As someone who doesn't game and never used steam, can you explain to me how it works buying this? Would I need to always have internet connection to run it? Or can I just download it onto my laptop and have it run regardless of connection?
@@EricJohnson-fh8zj If you don't use Steam for anything else, it'll probably seem a little cumbersome to install just for this product, but it's not difficult to do. Once installed, you could theoretically switch steam to "offline mode" and never have to worry about an internet connection again. I think you might need to disable offline mode to receive automatic updates (even if you have an active internet connection), but otherwise you can use the product uninhibited indefinitely, with or without a connection.
what a cute comment.. but sadly Benn is a nobody :/ i the world of youtubers and viral vids.. the only thing Benn is known for is having weird eye brows.
I'm incredibly impressed that this software was developed by someone who just learned coding as their first project?! I'm a programmer myself and this is insane
That is literally bonkers. Even just doing the UI work alone would be way beyond the average beginner… yet this has VST support, audio encoding, probably a bunch of driver integration… Dude’s a genius.
I'm not going to claim I could do this as my first project because I have a biased opinion on my current abilities... but most of this can be done with freaking StackExchange plus trial-and-error. The idea itself is much more impressive.
@@TheUnderscore_a lot can be done nowadays especially with the help of generative AI, however me, after watching 30 minutes of 4 hour course on python, I managed to hole myself into 5 hour journey to program an interactive shopping list (no gui), be very impressed with my resourcefulness and how incredibly optimized I managed to code it with basically 0 skill even tho it took 5 hours, only to then never watch the rest of the 4 hour course and never program anything else 😂 so I think the most impressive thing of all is that they actually stuck with it and finished it and didn't give up on it.
It's so nice when GAS hits an entirely new itch I didn't even know existed AND sets me back $20 instead of like 2 grand. What a delightful program, the "gaming brain plus music brain" is an underutilized crossover. I'm a data analyst in my 9-5 and this feels like programming a solution for manipulating or rolling up and analyzing data. This is going to be a deep enjoyable dive. Thanks again for all the content and Mark Twain lies
@@i-never-look-at-replies-lol Rather than reducing the experience of others to a microbially simplistic motive, you could choose to view it as a triumph of human spirit that despite how miserable life might seem sometimes, musicians still find it in them to make sacrifices for the sake of developing their art, to hope that they and the world might be *more* for their efforts. If the burden of your sadness has grown so heavy that you feel the need to offload it into a completely innocuous and pleasant online discussion, please consider whether it might better be placed in the hands of a mental health professional who can give you the support you need.
@@dbptwg are you autistic or what are you trying to say? it's the fact that you have been tricked in a funny way but he told you right away about it what makes it enjoyable, like a joke with a pointe
I actually find that skilled creative people who already have the confidence and self-discipline to pursue their own goals are quite good at learning programming if they have something they want to create in mind. As a formally trained computer scientist who received little in the way of artistic education growing up, I may have deeper knowledge and broader experience when it comes to technical matters, but "breaking out" of the code-and-business-concerns skillset into self-directed creative activity is a steep learning curve.
@@KyussTheWalkingWormas someone who programming was extremely intuitive and easy to learn, i disagree. I think unfortunately the ease of which you learn programming is heavily based on prior life experience and even to a degree genetics. I know tons of extremely smart people who couldn’t for the life of them learn programming.
The "not enough alternative ways" thing struck me real hard. I do field service inspection and when I'm taking a break in my car I'll be zoning off on nanoloop doing live techno and FX-free dnb
Yeah I've had a lot of fun with nanoloop, it's great for little ideas. Sometimes I run into dead ends if I have something specific in mind where I can't really do what I want (like the limited number of patterns), but if you're just playing around it's easy to get something cool going.
This was kind of like the thing where you think you dislike an ingredient and then go to a good restaurant and realize that you just had a bad version of it previously. The only generative stuff I've seen thus far has been purely mathematical curios with little if any musical value, or modular guys going ham and ending up with a naive salad of noise and random notes. This was really eye-opening, thank you
Sort of like AI art and whatnot, how you prompt it, and nudge it this way or that way to give it a "human touch" greatly enhances the results of the generative work. I've had some great results with Max 4 Live devices after nudging the parameters juuuust right
To be fair, even a very musical human will mostly come up with bad musical ideas. An important skill as a musician is filtering which ideas area good and which are not, so I don't know where people ever got the idea that generative AI music was ever going to make #1 hit songs that everyone loved with each pull of the lever. The goal is really to get it closer to the point where it's more in line with what a human can do, which again, is mostly meh, some terrible, and occasionally something that's at least the start of something more interesting.
@@fray3dendsofsanity I dunno if I'd compare this to AI Image generation at all. This program still has you making very minute decisions along the way and requires a lot of feeling to get what you want.
I bought Midinous _aggggges_ ago, played with it a bit, thoroughly enjoyed it, put it down and haven't picked it up again since. Not because it's not great, but because I got distracted and... you know how it goes. It looks like a bunch of features have been added since then and I've now got all of my hardware synths hooked up for midi to my PC, so I'm definitely going to check it out again! Thanks for reminding me of its existence!
I've spent a lot of time in both Midinous and Orca and they're both fun in different ways but I can't imagine actually making a whole thing in Orca, it's way too abstracted.
And it's in these moments where it's a bit depressing to find a video that is so relaxing, cool, exciting and brilliant. And a pity not being able to share it with someone who is not even interested and may be surprised as I have done.
That's it. That was the final piece of inspiration I needed to get back into making music. Being a visual learner, seeing the (i guess you could call it a neuron) follow the circuit paths just gave me the serotonin I needed
Jesus how the hell have I never heard of this? I am a hobbyist computer scientist, an IT guy, electronic musician and I am all about the non-random, generative midi. (That was regarding nodal, but also other interesting stuff after..)
1:13 the predecessor of Cubase, Steinberg 24pro, already featured the piano roll and a dedicated drum editor several years earlier. It was initially available on Atari ST only and could manage 24 MIDI tracks. In its dedicated Logical Editor (like a waterfall chart) one could select and manipulate any MIDI event using formulas. I believe it was removed in one of the early versions that also introduced VST.
As someone without classical training, but an interest in music and having the background of a gamer the is such a beautiful thing. Being able turn timing notes into a logic puzzle is awesome. SIDE NOTE: I stumbled across your video but listen to you work on Spotify all the time and love it! didn't know until the end of the video!
Awesome video! I can't help but mentioning I made software for Ableton (Max for Live) called New Path some time ago, heavily inspired by Electroplankton as well! 🙂 It has a similar grid of arrows, but it adds many features like teleports and crossroads, etc. And it's a midi device so you can control anything you want with it, synths, samplers, drums, parameters, etc.
Fastest conversion from TH-cam algorithm to subscriber to product purchase in personal history. I look forward to rabbitholling your content tonight. First I have to send midi out to maschine jam until enough lights flash that I have a seizure.
no joke this just makes more sense in my brain than a conventional DAW. This just gave me so many ideas of a new software I could make that is inspired by this idea!!!! Midinous is so cool!
As a programmer.... I felt chills watching this application at work... It covers the basics of Node based programming in an almost artistic fashion that I could never seek to comprehend... It's like marveling at math, the complex computations of infinity, watching as it can go on and on with infinite possibilities. With undisputed potential. I aspire to write a program, app, or game as complex and complete as this.
I often procrastinate on watching your videos because they are longer than the limited time I have to sit and watch something. But every time I do take the time to watch them I learn something not just informative but for lack of a better word “life changing”. Or maybe lifestyle changing. I’m not sure, but my point is that the information value that you provide for literally free is mind blowing and appreciated so much by this one random dude on the internet. Thanks Benn Jordan!
I absolutely love this! ORCA was one I enjoyed playing around with, but I really appreciate the visual layout of this - it feels both in-depth while also surprisingly intuitive. I'm definitely gonna demo this, and for $20 (currently on sale), it's almost certainly something I'd be interested in picking up!
I absolutely love this, instant purchase. This sounds much more like the music I've heard in my own head than anything I've managed to do with Ableton. Blown away. Downloaded it last night and was expecting it to be a task to route midi into my DAW but it just works straight away with no issue. Your video is also very clear on how to set things up. Thank you!
This looks amazing for pattern based progressive metal. Stuff like meshuggah for example! It looks much more intuitive to make polymeters and repeating patterns. At the same time i really like beat scholar which does that thing but even better, this is much better for making melodies though
This totally blew my mind. I know it's not the same thing but when using Punk-o-Matic 2 to make music, the benefit of having a band perform the piece takes it to another level of enjoyment. So this is like performance & creation in one too. I love watching this play through something you make.
This is pretty cool. At the end of the day, it's just the UI that's unique here. I don't think it has a single feature that my DAW doesn't. But it sure is an interesting setup.
2 decades ago I came up with almost the same idea. I had visions about a nonlinear music sequencer that works like a cross between a model train table and a tape echo - the trains are like tape pieces and the player can build his rail layout and place record and playback heads everywhere, those make sounds when the "trains" pass is. Trains can have different tempo or run through a crossover (that may split it to exit at both ends) etc. etc.
This is perfect. I've watched so many videos demonstrating drum patterns as circular graphs and it made me want to make music using shapes. I'm glad these types of experimental music making software are coming out.
WOW. this is INCREDIBLE, I'm absolutely buying this!! From a graphic designer's perspective, I always wanted to experiment with music making but struggled to understand the interfaces of any DAW I tried. for the uninitiated, it feels like being in the pilot's chair in an airplane where there are a million tiny levers and buttons and switches and it's not immediately clear what any of them do. But THIS makes use of grouping similar things together, which is like, one of the main tenants of graphic design, it makes something so much easier to understand. Having little closed circuits in different areas for baseline, main melody, percussion, etc. makes this SO much easier to understand for me. I hope there's some settings where we could make circuit lines bolder or thinner as well, having something like that would help immensely with visual hierarchy and make things even more readable. Your loudest main melody could be bold lines and quieter backround circuits could be thinner. I'm so excited about this, thank you for making a video about it!!!
Dude- I have a spreadsheet of collected inspirational quotes and stopped the video to add the "Mark Twain" quote to it -- then had to go back and change it to "Benn Jordan" after you confessed! I like it more as a Benn Jordan quote anyway. ;)
It reminds me a lot of PureData, though I find this one much more easily approachable. Also, whatever dev who takes the care of developing their software for Linux has my instant respect.
The patch that's shaped like a tree sounds amazing! It's like a blending of the Demon's Souls "Maiden in Black" and Breath of the Wild overworld music.
I need this kind of incrental node based music system as a sound controller for a game. This is going to my bucket list. Just imagine the granularity you can achieve for stuff like threat music in dynamic enviroments.
I would like to thank the algorythm for taking me to a video from a TH-camr I didn't follow about a software I didn't know about. Good job! Also, this seems much more approachable than Wotja, which I had fun with for generative music, but whoose learning curve seems much more steep when you want to get more complex stuff going.
Luminaria!! I loved Electroplankton SO much as a kid, SimTunes also. Honestly MidiNous reminds me a LOT of SimTunes. I *REALLY* wish Toshio Iwai had done more stuff after that.
Been looking for something like this without knowing it since i got into musicmaking! Thank you for consistently being a motivational force in my life wonderful human!
Honestly this is such a cool idea. I'm a software engineer and I am also often thinking about alternative, more programmatic ways of making music. But all my ideas so far would've been text/code based, which is hard to use for "normal" people. If this starts to support plugins and mixer channels I'm definitely going to use it!
0:30 For me, it's the opposite. I'm overwhelmed by the options and I can't settle on one thing anymore. I'm more aware than ever of my limitations, but I don't even know where to begin with fixing them.
This is amazing! I can play simple bass, I can play guitar like a bass, I can fat-finger piano - but because of that, my creative expression for music is mostly in my DAW FL Studio's piano roll, which is tough when you need to let your creativity flow. Connecting this to FL Studio has given me a new way to doodle and find what I'm looking for in terms of inspiration. Thank you!!
I was in love with this a minute into your demo. I HATE fussing around with stuff in DAWs, and this seems so fast for sketching, creating, and exploring. EDIT: Sweet lord, it is linux native, I am buying this the second I get home.
Unfortunately Bitwig and Reaper can't open it without going over the hassle of loading a virtual midi port driver. However it works great with Ardour, Qtractor, Carla, BespokeSynth, VCV/Cardinal and of course external gear :)
I gotta say virtualizing the expensive option is amazing. VR synth is amazing. It has a long way to go before we're building custom electronics and really cracking the ceiling, but it's well on its way.
This is definitely a really cool and interesting new way to sequence music. That having been said, it's not a substitute for playing a real instrument, and you're only cheating yourself by keeping yourself dependent on a computer to make music. Obviously not directed at the owner of the channel, who plays many instruments.
I cannot like this enough times. I have been into writing complex and cascading modi sequences and experimenting with how to effectively add, ostensibly, randomizing triggers with specific parameters or for specific things and then and then and then. This, just... is all of the things. I'm also a video game junkie so how I missed this until NOW! Step aside Reaper, if only for a few (hundred) hours. Thank you thank you and a million times thank you. I may change that to DAMN YOU for ruining my life because I do nothing else but write nodal modular music inside the realm of midi "games", the absolute wet dream of nooooo one else but meeeeee... and everyone who checked this out so, clearly like a bunch more people. surely what else could I not know of...?
Subscribed. Right when the cord was triggered at 19:37. Something about that routing follow into the chord, and the duration of the cord timing out, I dunno... just got me. Also... bought it, too.
Just took it for a quick spin and _Ooof!_ This is fantastic! Just alone for the incredible ease of making one note, wherever it is in the sequence, trigger something else. Weee!
One thing I really like about is that you can have all your instruments right in front of you, without having to select and switch instruments or adjust windows around so you can see more of them at once... They're just all there, and you also have whole patterns on screen, without having to constantly side-scroll around. I find it much more practical to zoom and pan around in this "worktable" kind of workflow.
I've always wanted to get into making music to align with my stories, but DAW's and other software have always been extremely intimidating to me. Maybe it's because I'm an engineer by trade, but learning that something like this exists is extremely invigorating. This is the first time I've looked at music software that my brain just almost immediately began understanding without feeling completely overwhelmed. Thank you for sharing!
This looks sick! Though clicking around to make music is the thing that makes me want to get out of a DAW in the first place 😅 Probabilistic plugins and programs are always great ways to generate ideas you wouldn't have otherwise thought of
This is really cool. Not only is it a very intuitive way to make loops and beats, but I can see the generative functions being used in all sorts of settings from Spas, to Video Game BGM, to live presentations. Would be need to see some "effect" pads that could do things like change the key or tempo, add vibrato, or even lock out a pad so it can't be activated until other conditions are met (time elapse, a number of pulses hit the pad, or hit other pads, etc)
I was desperately hoping Nodal would get an upgrade. Maybe I've found out it is named Midinous. I'll check it out. Thank you so much for the always inspiring content, Benn.
As someone addicted to Factorio this is even cooler! I'm mind blown by the clock you made at the generative music part. There's a channel who made procedural djent and i immediately got the idea to just replace all random notes with sequences in a way that allows this random generation to pick each sequence, and it's all visible and not just code everywhere. This is just incredible to watch for any logic nerd out there.
There is one app I have on my iPad called Senode reminds me of this. Placing nodes, adding probability and linking back things like repeats or creating loops
lol i was watching until literally 26:08 and i went like oh shit thats right youre the flashbulb xD i remembered having the same realization on one of your earlier videos awhile ago haha love your stuff and videos man!
Only in the first min of the vid, but I have to throw in Gene Wolfe's advice on writers block, which is to ask yourself, "What's the next cool thing that happens?"- the important word here being cool... a very subjective word, but one in which your own tastes and those of your readers (or listeners, I guess) are strongly likely to align. "Happens" is of course another key word for this to work lol.
Seems cool, and different enough from existing node-based graphical coding systems like PureData and MaxMSP that it's adding something novel to the mix.
I saw the Tenori-On as a kid when it got released and was fascinated, but never got one. This software may spark this fascination and joy again, so thanks for showing it! I'll give it a try.
As someone who jumped on this as soon as it was released, I'm excited to see this innovative product get some exposure. When I can't decide whether to do something in Bitwig or play a video game, Midinous bridges the gap. It really is the most unique, paradigm shifting sequencer you've ever seen. It's the sequencer that Hexcel and Midigrid wish they could be.
Not even thru the vid ,but the beginning part abt writers block , for anybody working thru that, that's so true. Sometime u gotta try some different. Game changer
DUDE - this software is pretty cool! I did not even know it existed and after watching the tutorial - since you know the person who made this... I would make one suggestion... In the tutorial it is not explained how to use an external VST or instrument. I got it worked out in a minute after I remembered you saying something about it creating a port... But I just was thinking Hmmm this should probably get put into the tutorial so others can figure it out. (also I am a dev, and get that sometimes - we THINK people know stuff... but they don't lol) - PS I used Halion and it was cool - might do a video about it using Halion and point to your video if you don't mind. Thanks Benn!!
Yes, I was left baffled as to whether or not Midinous even allows VSTi's (or is this just a Falcon thing?). I mean, would Ominsphere 2 work with this (or any other VSTi in my collection)? Unfortunately, the guy in the video didn't make this clear.
@@philipford6183 The very first words in the description are, "Midinous is a non-linear MIDI sequencer",. most VSTi seem to be triggerable through MIDI.
I had a very similar idea 8 years ago with no programming knowledge, and my friends called it dumb. I didn’t have the time nor interest to learn programming, so I’m glad someone who knows what he’s doing is making something similar. It kind of makes me want to make MY version of it
I'm glad I've only discovered your channel very recently. So much goodness to enjoy without having to wait until you release something new! Always been a fan of algorithmic music-making, so I'm definitely buying Midinous.
I'm literally crying. I've been playing bass/guitar for 15 years, it's been fun, but what you described in the intro is literally me. I see the fretboard and I see quite literally exactly 100 notes in front of me, I know theory but when I sit down I see ALL of the theory I know put in a big bucket all at once. aaaaaaaaaaand I'm also a huge fan of factorio, put a good number of hours into all the zachtronics games. This sounds like something made for my brain.
Holy John Gage's Ghost, Batman! But seriously, I haven't been that enthralled by a "music process" in a long time. One of the coolest things I've seen in awhile. Must have that app
This is incredible. Being a software developer, and music producer I would be lying If I haven't though of doing one application similar to this. MIDINOUS is incredible, and I feel that this, or any other software in this line, can be enough to open creation to new grounds. Think like the game of life, where new patterns, or music "factories", can be discovered, shared, and people might generate their own music styles, within a template or pattern. Add some voice generation, and some effects gimmics, and it's a full one man music producing studio.
I've always been interested in things like these because I have a lot of interest in music and sound design, but I find myself very weak at composition and struggle to do much beyond making ambience. This approach to music really tickles my programmer side and fits into a view of making music that feels better suited for the way I think. Maybe some day I'll have the time and money to invest into it because it looks really cool.
I was literally trying to find an app like this on Steam this past weekend. Amazing timing! Music software is either extremely under represented on Steam, or impossible to search.
This is why I love Renoise, and I came from oldschool DOS tracking Fasttracker II. This is very cool, and helps to break us out of the monotony of piano roll.
One time I actually started burning out on music a long time ago. Was only classically trained at that time playing only prewritten compositions. But then I discovered improv, and it was like just discovering music all over again from the very beginning. Tried to node based playing, particularly on iPad, but improv always gets me excited for music again.
This is actually very common with a lot of younger Classically trained pianists I noticed, I see lots of posts online about it and I always found it very bizarre from the perspective of someone self-taught from a Jazz background on piano with an emphasis on just theory, and jammin' where ever my heart takes me
Love the results very inspiring but the interface would make my brain melt unfortunately but maybe in the future we can get this on iPad I think a touch interface would make more sense
I say this on most videos I think but your demos are always so on point and inspiring and holy fricken shizzle 21:36 is so amazing. I just got home from work to finish the video and it transported me to another space entirely. amazing stuff
You are about to absolutely exPLOde this steam game that has 26 reviews
One of the few times I'm happy as fuck for influencer influence :D say that fast 7 times haha
As someone who doesn't game and never used steam, can you explain to me how it works buying this? Would I need to always have internet connection to run it? Or can I just download it onto my laptop and have it run regardless of connection?
@@EricJohnson-fh8zj you can launch it offline. steam can also be launched without an internet connection but will nag about it
@@EricJohnson-fh8zj If you don't use Steam for anything else, it'll probably seem a little cumbersome to install just for this product, but it's not difficult to do. Once installed, you could theoretically switch steam to "offline mode" and never have to worry about an internet connection again. I think you might need to disable offline mode to receive automatic updates (even if you have an active internet connection), but otherwise you can use the product uninhibited indefinitely, with or without a connection.
what a cute comment.. but sadly Benn is a nobody :/ i the world of youtubers and viral vids.. the only thing Benn is known for is having weird eye brows.
I'm incredibly impressed that this software was developed by someone who just learned coding as their first project?! I'm a programmer myself and this is insane
That is literally bonkers. Even just doing the UI work alone would be way beyond the average beginner… yet this has VST support, audio encoding, probably a bunch of driver integration… Dude’s a genius.
I'm a developer too and WOW, AGREEE this is amazing
I'm not going to claim I could do this as my first project because I have a biased opinion on my current abilities... but most of this can be done with freaking StackExchange plus trial-and-error. The idea itself is much more impressive.
Same dude!
@@TheUnderscore_a lot can be done nowadays especially with the help of generative AI, however me, after watching 30 minutes of 4 hour course on python, I managed to hole myself into 5 hour journey to program an interactive shopping list (no gui), be very impressed with my resourcefulness and how incredibly optimized I managed to code it with basically 0 skill even tho it took 5 hours, only to then never watch the rest of the 4 hour course and never program anything else 😂 so I think the most impressive thing of all is that they actually stuck with it and finished it and didn't give up on it.
It's so nice when GAS hits an entirely new itch I didn't even know existed AND sets me back $20 instead of like 2 grand. What a delightful program, the "gaming brain plus music brain" is an underutilized crossover. I'm a data analyst in my 9-5 and this feels like programming a solution for manipulating or rolling up and analyzing data. This is going to be a deep enjoyable dive. Thanks again for all the content and Mark Twain lies
Love that
sad how electronic musicians seem to be some of the biggest consumers of them all. oh well, always got to have that new product! buy buy buy!
@@i-never-look-at-replies-lol Rather than reducing the experience of others to a microbially simplistic motive, you could choose to view it as a triumph of human spirit that despite how miserable life might seem sometimes, musicians still find it in them to make sacrifices for the sake of developing their art, to hope that they and the world might be *more* for their efforts.
If the burden of your sadness has grown so heavy that you feel the need to offload it into a completely innocuous and pleasant online discussion, please consider whether it might better be placed in the hands of a mental health professional who can give you the support you need.
Another gamer musician data analyst? How rare!
UVI costs $$$ 😔
"You can make anything sound good with enough reverb" -Mark Twain
"Anyone lying about what Mark Twain says is a person worth listening to." - Mark Twain
"You want quotes? Bitch, I got quotes for daayyyzzz." - Mark Twain.
@@dbptwg are you autistic or what are you trying to say?
it's the fact that you have been tricked in a funny way but he told you right away about it what makes it enjoyable, like a joke with a pointe
@@dbptwg probably because we understood it was a joke lol
@@dbptwg Is it really a lie if you admit it right away? I would argue that it's not.
"Mark Twain was such an intellectual" - Sun Tzu
The fact this was created by someone with no previous coding experience is absolutely amazing. Excellent work.
You cannot believe everything that liar says!
And why should we believe @@AleksanderNevskij47?
I actually find that skilled creative people who already have the confidence and self-discipline to pursue their own goals are quite good at learning programming if they have something they want to create in mind. As a formally trained computer scientist who received little in the way of artistic education growing up, I may have deeper knowledge and broader experience when it comes to technical matters, but "breaking out" of the code-and-business-concerns skillset into self-directed creative activity is a steep learning curve.
@@KyussTheWalkingWormas someone who programming was extremely intuitive and easy to learn, i disagree. I think unfortunately the ease of which you learn programming is heavily based on prior life experience and even to a degree genetics. I know tons of extremely smart people who couldn’t for the life of them learn programming.
The "not enough alternative ways" thing struck me real hard.
I do field service inspection and when I'm taking a break in my car I'll be zoning off on nanoloop doing live techno and FX-free dnb
pls link : )
Yeah I've had a lot of fun with nanoloop, it's great for little ideas. Sometimes I run into dead ends if I have something specific in mind where I can't really do what I want (like the limited number of patterns), but if you're just playing around it's easy to get something cool going.
5:50 "that gives you access to a thousand instruments… so let's start by loading an 808." 😂
This was kind of like the thing where you think you dislike an ingredient and then go to a good restaurant and realize that you just had a bad version of it previously. The only generative stuff I've seen thus far has been purely mathematical curios with little if any musical value, or modular guys going ham and ending up with a naive salad of noise and random notes. This was really eye-opening, thank you
Sort of like AI art and whatnot, how you prompt it, and nudge it this way or that way to give it a "human touch" greatly enhances the results of the generative work. I've had some great results with Max 4 Live devices after nudging the parameters juuuust right
i didn't go ham. please don't put it in the paper that i went ham
Naive salad of noise would be a pretty cool name for a band.
To be fair, even a very musical human will mostly come up with bad musical ideas. An important skill as a musician is filtering which ideas area good and which are not, so I don't know where people ever got the idea that generative AI music was ever going to make #1 hit songs that everyone loved with each pull of the lever. The goal is really to get it closer to the point where it's more in line with what a human can do, which again, is mostly meh, some terrible, and occasionally something that's at least the start of something more interesting.
@@fray3dendsofsanity I dunno if I'd compare this to AI Image generation at all. This program still has you making very minute decisions along the way and requires a lot of feeling to get what you want.
I bought Midinous _aggggges_ ago, played with it a bit, thoroughly enjoyed it, put it down and haven't picked it up again since. Not because it's not great, but because I got distracted and... you know how it goes. It looks like a bunch of features have been added since then and I've now got all of my hardware synths hooked up for midi to my PC, so I'm definitely going to check it out again! Thanks for reminding me of its existence!
Fascinating. The 'basics' demonstration of this non-DAW felt like playing minesweeper whilst conjuring Future Sound of London vibes at the same time.
From the Steam page, it looks a bit like a (much) more-approachable implementation of some of the ideas in Orca. Neat!
First thing I thought of when I saw it
I've spent a lot of time in both Midinous and Orca and they're both fun in different ways but I can't imagine actually making a whole thing in Orca, it's way too abstracted.
ORCA the GOAT
Orca is Dwarf Fortress and Midinous is Factorio of MIDI sequencers!
@@EmperorDoom uz.
mpppyyy😮p😮😮😮
And it's in these moments where it's a bit depressing to find a video that is so relaxing, cool, exciting and brilliant. And a pity not being able to share it with someone who is not even interested and may be surprised as I have done.
You're sharing it with us! :)
That's it. That was the final piece of inspiration I needed to get back into making music. Being a visual learner, seeing the (i guess you could call it a neuron) follow the circuit paths just gave me the serotonin I needed
Jesus how the hell have I never heard of this? I am a hobbyist computer scientist, an IT guy, electronic musician and I am all about the non-random, generative midi. (That was regarding nodal, but also other interesting stuff after..)
1:13 the predecessor of Cubase, Steinberg 24pro, already featured the piano roll and a dedicated drum editor several years earlier. It was initially available on Atari ST only and could manage 24 MIDI tracks. In its dedicated Logical Editor (like a waterfall chart) one could select and manipulate any MIDI event using formulas. I believe it was removed in one of the early versions that also introduced VST.
As someone without classical training, but an interest in music and having the background of a gamer the is such a beautiful thing. Being able turn timing notes into a logic puzzle is awesome.
SIDE NOTE: I stumbled across your video but listen to you work on Spotify all the time and love it! didn't know until the end of the video!
Awesome video!
I can't help but mentioning I made software for Ableton (Max for Live) called New Path some time ago, heavily inspired by Electroplankton as well! 🙂
It has a similar grid of arrows, but it adds many features like teleports and crossroads, etc. And it's a midi device so you can control anything you want with it, synths, samplers, drums, parameters, etc.
that sounds awesome where can I find it?
@@Tapeorchestraadid you do a web search yet?
A very cool piece of kit. It’s on the App Store for anyone interested. ✅
Fastest conversion from TH-cam algorithm to subscriber to product purchase in personal history. I look forward to rabbitholling your content tonight. First I have to send midi out to maschine jam until enough lights flash that I have a seizure.
no joke this just makes more sense in my brain than a conventional DAW. This just gave me so many ideas of a new software I could make that is inspired by this idea!!!! Midinous is so cool!
Agreed
What's the idea?
how's that new software going?
This is right up my alley. I already get stuck in generative music creation software like it's Factorio.
As a programmer.... I felt chills watching this application at work... It covers the basics of Node based programming in an almost artistic fashion that I could never seek to comprehend... It's like marveling at math, the complex computations of infinity, watching as it can go on and on with infinite possibilities. With undisputed potential. I aspire to write a program, app, or game as complex and complete as this.
I often procrastinate on watching your videos because they are longer than the limited time I have to sit and watch something. But every time I do take the time to watch them I learn something not just informative but for lack of a better word “life changing”. Or maybe lifestyle changing. I’m not sure, but my point is that the information value that you provide for literally free is mind blowing and appreciated so much by this one random dude on the internet. Thanks Benn Jordan!
5:04 don't think I don't notice that papyrus
That song at the end was great. Also loved the patch that was shaped like a tree, very organic! Cool demonstration.
incredible ui visualisation. to me this is a new standard i could see this being incorporated into daws as a toggle view. amazing job
Octamed on Amiga = 7 years of my life, back in the 90s. Nostalgia!
I absolutely love this! ORCA was one I enjoyed playing around with, but I really appreciate the visual layout of this - it feels both in-depth while also surprisingly intuitive. I'm definitely gonna demo this, and for $20 (currently on sale), it's almost certainly something I'd be interested in picking up!
Orca is great
Orca is fantastic! So much fun.
ORCA is definitely a hidden gem! very fun to use.
I absolutely love this, instant purchase. This sounds much more like the music I've heard in my own head than anything I've managed to do with Ableton. Blown away. Downloaded it last night and was expecting it to be a task to route midi into my DAW but it just works straight away with no issue. Your video is also very clear on how to set things up. Thank you!
This looks amazing for pattern based progressive metal. Stuff like meshuggah for example! It looks much more intuitive to make polymeters and repeating patterns. At the same time i really like beat scholar which does that thing but even better, this is much better for making melodies though
Cakewalk had Cubase beat by two years. Originally for DOS, starting with version Cakewalk 1.0 in 1987, and, beginning in 1991, for Windows 3.0.
This totally blew my mind. I know it's not the same thing but when using Punk-o-Matic 2 to make music, the benefit of having a band perform the piece takes it to another level of enjoyment. So this is like performance & creation in one too. I love watching this play through something you make.
That last song with the pads and the sunset was incredible
I was gonna try it out already but this one really sold it for me yeah
This is pretty cool. At the end of the day, it's just the UI that's unique here. I don't think it has a single feature that my DAW doesn't. But it sure is an interesting setup.
2 decades ago I came up with almost the same idea. I had visions about a nonlinear music sequencer that works like a cross between a model train table and a tape echo - the trains are like tape pieces and the player can build his rail layout and place record and playback heads everywhere, those make sounds when the "trains" pass is. Trains can have different tempo or run through a crossover (that may split it to exit at both ends) etc. etc.
It'd be pretty interesting to see someone make music like this but the nodes are set up in a way that just makes a big tree or something!
This is perfect. I've watched so many videos demonstrating drum patterns as circular graphs and it made me want to make music using shapes. I'm glad these types of experimental music making software are coming out.
Wow that ambient stuff
WOW. this is INCREDIBLE, I'm absolutely buying this!! From a graphic designer's perspective, I always wanted to experiment with music making but struggled to understand the interfaces of any DAW I tried. for the uninitiated, it feels like being in the pilot's chair in an airplane where there are a million tiny levers and buttons and switches and it's not immediately clear what any of them do.
But THIS makes use of grouping similar things together, which is like, one of the main tenants of graphic design, it makes something so much easier to understand. Having little closed circuits in different areas for baseline, main melody, percussion, etc. makes this SO much easier to understand for me.
I hope there's some settings where we could make circuit lines bolder or thinner as well, having something like that would help immensely with visual hierarchy and make things even more readable. Your loudest main melody could be bold lines and quieter backround circuits could be thinner. I'm so excited about this, thank you for making a video about it!!!
Dude- I have a spreadsheet of collected inspirational quotes and stopped the video to add the "Mark Twain" quote to it -- then had to go back and change it to "Benn Jordan" after you confessed!
I like it more as a Benn Jordan quote anyway. ;)
It reminds me a lot of PureData, though I find this one much more easily approachable. Also, whatever dev who takes the care of developing their software for Linux has my instant respect.
The patch that's shaped like a tree sounds amazing! It's like a blending of the Demon's Souls "Maiden in Black" and Breath of the Wild overworld music.
I need this kind of incrental node based music system as a sound controller for a game.
This is going to my bucket list.
Just imagine the granularity you can achieve for stuff like threat music in dynamic enviroments.
I would like to thank the algorythm for taking me to a video from a TH-camr I didn't follow about a software I didn't know about. Good job!
Also, this seems much more approachable than Wotja, which I had fun with for generative music, but whoose learning curve seems much more steep when you want to get more complex stuff going.
Wait till you listen to the guy's music!
holy crap i watched this whole video without realizing that you were the flashbulb!
Luminaria!! I loved Electroplankton SO much as a kid, SimTunes also. Honestly MidiNous reminds me a LOT of SimTunes. I *REALLY* wish Toshio Iwai had done more stuff after that.
Master Tracks Pro had piano roll before 1989. Had it on my Mac Plus in 1988, so it existed within MTP at least since then.
Been looking for something like this without knowing it since i got into musicmaking! Thank you for consistently being a motivational force in my life wonderful human!
Honestly this is such a cool idea. I'm a software engineer and I am also often thinking about alternative, more programmatic ways of making music. But all my ideas so far would've been text/code based, which is hard to use for "normal" people. If this starts to support plugins and mixer channels I'm definitely going to use it!
0:30 For me, it's the opposite. I'm overwhelmed by the options and I can't settle on one thing anymore. I'm more aware than ever of my limitations, but I don't even know where to begin with fixing them.
i can't wait to see someone make an entire operative system out of those music circuits
This is amazing! I can play simple bass, I can play guitar like a bass, I can fat-finger piano - but because of that, my creative expression for music is mostly in my DAW FL Studio's piano roll, which is tough when you need to let your creativity flow. Connecting this to FL Studio has given me a new way to doodle and find what I'm looking for in terms of inspiration. Thank you!!
I was in love with this a minute into your demo. I HATE fussing around with stuff in DAWs, and this seems so fast for sketching, creating, and exploring.
EDIT: Sweet lord, it is linux native, I am buying this the second I get home.
Unfortunately Bitwig and Reaper can't open it without going over the hassle of loading a virtual midi port driver. However it works great with Ardour, Qtractor, Carla, BespokeSynth, VCV/Cardinal and of course external gear :)
I'm running it in Linux, it's awesome!
I gotta say virtualizing the expensive option is amazing. VR synth is amazing. It has a long way to go before we're building custom electronics and really cracking the ceiling, but it's well on its way.
I've been following and using Midinous for a while and it's great. I haven't used it for a while, but maybe I should!
This is definitely a really cool and interesting new way to sequence music. That having been said, it's not a substitute for playing a real instrument, and you're only cheating yourself by keeping yourself dependent on a computer to make music. Obviously not directed at the owner of the channel, who plays many instruments.
I cannot like this enough times. I have been into writing complex and cascading modi sequences and experimenting with how to effectively add, ostensibly, randomizing triggers with specific
parameters or for specific things and then and then and then. This, just... is all of the things. I'm also a video game junkie so how I missed this until NOW!
Step aside Reaper, if only for a few (hundred) hours.
Thank you thank you and a million times thank you. I may change that to DAMN YOU for ruining my life because I do nothing else but write nodal modular music inside the realm of midi "games", the absolute wet dream of nooooo one else but meeeeee... and everyone who checked this out so, clearly like a bunch more people.
surely what else could I not know of...?
Subscribed. Right when the cord was triggered at 19:37. Something about that routing follow into the chord, and the duration of the cord timing out, I dunno... just got me.
Also... bought it, too.
Just took it for a quick spin and _Ooof!_ This is fantastic! Just alone for the incredible ease of making one note, wherever it is in the sequence, trigger something else. Weee!
One thing I really like about is that you can have all your instruments right in front of you, without having to select and switch instruments or adjust windows around so you can see more of them at once... They're just all there, and you also have whole patterns on screen, without having to constantly side-scroll around. I find it much more practical to zoom and pan around in this "worktable" kind of workflow.
Thanks for making this real interesting video instead of a paid advertisement of the Ableton Push 3!
I've always wanted to get into making music to align with my stories, but DAW's and other software have always been extremely intimidating to me. Maybe it's because I'm an engineer by trade, but learning that something like this exists is extremely invigorating. This is the first time I've looked at music software that my brain just almost immediately began understanding without feeling completely overwhelmed. Thank you for sharing!
This looks sick! Though clicking around to make music is the thing that makes me want to get out of a DAW in the first place 😅 Probabilistic plugins and programs are always great ways to generate ideas you wouldn't have otherwise thought of
This is impressive, it looks so simple, but at the same time it's mind-blowing.
20:00 This almost sounds like the music you hear in the character creation screen in Dark Souls 1. Beautiful!
oh wow good point! sounds super Fromsoft in general, actually reminds me of playing Armored Core: For Answer back in the day
This is really cool. Not only is it a very intuitive way to make loops and beats, but I can see the generative functions being used in all sorts of settings from Spas, to Video Game BGM, to live presentations. Would be need to see some "effect" pads that could do things like change the key or tempo, add vibrato, or even lock out a pad so it can't be activated until other conditions are met (time elapse, a number of pulses hit the pad, or hit other pads, etc)
I was desperately hoping Nodal would get an upgrade. Maybe I've found out it is named Midinous. I'll check it out.
Thank you so much for the always inspiring content, Benn.
As someone addicted to Factorio this is even cooler! I'm mind blown by the clock you made at the generative music part. There's a channel who made procedural djent and i immediately got the idea to just replace all random notes with sequences in a way that allows this random generation to pick each sequence, and it's all visible and not just code everywhere. This is just incredible to watch for any logic nerd out there.
There is one app I have on my iPad called Senode reminds me of this. Placing nodes, adding probability and linking back things like repeats or creating loops
I came here to say Senode or even New Path on iOS.
@@Pab1oXB-82 Funny, so did I! #Senode
I was also going to comment about Senode. I hope development continues...
Senode is cool but this looks like a much nicer workflow to me.
lol i was watching until literally 26:08 and i went like oh shit thats right youre the flashbulb xD i remembered having the same realization on one of your earlier videos awhile ago haha love your stuff and videos man!
I'd really love if it was possible to quantize some nodes' pitch not to a scale, but to a chord currently played by other nodes :)
Only in the first min of the vid, but I have to throw in Gene Wolfe's advice on writers block, which is to ask yourself, "What's the next cool thing that happens?"- the important word here being cool... a very subjective word, but one in which your own tastes and those of your readers (or listeners, I guess) are strongly likely to align. "Happens" is of course another key word for this to work lol.
also, have you tried ZOA? sequencer based on John Conway's Game of Life. pretty neat!
Reminds me of music in creature editor in the game "Spore"
That's exactly what I thought of too
1:47 that's the reason why I started to learn how to use modular synths on vcv rack, this is so inspiring
Seems cool, and different enough from existing node-based graphical coding systems like PureData and MaxMSP that it's adding something novel to the mix.
I saw the Tenori-On as a kid when it got released and was fascinated, but never got one. This software may spark this fascination and joy again, so thanks for showing it! I'll give it a try.
As someone who jumped on this as soon as it was released, I'm excited to see this innovative product get some exposure. When I can't decide whether to do something in Bitwig or play a video game, Midinous bridges the gap. It really is the most unique, paradigm shifting sequencer you've ever seen. It's the sequencer that Hexcel and Midigrid wish they could be.
Not even thru the vid ,but the beginning part abt writers block , for anybody working thru that, that's so true. Sometime u gotta try some different. Game changer
DUDE - this software is pretty cool! I did not even know it existed and after watching the tutorial - since you know the person who made this... I would make one suggestion... In the tutorial it is not explained how to use an external VST or instrument. I got it worked out in a minute after I remembered you saying something about it creating a port... But I just was thinking Hmmm this should probably get put into the tutorial so others can figure it out. (also I am a dev, and get that sometimes - we THINK people know stuff... but they don't lol) - PS I used Halion and it was cool - might do a video about it using Halion and point to your video if you don't mind. Thanks Benn!!
Yes, I was left baffled as to whether or not Midinous even allows VSTi's (or is this just a Falcon thing?). I mean, would Ominsphere 2 work with this (or any other VSTi in my collection)? Unfortunately, the guy in the video didn't make this clear.
@@philipford6183 The very first words in the description are, "Midinous is a non-linear MIDI sequencer",. most VSTi seem to be triggerable through MIDI.
I had a very similar idea 8 years ago with no programming knowledge, and my friends called it dumb.
I didn’t have the time nor interest to learn programming, so I’m glad someone who knows what he’s doing is making something similar. It kind of makes me want to make MY version of it
And it even runs on Linux! ;)
I'm glad I've only discovered your channel very recently. So much goodness to enjoy without having to wait until you release something new! Always been a fan of algorithmic music-making, so I'm definitely buying Midinous.
I'm literally crying. I've been playing bass/guitar for 15 years, it's been fun, but what you described in the intro is literally me. I see the fretboard and I see quite literally exactly 100 notes in front of me, I know theory but when I sit down I see ALL of the theory I know put in a big bucket all at once.
aaaaaaaaaaand I'm also a huge fan of factorio, put a good number of hours into all the zachtronics games. This sounds like something made for my brain.
jeez dude you used "literally" 3 times...
@@i-never-look-at-replies-lol literally, I did. No literal way.
Holy John Gage's Ghost, Batman! But seriously, I haven't been that enthralled by a "music process" in a long time. One of the coolest things I've seen in awhile. Must have that app
The tree-like project is something out of this world, gives me some dark souls vibes, very beautiful
This is incredible. Being a software developer, and music producer I would be lying If I haven't though of doing one application similar to this.
MIDINOUS is incredible, and I feel that this, or any other software in this line, can be enough to open creation to new grounds.
Think like the game of life, where new patterns, or music "factories", can be discovered, shared, and people might generate their own music styles, within a template or pattern.
Add some voice generation, and some effects gimmics, and it's a full one man music producing studio.
IM SORRY... IM HERE... DID... DID SOMEONE SAY FACTORIO???
I've always been interested in things like these because I have a lot of interest in music and sound design, but I find myself very weak at composition and struggle to do much beyond making ambience.
This approach to music really tickles my programmer side and fits into a view of making music that feels better suited for the way I think. Maybe some day I'll have the time and money to invest into it because it looks really cool.
I was literally trying to find an app like this on Steam this past weekend. Amazing timing! Music software is either extremely under represented on Steam, or impossible to search.
why would you depend on steam to search for apps?? widen your view
u can literally search the steam catalog by software/music though can't u?
Why would you look for music software on steam?
This is why I love Renoise, and I came from oldschool DOS tracking Fasttracker II.
This is very cool, and helps to break us out of the monotony of piano roll.
I would like to give some attention to another program like this called ORCA
I really like it
I started with "the hum", and now this. Thanks! Great channel.
Midinous is fun as hell and I'm glad it's getting a boost here, Nornec deserves it.
One time I actually started burning out on music a long time ago. Was only classically trained at that time playing only prewritten compositions. But then I discovered improv, and it was like just discovering music all over again from the very beginning. Tried to node based playing, particularly on iPad, but improv always gets me excited for music again.
This is actually very common with a lot of younger Classically trained pianists I noticed, I see lots of posts online about it and I always found it very bizarre from the perspective of someone self-taught from a Jazz background on piano with an emphasis on just theory, and jammin' where ever my heart takes me
You had me at factorio
A good free alternative is Orca, though you'd need either a virtual or physical MIDI I/O setup.
Love the results very inspiring but the interface would make my brain melt unfortunately but maybe in the future we can get this on iPad I think a touch interface would make more sense
I say this on most videos I think but your demos are always so on point and inspiring and holy fricken shizzle 21:36 is so amazing. I just got home from work to finish the video and it transported me to another space entirely. amazing stuff
this is how you know that you are doing excellent job with this channel - show even didn’t started and there is already 45 likes 😂
And thats a good thing?
@@ickebins6948 i think it is
@@raysubject Fanbois...
I checked Steam at the beginning of the video whether it has Linux support - I liked it the moment I saw that it does. ;)
whats nice is setting an amazing generative patch and then having hands to actually move paraments on the synths or vst's to "perform". Amazing.