Mark Mosher, an electronic musician and the blogger behind Modulate This!, has introduced 9 Box Method, an ambitious new project to develop a standardized approach for group improvisations with Ableton Live:
“9 Box” refers to a 3×3 matrix of 9 clips – hence the “9 Box”.
Why 9 clips? 9 clips can be mapped to a single AudioCube and are a small enough number that it’s easy to keep track of the relationship between the physical interfaces and the sound phrases.
The system is intended for applications in social musical jams, music education, music therapy, installations, and festivals and supports 1-4 players per instance. Without changing any settings, or having to reconfigure controllers, the system can organically scale from 1-4 players. Players simply decide what role they will take and re-arrange the cubes accordingly.
9 Box Method is basically a set of free downloads for Ableton Live, along with documentation designed to standardize setting up Live group jams. Mosher says that the system “will allow players to spend more time making music and sound than configuring hardware and software.”
The first edition of 9 Box will be based on 6 Percussa AudioCubes, but Mosher plans to adapt it to the Novation Launchpad, too.
Mosher’s video, above, is a performance test to see how long it takes configure the cubes and load the templates. This is a one-time setup per jam session. You can then refill the 9 boxes on the fly.
It looks like an interesting project. If you give it a try – leave a comment and let us know what you think!
