I see three areas that this project could evolve towards:

1) Group laptop improvisations – where the samples generated in the studio are shared among all performers in either free improvisation, or with each laptop performer designated a role (e.g. beats, melody, bass/drone, effects processing).
The collective output of these performances could then easily be recorded as polished album pieces. A system for recording synchronization between all laptops could easily be implemented over a wireless network (these files would then have to be mixed down), or an instant master recording could be made through the PA mixer.

2) Laptops with shared samples (as above) blended with live processing of acoustic instruments via microphones. In this case the recording space and quality of microphones would become an important factor as to the quality of the final product – a limiting factor that a purely laptop ensemble would not have.

3) The final logical extension of this is not only processing the live audio stream, but also capturing and manipulating fragments of it in real-time during, and as part of, the performance. With software custom designed for this purpose, both the individual sample fragments and the master output of each laptop could be saved at the end of the recording session – thus resulting in instant polished pieces of music with little or no post-production necessary, as well as generating processed collections of samples that would require little or no editing.

This third option would ideally be undertaken by ensembles that play together regularly, so that a feedback loop of samples from previous sessions could inform the development of future sessions.

As the process has evolved, I've explored the idea of a fixed improvisation setup - i.e. in the Streamland instrument, having several sample slots and effects pre-loaded and pre-MIDI-mapped. This way, at least a core set of controls could get into my muscle-memory, and I could develop a more immediate and focused auditory-tactile relationship, relying less on my eyes.

What eventually evolved was not to have anything pre-mapped, but rather to just develop a flexible consistency. This generally involved:

    -sample on-off triggers and sample reverse buttons in the same place on the     QWERTY keyboard each time

    -volume faders mapped to the same or similar places (depending on what         samples need a fader, and what could be grouped together on a single fader)

    -core effects mappings - for the basic effects setup that has been used             almost everytime, and sometimes augmented with additional effects - dials     mapped to delay time, delay feedback, reverb room size

This would typically result in the entire control setup consisting of approximately:

    -20 QWERTY keys
    -8 faders
    -4 dials
    -and the laptop track-pad

This setup is also completely portable - MIDI mappings were done with an Icon iControl, and I've now switched to a Korg NanoKontrol. Apart from this, just a laptop and headphones.

Notes for refinement based on the improvisation process so far:

    -often leaving loops playing for too long

    -most of the first 6 recordings did not feature much prominent performative     FX tweaking, sample micro-looping, granular-suspension

    -tended to either be spacey and fragmented, or totally reliant on loop sync.     Would like a balance of both

    -need to do some pre-preparation of ‘sections’ of musical material, so can         easy change from one to the next and stay in flow

    -often turning up high pitched samples too loud for too long, they generally     don’t need to be as loud as the rest

    -volume dynamics always slow, or immediate cuts. Other dynamics speeds,     and techniques like swells and fluctuations

    -not using any panning techniques – static or dynamic – on samples or FX

    -not being bold with FX, not experimenting with new techniques and                 combinations

    -apart from glitch sounds, otherwise all high fidelity – explore low fidelity in     other aspects – perhaps process samples in Audition, or get some of the             dirtier mixdowns, and explore the textures of noise floors, etc

    -reveal the inner working of the technology through the music – travel             further away from sounding like acoustic recordings

    -lack of rhythmic samples and combined samples in the collection – do a few     Audition sessions of editing together rhythms and combining rhythms of             different instruments together

I began my laptop improvisations in an unfinished prototype Max instrument, which was an evolution of one of my older instruments - Square Bender.

As I zeroed in on the improvisation phase, I decided that this would be the only instrument I'd use - so as not to dilute my performative focus.

So I named this instrument Streamland and has now undergone a series of transformations as the improvisations unfolded:

-sample muting that retains loop position - so samples can be muted without going out of sync or being retriggered

-phase offset of synced loops - shift the position at which synced loops intersect. This retains uniform loop lengths, but can offset start position of each sample

-loop syncing in reverse, and loop syncing for selections of sample fragments (i.e. keeping the loop synced when only a part of the sample is selected, not the whole thing) - this was essentially just a bug that needed fixing. The grain-stretched loop syncing is not very tight, but it has an organic glitchy charm

-added MIDI and QWERTY keyboard pitch control (for non-granular playback only) - this is old-school pitch shifting without time-stretching. Although I could alter playback speed before, there was no way to land accurately on a pitch

-added portamento to pitch control – slide between sample playspeeds/pitches. A fine addition to the record-player-style repertoire of performative controls

-added synchronization for non-grain player (non-pitch correcting) - I added this mainly for syncing non-pitched material (e.g. percussive loops or noise) without granular distortion. The granular syncing wasn't tight enough for some purposes, and the non-pitch correction in this addition often adds richness to the sound-world

-added reversing to MIDI note control of samples - so MIDI note can set playspeed in forwards or reverse

-added MIDI button mapping for sample triggering and reversing - this frees up QWERTY keys for pitch control (MIDI note input)


[note: this instrument is not available to the public yet, but should be within the next 6 months]

A few things regarding the scope of the project that I've been considering and/or adjusting along the way. These are as much for me to keep track of future iterations of this project as much as anything else.

1) I had the idea early on to create visual artworks that I'd bring to the studio that the performers would look into while improvising. I'd then use these same artworks when I did my laptop improvisations - to explore a kind of atmospheric perceptual consistency. I didn't explore this due to the time and expenses involved but I'd still like to in the future

2) Whether or not to include my own samples (i.e. those that I had created / performed myself) into the sample bank has been an ongoing question. At first I saw no problem with it, but after beginning my improvisations I discovered how far outside my comfort zone I was forced by not doing so. I recorded one improvisation with a sampled beat (a Native Instruments sample, so not really in the spirit of this project), and although the piece still resonated with me, it didn't feel as liberating as the others, where non-reliance on the grounding of a sampled beat necessitated much more structural ingenuity and spontaneity

3) I've been grounding this research in the concept of "group mind" improvisation, but in an asynchronous sense - where we are improvising together, but at different points in time. What this lacks is the feedback from me to the performers - it's only a one-way dialogue, me responding to them. Some ideas were proposed by my peers, such as playing my improvisations to a second round of studio performers and getting their musical responses to that, etc. This kind of feedback mechanism may also be developed in future iterations