It went very well, I think. We played continuously for about 70 minutes, and had about 35 listeners, as far as I could tell, from all over the world. Some of them had some connection problems, which I suppose is inevitable, unfortunately, but most had a good listening experience. Jordan and I are going to get together to listen to the recording and possibly edit it before making it available online somewhere. When we do, I'll let you know.
I don't think you'd find the sound disappointing. The jam itself went from pure sonic exploration, to jamming over melodic and percussive sequences, to more "conventional" harmonic and melodic improvisation. Jordan played both his Model D and Voyager MiniMgs, often simultaneously, while I played the MMV almost continuously, with just a little Theremin (I'm not much of a Theremin player.) As such, it was often difficult to tell who was making which sounds, although he tended to confine himself to melodic lines (the MiniMgs are monophonic, after all) while I tended to play more chords, sequences, and abstract sounds.
If you're interested, there are some pictures of the jam posted on Jordan's site at
http://www.jordanrudess.com/diary.htmlAt times it got very dense and heavy - the MMV is capable of some very heavy low-end sounds, as long as you have a fast enough machine to support lots of FM and polyphony. I developed most of the sounds on a G4 Powerbook 800 MHz, but found that the FM sounds especially would max it out pretty easily. I borrowed a Compaq dual 2.2 GHz desktop system for the performance and fortunately never had a problem with CPU overload, even in the densest sections, playing both sequences and chordal parts. I used a Kurzweil 2500 as my controller, along with a Malletkat in one section - the Kurzweil has 8 programmable sliders that I set to control things like filter frequencies and resonances, VCA levels, and delay feedback, so I had lots of realtime control at hand and could change several parameters at once while playing, rather than having to rely on the mouse and single parameter control.
I have to say I think the MMV is a fantastic instrument. I learned synthesis on Mg systems years ago, and working with the MMV was a real treat for me - not just for nostalgic reasons, although that's certainly a factor, but because with these kinds of instruments you have such immediate and initimate control over all aspects of the sound. I used only a few presets in the performance, but designed them for the performance so that I could modify the sound as much as possible in realtime while playing, and so I was able to constantly vary the sound spontaneously in a way that I think would be very difficult with digital synths. We both had a great time, and will probably do it again soon. We'll be sure to post the information here if it's appropriate.
