“Okay,” you say to the Web geeks, “I’ve had enough. I don’t want another little app that looks at my iTunes collection and tells me that if I like Lady Gaga, I probably also like Madonna. I want to listen in new ways and, most importantly, make music. What have you got, Web 2.0… 3.0… whatever we’re on now, that I can actually use. I want some of the deliciousness of the future, now.”

“Oh, and another thing – can I patch this Android phone of mine in absurd ways?”

Wish granted.

The latest Music Hackday in Stockholm was filled with the usual simple, first-draft hacks – as it should be; the whole idea is to do something quickly and start something real. But among them were some really strong ideas about how connecting music makers to the Web could do intelligent, new things.

Here are some of the best. Themes emerging:

There is a “there” there. Use proximity, and make location start to help people share musical tastes (and, by the same token, music making).

Put music creation in the browser – without Flash. New JavaScript-based tools can do live synthesis. There’s even a Nanoloop-style sequencer, built entirely with JavaScript and HTML. While these won’t be replacing dedicated music software any time soon, they can have the inverse effect, which is bringing musical creativity to more online apps. (Trust me, it’s more fun than most of what’s on Facebook.)

Make musicians’ online lives easier. Thanks to open APIs, all your gig info, tour info, and music uploads can finally come together.

Get physical. Hacks involving everything from big robotic visualizers to physical radio controls connect open hardware platforms like Arduino and Android.

(And yes, there were a lot of new Android apps, early proof that open mobile development could make a splash.)

Here’s a look at some of the coolest individual projects:

AlbexOne
Data as connected, kinetic sculpture

It’s one thing to talk to a Web API and put the results on the screen. It’s quite another to turn that feedback into a massive, mechanical sculpture.

Ingredients:
One Web API (Echo Nest Java API, for song analysis)
One Google NexusOne phone, running Android, receiving data on wifi and sending on bluetooth
One microcontroller, receiving signals from the Android and rotating a giant, mechanical arm to make a drawing

Here’s hoping co-creators Albin Karlsson and Alex Olwal can send us video of the project working in action.

ProximRadio + Blobble
Making software and hardware proximity-aware

The work by Michael Coffey (github | @eartle) and Jonty Wareing (github | @jonty) may seem at first like more of the usual social song-playing stuff. But it’s really a clever use of Bluetooth and proximity that could have significant implications for listening to and making music with other people in the same room.

Using new clients and servers, Michael and Jonty change the experience of listening to music. As people enter and leave a room, radio feeds respond accordingly. And the experience of “scrobbling” — writing a piece of music played on your computer to the Web — changes from solo to ensemble experience. If you and a few friends listen to Dark Side of the Moon while watching The Wizard of Oz, now all of your Last.fm accounts respond accordingly.

Note, too, that by using the open-source GUI framework Qt4, what looks like a native Mac UI is actually portable across (cough) platforms.

Let’s say you’d rather make music than play it. Well, good news: developed could use these same tricks to build Bluetooth-enabled musical instruments that respond to proximity, not only for social interactions but better-integrated
hardware.

Radio Free Hackday
Virtual radio meets the physical radio object

Simon Hohberg and Robert Böhnke (aka @ceterum_censeo) had a brilliant, simple hardware hack: put the soul of an Arduino mini into a friendly-looking Panasonic FM radio. Result: physical controls for virtual radio, and an actual, local FM stream transmitted back from the computer into the stream.

With some minor upgrades (like a beefier, non-Arduino minicomputer), this could be a self-contained Internet radio. But it’s a reminder that making physical controls for software can be fun, frivolous, and novel. After all, it’s really the way we interact with real-world objects that makes them meaningful.

Webloop
Game Boy mainstay Nanoloop, reimagined as JavaScript

Start with Nanoloop, the unique, elegantly-designed music creation software for the Game Boy. Now imagine it as a browser application – no Flash, no standalone app, but all JavaScript, even down to the audio output.

That’s what Jan Krutisch did with his Webloop, now in its second iteration. It’s a testament to the universality of Oliver Wittchow’s design for Nanoloop, and the growing power of the browser and JavaScript as an open platform on which to make music software.

Synthism
Patching synthesis in online browser modules

This is a bit hard to see in action, so we’ll have to take their word for it. But the idea is compelling – and is another example of the action that could take place in the browser (in this case, with the actual sound work done elsewhere in a more traditional fashion):

Synthism.com our frontend to the powerful BrainBeat compiler, which is also built by the synthism.com team. This gives you the possibility to export synthesizers from synthism.com to different platforms, e.g. as a VST instrument. The flexibility of the BrainBeat compiler allows us to add support for exotic hardware such as FPGAs or special purpose built DSPs found in different hardware synthesizers, making export to such platforms available.

And yes, all of this is meant to be “collaborative,” which could add more dimension to it.

Songkick On Tour from Matt Biddulph on Vimeo.

Songkick on Tour
A Web service that adds information to your trip

It may be technologically less impressive, but part of what I think will make the Web more useful is the use of open Web APIs to reduce the amount of work you have to do to get information. Songkick on Tour is a great example of that: it figures out your travel itinerary from the awesome Dopplr and lets you know what gigs are happening when you’re traveling. I’m a big fan of Dopplr and feel it’s underused; this demonstrates the sort of thing that could be done.

Of course, this quick hack is only the start – it could make it easier for touring musicians to stay on top of information when they’re on the road.

Along the same lines, and on a grander scale…

Holodeck
One place on the Web, all your artist stuff – automatically

“A tool for artists to create their own website with music from SoundCloud, gigs from Songkick or Last.fm, news/posts from Tumblr.”

That says it all, doesn’t it? Instead of adding yet another Web service to keep track of, another dimension of complexity in your life, this mashes together information you’ve already put elsewhere.

Imagine if every time you made a note of something, you scattered it in a different part of the house. Imagine how complex your life would be.

Oh, wait. I don’t have to imagine that. I do that. Anyway, yeah, let’s have the Web not work that way so it pays for the time, electricity, and money it consumes, ‘kay?

Echonest Midi Player

A Web-to-MIDI converter

Internet comes in, music goes out. Connect an Ethernet cable to one side of this gadget (via the Arduino Ethernet Shield), connect the other to a MIDI instrument, and Bertrand Gondouin’s creation plays MIDI music automatically.

Of course, this has other creative implications, like the ability to pipe your own music or musical events to installations, remote players, to rig up an Ethernet- (or wifi-) powered MIDI band, or whatever you might imagine.

And bless the presence of simple, free Web servers, like the one on which this site runs. (Actually, CDM is LXMP – Linux nginx MySQL PHP – not LAMP with Apache, but I digress.)

More cool projects

Tired of embedding a whole Flash-powered player? the hackable SoundCloud JS player is customizable and lightweight. (It’s not Flash-free – you still need Flash as the back-end to decode the audio, as sadly HTML5 still doesn’t mean consistent MP3 and OGG codec support across browsers, at least so far.)

HacKey asks a fascinating question, which is whether people’s musical tastes are related to key.

BuddyJ for iPhone adds a dead-simple, cueable music output. Now, true, this may not look like an all-powerful DJ app, but that’s not the point: it makes the iPhone or iPod touch into a cueable “deck” you could connect to a mixer, etc.

SleepApp is a simple Android demo app, but it also demonstrates – with all the code on Google Code – how to do basic UIs and stream Internet radio, meaning it could be a good starting point if you’re dabbling in Android music development.

More coverage

Five music hacks from the future [Pocket-lint]

New Echo Nest APIs demoed at the Stockholm Music Hackday [Music Machinery, where you can also follow the Echo Nest APIs]

Hacking in Stockholm [A report from Last.fm's LAST.HQ]

48 Hours, 31 Hacks – Stockholm Music Hack Day [Programmable Web]

And here is some rough mobile video of the presentations:

New York?

NYCers, I’d really love to help host a Music Hackday here (I missed the nearby Boston event, but we have some specific folks in NY who would be great to involve.) The only remaining challenge: a venue that can host 100 or 200 people, free. Suggestions?

http://musichackday.org/

All the Stockholm hacks

Wherever you live, you can enjoy the DIY and open hardware inventions coming out of Texas. Or, as the famous song goes: “That’s right, you’re not from Texas / Texas wants you anyway.”

Austin, Texas may be associated with the strum of guitars. But it’s also populated by some of our favorite electronic music hardware inventors on the planet, led by the likes of Bleep Labs, 4ms, Eric Archer, and more. They’ve taken the idea of a “Handmade Music” and come up with the best formula for building a community around DIY hardware I’ve seen yet:

1. Get beginners – even if they’ve never soldered before – making noises with a beginning kit workshop.
2. Do an advanced workshop that pushes the envelope with new hardware.
3. Turn that noise into a performance/party: i.e., “After all the kits were built, we plugged in to the PA and partied until the amp overheated.”
4. Provide your specs and software freely.
5. Make a kit available for people to buy.

Notice that it’s possible to make “free hardware” (open sourcing part or all of the code, publishing specs and circuits) and still sell a product. And it’s possible to act locally (workshops in Austin), and sell globally (sharing documentation online, and shipping kits everywhere else).

And notice that it’s possible to make events beginner-friendly. In fact, this isn’t just to teach experienced musicians how to solder. I find that many people who are too shy to make music via traditional means find there’s a freedom to a glitchy, blippy electronic thing that makes noise. After all, through the ages music was never intended to be exclusively the domain of professional specialists.

Here’s the latest on their activities – and a chance to meet the hardware that has come out of their series.

For more, stay glued to handmademusic@noisepages.

First, let’s meet the devices:

Meet the Beasties

Thingamagoop 2

Bleep Labs’ Thingamagoop seems as much electronic creature as electronic instrument; its sounds seem like the vocalizations of an alien and, yes, it’s darned cute. The new Thingamagoop 2 is more usable (easier-to-access battery), sounds better, and has more features. But it’s also more open in every way. CV in and out lets it interface with analog gear. A programmer jack lets you reprogram it with your Arduino, if you so choose (the Arduino isn’t required, but it does let you reprogram the sounds on your Thingamagoop). And now the sonic effects — sample and hold, arpeggios, noise, and bit crush — all use open-sourced code. That makes what was already an ingenious soundmaker more open to hacking by advanced users.

The Thingamagoop 2 debuted to the world at Austin’s Handmade Music. Now, perhaps we need some hack sessions to get people working on reprogramming this and other sonic oddities.

Full info on the Thingamagoop 2
Arduino code
Circuit diagram

I expect to get one of these soon, so expect a hands-on.

Nebulophone

Nebulophone is a coming kit that builds on the Arduino platform to create a playable, DIY Stylophone-style instrument. Having debuted at Handmade Music Austin #4, the instrument features “adjustable waveforms, a light controlled analog filter, LFO, and arpeggiator that can be clocked over IR.” Yes, you read that last bit right: it’s all part of the new wireless, infrared sync revolution these guys are leading.

Official site has code, schematics, instructions – so you can actually make your own – plus sound and advance info on the coming kit. I expect a video and more on the kit soon.

SimSam

The SimSam is a noisy, glitchtastic product.

It’s also the subject of a beginners’ workshop, a chance to get people working with electronics for the very first time.

And its cost – a tiny $8 in parts.

It’s also a brilliant use of the ATTINY85, an ultra-compact, 8-pin AVR chip. (AVR chips also live at the heart of the Arduino platform.)

And the SimSam debuted at – you guessed it – a workshop at Handmade Music Austin #4.

Tons of info and everything you need to build your own:
SimSam

There are actually some details that could use improving, so have a look and see if you can do an updated version.

Autonomous Bassline Generator + Andromeda Space Rocker + MIDI-IR Sync

The Autonomous Bassline Generator…

…can sync up with drum modules like this Andromeda Mk-4 by Eric Archer:

…and sync together via infrared, wirelessly, connecting to each other or slaving to a MIDI clock signal generated by Wooster Audio’s MIDI-IR.

Together, you get the Andromeda Space Rockers: a whole little galaxy of wirelessly-synced sonic gadgets. And all of the above are available as kits, so you can sooth your soul by assembling them yourself.

The creators have debuted and jammed with these gadgets through Handmade Music, and presented workshops on the technologies and concepts that underly their creation.

Arduino, Sound Libraries, and Resources

I asked Dr. Bleep himself (John-Mike) about what resources might be useful for working with the Arduino platform (and similar architectures) and sound. The main secret is, use Pulse Width Modulation to accomplish sounds with a minimum of code:

Here are a few of the pages I used when designing the code for it:
http://www.cs.mun.ca/~rod/Winter2007/4723/notes/timer0/timer0.html
http://arcfn.com/2009/07/secrets-of-arduino-pwm.html
http://blog.wingedvictorydesign.com/2009/05/29/generate-real-time-audio-on-the-arduino-using-pulse-code-modulation/2/

http://little-scale.blogspot.com/ is a fantastic source for “Oh man why didn’t i do that/ this guy is incredible!” projects.

I’m also not the first to mate the stylophone with arduino
http://hackaday.com/2009/08/25/arduino-based-synthesizer/

The two biggest/ earliest arduino synths were :
http://code.google.com/p/tinkerit/wiki/Auduinohttp://www.critterandguitari.com/home/store/arduino-piano.php

One difference with the Nebulophone is that it is very low part count. No multipexers or DACs. Just PWM out to an two opamp analog filter. This does limit the number of keys and controls but makes for a tiny, simple pcb.

Handmade Music Austin, in Videos

How do these events go down? Here’s a look at some of the sonic mayhem.

Episode 1:

Episode 2:

Episode 3:

Handmade #4 lacks a video, but we’ll watch for #5 when it happens.

The next Handmade Music Austin is on February 28. Details aren’t up yet, but I’m told you can expect an advanced workshop on building a digital delay by Nathan/Wooster Audio, plus a simple, light-controlled noisemaker for beginners. Stay tuned to:

http://handmademusic.noisepages.com

Live maker Ableton and DJ and virtual vinyl developer Serato today announced the results of their partnership. First off, this isn’t what many of us originally speculated: it’s not a DJ deck inside Live. Instead, the collaboration seeks to bridge (ahem) the gap between the way DJs perform and the way Live users perform. The result focuses on the way a performance set is assembled in the two paradigms, an attempt to guide the flow of music between the two programs. Here’s how it works.

Bring Serato “mixtapes” into Ableton Live: Save a DJ mix – called a “mix tape” – in a Serato product, and export it to Live, and what you get is all of your edits in a form that can be further manipulated in Live. Waveforms and automation data from your DJ session, however they’re manipulated and transcribed by the Serato software, appear in Live.

Put the Ableton Live Session View “inside” Serato: Here’s where things get in interesting. Rather than put Serato inside Live, we’re getting Live inside Serato – after a fashion. Ableton Live runs in the background. Integrated into the Serato interface (as seen at the screenshot at top) are all your Session View clips from your Live Set. Serato’s control – via audio input from vinyl or CDJs, or an ITCH control surface – manipulates the entire transport of the Live set.

Unknown: Turntablists are probably wondering, can they scratch Live? How much are those Live clips able to do? Do they behave as they do in Live? (As far as I know, yes – Live is, after all, running in the background and appears to have its normal capabilities.) I’ll work on these questions with Ableton and have an update by tomorrow.

ITCH: Yes, you can use controllers that support Serato’s ITCH, not just vinyl or CDJs, in order to control the transport of your imported Live set.

Pricing: Free. Own Serato Live/ITCH and Ableton Live (full version or Suite)? The Bridge costs you nothing. (Yes, this seems to be a departure from the arrangement from Max for Live.)

Availability: “No release date has been set yet.”

Naturally, all of this begs the question: do you really want to do this? And I expect that question is about to get turned over and inside out all over comments here on CDM and around the Web. It’ll naturally depend a lot on who you are.

Taking Serato sets into Live is clearly great for Serato users. It means you can get a head start on assembling an arrangement just by DJing, or alternatively, that you have the ability to use Live as a way of editing your Serato set. (Now, again, this appears to be a proprietary format – but that raises an interesting point. Ableton now uses an open XML format, meaning you could also presumably deconstruct this new Serato export and enable it to be used somewhere else, whether intended or not. But I digress.)

It’s the more ambitious reverse direction that’s both the most interesting and the most potentially controversial. After all, if you’re using Session View inside of Serato, why not just use Session View? Will it be more useful to put Live inside the virtual vinyl environment than the virtual vinyl inside Live? (If it turns out you favor the latter, you have other options – not least the recent evolution of Max for Live patches for Ms. Pinky. More on that in coming days.)

Side note: check out the VIDEO-SL integration. That makes this all even more interesting as an a/v, virtual vinyl environment; see our ongoing coverage of VIDEO-SL and other vinyl visualism for Create Digital Motion.

I’m not a turntablist, though, so I think the real question is what their take on this is. And kudos to Serato and Ableton for taking the gutsy route here as far as combining these products. We’ll get a closer look soon, and I’m curious to hear the reactions – however impassioned they may be. (On your mark … set … comment. Oh, boy.)

http://www.ableton.com/thebridge
http://www.serato.com/thebridge

Ableton Live-specific controllers just got another addition. You probably could have guessed this would come out, following the APC40 and Novation’s grid-only Launchpad last year, but the Akai APC20 is the new, smaller sibling to Akai’s APC40. The APC20 does basically everything the APC40 does on the latter’s left-hand side — it’s a grid of buttons, a set of mixers for your tracks, buttons for activating tracks (and solo/cue/record), and shortcuts for moving around and triggering the transport. Using the buttons, you can trigger clips or notes, with additional buttons for scenes and stopping clips around the outside of the 8×5 array.

The “Note Mode” is new, officially, but I believe hackers may have gotten the APC40 to do that. Hopefully it’ll be rolled out to the APC40 in an update.

What the APC20 doesn’t do is everything on the right-hand side of the APC40: you lose out on additional shortcuts, the crossfader, and most importantly, the controls for pan, sends, and Device Rack macros, though the controls seem to suggest you get some control back via control pages, as on Novation’s Launchpad. That makes the APC20 less appealing as a standalone to me. It gives you mixer faders missing from the Launchpad (which relies on buttons for the job), but it loses the ability to control devices and effects. And unlike the Launchpad, it seems the APC20 still requires external power rather than bus power.

Instead, it seems that Akai hopes you’ll buy the APC20 as a companion to your APC40, for, uh, 60 worth of APC. (I think we have a new unit of measure.) With what Akai calls “Combination mode,” you can add the 40 and 20 together for control of 80 buttons and 16 tracks. In Akai’s press release, it also seems that Akai thinks customers might add an APC20 to an existing rig with other gear — though that puts it in competition with the Novation Launchpad for the same job.

You can also buy six APC20s and use those together, and if you buy that many APCs, I recommend two things: one, seek professional help, and two, definitely send us photos.

This does still trigger the concerns I’ve been trying to raise since I reviewed the APC40 last year. Why should something as simple as chaining multiple devices together for control be a feature specific to a certain product? Haven’t we been chaining devices together as a standard feature all the way back to the invention of MIDI, now over a quarter century ago? (For the record, you can combine multiple control surfaces in Ableton Live. But the moment one set of controllers does that and another doesn’t, based on support in the software itself, that ceases to be a standard feature of Ableton.)

That said, for APC fans looking for some more control, the APC20 should appeal. But if I had to recommend a first APC, I’d still strongly recommend the APC40. Having a controller with built-in controls for everything Live does – clip triggers, mixing, cross-fading, effects, and device control, with all the shortcuts – really is a nice luxury.

http://www.akaipro.com/apc20

Pricing: Not yet announced Estimated US$199 street

Availability: Second quarter 2010

Now, it’ll be interesting to see if this is the last Ableton hardware controller news from this year’s NAMM or not; time will tell.

As always, we won’t cover every last bit of news, just the stuff we really find important. And in a twist, we’re also looking to volunteer participants to help us cover the community around music technology, not just the big industry-driven stuff.

Where and when to get your tech news

At 10:00 or 11:00 am tomorrow, January 14, Pacific Time (GMT-8), embargoes begin lifting on most NAMM news.

You can follow CDM’s coverage in two places: here on CDM, of course, but also at:

namm.noisepages.com

On CDM, we’ll have our own editorial look at the show. For the latest, round-the-clock news, videos, and clips, dispatches from our contributors, as well as unedited press clippings, watch namm.noisepages.com. We’ll take the best bits of the noisepages site and round them up on CDM.

We’ll be covering official and unofficial news this week. So, yes, we expect to cover big names like Roland. We’ll also be picking up on tech in hotel rooms, open-source oddities at the party Friday, and hardware that can’t afford NAMM booths – you know, just like we always do. Every day is a news day around here.

Friday night in Los Angeles, I’ll be part of the big, unofficial Wham Bam Thank You NAMM party. We’ll have video, sound, and feature coverage both of the artists and of the discussion we hope to kick off about the future of music tech. So watch for bits of that over the coming days.

What to expect

Our most anticipated news:

Ableton and Serato have already teased ableton-serato.com. So, obviously, if you were to tune into CDM at 11am California time tomorrow, I’m sure there won’t be any news whatsoever. Got that? Do not, by any means, expect any news Thursday around 11am.

I’ve been looking forward to talking to Teenage Engineering about their gorgeous-looking, Casio-inspired, FM radio and FM synthesis-equipped OP-1 synthesizer for months now; NAMM had always been the timeframe. Whatever isn’t ready, I should be able to catch when I’m in Stockholm in February. I’m imagining their studio looks something like the Wonka Chocolate Factory. If you’re there, you can find them on the floor.

I expect lots more controller hardware from lots more makers, and, whether it’s at NAMM or Messe or (for many manufacturers) completely independent of any trade show, I think 2010 will see more integrated hardware-software products.

No LinnDrum. There won’t be a LinnDrum announcement this year. That’s actually not a rumor. I think it’s best to diffuse any potential disappointment early. Dave Smith Instruments, though, have promised an announcement, so we’ll see what Dave’s been up to and I hope to catch up with Roger (Linn) later this year.

I could make more predictions, except I already know a lot about what’s coming out, so the predicting is somewhat less fun. Let’s see, let’s see, something I don’t know — I predict that the panelists I assembled on Friday will propose something so ludicrous and absurd for futuristic music tech that we’ll all be forced to make it.

And protests of major guitar manufacturers. On a more sobering note, the Korean workers who make major US brands like Fender, Ibanez, and Gibson are assembling a protest of the whole show, as reported by MusicRadar. Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello is even involved. It’s guitars, which strictly speaking isn’t NAMM news – but nearly everything we make (even the inner circuits of a US-assembled monome) is built with Asian labor. If anyone can get the scoop on this protest, I’m happy to hear it.

Big 2010 NAMM news that’s… not at the NAMM show

A lot of the big news in 2010 may happen outside NAMM:

• Big makers skipping trade shows: Native Instruments, for instance, is skipping pricey trade shows to talk directly to would-be customers on the Web. So if there’s an announcement from NI – among ranks of manufacturers I expect will gradually grow – it’ll be elsewhere. I hear this Web thing is going to be huge.
• Renoise 2.5, 2.6: The underground tracker is adding some unique features. The 2.5 upgrades, like its unique matrix view, look cool enough, but it’s the 2.6 version, with full-blown scripting and OSC support, that gets even more interesting. We should know more about each as the year goes on. (There’s no NAMM announcement, but you can catch Renoise at the Indamixx booth on the show floor.)



• Ruin & Wesen’s magic box: The techno geniuses of Ruin & Wesen have been hard at work on their MiniCommand, plus the open Miduino library – built on Arduino – that powers it. This deserves a lot more attention for things like algorithmic musical programming, but the short version: expect magical music-programming capabilities that bridge hardware and software.
• OpenSoundControl/OSC: Yeah, I know: OSC has been waiting for its big breakout year for some time. But don’t forget, OSC already has new traction, from becoming a standard in live visual/VJ apps almost overnight to inclusion on new hardware. There’s some big news as far as better hardware and software implementation in the pipeline. Oh, and because it’s open, we’ll get to just talk about this, and actually make it happen. OSC won’t be at NAMM because that’s not where it belongs: it’s a way of implementing Internet standards as much as it is a way of creating music-specific protocols, and a lot of its future lies directly in your hands.
• Open hardware: It won’t be on the NAMM floor, but there is a convergence of monome users, alternative developers, and even (at the party Friday night) open-hardware Arduinomes. DIY tech is something we’ll be watching in Anaheim and all year long.
• …and the suitcase brigade: Technically, NAMM doesn’t allow “suitcase” behavior – that is, people showing stuff who don’t have a booth. But I have at least one product demo booked offsite at a hotel room I think you’ll like. (Whoa, that sounds way more illicit than it is.)

How to Send Us News Tips

Are you a manufacturer with a product? An attendee with photos, video, sound, or words on anything cool — even that late-night jam back in the hotel room with friends? We’d love to have you get it to us. Directions on the namm.noisepages blog:

Community-driven coverage: Help Us Cover The Stuff Everyone Misses

There’s something to be said for the traditional digital audio workstation, its linear arrangement view, and all its editing bells and whistles. When it comes to finishing a track from beginning to end – not doing live PA-DJ hybrid performances or racking up modular synths and effects or programming intricate cellular beats – sometimes the conventional approach can be welcome.

With lots of affordable alternatives – not to mention competition from stable, previous versions – the question with any full-freight, top-of-the-line DAW is whether it can “buy” your loyalties with enough extras? And, for that matter, might it even convince you to enjoy running Windows? SONAR has tempted me before, but 8.5.2 reaches a new level of maturity – and a new level of pack-in goodies to sweeten the deal.

Choosing a DAW is an immensely personal decision. It’s worth saying that we have a lot of exceptionally good choices from which to select tools. Even when they perform tasks in very different ways, any number of tools can achieve the same results. I have had a personal reaction to certain tools, though, and too often in reviews, we don’t get to talk about that subjective experience. I’ve actually started to work SONAR into more of the projects I’m doing, so I speak personally about it.

From the moment you fire it up, SONAR screams DAW tradition, as in, “welcome to the cockpit of my 747 jet plane.” Yes, it’s got rows of squint-worthy icons on its toolbars. And yes, it’s sufficiently utilitarian. Whereas Ableton prides itself on a minimalist approach, and Apple and Digidesign have slapped on layers of slick gloss and shine, Cakewalk remains, behind the occasional pretty icon or knob scattered here and there, a tool that looks like a piece of software.

But don’t necessarily let this surface complexity turn you off. All the way back to the DOS days, Cakewalk has had a history of giving you more of everything, then allowing you to turn on only what you want. You can switch off and customize nearly any element of the interface. Clever tabs introduced in recent versions help keep everything within reach. The UI is still a little harder to look at than I’d like – not aesthetically, but in that the UI can become cluttered, and it’s easy to wind up with a lot of floating windows. But switch off some extraneous toolbars, learn some keyboard shortcuts, and get used to the “packed workbench” set of tools, and SONAR can grow comfortable more quickly than you’d think.

When it comes to editing, production, mixing, and routing, you’ll certainly never say, “I wish I could…” or “if only editing worked like..” More often than not, some tool with just that editing method is nearby.

SONAR is unquestionably the DAW of “more.” But whereas some of its flagship competitors have tacked-on additional tools or bundled items, much of that “more” is also integrated with the host itself. SONAR has also been focusing in the last few releases on the areas about which electronic producers care the most. I recently lamented that Apple’s Mac-only rival to the feature-packed SONAR on Windows, Logic Studio, has neglected some of its bread-and-butter audio effects and MIDI editing features in its most recent release. Apple’s Amp Designer and Pedalboard, MainStage performance rig, and Soundtrack Pro wave editor are nothing if not impressive, but they may not be relevant to everyone. If words like “step sequencer” and “tempo-synced mod filter” appeal more, then read on.

Step and Matrix Editing in a Traditional DAW

Two of the banner editing features introduced in SONAR 8.5 this year likely look a little familiar. The push-button Step Sequencer 2 recalls FL Studio’s step sequencing view, and the new Matrix View seems intentionally modeled on Ableton Live’s signature Session View. If you’re pleased with those tools, they may not make you a convert, either. But there are some reasons to believe that this is a  uniquely SONAR-like take on these kinds of features.

Step Sequencer

The step sequencer is likely to warm the hearts of fans of beat programming, and it could well woo away some users of FL Studio. What’s unique about it is that it’s a step sequencer view of any track you like – not an effect, not an instrument, but a view on the host app itself. Pulling up a step sequencer is now as easy as invoking the time-tested Piano Roll view. Nor is this limited to repetitive, four-on-the-floor patterns: you can determine the number of beats and the number of steps on each beat. (The maximum number of steps is 16, with more beats possible than I could count.) The beats lock to SONAR’s master tempo, as they should, but the pattern itself can even be out of phase with the sequencer time signature if you so desire.

Among other improvements in the new release, you can now add adjustable flam with a double-click, load and save favorite patterns, and populate certain steps automatically.

It’s the way in which the step sequencer integrates with SONAR’s track view that’s especially lovely. You can sketch ideas in the step sequencer, then fine tune them in a conventional Piano Roll view. You can lay out patterns in the arrangement wherever you like. You get all the speed and convenience of the step sequencer, in other words, without having to limit your ideas to accommodate it.

Step sequencing notes is the obvious choice, but you can also set parameters for each step, including velocity, time offset, and (to keep your patterns from getting repetitive) per-step probability. You can also send MIDI messages, including even RPNs and NRPNs for advanced MIDI programming. That makes SONAR an excellent choice for automating external MIDI gear.

There is a skin-deep similarity to FL Studio, but the real lineage here is Cakewalk’s superb instrument Rapture, which used a similar interface to perform step modulation.

Sadly, though, what’s missing in the step sequencer is the ability to automate third-party plug-in effect parameters via the same interface – a major missed opportunity, and something present in tools like Ableton Live’s clip envelopes. You can still do this via automation lanes, but it’d be nice to make use of the elegant control-sketching capabilities of the Step Sequencer. In fairness, the problem here is that many plug-ins don’t respond to common MIDI control change messages, even the few that can be reasonably standardized, such as filter cutoff.

Note that I say “third-party” plug-ins; some of Cakewalk’s own included synths can indeed be automated via the step sequencer, which is good fun. It’s an easy feature to miss, so I’ll cover how to do it in the upcoming SONAR 8.5 tips story. And if your plug-in does implement proper MIDI control, you can manipulate any plug-in with MIDI, too.

Also missing in the Step Sequencer itself is a way to switch amongst multiple pattern buffers. However, this is where the fact that the Step Sequencer is simply a view of a clip becomes powerful. To create multiple patterns, you’d simply create multiple clips. If you need a way to switch between clips, you can drop them into Matrix View and switch between them that way. That’s similar to what’s possible in Ableton Live, again, but for those who prefer the traditional behavior of a step sequencer to a Piano Roll view, SONAR gives you some additional choice.

I do hope that SONAR 9 continues to refine the step sequencer and its integration, as I think this feature has a lot of potential beyond its current, already-useful functionality.

Speaking of steps, it’s not at all a new feature, but it’s worth saying that SONAR has one of the easiest implementations of step recording I’ve ever seen. It’s easy to bang out an idea while cramped in coach with your laptop using just the keyboard. And it’s another reminder that a mature DAW still has its place.

Matrix View

One of the mysteries of music software development over the last few years has been that, for all the success of Ableton Live, it seemed no one tried to copy Live’s biggest features, its clip-launching workflow. (Live didn’t invent the idea of putting chunks of music in an array of triggers – that fundamental idea comes from samplers and drum machines – but that makes the absence of other takes on the idea all the more strange.) Well, the wait is over: Matrix View in SONAR 8.5 certainly seems to respond directly to Live’s Session View.

It’s easiest to talk first about the obvious similarities. As with Live’s Session View, SONAR’s Matrix View arranges audio and MIDI clips into an array. Trigger a clip, and it begins playing. Set the launch quantization, and its playback will begin on a beat or a bar. Trigger the clip again, and it either re-triggers or toggles playback, depending on the mode you’ve set. Trigger a second clip in the same row (SONAR) or column (Live), and the first clip starts playing, replaced by the first. SONAR’s rendition is rotated ninety degrees from Live’s – which in some ways is more intuitive – but the behavior is the same. SONAR even mimics some of the toolbar layout of Live’s Session View.

Because Matrix View is so much like Session View, however, the differences are thrown into relief, too. For the first time, we see what Live might look like if it were redesigned from the ground up. The clip buttons are enlarged in SONAR’s Matrix View, allowing for greater visual feedback on clips. Settings that in Live require a visit to a different pane are exposed in Matrix View, including looping and latching clips.

Matrix View also introduces some features Live users may envy. You can set “Latch Mode” globally, so that clips play back only when an input – like a pad on a drum controller – is held down. That can make your audio clips more playable, encouraging you to use your pads instead of just let them loop endlessly. (It’s possible to do the same thing in Live, but the feature is more exposed in SONAR.) SONAR’s Matrix View also introduces the idea of having two quantization settings instead of just one. Switch clips to bus A or B, and you can set one set of clips to trigger on the bar and another on the quarter-note beat, for instance.

I’ll be honest: I was initially apprehensive about Matrix View. If I wanted Live in SONAR, I’d be inclined simply to use Live, which yo can even easily do inside SONAR via ReWire. Sure enough, if you try to use Matrix View like Live’s Session View, you’re likely to be disappointed. SONAR isn’t built for onstage, real-time live performance in the way Live is, so the sonic results aren’t quite the same. (It certainly operates in real time, but it’s primarily a “studio” program. I did occasionally get brief drop-outs in sound that would make me hesitate to try to play Matrix View onstage. SONAR is a strong choice for onstage use if you’re hosting plug-ins or running backing tracks, but something like Matrix View becomes more interactive.)

Also, while the Matrix View’s array looks like Session View, it lacks the integrated tools for manipulating clips that Live has – to say nothing of Live’s more advanced arrangement options, like Follow Actions. You can warp audio using SONAR’s sophisticated GrooveClips, and unlike Ableton, SONAR has the eminently logical ability to loop clips without warping the audio contained. (Why Live still doesn’t do that after ten years is beyond me.) But Matrix View simply isn’t Live. Nor, says Cakewalk, is it supposed to be; Cakewalk repeatedly told me that, despite appearances, they intend Matrix View as a means of extending SONAR and not even a competitor for Live.

So that’s what Matrix View isn’t. The surprise is, what Matrix View is turns out to be more useful than I expected. Ableton Live is split effectively into two programs, one a linear view as in a conventional DAW and the other Session View. It’s possible to go from one to the other, but you feel like you’re dealing in a way with two separate programs.

SONAR, with or without Matrix View, remains entirely focused on the linear arrangement – and that can be a good thing. Treat Matrix View as a bin of clips, with the focus still very much on SONAR’s linear tracks, and the whole thing starts to make some sense. In fact, SONAR’s means of mediating between the non-linear clips and the linear arrangement seems more intuitive than Live’s to me, even after many years of using Live. Turn on “Capture Matrix Performance,” and you can use Matrix View as an easy way of “writing” patterns and clips into tracks. You can do this without having to turn on and off the transport’s record control, which can result in some messy mistakes in Ableton Live. Toggle “Follow Transport,” and choose whether Matrix View’s behavior is determined by the project transport condition. You can do many of the same things in Live, don’t get me wrong, but SONAR has been able to learn and improve upon Live’s way of doing things, and favor the linear arrangement. Even if you opt to use SONAR alongside another application like Live, that might be useful to have integrated with SONAR itself.

Matrix View’s rows also are not tied to pre-determined tracks as in Live’s mixer-like Session View. You can choose any row of clips and arbitrarily route them to any track you like. Take all of the clips and route them to one audio track. Route some rows to one track and others to another. This makes managing signal routing and recording linear arrangements much easier. It’s possible to do the same thing in Live with busing, but Matrix View is routing to actual tracks, not returns.

Of course, none of this makes SONAR a live performance tool, which for many is the draw and namesake of Ableton’s Live. But if the appeal of SONAR, as mentioned at the outset of this story, is committing to linear tracks, that may not matter.

The net result of all of this is that Matrix View can be a useful way of playing around with clips quickly, while remaining focused on your end-to-end arrangement. It’s also worth mentioning that Matrix View isn’t the only way of dropping audio into tracks. Cakewalk’s excellent, dead-simple Beatscape can do something similar, in a drum machine/MPC-style view. Neither of these tools may convince you to upgrade to SONAR 8.5, let alone switch from another host. But having them available in your arsenal expands your ways of working, which can help prevent you from getting stuck in a creative rut.

As with the Step Sequencer, what’s critical in SONAR’s approach is keeping everything integrated and focusing on the main Track View. I can’t recommend SONAR on the merits of Matrix View – I’d like to see it grow and mature a little bit first, and to see it expand in a Cakewalk way and not just an Ableton way. I’m also not yet confident of its reliability; it’s a new feature, I saw some occasional glitches, and 8.5.2 made a lot of changes under the hood. But it could show promise in the future, and it certainly indicates Cakewalk’s commitment to adding to their host’s workflows.

Arpeggiator

SONAR 8.5 also packs an arpeggiator on each track. It’s a smaller feature than the Matrix View and Step Sequencer, but sometimes little things make a difference in workflow. The tool is very simple, but it’s awfully nice having it always available to use. You get all the basics, and because it’s everywhere, it can spawn new ideas you might not have tried otherwise.

Effect Goodies

If you opt for the full Producer Edition of SONAR, you get a lot of pack-in effects. Previously, the “kitchen sink” approach to effects had been the domain of Logic. SONAR has not only caught up, depending on the applications that matter to you, it could have the most appealing lineup of included effects.

I generally recoil from discussions of how “good” software sounds; a lot of this has to do with the user. But I will say, working with SONAR’s mix engine and bundled tools is an aural pleasure. There’s some really great-sounding stuff in here, and I suppose the “if it sounds good, it is good” maxim holds in music software as much as anything.

There’s a huge collection of new effects. Some aren’t strictly “new,” developed for other Cakewalk products, but no matter – this is a fresh, useful collection of stuff.

The PX-64 Percussion Strip is just fantastic. It combines dynamics (compressor/expander), equalization, delay, tube saturation, and transient shaping. Putting together these modules isn’t just a gimmick, either; the set is complementary, and there’s an elegant drag-and-drop option for changing routing. Seeing everything in one place makes a difference, and it’s nice to any time a software developer includes an expander and not just a compressor. The sound can be really transparent, as well. Combine this with the dedicated Transient Follower introduced in SONAR 8, and SONAR is a terrific environment for tweaking percussion. (Incidentally, it’s just as much fun with synthesized and sampled electronic percussion as recorded acoustic percussion.) 

The VX-64 Vocal Strip, as the name implies, does the same thing for vocalists. It includes a Deesser, compressor/expander, tube EQ, doubler, and delay. As with the PX-64, the VX-64 provides easy-to-use visual feedback and drag-and-drop routing.

The PX-64 and VX-64 are definitely the “headliners” in the new effects. But some of the other plug-ins are gems, too:

Tempo Delay is my favorite in the whole bundle; it’s a tempo-synced delay and modulated EQ/filter that for me, at least, recalls Lexicon classics like the brilliant and inexplicably-discontinued PCM 42.

Mod Filter is a similarly lovely tempo-synced EG/LFO with a rich overdrive.

The Alias Factor decimator is both a bit crusher and a low-pass filter; it’s the rare bit crusher that sound warm and organic no matter how much you stress its settings, and may well have become my new favorite decimator. (In fact, forget I told you about it. So many people are currently overusing the settings on Ableton that it’s become really obvious. So, keep doing that, and I’ll keep Alias Factor for myself. Move along.)

There’s also an included phaser, high-frequency exciter, multivoice chorus/flanger, parametric EQ, stereo compressor/gate, and digital reverb. Not one of these effects is flashy, in sound or appearance. They all have a few knobs. They look like free plug-ins. And I love that – they’re the worst possible option for impressing friends or clients with your pricey, fancy plugs. (They’re clearly modeled on Lexicon’s hardware front panels.) But they sound great, without getting in the way of your mix, and they actually stick to the controls you’ll actually use.

The latest additions sit atop some powerful, beautiful-sounding existing tools, like the Vintage Channel VC64, which incorporates analog-emulating dynamics, gate, De-Esser, and EQ, as created by Kjaerhus Audio. The vintage-styled panel is a gimmick, but make no mistake – the plug-in itself sounds wonderful. Cakewalk also has the well-executed Boost11 compressor.

Not new to SONAR 8.5, but now bundled with SONAR Studio and well worth mentioning, is the Roland V-Vocal editor. The tool incorporates the VariPhrase vocal analysis technology in Roland hardware – at (sorry, Roland) a fraction of the price of buying additional gear. Now, don’t get me started on the many reasons I hate artificial pitch correction and vibrato. But V-Vocal has some interesting creative applications, even if you’re not a singer. You can use it as a harmonizer. You can use it to create special effects with timing, phrasing, and formants. Its pitch to MIDI conversion works really well, too, so you can even sing in unusual synth lines. By “overlook,” incidentally, I do mean overlook – you’ll find V-Vocal as another “view” of your track.

SONAR is not without competition. For instance, I love some of Logic’s oddities, like its Sculpture physical-modeling instrument, or Ableton’s unusually elegant and unique effects. But when it comes to signal processing specifically and what’s in the box, I don’t think there’s a DAW on the planet right now that can match the utility and sound quality of the effects bundled with SONAR. That may not be a big deal if you already have assembled a suite of your favorite plug-ins. But if you want a DAW that ships with a lot of audio-processing goodness, SONAR, particularly in its Producer Edition, is simply unmatched.

Here’s another advantage of SONAR over some of its competitors. Yes, applications like Pro Tools, Logic, and Ableton Live now come with boatloads of plugs. But try to load these tools in another host, and they disable themselves. That’s true of some of SONAR’s V-Vocal, VC-64 channel strip, Lexicon Pantheon Reverb, and True Pianos. But nearly everything else – including the fantastic new Session Drummer – works in any Windows VST host. Want to drop your LinnDrum samples in a Session Drummer instance with the PX-64 effects strip inside the tracker Renoise, without loading SONAR? Go for it. That makes SONAR’s value decidedly greater.

(Notably, Reaper does not have these same limitations, as its fans are likely to be quick to point out. But SONAR, while priced significantly higher, also comes with a broader selection of plug-ins, and it remains a robust host for all of your other plugs.)

Drum Machines and Instruments

The big instrumental addition in 8.5 is the new Session Drummer 3, an expanded drum machine / drum sampler. Like Cakewalk’s other recent instruments, it focuses on the essentials but executes them elegantly: it’s a basic drum kit with open-standard SFZ sample compatibility, MIDI pattern playback and multiple pattern slots, and a friendly graphical view of the kit. The mixer is the really nice part of the instrument: mix via a basic mixing interface and route each audio wherever you like, with separate controls for width and tune. That doesn’t quite add up to a full-blown drum sampler like NI’s Battery, but it still does plenty.

I’m not particularly interested in sampled acoustic kits, so the beauty of this pack to me is the additional vintage drum machines, including Roland’s TR-707, 808, and 909, but also DrumTraks and LinnDrum models – all the things I can’t afford on eBay or store in my apartment. They’re just samples, not full-blown emulations, and it is a little silly hearing an 808 while looking at a picture of an acoustic drum kit. But couple these with SONAR’s step sequencer and transient-following effects arsenal, and you have a combination that should make any fan of electronic beats blissfully happy.

Of course, I’d be even happier if Cakewalk would bundle its modular drum synth, NPulse, from Project5. There seems to be no reason at this point not to bring Cakewalk’s flagship host in line with the rest of the fleet. And Cakewalk is up against various bundles of synths – Reason, Logic Studio, FL Studio, Ableton Live Suite, and even Pro Tools all now come with deep synth bundles. Just remember, you do get a good selection of instruments in Cakewalk’s software, too, including the Dimension Pro sampler and Rapture LE. Unlike the audio effects, I can’t really say the synth and sampler choices in SONAR are a reason to opt for Cakewalk’s tool over other hosts, but they don’t hurt, either.

AudioSnap

Slicing and dicing audio in time is all the rage these days, so it’d be easy enough to miss Cakewalk’s take. But I’d put AudioSnap 2 right up with Logic Studio 9’s new audio mashing features for ease of use. The AudioSnap overlay is brilliantly simple, and best of all for creative production, allows you to copy grooves to MIDI with one click. I could say more about it, but I think the new window says it all. The one thing you can’t see here is that you can now easily tab around from transient to transient.

Cakewalk also employs the high-quality stretching algorithms from the folks at iZotope. Note that Apple has recently developed some in-house audio warping techniques, as has Propellerhead for Record. Seeing how these features stack up, though, would be the domain of another feature.

Usability, Performance, Compatibility, and the Sum of the Parts

There’s quite a lot of additional fit and finish in SONAR 8.5, with additional improvements added in 8.5.2.

The Media Browser is improved, and acts as Windows users would expect; it’s great having a native file browser built into the host, and it fits neatly in a tab at the bottom of the screen.

The “Now Time” marker lets you easily drag around “now” during playback with the cursor so that the transport springs to the right place. It’s a little thing, but a big time-saver; I wish I had it in my video editing software.

Freezing now lets you easily include or exclude effects bins – an obvious, welcome choice.

And if you like buttons, you get even more. There is also a solo button on effects, useful while you’re tweaking. Freeze and archive buttons have been added to save computing resources, especially handy if you’re working on a laptop (or are addicted, as I am, to all those CPU-hungry multi-effects strips). Archiving is really handy when you’re working on a production, in that it allows you not only to freeze but disable a track while you aren’t actively using it.

But I think it’s the compatibility and reliability work that may be most important. Cakewalk has been way out in front with support for the latest-and-greatest version of Windows. They managed to support Windows Vista when, frankly, no one else seemed to work out how to do it or even if it was a worthwhile use of time. They supported 64-bit computing before anyone else, opening up greater memory capacity to their users – and now make it easy, via a technology called BitBridge, to migrate all your 32-bit plug-ins to your 64-bit system. Now, Windows 7 is here and generally doesn’t suck, and SONAR is not only first, but has an exceptional level of support. 8.5.2 in my testing was rock solid.

SONAR in general is one of those hosts that I feel won’t blink when I toss a variety of plug-ins and audio interfaces at it. Running audio interfaces on Windows, in particular, tends not to be as easy as it is on the Mac because of Windows’ multiple audio systems. Yet SONAR can be run reliably, in my testing, under a variety of audio systems from WASAPI to ASIO, with a variety of hardware.

There are subtle but important plug-in improvements here, too, for VST lovers. You can turn on “always suspend on play” to fix plug-ins that have trouble with stuck notes when you stop the transport (been there), and “serialize host access” to fix problems with plug-ins crashing or glitching because of user interface thread sync problems. I’ve definitely seen both of these issues before, though I wasn’t able to locate a misbehaving plug-in to test it. But it shows a level of attention to detail that, on Windows at least, I believe is pretty unique.

It’s tough to talk about reliability. Anecdotally, I know some readers prefer older versions of SONAR to newer versions, and I can’t find a material reason why that might be. But I do say that SONAR is generally a trust I feel I can trust and use reliably, and that to me means a lot.

SONAR Wins Me Over

Is there a place for traditional DAWs in coming years? Small, agile competition is certainly turning up the heat. And SONAR retains the legacy of conventional DAWs. It has an interface that can sometimes be cluttered with options. It requires an investment of money and time. It runs only on Windows, and it certainly looks like a traditional Windows application. By virtue of doing everything, it’s almost guaranteed to do some things you really don’t need.

But for all the beauty of non-linear arrangements, of unusual interfaces and novel music making, sometimes you want to finish a track in the conventional sense. And sometimes that means dealing with an interface with a lot of tools in order to make complex arranging tasks easier.

As for justifying its cost, SONAR can pay you back with reliability, predictability, and an arsenal of effects tools that would be tough to match anywhere else. It provides this set of tools without sacrificing standards support, compatibility with a wide variety of audio and controller hardware, and strong support for the open SFZ sampling format. It is tied to Windows, but it provides an exception level of support for the operating system, not only doing things first, but doing them best.

At the end of the day, we do all of this for fun. SONAR provides, by removing some of the points of pain (driver support and arcane under-the-hood optimizations), while providing plenty of toys for us to relax with. And at some point, with the step sequencer ticking away and an especially-lovely effect licking your drum track, everything else will fade away.

When it comes to stacking up conventional DAWs, I think SONAR deserves mention at the top of the pile. Any of the mature DAWs will likely get the job done. But SONAR covers an extraordinary range of bases that makes it a top pick.

Production software coverage: Watch later this week for some tips on making SONAR 8.5 work as production tool, whether you’re a long-standing user or newcomer. Also, we’d like to continue to offer coverage of a range of production tools / DAWs. If there’s an angle you’d like to see covered, or you’d like to talk about how you use your own tool of choice, we’d love to hear from you. Ultimately, it’s not a matter of talking about the tool itself, isolated from anything else. It’s how we work with these tools in music that matters. -Ed.

At the risk of becoming Create Digital Monomes, here are two things that make me very happy.

For anyone who thinks it’s too hard to get hold of a genuine monome, or any of those of you who got the kit and haven’t built a proper case for it, this is for you. FYXDESIGN has posted a terrific tutorial enclosing the monome 40h kit (8×8 grid) inside a custom case made from LEGO bricks. The project comes out of a group at New York University’s ITP digital tech school who saved money, beat the monome’s scarcity, and made lots of friends by group ordering a bunch of kits and then assembling them together as a group. The magic here comes courtesy of some smart design sense and a boon to prototypers everywhere, the LEGO Digital Designer software, free for Windows and Macs.

Xiaoyang Feng’s design work is in general worth checking out; if someone with his experience and skill is using LEGOs, you’ll want to take note.

Even if you’ve got a project that’s not a monome, this is clearly a fantastic way to whip up an enclosure in a hurry – and that “prototype” might be all you need. Bless you, LEGO!

With the step-by-step tutorial, this is child’s play, even for someone as tragically un-handy as me.

Build Monome LEGO Case Tutorial

In other news, here’s a lovely live video shot by duo elle p & iftah in, apparently, a bathroom (no reverb needed)! It’s a reminder that, even without velocity control, an array of buttons really can make a musical instrument. (In fact, making performance easier is part of the grand tradition of instrument design – see frets, the Autoharp, the piano, and so on.) In an age of overproduced music (sorry, Glee), it’s lovely to see the Internets striking back with live performance, warts and all, as a way of conveying authenticity and personality. Elle has in her lap another interesting DIY creation that’s not a monome. The duo describe it as a “pixiphone,” a “general purpose d.i.y grid controller based on an old siemens operator interfaced with arduino.” I’ll have to get more documentation on that.

Embedding is acting a wee bit screwy for me today, possibly on Vimeo’s end, but you can always go straight to the video.

candy for a 40h and a pixiphone from lp&i on Vimeo.

Looking at the monome hardware, it could be difficult to understand how a simple array of buttons has become the most important musical design of the decade. It’s been the software that has brought this to life, not least the work of stretta (aka Matthew Davidson).

In the early days of electronic music, the creation of modular systems for synthesizing sound was a major breakthrough. Today, we can produce modular systems for composition, for assembling the music itself. And in a world in which “more” is the key word, many of these systems, by design, do less, focusing on the essential.

stretta reached a major landmark late last week, with the release of the maxforlive monome suite. It’s a set of seven Max for Live devices, with variations, which can be dropped into Ableton Live for use in musical projects. But it’s also more than that – it’s a modular model for how stretta thinks, and each module is designed to be used with the others, all without ever having to take your hands or eyes off the monome controller. Included in the pack:

• obo matrix step sequencer
• pitches for playing notes on the monome
• polygomé 64 for polyphonic, step-sequenced, transposing pitches
• press cafe for repeating patterns of pitches
• spectral display for blinking lights to visualize sound
• step filter step-sequenced filter bank
• automatorgator MIDI- and audio- and OSC- controllable pattern gate

Details and download link (no explicit license coming yet, but Matthew has promised an open license):

maxforlive monome suite released

I got the chance to talk to Matthew about the project, how he created it, how to approach using it, and what it was like working with Max for Live.

All photos by Matthew Davidson; released under a Creative Commons attribution license. Click the images for full-sized versions.

CDM: Can you talk a little bit about what these modules are, and how they fit together, for someone who hasn’t seen them before?

stretta: Obo is like tonematrix as a MIDI plug in. I like analog sequencers because they are tactile. They’re limited, though, so the natural tendency is to add memory to them. I’ve never enjoyed the experience of an analog sequencer with memory. As soon as you add memory, the fun evaporates. You can’t tell where the data matches the knobs, you’re looking at LCD menus… bleah. I’m not saying obo is the answer, as it is a very simple device, but obo (with a monome) does provide a pleasing combination of tactile control, visual feedback and multiple patterns.

Pitches turns the monome surface into a MIDI device. Press a button, get a note. The only issue to resolve is how do you map notes across the grid? One of the first things I did with my monome after I got is was create a pitch grid in columns of fourths and chromatic rows, much like a guitar, but more like a touchstyle instrument like a Warr guitar. I liked the strict grid as it made the geometry of harmony completely portable. The pitches application allows you to customize the interval relationships of the rows and columns and optionally add a modal scale filter on the output so it is pretty much impossible to produce a ‘bad’ note.

Polygomé is one of those things that is most easily explained to people by shoving a monome in their hands. It is kind of like if you took ‘pitches’ and added a step sequencer. You recall the sequence by pressing a button, the sequence is transposed based on which button you start on. Then you can play the sequences polyphonically. Polygomé grew out of this massive, overly complicated project for the 256 I was working on called gomé. The idea was you’d create these geometric patterns then define a ‘path’ or vector across the monome surface that they’d walk across; kind of like how gliders move in the game of life. I was describing this on the monome forums and someone said, "boy, I hope you make this so it works on the 64." I didn’t think there was enough room on the 64 so I re-thought the idea and polygomé was born.

Spectral Display is a non-interactive device that turns the monome into a graphic… well.. spectral display. I developed Spectral Display from vu_spec by [monome creator] Brian Crabtree so this is all his brilliance on display. I merely adapted it to maxforlive.

Press Cafe is another MIDI instrument. The original brilliance of the monome is the fact that the buttons are completely decoupled from the LEDs. Nobody had ever produced a device that did that before. There was always some internally programmed or proscribed functionality that was never entirely suitable for much of anything. So I brainstormed about various ways to leverage this unique ability. Press cafe is a pattern trigger sequencer. It works on any size monome, but if you’re using a 256, you get 16 rhythmic patterns of 16 notes. The rows select which pattern you’re triggering and the columns select which note you’re playing. Naturally, you can use the monome surface itself to edit the patterns.

Step Filter is eight independent sequencers, each triggering a band pass filter. The sequence is edited directly on the monome surface. The real fun begins when you start specifying various loop lengths for each of the filters so they loop independently. You can have one band looping in 7, another lopping in 6, etc…

automatorgator comes in two flavors. One is a MIDI plug in that produces MIDI and OSC automation. The output can be smoothed or stepped. The audio plug-in produces gating effects, or cyclical amplitude modulation.

CDM: What was it like working with Max for Live? How did that impact the way you work?

stretta: I’ve always wanted something like maxforlive. Max lacked a powerful timeline. Most DAWs lacked user-directed internal customization akin to a modular synthesizer. I think this is important for a DAW because it is impossible to be all things to all people. I’d hesitate to say much more because my experience with maxforlive is limited to a couple months thus far and there is so much yet to explore. I would be seriously happy for years on a deserted island with this tool, provided there was some mechanism to share my work with others.

Max 5 brought some concepts like a global transport and the ability to specify time values in a metric-centric way. So, instead of milliseconds and samples, you can think in terms of quarter notes and eight notes. Then maxforlive brought all this inside of a functional DAW which made everything more powerful. It is one thing to be able to manipulate audio like play doh. It is another to be able to do it inside a real production environment, using musically-sensible units.

So, maxforlive is a huge leap forward, but the needs of the monome community were a bit more dire. There are applications for the monome that are functional enough to produce a complete musical statement in real time by itself. A good example of this is mlr. You don’t need anything else. My monome applications are not so clever. I never intended for anyone to sit down and try to express something using polygomé in isolation. I figured it would be one tool you’d use in the context of a greater whole. The problem with this is it relegated polygomé and others to the recording studio.

What the monome needed, was, in my opinion, a meta environment that could host multiple monome applications, ensure they were all running in sync, and switch between them on the fly. It would route audio, host virtual instruments, mix everything and add effects. Then you could save a setup and recall everything by opening a single file. If that could be done, then the monome is transformed from this monolithic standalone device, to a piece of integrated performance hardware.

CDM: Many people are now getting started with Max for Live. Any tips for new users?

stretta: The best tip I can offer so far is adding '---' before any data objects. On run, the --- is turned into a unique identifier so the instance is unique. This allows multiple instances of the same maxforlive device with access to their own data. Of course, you may not want to do this, you may want to retain the ability for multiple maxforlive devices to ‘talk’ to each other and share data which is a cool feature. I’ve uploaded a example patch detailing this at the monome wiki called ‘thisinstance’

http://docs.monome.org/doku.php?id=app:thisinstance

CDM: What if someone is interested in this download, but they don’t own a monome? Is there anything they can do with this pack without the hardware?

stretta: Not much. The only application that operates monomeless is obo. However, there may be enough about obo that is interesting to people to justify the download.

CDM: You should be able to adapt to other controllers, though, with some work – correct?

stretta: Sure, it really is simply a matter of tapping into the matrixctrl object and routing to whatever device. My stuff rarely makes use of monome-specific protocols like ledcol, but I’m doing more of that recently for performance reasons.

CDM: Have you seen other Max or monome work that has inspired or impressed you?

stretta: 7up [SevenUpLive 2.0] is an amazing piece of engineering, although it is mostly Java wrapped inside a layer of maxforlive. Buffer Shuffler was the first example that really blew my mind, and the cool part about this is you can open this stuff up and see how it ticks. When I opened up Buffer Shuffler, I was amazed at how little there really is to it, which says a lot about the level of sophistication of the max objects themselves. I still haven’t explored or opened all the devices that are included with maxforlive. It is a simple matter to lift small sections of max code and repurpose it. It is really early on in the life of maxforlive, so I anticipate the learning process to continue and expect to see more interesting creations as the ideas cross pollinate and everyone starts editing everyone else’s work.

Thanks to Matthew for these thoughtful answers. If you have follow-up questions, definitely let us know. And we’ll be interested to see how you work with these tools, or modify them in your own work.

For the latest, be sure to check out stretta’s blog, The Stretta Procedure:

http://stretta.blogspot.com/

maxforlive: monome integration from stretta on Vimeo.

maxforlive: obo from stretta on Vimeo.

The veil between the living and dead is growing thin, and I… uh, have some free music for you. Sorry, it turns out I don’t have a clever lead for this story, and my segue makes no sense. So let’s get to it!

Friend of the Site Liz McLean Knight aka Liz Revision aka Quantazelle of subVariant has put together a special, exclusive mix for CDM of 117-119 bpm musical goodness, excavated from the “_blippy” folder of sketches on her USB drive. Matt Moldover, who has been working on his CD-as-electronic-instrument album, lent his laptop. (Watch him assembling CDs in the video after the break.)

It’s all in celebration of a Halloweeen party Saturday night in Chicago, headlined by Josh Davis (BitShifter). Party ringleader Liz joins Josh on behalf of subVariant to represent the IDM-glitch-minimal-tech-house side of things, and Mr. Automatic (Front 312) and Onefiftyone (Chicago Workshop) will be joining in. If you’re in Chicago, this looks like the place to spend your Saturday. If, like me, you’re not, well, we have some music and videos for you to bring the party home.

Chicagoans:
Going.com Chicago event link + discount
Presale tickets on FractalSpin

And yes, while Josh is working on Game Boys in 8-bit, our CDM mix is fully 16-bit, baby! I’m telling you, 16-bit is totally the future.

Download MP3

Now, for a bit of Josh tearing it up in glorious 8 bits:

Bit Shifter – March of the Nucleotides from 2 Player Productions on Vimeo.

Bit Shifter // Blip Festival 2006: The Videos from 2 Player Productions on Vimeo.

Bitshifter did an interview recently with Chaos Control, for more on his performance techniques and inspiration.

And here’s a video of what Moldover was up to as Liz perfected her mix on his laptop — assembling special-edition versions of his CD, which, thanks to custom electronics in the jewel case, can double as noisemakers instead of just packaging. (See our previous story.)

Compact MIDI controllers for your fingers are plentiful, but tiny foot controllers are far fewer. map~map aka Marcus Fischer decided to build his own by performing a simple but clever mod of the KORG nanoKEY. Now, personally, I find the nanoKEY the one product in the nano series that’s lacking; it feels more like a QWERTY keyboard than anything resembling a MIDI keyboard. But Marcus transforms it into the world’s most compact and portable foot controller. You may have to be somewhat delicate with your toes, but he says the solution works perfectly!

i’ve been wanting a compact usb midi foot pedal for a long time. i built one out of a usb number pad last year but it was less than ideal. tonight i popped all of the keys but five off of my korg nanokey in order to see how it would work as a pedal. it turned out that it worked really well. i cut some small pieces of plywood out to raise the key height and some scrap plexiglass to cover up the missing keys. a little spray paint and double stick tape and it was all finished.
i think it turned out pretty well. not bad for a cheap keyboard and scrap materials.

279 / nanopedal

Those wooden blocks look quite lovely. KORG, you may have inadvertently created a new product.