Using EA1 or ESX as a LIVE sequencer

[phillwilson]

Howdi, Im Phill AKA MyOneManBand

my act for the last 8 years has centered around live looping recording sound elements from multiple instruments on the fly.


(if you want the short version go to bellow the page break)

as my practice has evolved I have begun to dabble in syncing my loops up to groove boxes, I have an electribe and a Kopro.... so far so good.

I have a crazy system at work for my drums where I can arm an empty track on the electribe R.. then play it IN live using the handsonic (the live element is very important ot me rather then playing precreated patches)

what I have hit upon this week is it I connect my second Handsonic 15 to the OUT of the electribe , I can get the drum machine to trigger the sounds stored in the hand sonic.

the next evolution for me was to create some pitched scales on the Handsonic (xylophone / kalimba etc) and get them to play instead of a drum part.......I loved this as I could morph between the actual drum sounds of the Electribe over to the Melodic parts of the Handsonic all the while still playing the same sequence.

the next logical step was turning drum parts....and therefore notes withing the sequence... on and off.
Now I know to many of you this will be old hat, but to me this is my first experiance of "live looping" somthing that is then NOT fixed...I can keep it all spinning in time with my loops but also add variation by turning parts on and off.

which has finally got me thinking

-----------------CAN I DO HE FOLLOWING WITH AN EA / ESX UNIT----


hook up my MicroKorg to the midi Input...

arm record on the electribe and play in the notes I want to play (lets say CFGF In a repeated 16 step pattern)

have these notes then output as notes to another unit lets say my proteus 2000 to be played on a sound of my choice.



I know that these units have more then one part.

because of some crazy midi limitations other pieces of gear impose, I need all my synths on one channel (dont ask)

can I set these parts to both trigger the same channel? IE if I played C C C C F F F F on part two an octave down.............. would this then let me have the CFGF "loop" and the bass counterpoint off CCCCFFFF all on one channel? .......think of two hands playing one piano if you are wondering where I am going with this)

cos that would be a very powerful way of recording a phrase that I could then modify over time by adding / removine / changing steps



thanks for any advice / comments....... by the way I know Im mad.....I take al this stuff all the way to another city each monday just to do an open mic slot !!!

[Pastor-of-Muppets]

can I set these parts to both trigger the same channel?

I haven't tried it myself, but yes, that should work, allowing you to sequence two notes at once on the same channel - I might try it tonight when I get home

good luck getting it working, your setup sounds very interesting!

[phillwilson]

just a quick follow up......I have now bought and tried this it works great

so you can even have 2 channels going to two diferant synths

1 OR 2 channels going to a device like the microkorg were you can split layers on a single patch

or 1 channel for both keyboard parts allowing you to "fake" 2 level polyphony by having each keyboard part sequence a differant melody line.


this is the option I am currantly going with... I will have bleepy glitchy patch set up in the MicroKorg and add in a simple melody

then select the second keyboard part on the esx and shift it up a few octaves , then bang out a second melody

unmute and mute to flavour !!!

also loving that I can hold one part of the sound static whilst riding the arp slider to create evolving poly rythms.


another very easy to comprehend way of discribing the ESX is that is offers similar but massivly enhanced settings to the korg DS-10