P-Mix

P-Mix is an lv2 plugin that acts kinda like an autonomous DJ. It fades/cuts tracks in a DAW in & out.

Recently I've had quite a good workflow going on in the music room. A lot of experimentation with modular etc, building up tunes. I've got quite systematic about the process for mixing & mastering. I've stuck a few quasi-finished pieces on YouTube (search query "Spike & Wave hyperdata"). But I've got loads of material stuck at a certain point between the build up of layers and the final mix. Typically 8+ tracks, some of them loops, some of them changing over time. But all there in parallel, by default on all the time. Things need to come in and out.

What's really frustrating is that the stage after this, putting icing on things, an effect here and there, novel sample or whatever, is good fun. I just tend to get stuck at this just-beyond-loops phase. Doing this part of the mixing takes ages, and because you're going over the same material over & over again it gets tiring and your judgement quickly goes downhill. Like it's pretty easy to decide on an intro, the first 20 seconds or so of a piece. Then it starts to become a chore and you lose engagement. Ok, I've been attempting to get around this by breaking it up into short sessions, do a bit at a time. But still, the brain fog from repitition descends pretty quickly.

Then it occurred to me - automate it!

I've been doing loads of coding with Claude & Codex AI assistants, including a bunch of (mostly unfinished) lv2 plugins. So I'd got the infrastructure in place - ie. basically workinig example code which the AI can use for reference. Which is fortunate, seeing as I'm really lousy at C/C++. It pleases me immensely that lv2s use Turtle syntax RDF (semweb ftw!).

Here I set a bunch of 8 or so parallel tracks in a loop with the plugin on each of them, and had a play with the modular while it did its thing : Live from the music room

P-Mix : a probabilistic mixer lv2

P-Mix is a very simple lv2 plugin that acts kinda like an autonomous DJ. It fades/cuts audio tracks in a DAW in & out. For when you get stuck with a loop.

Here I set a bunch of 8 or so parallel tracks in a loop with the plugin on each of them, and had a play with the modular while it did its thing.

(There are a bunch of other toys in the repo, various levels of unfinishedness)