Camelot is like a complex animal with multiple subsystems that all contribute to making up one amazing organism. Oh, sure, you skipped out on biology in school; we all did. But the biology of Camelot isn’t like that. It’s much more fun and nowhere near as technical and difficult.
Let’s just cut right to the heart of the matter. Which, of course, will lead us to the circulatory system. The beating heart of Camelot is its Layers, which must mean that its Items are the circulatory system, because Items are contained and connected in Layers.
Each Layer is a complete signal path made of Items that deal with MIDI, audio, or even both! You can have Layers that change completely for every different part of a song, you can have other Layers that DON’T change for the duration of the song, you can even have Layers that don’t change for the duration of an entire setlist. And you can have all of these at once. Now doesn’t that make your heart beat just a little bit faster?
To be clear, Items aren’t spleens or kidneys, but they can be software instruments, or reverb and delay effects, or MIDI processors, or any of a number of other functions. You can combine all of these and, rather than ending up with Frankenstein’s monster, you can end up with a monster performance rig.
You can see now how much more important it is to understand biology with Camelot than it ever was in school. And you’ll be pleased to know there’s no thick textbook that starts to look like a blur after only a few minutes. Instead, there’s a nice, clear article that lays out the particulars of Layers and Items in a thorough but digestible form. (Please tell me we’re not on to the digestive system now, because enough is enough with the biology metaphor.)
Trust us, when you start understanding what you can do with Layers and Items, it’ll generate some body heat!