Welcome to the world of Musolomo
Musolomo is an Audio Unit plugin for Mac OS X. It allows real-time sampling and playback in a unique way. Musolomo was conceived as a musicians version of the lomo camera- a quick and easy way to capture moments in time. However, don't be decieved. Musolomo is immensly powerful, accurate and flexible.
BE WARNED: this is no ordinary plugin.
If you think you can simply 'mouse around' it to get an idea of it's power, then you are wrong. You need some audio (live is awesome), a controller keyboard and some time. Because Logic Express can't send MIDI to effects and has no sidechain to send audio to instruments, it can't be used as a host for Musolomo.
Usage Examples
You are working on a remix. You want a way to very quickly chop up a loop into sections. You can actually play the way you want it chopped, as the sample plays. Then you have a complete musical bar, or phrase mapped across a large amount of samples, which you can then play back in any order you want.
You are performing with some loops, and youwant a musical way to add breakdowns and fills to a loop, so you sample some on the fly and simply play occasional 'fills' made of the original source material.
You use your computer like a hardware looper, sampling and triggering, erasing and re-mapping without the need to look at the screen.
You are beatboxing, and you wish there was a way to capture samples as quickly as you can come up with them.
You are in a band. You have an electric guitarist in the band you are in. She plays a riff, and you can instantly sample that line and play back a new melody, with her own notes in the next bar as a response.
So we'll go through the parts of Musolomo. Although this manual follows a traditional hardware sampler type order, almost all of ML's functions never require you to stop to think about order, or to consult the screen.
DISCLAIMER
Musolomo is FREE. It is provided with no guarantee whatsoever. The makers are not liable you suffer damage, loss, injury or death from the use of this software....
It uses parts of freeverb, by Jezar, for the freeze function.
Drag and Drop Audio files
If you just want to get audio into Musolomo without recording, you can simply drag an audio file from the finder into the Musolomo GUI, and then press the MIDI note you want it assigned to.
In Ableton Live this is a little tricky, because Live hides the AudioUnit GUIs when Live is not the frontmost app. So you need to move a finder window with your file next to Ableton Live, re-select Ableton Live as the front most app, and then drag the file from finder into Musolomo.
Notes:
- If a sample dragged is very short (say a hi-hat hit) musolomo will NOT loop the sound.
- If the dragged sample is short musolomo will play the sample from beginning to end without stopping. This helps you make a 'drumkit'-like musolomo.
- Musolomo has a limit of 50Mb. So you cannot currently drag in full songs etc.
- Auto-loop sync. Musolomo will try to guess the BPM of the file and timestretch it to be in time (only for full bars of 4/4). If you want to overide this, then command+drag
Recording
OK, let's rock.
Musolomo is designed to be used without the need to look at the screen, so practice looking away now. OK, you're back now. Great. Load up Musolomo in your favourite Audio Unit Host. We'll use Ableton Live (http://www.ableton.com) as our example. In Live you need to set up Musolomo as follows:
Put Musolomo in an audio channel. On a MIDI channel, enable record. In the MIDI TO menu select the Musolomo track, and the Musolomo Audio Unit. In other hosts, simply make sure that Musolomo is receiving MIDI and AUDIO.
Apple Logic Pro musolomo setup: Put Musolomo in an instrument channel. Then use sidechain to select the audio track that will be used to send AUDIO to Musolomo. The Musolomo track must be the currently selected one in order to receive MIDI.
To use in Rax: insert Musolomo as an Effect, go to the Source menu and select the appropriate Audio Source, turn up the appropriate Sends in the mixer, and start sampling
Recording
You can set up any MIDI mapping you want at all, but by default MIDI note C3 is the recording event. To record, hold down C3 and press and hold the note you would like to record on to. Release the note and recording will end. You now have a sample which you can play back on this note. The sample is also extrapolated to either side of this note, allowing you to play a melody with your new sample.
Notes across the range are pitch adjusted leaving timing intact.
Sample Record Timing
Note that ML has some very advanced timing options.
No Sync
When recording with no host sync NO SYNC selected;
Recording will not commence until the RECORD THRESHOLD has been exceeded
This is mainly useful for things like manually recording a voice, etc, with no sync.
Beat Sync and Bar Sync
When recording with BEAT SYNC SELECTED or BAR SYNC selected you must have the host in play mode.
Beat and bar sync is quite intelligent and easy to use. If you press within the first half of a beat, then the recording will actually commence before you press the note. That is, a buffer of audio is always available which will be added to the beginning of the sample, just like you had actually pressed the key on time.
If you trigger recording anywhere in the second half of the bar, then recording will commence at the next downbeat. (The beginning of the next bar)
All of this applies for note off. The sounds stop at next sync point, except if you are little late, it will stop immediately. A recording can't be shorter than a beat or a bar.
You can choose to have the samples play back in the mode they were recorded by choosing 'AS RECORDED'.
Autolooper mode
This feature is VERY powerful, like a hardware looping pedal, but better in some ways.
There are 3 buttons/ triggers that relate to Autolooper -
- Hold - this activates Autolooper mode when held
- Alternate - this allows event on/ next event off style triggering
- 'Stop Prior' - this stops (not deletes) the last sample from playing, if sample is still being recorded then it DOES delete that sample.
It's simple. Autolooper mode will record until de-activated, at which time it will commence playing back the current sample. It automatically assigns the sample sequentially to the next free space after C3.
Activating Autolooper repeatedly will generate layers of sound. You can keep recording layers of sound, like a hardware looping pedal in 'overdub mode', until memory is full. musolomo has a set limit of a little under 2 mins of stereo audio at 44.1k, 16bit.
Autolooper notes
- All samples are actually separate, so you can always turn off certain ones, and use them separately later on
- Musolomo's amazing pre-buffering systems means that you don't have to press the Autolooper button exactly on time. You can even press it after you have started playing!
- Autolooper will record at the quantization set (eg, bar, beat, none). It will also trigger newly created samples on that quantization, NOT the playback quantization
- 'Stop Last' allows an 'escape' from a bad take/ overdub. Simply press it before 'releasing' Autolooper mode. This sample will not be recorded/mapped.
- Stop Last also allows you to stop the most recent loop playing (after it commenced playback). This does not delete the sample though, so you can use this to create an effect in a performance, and not actually delete the sample. For example, say you build up a guitar 'bed' and then do an interesting loop, repeats for a while, then 'Stop Last'. Guitar bed continues. Another interesting loop, etc. Pressing Stop Last multiple times will do nothing. Just look out for memory usage!
Tips
- You can force a note to 'stick' by assigning legato mode to a note (always a cool idea). Press the 'legato' note, then the note you want to stick, and then release the 'legato' mode. The note will then stick, looping without you needing to hold it down. Useful for breaking down Autolooper overdubs, and then rebuilding them.
- DJs: Autolooper is the FASTEST way to create a crossover/ bridge section. Put musolomo in Fill mode, and Autolooper a few bars at the end of a song. It will loop for eternity, allowing creative changeovers.
- Singers can use Autolooper as a super easy looper. One button, and you don't even have to trigger it on time!
- All notes off (Panic button) will stop the samples from playing. Or 3 triggers of 'erase' midi function will erase all sample and stop playback.
Playback
Playback can be with or without syncronization to the host. ML tries to be quite musical about this
Back in Time
Back in time is a simple way to compensate for latency from hardware and software. When using autolooper, you probably need to compensate for latency, otherwise tracks will tend to get out of time.
No Sync
Sample is played as soon as triggered, as is.
To Beat
If you trigger the sample anywhere in the first half of the beat, then the sample commences playing immediately, from the point it would be at if you had triggered playback at the beginning of the beat.
If you trigger the sample anywhere in the last half of the beat, then playback will only commence at the begginning of the next beat.
To Bar
Same characteristics, but they apply for a whole bar.
As Recorded
This will trigger samples according to the quantize type (NO SYNC, TO BEAT, TO BAR) that the sample was originally recorded in.
Playback is also affected by the playback parameters.
Note that samples are time-stretched to match any changes in the host tempo. Also, note than if you release a key before the sound has started then that note is cancelled.
Keymapping, Copying and Erasing
As soon as you record a sample, Musolomo will automatically map it to all the keys surrounding it. If you then add a second sample, Musolomo will map the new sample up to halfway between the two. If you have MIDI notes assigned to functions, then musolomo will work around. Best to use really high notes, or really low notes to control MIDI functions.
Copying
You can remap samples by COPYING then to new places. Hold the 'copy' key (D3 by default) and select the sample source, then pressing the destination note (all while holding the copy MIDI key). Your note is now copied to the new place.
Erasing
You can erase a sample by holding the 'erase' key (C#3 by default) and pressing the sample you want to erase.
You can erase this sample, and all cloned samples of this one, by pressing the erase key twice (and holding the second time) and then selecting the original sample note.
Erase All
You can erase all notes by triple pressing the erase key.
Note that you can also use the GUI to control these functions. Also note that Live's own MIDI-mapping mode is based on a toggle system. That is, press once to turn on RECORD, press again to turn it off. Best to use musolomos MIDI mapping (control clicking on GUI) for reliability.
Playback Parameters
Tape Speed
This is a simple tape emulation, where slowing the speed will lower the pitch. You can also add inertia (momentum) to this action by increasing the Playback Momentum amount. This will make the speed (and pitch) change gradually.
Time Stretch and Pitch Shift
Allows you to change these two variables independently. Note that the sample is automatically time stretched if the host tempo changes, in order to keep playback in time.
Looping
Turning looping on will loop the sample from start to finish.
Play Through
OFF
None of the source audio is heard
FILL
The source audio is heard until you start playing back notes from Musolomo, which then mutes the source until you stop playing.
ON
The source audio is mixed with the output from Musolomo
Legato
When legato is on, you can only play one note at a time. if you press a note, and then press another (whilst holding the original) the sample will continue to play, but now at the new pitch.
Legato mode is nice. Try it. take a complex sample, like a few bars of music, and play them in legato mode - nice eh? Legato mode is smart - it will remember the previous note and return to that. This allows you to 'trill', to alternate quickly between two notes by holding one and banging on the other - really nice sound with song samples. It will also use the most recent velocity - very handy.
Just a few quick notes for you:
- you can turn legato on and off with a midi trigger - this can be really cool and handy.
-
Bugfeature: if play and hold a note, then turn on legato, then release the note, then release Legato, the note will 'stick'. This is useful if you want to leave a loop running. Be aware. You can always just press the note again to stop it, or use All Sounds Off.
Bo and Scratchet
The Scratchet slider is like a DJ's scratch technique. At the extreme end, playback is normal. When the Scratchet is in the middle section, it allows scratching. On the opposite end, you can make musolomo play in reverse. Remember, if you leave Scratchet in the middle, you won't hear anything when you trigger a sample.
Bo allows you to 'bow' through sound in the way that a violinist can bow a note. The faster you move the slider (in either direction), the faster you travel through the sample in a forward motion. This allows very precise travel though the sample, with interesting results.
Digiskip
This is a unique system of Musolomo. It's very good. It is built to allow you to travel anywhere within a sample with a 4 bar range (of 4/4) and with a 1/8th note accuracy. It is still being refined for other time signatures.
Basically it allows you to have your left hand (etc) on the keyboard, covering 5 keys/buttons, controlling the start time of the sample. Other hand for normal note playing.
Each of your left-hand fingers controls a 'bit' of a binary number= the size of the Start offset For the below example I have mapped the notes as:
C#/ Db to 2 bars
D#/Eb to 1 bar
F#/Gb to 1/2 note
G#/ Ab to 1/4 note
A#/ Bb to 1/8 note
So holding down any combination offsets the start time of the next sample triggered. If you want the sample to start playing half a bar into the second bar, then you would hold down the '1 bar' offset and the 1/2 note offset at the same time, the press the sample that you want.
If sample is less than, or equal to that length, then sample starts an 1/8th note before end of sample.
Back in Time slider
This is useful for situation where latency is incurred when recording, say in an acoustic looping situation. This slide allows time correction for sync'd playback (including Autolooper), to compensate for delay from the AD-DA process.
Freeze
Freeze creates a smooth 'single frame' of the current sound from the main outs (including audio being passed through) very useful for breaking into something new. Just be wary of Freezing something like a snare!
MIDI Event Mapping
(this is one of the few parts of Musolomo that require you to look at the screen)
You can map multiple MIDI events/ notes to any parameter.
Musolomo handles this with it's own method, although you can also use your own hosts MIDI mapping functions. Live tends treat mapping differently, so we reccommend using musolomo's internal GUI mapping.
To map an event to a paramenter, control-click with the mouse , then play the midi note/ event. You can map two MIDI events to one control.
If you have already bound a bunch of midi events to the parameter, and want to erase only one of these mappings, then control-click on a parameter and press that event. This will un-map the event to this parameter.
To delete all the mappings to a parameter, control click twice on the parameter
All mappings are saved in Muso pref file (saved when you quit the host). So you only have to define them once.
Saving Presets and Samples
Samples are saved within the preset file, and so will generate quite large files.
These can be found here:
{your user home ~}/Library/Audio/presets/plasq.com/musolomo/{your preset filename}
Colour Modes
Musolomo is designed to be used with minimal visual attention. To aid this, when entering a mode, such as RECORD, ERASE, COPY, and Autolooper the GUI border will flash a colour whilst in the mode. This allows you to focus on the music, a very quick glance at the screen can confirm any mode.
See also the PAQ and the Videos
THE END :)
Credits and Thanks
Coding and design by Airy André aka Airy.
Original concept, additional design by Keith Lang aka SongCarver.
GUI and additional design by Cris Pearson aka atariboy.
This manual by everybody.
Many thanks to Airy who put up with my endless emails, and who created a tool way beyond my intitial spec! - Keith
You can find out what a lomo camera is at www.lomography.com
