Bouncy Notes is a MIDI device that generates notes based on the simulation of bouncing balls.
This can be used to generate organic rhythms and melodies or to add lifelike variations to existing ideas.
Notice that when I play a note on my keyboard, a bouncing ball is created
and every time the ball hits the piano roll at the bottom of the graphic, the same note is played again.
When the ball reaches the end of its lifetime or it starts bouncing, it's removed.
Let's start by controlling some parameters that influence the physics simulation at the heart of the device.
Notice that when I turn up 'Gravity,' balls bounce faster and harder.
You can hear that when the ball hits the piano roll harder
the resulting velocity of the outcoming MIDI note is higher.
And because my Operator pad here is velocity sensitive harder notes result in louder and brighter sounds.
Compare that to when I turn the Gravity back down. Notice the sounds are much softer and less abrasive.
I can also control the 'Mass' of each note. You can actually see the balls getting bigger and smaller here,
and I can scale the 'Speed' of the physics simulation up or down here.
Turning up the Friction dramatically reduces the number of times balls bounce,
since every time the ball bounces against the piano roll, Friction reduces its speed.
To the right are two parameters that control how the velocity of the incoming MIDI notes
influence the Gravity and Mass of the balls.
So to demonstrate this, I have a simple MIDI clip with a chord progression
and you might notice that the notes of the chord progression are all at different velocities.
So if I go back to Bouncy Notes here and press play,
and turn up the Friction here, turn down the speed,
So watch what happens when I turn up the Velocity Sensitivity and how that influences the Gravity.
Notice now that certain notes are falling much more quickly than others.
This is because higher velocity translates to more gravity.
I can also have the Velocity adjust the mass of each ball, so if I turn this up,
you might notice that certain balls are now much larger than others.
Both of these parameters can be used in tandem and also be put to negative values
to add more variation and life to your MIDI clips.
Next, I'd like to talk about the Drop Mode so currently Drop is set to Press, which means
that when I press down a key on my keyboard, a ball is created.
I can also change this to 'Release,' so when I let go of a note on my keyboard, a ball is created.
I can control how long balls stick around for using the 'Lifetime' parameter.
Currently, 'Lifetime' is set to 4B, which means that balls can stick around for up to four bars
before they are removed. Balls can be removed much more quickly, though, if they stop bouncing.
So notice that when I turn down the Lifetime here, balls can actually be removed
before they even hit the notes at the bottom.
If I like balls to be generated automatically, I can turn on 'Auto' here.
Auto only works if Live's transport is running. So let's turn off this MIDI clip here and press play.
Underneath 'Auto' is the rate at which new balls are added: currently one bar. I can make it faster or slower.
Notice though, that balls accumulate very quickly.
I can control this by turning down the number of voices which limits the number of balls playing at once.
Sweet.
Now, so far, you can already see the potential for generating organic rhythms and evolving sounds,
but it's not super musical just yet.
If we click the Piano button on the button-right, we can fix the balls to a particular key or scale.
So let's change the scale here to 'major pentatonic' and I'll change the tonic to C,
and I'll change the starting note to C2.
Next, I'll lower the range here so the balls can only travel 12 notes above C2 on the scale and press play.
Sweet, now it all sounds like it's the same key, but the rhythm is still a little bit wild,
so let's quantize it using the 'Quantize' feature here.
Now the notes are fixed to a particular grid.
In addition to quantizing, I can also affect the Note Length,
so for example, say I'm playing a note here when Note Length is set to auto
the notes created by the bouncing ball will be the same as the note that I used to generate the ball in the first place.
So, for example, if I really quickly tap a key, you'll notice that the notes generated by the bouncing ball
are also very short and plucky.
If I hold out that same key, the resulting notes created by the bouncing ball are also held out.
I can also fix the Note Length, so when I'm generating notes automatically...
I can make them short and plucky by making the Note Length very small.
Or turn it up to make the notes more long and sustained.
I can also randomize the note, like here.
Keep in mind that 'Random Length' usually doesn't do anything when 'Note Length' is set to auto.
One exception to this would be say, if I'm holding out a note,
then a random length would be assigned based on the 'Random Length' parameter.
Let's turn up the Gravity to make the notes hit harder.
And I'll turn up the Note Length.
I can also increase the Fade Out, which turns down the velocity of the balls every time they bounce.
This is useful for a more percussive effect.
'Filter' prevents notes from creating balls that aren't in the scale, so, for example,
if I turn 'Filter' on and I play a note, say, C-sharp, that is not in the major pentatonic scale,
it won't generate a ball. If I put a note that is in the scale, a ball will be created.
So far, balls have only fallen straight down, but we can also have them travel in a particular direction.
Let's do this by clicking and dragging the yellow bar at the top.
Now balls will be thrown to the right.
I can also push them to the left as well.
Or if I prefer, I can completely randomize the direction.
I can also control the height from which the balls are dropped using this vertical slider.
If I'd like, I can have the velocity of the incoming MIDI notes
control the height from which the balls are dropped.
So if I turn this up to 100% and really smash a note here,
you'll notice that the ball comes down from the top.
If I hit a key softly on my keyboard, it'll start from the bottom.
To create some stutters and glitches, I can freeze all the balls in place using the Freeze button here.
I can change the behavior of the balls when they bounce up against the piano roll, or the the slides of the graphic.
so I'll turn up Random Direction here and maybe skew them to the right.
So for the balls hitting the bottom, I have the option to wrap them,
which means balls will come back to the place they were dropped from whenever they hit the piano roll.
Or I can completely randomize the position whenever they hit the bottom of the graphic.
Similar things can be done when the balls hit the sides.
I can either wrap them back into the original position,
or randomize the position...
or delete them when they hit the sides.
Let's put them both back to 'Bounce' here.
Finally, over on the far right, are global parameters,
so at the top is 'Velocity Ball' that controls how much the velocity of the ball hitting the piano roll
affects the Note Out velocity. So if I turn this all the way down...
That means that no matter how hard the balls are striking the piano roll,
they're going to be outputting the same velocity no matter what.
'Thru' controls, the resulting velocity of MIDI notes I'm putting into the device,
you can think of this sort of like a dry parameter on an audio effect.
So if I turn 'Thru' all the way down and try playing some notes on my MIDI keyboard, they won't pass through.
If I turn it back up, they will.
'Gain' scales the velocity of Note Out messages when balls hit the piano roll.
You could think of this like the 'Wet' parameter on an audio effect.
The higher the gain, the higher the output velocity is when balls hit the piano roll.
Sweet. So now that we have a good idea of how Bouncy Notes works, let's apply it to some sounds here.
So I'll mute the synth track for now and move over to my drums track.
In addition to being used on chords and melodies, Bouncy Notes is also a great tool for spicing up drums.
So he I have a simple Drum Rack with some kick and claps at the bottom and some extra percussion sounds on top.
Now to better optimize this Drum Rack, I'll turn the Drum Rack mode on here.
And this changes the range of the piano roll at the bottom
to accommodate the different notes I already have in my Drum Rack.
Currently, balls are only being generated for sounds I already have going on in my MIDI clip,
namely my kick and claps. But I'd also like the balls to start hitting the extra percussion sounds on top.
So I'll throw them to the right here...
and quantize this to 16th notes to make it a bit more musical.
I'll randomize the directions for some more variation and turn up the gravity.
Now, I'd like the Bouncy Notes to avoid the clap and the kick at the bottom.
So I'll create a wall here by double clicking and dragging.
I can resize the walls or move them around like so.
this is a great tool if you want balls to hit specific notes, but not others.
Sweet.
I can quantize to 8th notes here or put it back to 16th.
And I can control how long these balls stick around using the 'Lifetime' parameter.
Awesome. You can see Bouncy Notes is a great way to add variation and fills to your drum loops
Over on my marimba track, I like to use Bouncy Notes to generate an interesting melody.
So, I'll change this to Auto Mode.
And I'll turn on the Scale feature and set the scale to 'minor pentatonic.'
I'll leave the Tonic at D and change the starting note to D2.
And I'll lower the Range here.
Again, I'll set quantize to 16th notes,
and increase the Drop rate here.
I'll randomize the direction for some more variation.
And turn up the Gravity so the notes hit harder.
Awesome. Finally, I'll add some bass.
If I want to make my drums more extreme, I can just turn up the Lifetime,
and maybe the Gravity.