Description of the piece:

"Comme le vent c'est nu c'est de l'encre" is a piece composed by Eric Maestri for ensemble and live electronics.

It was created in 'Centre Pompidou' - in June 2019 (Ensemble Ictus, Benoit Meudic - computer music design).

Elements required to play the piece:

• 1 main computer for electronic treatments with at least max 8.1.1 (Mac os >= 12.12.8 & MacBookPro >= 2.7Ghz),

• 8 in/ 8 outs audio interface (for instance RME fireface 800)

• microphones for each instrument

• 1 mixing console

• 8 points full band diffusion system.

• 3 screens for displaying click-track on stage

• 1 iPad for mixing with mira

General informations:

The electronic part of CLV is based upon soundfiles with a visual click-track for musicians all along the piece and real-time treatments on the instruments.

The sounds are played by a 4 channel sfplayer.

Real-time treatments consist in 4 channel complex spatialisation trajectories (m1, m2, m3, m4) written at audio rate:

m1 (sound input return1) spatialises from localised front to everywhere with reverb

m2 (sound input return2) spatialises from current position to opposite azimuth depending on sound amplitude (for piano)

m3 (sound input return3) spatialises left right at frequency increasing depending on sound amplitude

m4 (sound input return4) spatialises from front to static middle then adds movement with increasing ambitus

The movements are always active. Then, the instruments should not be amplified by the mixing board, or very little if necessary.

The instrumentists follow the visual click-track sharing 3 screens put on the floor of the stage (1 for piano, 1 for woods, one for strings).

An ipad should be used for mixing the electronic treatments and the soundfiles (see faders mapping below).

The events are written in Antescofo language for connecting instruments to the inputs of the 4 movements.

CLICK-TRACK DISPLAY:

The video output of the main computer should be connected to the video screens on stage.

MAIN COMPUTER:

installation:

Copy the folder 'clv' on the hard disk of the main computer.

Launch max, and select this folder (and only this one) in the 'file preferences' menu of max.

Open the file '_Comme-le-vent_2019' in Max.

Description (figure 'main-patch'):

The concert patch is composed of:

• Top right: interface for events triggering and click-track playing. Events are represented by a number corresponding to the bar number reported in the instrumental score. The highlighted number corresponds to the next event that will be triggered. During rehearsal, you can play click-trak from any bar: select the beat/bar in the click-track panel, then start click-track.

• Top middle: main sub-patchers (audio, midi, libraries, events counter, reset, matrix connections).

• Bottom: live mixing faders.

Inputs/Outputs:

There are 8 inputs for flute, hautbois, clarinet, trombone, piano, violin, viola and cello.

There are 8 outputs: (dac 1..6 on loudspeakers 1 front left, 2 front right, 3middle left, 4 middle right, 5 back left and 6 back right) and loudspeakers 7-8 for far stage position (they can activated with the mira mixing interface).

Initialisation in max:

To initialize the patch:

1. Click on '1-load files'

2. click on '2-init' and wait for the message 'ok bang' in the max message window.

The audio status should automatically be set to 256 for I/O Vector Size, 128 for Signal Vector Size, 48000 for sampling rate, overdrive on and audio interrupt on :

Rapidly turn on and off the click-track so that the bar/beat position on the displaying screen displays '-2 1'.

3. turn the DSP on

Ipad mixing control:

You can filter on 3 bands the soundfiles, and control the input level of the instruments and the level of the soundfiles.

To run the patch:

Initialise the MAX patch, turn the dac on.

Start the click-track in max. The click-track starts 2 bars before bar 1.

Soundfiles and trajectories will play all along the piece and start from the chosen position.

During the execution of the piece, follow the soundfiles and the input level of the instruments. All the spatialisation effects should be heard.

The electronics should be quite loud (without hurting the ears).

Simulation patch

In the left part of the main patch, you can open a simulation patch (click on 'front'). It uses a recording of a rehearsal of "l'instant donné" ensemble. First you should include the simulation folder 'Comme_Le_Vent_simul' in the max path. Then set the 'simul' toggle to 1 to play the simulation when you play the click-track (top left part of the main patch). You can control the levels of the instruments in the 'affectations-entrees' patch.