POETICA

INSTRUCTIONS

Poetica is a piece for 5 percussionists, one of them performing as a soloist (originally, Steven Schick, for whom the piece was composed) and the others as a quartet. The instrument list for the 5 percussionists is indicated below, In the scene setup drawing.
The electronics for the piece are mainly made of a precomposed multichannel (8ch) sound-file, running on an Ableton Live session, for the entire length of the piece. The percussionists are therefore equipped with individual in-ear monitors, so that they all listen to a click-track in order to synchronize between themselves and with the electronics. The multichannel file output by the Live session is then looped back (using the first 13 Madi outputs on the RME Digiface Dante Totalmix) and spatialized on a 12 sources / 8 speakers SPAT 5 system, running on MAX 8.
In addition to that, the four percussionists playing as a quartet, handle, during the last part of the piece, a real time sound process, which captures the sound of them playing their lowest sounding instrument (a bass drum or a large timpani), and applies to it a frequency shift sweep, whose amount depend on the energy of each player. The result of the process is then fed back to the three thunder-sheets onstage, via a stereo couple of two transducers for each thunder-sheet : a mid one placed in the lower half of the thunder-sheet, and an high one, placed on the upper half.
The activation of this real time process involving the thunder-sheets is activated automatically and controlled by the Ableton Live session which runs the electronics.

All the percussions onstage must be amplified by the sound engineer, in order to make each passage audible enough for the audience and to control the overall mix and correct balance with the electronics. The Computer Music Design and the Sound engineer must know well and follow the score of the piece, during the performance, in order to provide the correct dynamic balance for each passage.

The electronics is diffused on a circular 8 ch system, placed around the audience.
Each computer, main and spare one, handle an RME DigiFace Dante, which sports 64dante+64madi i/o channels. Mix levels are controlled using a Mira application, on an iPad, one for each computer.
I/Os for the electronics : 4 inputs, 17 outputs (8ch speakers ring, 1 click output, 3 outputs for the 3 thunder-sheets, 5 channels for the simulation eventually to be used during audio tests).
Sampling rate : 48Khz.

Audio and scene Setup

Software installation

1. Download and install LIVE 11
2. Download and install GRM Tools v3.7.8 or later , “Complete 1”, or “Spectral Transform” packs.
3. Download and install Maxhead vst3 plugin, v1.1 or later, by Aqusmatiq audio (www.aqusmatiq.com)
4. Download and install Granular Mirror Maze, a free M4L device by Amazing noises (included in this repo)
5. Download and install, MAX 8.
6. Download and install the following MAX 8 libraries :

• IRCAM SPAT 5.3.2 or later
• Antescofo v1.0_325 (compiled for M1, 01/02/2023) or later
• Ejies v3.2.5 (included in this repo)
7) Copy the patch folder on the computer Hard Drive, and set max preferences path pointing to it.

Patch presentation

Initialization routine

• Make sure the RME Digiface Dante audiocard is correctly connected to the computer, and that has on its RME global panel these settings : Madi format 64ch, 48K frame ; BNC I/O “MADI”.
• On the RME Totalmix panel, set the “loopack” option active, for the first 21 MADI outputs, from ch 65 to 85 (12 channels for the soundfiles tracks, 1 channel for the click, 5 channels for the simulation – to be used only during audio tests – , 3 channels for the returns to the thunder-sheets).
• Launch Ableton Live 11, and verify on the audio preferences that input and output device is set to the RME Digiface Dante. In the Input channel configuration panel, set the first 4 inputs active, while in the output configuration panel, set active only the first 4 and those from 65 to 88 (Madi section).
• Set on LIVE : sampling frequency to 48000, High quality conversion, buffer size 256 samples.
• load the session named “POETICA_Hellerau-02.als”.
• Verify that the inputs and the outputs in the concert sessions are active and sound when hitting play.
• Launch MAX 8, and set the preferences path (under “options” to point to the folder where the Concert Patch is)
• On MAX 8 Audio Status panel, set RME Digiface Dante as Input / Output device, then set sampling rate to 48k, Overdrive on, Audio interrupt off, I/O vector size to 64, Signal Vector Size to 64 samples.
• Quit and relaunch MAX 8. (in order to store these preferences)
• Launch the following Max 8 patches :

1. 0-DSP_POETICA_8ch_03.maxpat
2. 1-MIRA_POETICA_01.maxpat

• With the DAC still off, click on the purple button “ALL.INIT bang”, placed on the main patcher (0-DSP_POETICA_8ch_03.maxpat).
• Connect the iPad to the computer via USB, and launch MIRA app, until you see the “SoundFILES” mixer on the screen.
• Then turn the DAC on, click on the red button, “RESET bang”, and wait 2 seconds.
• Click on the little white “M” letter on 1DAC mix fader (the master fader), on the main patch. This will bring it to 0 db.
• In the Antescofo panel, click on the “Load Score” umenu, and choose “POETICA.01.asco”, in order to load the antescofo score for the piece. Loading the antescofo score will also load the latest version of the spat preset for the piece.
• On the main computer, press once the right arrow key on the computer keyboard, in order to see the message print: "READY !" .
• In Live, put the cursor to the beginning of the session. To start the piece, press play, or hit the space bar.

Rehearse istructions

• In order to rehearse the piece, first check the volume of the click track, and set the optimal gain value desired by the percussionists.
• Then, in the Live session, put the cursor at bar 615, without hitting play. This will enable the realtime process that drives the transducers attached on the back of the thundersheets, using the signal of the two bass drums and the two low timpani played by the quartet percussionists. Check with the sound engineer, while each of the percussionists play its respective equipped bass drum (or timpani) them that the level of the AKG 411 on the bass drum, received in the Live session, is enough and well calibrated in order to trigger the appropriate “elephant” sound in the thundersheet to which is related. This process, that we may call “calibration of the elephant sound” in the thundersheets, must be done for every venue and concert occasion.

Performance Guide

• Special care and attention must be taken, during the performance, when handling the volume of the percussionists and the electronics, in order to get the appropriate dynamic levels required in the score.
• The Sound Engineer must control the dynamics of the players and the dynamics of the thundersheets (through the input level of the AKG 411 microphone, placed on the top of the back of the thundersheet.

NOTA BENE :
• The composer asked to create a separate bus in the mixing console, and to send to it the 4 snares and the close microphones for the voice of the 4 percussionists from PDS (Percussions de Strasbourg). The stereo bus has a separate fader, and its outputs are channels 3 and 8. This serve the need to enlarge the electroacoustic space of the quintet, during the passages in which more integration between the electroacoustic space of the electronics and that of the musicians must be greater. The sound ingeneer has to handle that task, follwing the score for the right moments in which opening up the fader or closing it down.
The passages when the fader must go up are :
_ m87 (gradually, to Full up in m94) until m198
_m233 (gradually to full up in m235) until m281
_m552 (Directly to full up) until m595
_m639 (Directly to full up) until the END.