MIDI SYSTEMS DIVISION
INKSEEP ELECTRONIC WORKS
One performance, bar by bar
A composition engine you play.
HAMMER · SEED 3 · 44 BARS · 136 BPM
One pixel for each note, time left to right, pitch up the rows. The take for this performance, its 13 cues and two Energy ramps, comes to 1,413 bytes and plays the same 1,113 notes again in a fresh Ostinato. 8 fill strokes fall between sixteenths and are drawn in the sixteenth they sound in.
THE CUES · WHAT EACH ONE DID
Thirteen cues
A cue is a one-shot the performer fires. The numbers are the flags along the CUES strip of the score above, and the row for the latest cue lights as it plays.
| # | BAR | CUE | WHAT IT DID | NOTES CHANGED | BARS CHANGED |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6½ | Move | The verse plays another way from bar 7. | 424 | 7–44 |
| 2 | 8½ | Fill | Bar 10 holds 42 notes against 37 in bar 9. | 85 | 10–20 |
| 3 | 10½ | Hats Out | No hats in bars 11 and 12; bar 10 had 6. | 168 | 11–44 |
| 4 | 14½ | Stinger | Bar 16 holds 5 notes against 29 in bar 15. | 364 | 15–44 |
| 5 | 16½ | Snare Out | No snare in bars 17 and 18; the kick and the pitched parts play on. | 40 | 17–40 |
| 6 | 20½ | Kit Out | The kit is silent in bars 21 to 23 and returns with 4 notes in bar 24. | 149 | 21–44 |
| 7 | 24½ | Whisper | Bars 25 and 26 average a velocity of 37 and 36, against 79 in bar 27. | 144 | 25–44 |
| 8 | 26½ | Cymbals Out | No cymbals in bars 27 and 28. | 52 | 27–44 |
| 9 | 28½ | Band Out | Only the drums play in bars 29 and 30. | 40 | 29–44 |
| 10 | 30½ | Silence Cliff | Bar 32 plays no notes at all. | 154 | 32–44 |
| 11 | 34½ | Kick Out | No kick in bars 35 and 36. | 123 | 35–40 |
| 12 | 36½ | Skeleton | Only the kick and the snare remain of the kit in bars 37 and 38. | 20 | 37–38 |
| 13 | 40½ | Drums Out | The kit is two kicks a bar in bars 41 and 42. | 20 | 41–42 |
What it did: counted from the render. Notes changed and Bars changed are the Ostinato owner’s ablation. Notes changed: notes that differ between the render with the cue and the render with that one cue removed, counted on both sides, so a changed note counts twice. Bars changed: the first and last bar holding any differing note from either side. The ear’s velocity response carries a change downstream, so both include later notes whose velocity the ear moved by a point or two, not only the notes the cue itself writes; where the cue itself acts is the first bar of the range. Rendered at Ostinato commit c0c7443.
THE LANGUAGES · FOUR WAYS TO PLAY
Four languages
Ostinato plays in four musical languages. Give each the same eight bars of chorus at the same seed and they write different music: 256 notes from Hammer, 341 from Strut, 182 from Lurch and 178 from Sprawl. Strut’s chord part alone plays 128 notes where Sprawl’s plays 16. Across 128 seeds Hammer writes 29 different chorus leads, Strut 24, and Lurch and Sprawl 4 each.
Hammer256 notes
Strut341 notes
Lurch182 notes
Sprawl178 notes
The same eight bars of chorus at seed 12. Each note is drawn as long as it was played, pitch up the page and the kit along the bottom; a note shorter than a 32nd note is drawn a 32nd note wide. Rendered at Ostinato commit c0c7443.
THE EAR · AN EAR FOR THE GROOVE
What it hears
Under the band sits an ear. It listens to everything the engine plays and to anything you play in, and it finds the beats the groove leans on. Where a kit or bass note lands on one of them, the ear pushes it harder, by up to 3 dB; no other voice is touched. A second, older listener can thin an off-beat closed hat that is already hitting hard off the grid. Over the 44 bars of this performance the two together raised 505 of 1,113 notes, 360 on the kit and 145 on the bass, and lowered 32, every one a closed hat. Every note stayed exactly where it was written.
The 1,113 notes of this performance in time order, a thin column for each; its height is the note’s velocity on the scale of 1 to 127. The ear raised 505 of them, by 1 to 29, none before bar 5, and lowered 32, by 1 to 2. Strength changes, timing never does. Rendered at Ostinato commit c0c7443.
THE MODES · TWENTY-ONE SCALES
Twenty-one modes
Ostinato plays 21 modes: the seven modes of the major scale, the seven of harmonic minor and the seven of melodic minor. Play the same four bars of Hammer in each and the notes fall in the same places every time. Of its 42 pitched notes, 32 change pitch from one mode to another.
The rings are the major scale, harmonic minor and melodic minor, seven modes each. The lit keys are the pitches played in four bars of Hammer at seed 12; the rhythm and the kit never change. Rendered at Ostinato commit c0c7443.
THE SEED · SIX HOOKS
One seed, one song
The seed chooses where each section’s returns begin and which hook the chorus carries. Here are six of Hammer’s 128 seeds.
The lead line of eight bars of chorus for seeds 0, 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7, one line each. Amber: the 7 notes every seed plays, of the 36 places where any seed has one. The small dots are the 29 where only some do. Each hook has 20 to 25 notes. Rendered at Ostinato commit c0c7443.
THE NAMEPLATE · WHAT IT IS
Nameplate
- Type
- MIDI composition engine
- Parts
- Seven: drums, bass, chords, lead, counter, pad and atmosphere
- MIDI channels
- Drums 10, bass 1, chords 3, lead 5, counter 9, pad 2, atmosphere 4; the kit can also leave in six groups on 11 to 16
- Languages
- Hammer, Strut, Lurch and Sprawl
- Modes
- 21: the modes of the major, harmonic minor and melodic minor scales, in any of twelve keys
- Sections
- Verse, Chorus, Break, Build, Drop, Intro, Pre-Chorus, Bridge and Outro, each with its own Moves
- Controls
- Section, Part, Move, Ride, Fill, Gesture, Drum Gesture, Key, Mode, Counter, Seed, Language, Section Landing, Kick Density and Energy; level and mute for each part; level, mute and Energy for each drum group. All automatable
- Clock
- The host’s transport; from the bridge, MIDI clock and song position, or its own
- Replay
- Exact, from the seed, the moves of the controls and the notes played in
- Formats
- VST3, AU and CLAP plug-ins, a standalone application and a command-line bridge