On a Sunday afternoon, fifteen friends, all non musicians but two amateur musicians, joined the machines set in turn, around 8 at a time, to improvise electro or hip-hop rhythmic grooves. Of course there were food and drinks as well.

The goal was to introduce music making in an attractive way: no pressure, no constraint, no reason to be shy, just have fun!

Don’t be shy

Some arrived saying « no no no I will never sing in the mike », but ended up doing the mike to record voice loops into the Kaoss Pad… Other spent time to figure out how to play something musical from machines they were touching for the first time. It was amazing how everybody got into it!

Here is a time lapse overview, unfortunately silent:

Jam Session at home with friends from cyrille martraire on Vimeo.

The machines setup

The machine set was primarily composed of an Akai MPC500 with various programs (drums, stabs, acapella chops, etc.), a Korg Kaoss Pad 3 with an Shure SM58 mike and a Korg microKorg, all MIDI clock-ed together, and all mixed into a Yamaha MG12/4 with a Boss SE-70 reverb send. There were also a 49-keys Casio keyboard and a Yamaha SHS10 mini handheld keyboard, both used as MIDI controllers to drive an EMU Turbo Phatt. Various circuit-bent toys were also pre-mixed and then fed into the Kaoss Pad as well, to get the best out of them.

Every machine has its own appeal: the Kaoss Pad 3 is the most appealing at first, but then it gets more difficult to master. The microKorg, thanks to its sync-ed arpeggiator and its modulation wheel is also rewarding very quickly. The MPC is somehow harder since you must be rather accurate when playing for the rhythm to sound good. The EMU Phatt is very easily rewarding, especially when using the Beats programs or other programs made of several sounds laid over the keyboard.

Fun or accurate: this is the question

One note about loops, either on the Kaoss Pad or in the MPC: if they help to improve the accuracy of the music (repeats perfectly each time), they also kill a lot of fun out of it since you only have to play once, record, and then you are done! On the other end, playing repeatedly the same thing (or at least trying to) helps to get warmer and warmer!

Thanks all for joining us for this party, and see you for next time!

Thanks Lai for the beautiful b&w picture!