E for the enveloped module and C for the clean module). This whole module row is repeated four times..
You can record LUPR’s output to .aif. First specify a filename (click the ‘open’ button underneath the Master volume control on the right). Then click the record button. Nice.
There are a lot of bugs and things I’ve been meaning to update but haven’t gotten around to it. If you’re interested I’m posting the source patches (you’ll need Max/MSP to open them). If you feel like fiddling and improving, go for it and drop me an email!
Downloads:
» Download LUPR v0.4 (for Mac OSX only)
» Download the source files (requires Max/MSP)
MP3s made with LUPR, unedited:
» sombaa.mp3 by mark forscher
» lupr.mp3 by tones