Power of Four

An iterative, dynamic MIDI looper built in Max/MSP which allows the user to make complex, polyphonic music using a monophonic synthesizer.

At the end of 2023 I got a Behringer TD-3, a synthesizer I've had my eye on for a while. It's best known for its use in Acid Techno and other Acid genres, where it sounds harsh, squelchy, and distorted. I, on the other hand, wanted to use it to create beautiful ambient music.

Turning the TD-3 into an ambient powerhouse wasn't hard, it just took a little reverb and delay. The main limitation I ran into was the fact that it only had one voice. To make layered harmonies and synthesizer duets, I had to send MIDI to the synth, record it into ableton, and then send the next track, record, etc. It was tedious, and hardly real-time, let alone performable. That's where the Power of Four comes in.

The Power of Four consists of four sequencers of 16 steps each (hence the title). To start, the first sequencer sends MIDI data to the TD-3 and latches the generated audio into a Max audio buffer. Then, it continues looping this audio while sequencer 2 sends its MIDI to the synth, and so on. The iterative cycle continues so that as you tweak parameters on the synth, all of the voices are effected in the course of its period.

I've had a lot of fun performing with this patch and experimenting with its capabilities! A couple of my performances using this patch are linked below: