By Jim Aikin
Vintage analog step sequencers were highly interactive. Three or four rows of knobs, each row controlling a different sound parameter. Turn a few knobs while the sequence cycled, and the music could morph endlessly. Numerology is a return to those thrilling days—but with a heavy dose of computer savvy. Throw Numerology on your Mac laptop along with a few good AU plug-ins, add a control surface or two (iPad, Novation LaunchPad, whatever), and you can spin out ever-changing grooves for hours. Plan to spend a few weeks getting to know Numerology, though. It’s complex and amazingly powerful, but you’ll need to wrap your brain around some fresh concepts. Numerology is not a me-too multitrack MIDI/audio recorder. It’s hypnotic, addicting, and unlike any other software.
Overview
Writing 20 pages about Numerology would be easy. Explaining its myriad unusual features in three pages—not so easy. We’ll have to skip a number of more esoteric subtleties, but let’s go for it.
Musically, a Numerology project consists of patterns. You create them in point-and-click step sequencer modules, and you can lay them out on a multitrack timeline to produce a song. This may not sound too different from how other sequencers work, but the similarities end there. The point isn’t not to build a song in your studio as a multitrack production. Other programs do a better job of that. Numerology is about interacting with your music while it plays.
Numerology projects are built out of Stacks. A Stack is a vertical “rack” space that contains one or more step sequencers and control generators, one or more AU instruments, and perhaps some AU effects. As the music plays, the step sequencers send their MIDI output to the instrument(s)
in the Stack. You can easily create a number of Stacks with different sequencer and synth modules, and they’ll all play together.
When you find a sequencer pattern that you like, save it as a Stack preset. You can switch from one Stack preset to another with the mouse, or assign QWERTY or MIDI keys to do so. Naturally, they can switch at the next beat or bar line, or immediately. Instead of choosing presets live, you can arrange them on the Timeline to create a song structure with an intro,
verse, chorus, and so on. Each Stack has its own track on the Timeline.
Numerology boasts more than a dozen types of step sequencers and other control signal generators. A sequencer typically has a grid for choosing notes and one or two more for controlling things like velocity and gate length for each step. Other step parameters include step length, division (for faster repeated notes within a step), random jump probability, groove (step advance/delay), and MIDI control message outputs. The sequence can have as many or as few steps as you like, and you can change all of these parameters seamlessly while the music plays.
Several of the sequencers have auto-morphing features such as Generate and Evolve. Choose a Generate type from a drop-down menu, click the button, and an entirely new sequence pattern will emerge. If you like it, save it as a preset. When the Evolve section is activated, a pattern will mutate gradually as it plays. The Evolve section has a whole dialog box full of useful parameters; for instance, you could set up an Evolve template to move one note by a fifth and swap two velocity values, each with a chosen probability of occurring every two measures.
Numerology won’t record your keyboard performance in real time, but a sequence can be up to 128 steps long, and you can change its start or end step interactively during performance. Nor will Numerology record audio tracks, though you can do that by linking to a DAW via ReWire. Numerology will capture an AIFF audio file while the music plays, so you can easily create complete tracks without going near a DAW. To pair Numerology’s MIDI grooves with audio loops, you could ReWire it to Ableton Live, or fire off sampled loops from an AU plug-in.
Numerology can transmit MIDI to hardware synths. It also has an audio input, so if you have AU effects plug-ins that respond well to MIDI control signals (and a low-latency audio interface), you could process audio in real time.
More About Stacks
Like in Propellerhead Reason, Numerology’s Stacks have front and rear panels. The rear panels are for patching signals from one module to another, and you can flip from front to rear using your Tab key. Modules can be minimized to save vertical space. Other than that, no attempt is made to emulate Reason’s faux-hardware UI. A Stack’s front panel is packed with pop-up menus, dialog boxes, and other computer fun.
The normal way to use Numerology (if there is such a thing) is to put one sequencer and one synth plug-in into a given Stack, but you can patch several sequencers to play one synth at the same time. The sequences can have different lengths, creating compound patterns. Also, one sequencer can play several synths for layered tones.
The control signal processing in Numerology is among the best I’ve seen. You can route signals through a simple Scale & Off set module, a four-in-by-one-out synced switcher, a three-input CV mixer, a two-in function generator with more than 20 different functions, and so on. You can also modulate almost any parameter from another Numerology module, such as an LFO or a triggered envelope, or via an input from MIDI or (in Numerology Pro only) Open Sound Control. Parameter modulations are edited in the source module, not in the destination, which is a bit confusing until you figure out where to look, and there’s no easy way to send one source to several destinations.
Synths and effects within Stacks open up their own floating edit windows. Unfortunately, the choice of plug-in preset isn’t stored in a Stack preset. Instead, these choices are saved as part of your whole project.
12-2011 REVIEW: Five12 Numerology by KeyboardMag
More About Step Sequencers
You get five: MonoNote, PolyNote, ChordSeq, Drum-Seq, and MatrixSeq. The PolyNote sequencer has a full range of MIDI notes, and can play chords, but there’s only one velocity value per sequence step, not one for each note. In the DrumSeq, each of the eight drum rows has its own velocity slider for each step, as well as its own MIDI channel assignment. In the DrumSeq and MatrixSeq, you can mute all of the notes at a given pitch with a single click.
The ChordSeq produces three-note or four-note chords on each step, and you can choose the chord type using familiar Roman numeral and chord symbol notation, such as IImin7. The entire chord sequence can be transposed with a single command, and the chord notes can all be adjusted to a given harmonic mode, such as Dorian, Phrygian, or whole-tone.
Numerology also has four CV sequencers. By running their outputs into a NoteGen module, you can build patterns that vary across cycles, such as a four-note pitch pattern with a five-step velocity pattern and a seven-step gate pattern. After creating odd-length patterns of this sort in any sequencer, you can choose a “hard sync” length for the pattern, which will make it start over after any number of beats up to 32. To hear this in action, listen to the clip “Epicycles” online.
In Use
I had trouble tearing myself away from Numerology long enough to write this review. I tried numerous experiments, and with a little tweaking they all sounded good. For one sketch, I loaded a vocal phrase from my hard drive into the built-in sample player, gated it through a VCA module using an LFO square wave, and fired the short gated phrases through a ping-pong delay. An Interval Sequencer occasionally pitched the sample up or down by an octave. For accompaniment, I loaded U-he Zebra 2 into another stack, used the Generate button to create a 16-step acid-style sequence, mutated it slightly every two bars using the Evolve section, and modulated the sequencer’s interval parameter from the step number in another slow sequencer. I multiplied the step number by two using the Scale & Offset module so that every two measures the sequence modulated upward by a whole-step for six whole-steps, after which it fell back. (Listen to the clip “Bostonians” online.)
Since Numerology works its pattern magic on AU instruments, having a few good ones on your hard drive will make using it more fun, but the program includes a few to get you started. A drum kit module can load eight samples. A sample playback module has a filter and a couple of AHDSR envelopes (the H stands for a “hold” between the initial attack and when the decay segment begins), and the start time and loop points of the sample can even be modulated on the fly.
Conclusions
Interacting with your music while it plays opens up vast new possibilities for performance. Cycling ’74 Max and its freeware sibling Pd are great tools for experimental music, and Ableton Live is optimized for dance and pop. Numerology fits neatly between those two extremes. It’s more interactive and adventurous than Live, yet it’s more oriented toward playing tuneful, groovacious patterns than Max. If you’re wondering whether Numerology really belongs in the same paragraph with those two titans, it most certainly does.
Bottom Line
The whole idea of step sequencing taken to new heights, in interactive software that’s unlike anything else out there.
Pro: $199 direct
Standard: $129 direct
Upgrade to Pro: $79 direct
five12.com
Key Info
FORMATS Hosts AU plug-ins. Can run as an AU or a VST plug-in (requires Numerology 3.1 and Mac OS 10.5.8 or later). Supports ReWire. Pro version supports Open Sound Control.
MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Mac: OS 10.4.11 or later, 2GB RAM.
Snap Judgment
PROS Deep, powerful feature set. Extremely interactive for live performance. Beautifully designed point-and-click interface. Basic sample playback modules included. Invites experiments.
CONS Steep learning curve. Not well suited for conventional songwriting. No real-time recording of pattern data. No audio tracks. Timeline edits snap to quarter-notes. No edit undo. No Windows version.
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