Who says technology doesn’t last? The Apple II platform will be 35 years old in April, yet it’s still going strong. It even gets a brand-new drum machine software, launched this month, complete with eight wavetable-based drum sounds, and a clever sequencer. The surprise: the whole combination, delivered on a 5 1/4″ floppy disk, can be stunningly usable, as in something you’d actually want to make music with. Not bad for a computer you can typically pick up for a few bills at a flea market. (Emulators can also run the software, so you don’t even need hardware. Of course, that’s not nearly as much fun.)
Creators MJ Mahon and 8-bit Weapon released the software last week, but I wanted to wait for a full video demo and tutorial so you could see it in action. See also screen shots.
And even if you don’t want to shell up the cash, there’s a demo version.
We’ve got a sound sample of what the results sound like, via the artists: DMS Drummer Demo by cdm
In a marvel of DIY engineering, one intrepid user of the tracker-made-modern music making environment Renoise has reconstructed the basic elements of the Ableton Live interface. With quantized clip launching on channels and even a crossfader, it’s unmistakably a copy of what Ableton does. I don’t think you’d dump your install of Ableton for this; the whole reason you’d want a feature like this is really if you prefer other elements of Renoise that are different from Live. But as a proof-of-concept, it’s pretty extraordinary. (Ableton users, the ball’s in your court: someone want to make a tracker in Max for Live?)
mxb has more information on the Renoise forum: Cells! Preview
We love the bleeding edge, but as mxb notes, “this is still at a very early beta stage; if anyone has any suggestions or feature requests, [they should] make them in the thread on Renoise forums.”
All of this is possible because of Renoise’s powerful scripting environment.
The Cells! video above is a bit primitive – mxb says it’s a result of poor screen capture software, which is also responsible for sync disappearing – but you get the idea. mxb has also built a four-oscillator synth called ReSynth, and previously-mentioned sample import.
I was actually pleasantly surprised to see our MeeBlip open source synthesizer make a cameo in the latest teaser video for Lemur on iPad, the app I saw in action at Berlin’s Watergate. I expect we’ll have full details soon – and I hope to visit the MeeBlip-in-a-book again soon; even apart from being flattered and gratified to see it use our synth, it’s one of my favorite synthesizer housings ever. But, really, truly, I had nothing to do with this video – that’s not me being coy; I didn’t expect to see it.
Yes, it’s jerky teaser vision, but I love the jam that gets going halfway through. (Curious about the drum machine sounds; no, the MeeBlip doesn’t make that bass drum sound – at least, not at the same time as it’s playing, since it’s monophonic.) I just hope this means we see MIDI out on the Lemur app, in addition to OSC – that’s be a big jump forward from what even the original Lemur hardware could do.
And yes, the secret’s out of the bag – Lemur for iPad will be announced by http://liine.net/en/ – though note that the MeeBlip is the creation of Gwydion from Konkreet Labs. Normally, I would refrain from posting this sort of video, but I rather enjoyed it.
“Folk music of the 21st Century” – radio broadcaster, jazz aficionado, and jazz-based Ableton Live instrumentalist / remix artist Nick Francis really sums up what this whole site is about. As he chops up jazz greats in Ableton, his mash-up music chops are as much musical analysis as they are performance. He walks through his controller moves in a pedagogical way, highlighting the meat of the jazz legends he puts into play. It’s a kind of digital transcription, transcribing re-imagined for Ableton’s colored blocks in place of.
Of course, you’ll only be able to reflect on this once you can take your eyes off that stunning wooden controller, which has the look of a decades-old instrument. Kraftwerk in their early days would have chuckled at the polished-wooden nostalgia, but here, it’s about care as much as memory – and Nick is a fan of Kraftwerk, DJ Shadow, and others. None other than Matt Moldover inspired all of this. (I look forward to catching up with Matt in California next month.) Continue reading »
More than anything, a tablet resembles a piece of paper. Apple’s iPad rests easily on a music stand, and – while in this generation, it’s a bit small and low-resolution – is at least the beginning of an ideal score reader.
We took a look at Avid’s Scorch, a leading contender for your iPad score-reading needs, when it came out, and followed up with questions for Avid (like how you turn pages on a tablet – hint, it’s easier than on paper):
Now, there are further developments. Most importantly, in its evolution toward what I predicted would be an iTunes of music, there’s now a huge store of notation – Hal Leonard’s Sheet Music Direct is now available, powered by the Avid Scorch platform. That’s relevant to, erm, about half of our readers, because it’s only available in the USA (or if you have a US iTunes account). But I imagine we’ll see other countries soon, as Sheet Music Direct is an international service.
If you are in the USA, you can grab the app for free and get 15 songs free of charge to get started: Sheet Music Direct @iTunes
Daniel Spreadbury, a gifted notation and education advocate I’ve had the pleasure to know for some time, details what’s in the new release.
The highlights: what differentiates this from, say, a chunk of bleached tree, are features like:
Metronome
Tuner
Set lists
Sharing
Lighter than a tree
Turn pages with a foot. (*Possible with paper, provided you have a human page turner and you kick them.)
On-demand purchasing
In the favor of the flattened wood pulp with ink marks on it: higher resolution, bigger, easier to see, easier to mark up, the battery never runs out, does not cost US$499. (Not at first, anyway.) Oh, and you don’t have to wait for it to come out on the iTunes store in your country.
But that puts some significant promise on the iPad side of things.
There are also 90 improvements in Scorch 1.1, including better page turning features and page turning, but one of those 90 features to me jumps out: you get PDF support.
With PDF support, wherever you are, and whatever notation program you use to generate scores, you can now easily share your work with someone else with an iPad. Scorch itself has a separate link from the Sheet Music Direct app:
I really want to hear from someone actually using these apps to read scores. What’s the experience like? Are you using it on a regular basis, or did you revert to paper scores?
Deep thought: if this is what this young person’s baby toy looks like, what will his computer look like?
Father Matt Durant writes to share a surprisingly spacey, expressive solo by his 16-week-old baby son:
My baby son, Austin, touched an iPad for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I loaded up Moog’s new Animoog app and was blown away with what happened. Mom & I have never seen him so dexterous and thoughtful with any object before. Luckily I had my iPhone within reach so I was able to record his ‘performance’ in video.
I’ve sent it to Moog and they have posted it on their Facebook page, and I have received personal emails from Michael Adams (President CEO of Moog) and their head of Marketing with praise.
cheers, great site! I’ve enjoyed CDM for years now.
Animoog, while otherwise a beautifully-designed app, now has two downsides to consider: its cost is up from a buck cut-rate intro price to US$29.99, and you’ll know, in the back of your mind, you’d darned well better find a way to play better than a 16-week-old infant. That’s right. Austin just p0wned you.
I was accused by one commenter recently of drawing topics into a “polemic” discussion of iPads and interface design. So, true to form, let’s draw a baby – albeit an older one – into polemics. Baby Baphomet prefers the more tactile feel of a conventional Moog. The performance here is definitely less sensitive and nuanced. Perhaps we can agree to disagree – Baphomet as your top choice for your more forceful punk act, Austin clearly as the more lyrical of the two on Animoog. Watch: Continue reading »
The stream of iPad and iPhone apps for musicians gushes endlessly, but among that river of software, there are some visible trends. Demanded by users, features for sharing between apps – and other mobile artists – flourish.
Hardware heavyweight KORG has been one of the developers that’s been especially good at offering that kind of support. Their just-announced iKaossilator 2 app adds native iPad screen support (previously iPhone-optimized only), and a new “flex play” for fills and breaks.
But most notably, it offers options for sharing:
Audio export for saving your audio – ideal for use elsewhere or sharing
SoundCloud export (increasingly popular in desktop and mobile software of all stripes)
AudioCopy for sharing audio between apps – adopted by many indie developers, this feature is becoming a demanded addition even if you’re releasing an app costing only a couple of bucks
This is addition to WIST, “WIreless Sync-starT,” Korg’s mechanism for syncing up multiple wireless apps. That’s ideal if you’ve got a friend with a device and want to jam. (It’s, unfortunately, iOS-only based on its reliance on Apple’s wireless sharing tech.)
The upshot of all of these features is, naturally, to help ease the tablet/phone app into the larger workflow, with desktop software and other tools. Korg’s other apps are similarly flexible – their iMS-20 synth works with MIDI and SoundCloud, for instance, and it and iElecTribe will wirelessly sync.
KORG isn’t alone. An updated Intua BeatMaker – more of a full-fledged beat-making and groove production workstation – added loads of similarly sharing-focused features. Continue reading »
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