What's Generative about Nodal?

[deseipel]

I input rhythm and pitch and direction; so what's so generative about
this application? I'm new to this, so tell me what I'm missing?
Honestly, I'm looking for something that I can

1. assign an instrument
2. assign priority to beats & subdivisions of beat
3. assign a key signature or center.
4. assign the length of play
5. trigger the 'scenes' or generated sequences.
6. assign a randomness to the notes/chords played.

This application doesn't seem to do any of this, aside from defining
how long a sequence can be. Can it do all of the above? Again, I
don't see how this is 'generative'.

[Superflea]

I have to agree on this, the "generative" aspects of Nodal aren't
really being expanded as I was hoping when I first encountered the
program. Recently they added a function to shuffle notes in the Node
notes list along with other parameters, but this only means you have
to first input a series of notes and then shuffle them manually,
hardly what I would call "generative".
The same goes for all the newly added midi parameters like panning
etc., they're all manual and intended to be static, nothing generative
about them. It seems they are trying to market it more as a live
performance tool for predefined sequences.

Nodal needs to start generating random events, not having the user
input them and then choosing them from a static list. The only thing
that makes Nodal generative so far is the option for a node to choose
randomly where it is going in a network, but still the bulk of the job
is manually entering options for the node to choose from.

As you mention, Nodal should also be able to trigger individual scenes
and sequences, and these should be contained in some folder rather
than occupying screen space.

This has all been discussed in the past as well, but the forums are so
dead and the developers so quiet that one never knows what's going to
happen with the program.

[mikusan]

I'm not so sure that generative=random. To my ears, randomly generated
music/rhythms rapidly become unlistenable. With a little imagination,
it's quite possible to create most of the effects you mention in
Nodal. I have to say I do like your idea of being able to store
networks in folders, though.

[Superflea]

I don't mean it has to be totally random. Ideally one would be able to
define a series of notes or an octave etc.
Complete randomness is not ideal in most cases, but it shouldn't be
completely left out as an option for the user to experiment with.

Picture Nodal showing you a keyboard with an octave and you just
select the keys you want to include in the note "pool", then the node
selects a random note every time it is triggered. Obviously one would
still have the option to determine a static sequence like before. The
point is having options.
Same for panning etc., I would like to have the option to have a node
that for instance plays a random note panned at random every time is
plays. Same for project tempo changing over time.

[mi.h...@btinternet.com]

I see your point, you're talking about a sort of 'rule-based' system like KOAN, and I can definitely see the attraction. I still think it should be possible to simulate that kind of approach using a series of triggered networks. You don't even need to use MIDI triggering to achieve this - just a very big network:) The last big piece of music I made with Nodal made a lot of use of multiple paths which were controlled purely by count, switching between networks of different lengths. The overall network took up a lot of screenspace, but I think it worked well.   And I agree that it would be nice to see the developers weighing in a bit more often ;)

[Jon McCormack]

Hi all,
Most of the things you're talking about can already be done with Nodal
1.7 - for example you can play a set of notes on a keyboard and they
will be assigned to the pitch list of the current node or group of
selected nodes. You can then use the shuffle function to shuffle the
order.

If you want to randomise further you can assign random branching to a
node, or set of nodes, and that will give you plenty of random
variation, even with fairly simple networks.

One new feature we are working on is the ability to define sets of
notes and registers that form an expanded form of "key signature", so
that when you use the relative increments and decrements in a pitch
list you can generate sequences that are more musically meaningful.
Currently relative changes are limited to the full 12 tone pitches
(i.e. just all the MIDI note numbers), which is limiting. We also plan
to expand the syntax in pitch, velocity and timing lists to allow
polyphony, more complex ordering of sequences (maybe even random) and
conditionals.

We have thought about the idea of collapsing a network into a single
node (like folders in a file system), so the network becomes more
hierarchical, but this presents many problems (both conceptual and
technical) so is unlikely to be implemented. One possibility would be
to define network layers whose visibility can be turned on and off,
but again this may make the interface more complex than really
necessary.

We are also looking into the possibility of developing a new version
of Nodal for portable devices, such as the iPad. We'd be keen to know
if there is any interest from users in this idea.

We welcome and do take note of any suggestions for features posted on
this group or sent to our support email. Please bear in mind that we
have very limited resources and have to prioritise new features
according to feasibility, time required to implement, backward
compatibility and utility.
Regards,

Jon

[Oliveira]

Hi,

I've been following the development of this app since it's very beginnings, and I thing it's a great one!

To some extent I've tried to incorporate it in my compositional routine, as some very good material facilitator.

Every since I bought an iPad I was wondering when this app would be available to the iOS.

The idea of a Nodal for iPad is simply brilliant, with touch screen being the perfect fit to create arrays of nodes and connections.

More impressive would be if it could communicate with the desktop thru OSC.

That would be a "on the fly" generative music creation heaven.

Looking forward to seeing such app.

Congratulations on all the achievements up until now!

Best wishes,

Oliveira

[Jon McCormack]

Thanks for your comments Oliveira.
We have looked into the possibility of an iOS version of Nodal,
however the user interface library that we use does not have an iOS
port, meaning we would have to re-write a large part of the software
to create an iOS version. Currently we don't have the resources to do
that, but it might be a possibility in the future. Adding OSC
functionality is also on the list of "todos", so that may appear in a
future release, depending on resources available.
Kind Regards,

Jon

[Irfon-Kim Ahmad]

You can do a lot of translation between OSC and MIDI, in the meantime,
using tools like OSCulator. Since you can trigger parts and modify
certain kinds of behaviour via MIDI, it's certainly possible to drive a
copy of Nodal running on the desktop via a custom-designed interface in,
say, TouchOSC, running on an iPad.

On 13-02-18 4:34 PM, in...@kalwaltart.it wrote:
> I think that OSC protocol will be very useful and will expand the
> possibility of using this software. Anyway it's a pleasure to do
> creative stuff with it!

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "nodal - generative music software" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to nodal+un...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to no...@googlegroups.com.
> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nodal?hl=en.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>
>