M4L Featured Patch #1: r-chain-d-m 2.0
With this first featured Max for live patch we will be taking a look at a personal favorite of mine r-chain d-m 2.0
I just call it r-chain as to not get confused in my mind when i want to use it for something.
I first stumbled across this when I was looking for a Audio to Midi plugin. After a bit of googling, I found this patch that pretty much did what I wanted. It takes the audio from any channel and lets you control up to 4 different midi controls on any device or plugin. you can do some pretty cool creative stuff with it such as...
control the reverb amount from a kick drum change the delay time from a vocal change the reverb time from bass-line control the feedback amount from a live vocal or guitar input. create advance faux side chain compression :) overdrive or add distortion on a vocal every time there is a kick drum or if this goes bang or doof then control that :)
you might be noticing a trend there of it working well with transient material (kicks, snares, drums ect) , but with a bit of tweaking you can get some interesting things if you use it on more flatter audio such as back ground ambience and get parameters slightly modulating. using it say on a chorus effect using a pad or texture as the modulation source would give some sweet subtle variation and just help add a tiny bit of shimmer on guitar track.
It's one of the more simple ones to use as you just throw it on a audio track (such as a drum loop which is your modulation source) and click GetDevices button far left (which just looks through your current session). Then just use one of the 4 control areas to drive what parameter you want from the selected device. You can also set the Mod amounts and input levels for more fine tuned control which works a bit like a noise gate.
It's created by the user rdm over on http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device.php?id=278 head there now and download the .amxd file and drag it in your library.