For the lover of musical instruments and technology, southern California’s NAMM show is a giant toy shop. It’s work for many of its attendees, of course, but we know many of our readers dream of the objects that will make their next creations. And sure, inspiring lust is not our aim; on the contrary, there is some love that goes into these things. In the ideal, that’s the relationship of creator and consumer. These are things not to be bought and discarded, but kept and really used.

So, we have a different look at the NAMM show, through the lens of CDM contributor Marsha Vdovin, who has been at this show more times than she might like to count. I’ve added some comments about what these devices are and why they’re important. And the next time we see them, these inventions pictured in silence here, we expect them to be working hard on music far from the din and flourescent glare of the trade show floor.

As always, click for larger images. Photos by Marsha Vdovin; words by Peter Kirn:

Roland’s V-Guitar marks a surprising collaboration, bringing the famed American guitar maker Fender together with the Japanese electronic maker to make an “electronic guitar,” merging the two company’s tech on a digitally-augmented Stratocaster. More on this soon – but the extended playing techniques won over many guitarists.

The Danish design aesthetes of AIAIAI have improved upon their TMA-1 headphones with a studio model. Same drivers, same basic design, but a “flatter” response to sound (rather than beefed-up, DJ-ready bass) and closed ear design. It’s impossible to hear anything at NAMM, but I can attest that the new design is far, far more comfy to wear. Actually, if I could have kept these on the whole show to drown out the sound, it would have been great.

An easy place to spot a talented celebrity was at the Dave Smith Instruments booth, at which artists clustered around Dave and Roger Linn. They were on-hand with plenty of tweaks to their stellar Tempest drum machine.

Teenage Engineering’s OP-1 grew up, with new features (drum sounds! MIDI sync – at last), and grew out, with a companion product for connecting sensors and USB host mode that could be a boutique item for music DIYers. We’ll go hands-on with each this year, and while readers were disappointed on a lack of some details (will the OpLab be open source?), we expect to get more details from the Teenagers when the product is ready in the coming months.

Readers of tech blogs (ahem) may miss out on the fact that the vast majority of NAMM is really for guitarists, drummers, and traditional instrumentalists. And yes, that includes glittery, pink products from Daisy Rock Guitars. We’ve concluded this model will be perfect for Sparkle Pony. (And really, if you’re not watching Portlandia to get that reference, get on it. Also, Jenny Conlee is crazy awesome.)

Thin, responsive, and expressive, the QuNeo from Keith McMillen – funded on Kickstarter – proves it’s really happening. With continuous pressure response on its touch controls and bi-directional control, it could be the most anyone will ever have gotten from a US$200 controller. Yes, we’ll be watching.

Pioneer wasn’t showing anything new at this show — they timed those launches over the fall with new controllers like the Ergo. But they did have a glossly all-white lacquer set of limited-edition devices that looked absurdly gorgeous. Now if I want to do my flat over in the style of a Stanley Kubrick set, I know what DJ gear I’ll be buying. (If you don’t know what I mean, watch the end of 2001 again – or the living room in Tron: Legacy, which is more or less a copy.) White is the new generic-dull-charcoal.

Akai’s MPC Renaissance is unlike any other mass-market controller we’ve seen. It’s actually substantial, something that feels like a vintage MPC even though it’s designed to work with software (pictured). The audio circuitry is straight out of the modern MPC, but there’s a switch for “vintage” modes – think 12-bit output when the MPC60 is enabled, for instance. Akai told CDM they built the software in-house, but we also learned at NAMM that they licensed time-stretch tech from iZotope, giving their upcoming MPC software generous audio-manipulation abilities.

The Renaissance will cost you, with a street expected well over a grand, but that makes it even more welcome that the same superb pads and response curves are also on the maker’s MAX49 keyboard and cheaper MPC Model.

Just expect to wait: these were prototypes, and there were still some bugs to work out.

The Renaissance is for the MPC die-hard; the MPC Studio is the model that will directly take on Native Instruments and Maschine. It’s slim, sleek, and still has great-feeling controls. And while that makes it compelling competition for Maschine, I’m gratified to see this whole market expanding, new workflows for performance and production, and a push to better quality in the controllers. The days when computer gear meant “cheap and plastic-y” are mercifully at an end. Speaking of which –

Akai’s MAX49 keyboard could be a new model to beat. The keyboard action is satisfyingly springy, with a new keybed not seen in previous models. The pads are identical to those on the Renaissance, and feel more the way proper MPC pads should. Not everyone will love the light-up, touch-sensitive resistive faders, but I found with a bit of pressure, they worked well – and that means never having to worry about a fader catching up with the value in software. You also get serious features: Control Voltage, a full complement of MIDI ports, and aftertouch. Did I mention Control Voltage? It’s nice to see a controller keyboard with a slightly premium price, build, and features.

The last surprise from Akai was this MPC DJ. The company says it’s a prototype only, and had little more to say about it, but it’s fascinating to see the MPC and turntable controls converge.

Moog’s Minitaur was my favorite synth of the show. It just sounds consistently brilliant, no matter which way you turn it or play it – and I accordingly noticed it was the synth the most people were actually playing on the show floor.

This is what a 24-karet KORG MonoTribe looks like, alongside a silver-plated model. There’s little more one can say. It is, of course, one of a kind — and already spoken for.

The other thing of beauty at the KORG booth: a limited-edition reverse-key SV-1 keyboard.

iOS accessories were numerous, but a few were genuinely useful. IK Multimedia’s iRig Mic “Cast,” for instance, is coupled with handy software for podcasters, as a quick tool for interviewing or podcast recording.

It’s not a new product, but one of the reviews to which I’m most looking forward is this Eers product. It promises custom in-ears you make yourself, rather than the enormous cost of getting them custom-made. Stay tuned on this one – protecting your hearing and making on-stage gigs go well is perhaps as essential as gear can get.

The just-intonation Hymnatron from the Dewanatron crew was one of the most compositionally-compelling instruments at the show, with a unique sound, tuning, and key layout. And it looks mighty handsome in this one-off wooden case.

LiveWire’s modular was among the many dreamy modular rigs at Big City Music and Analog Haven, two Los Angeles hotspots for analog modulars. Did we mention space was more plentiful and inexpensive, and gigs more generous, in LA than in NYC, Chicago, or San Francisco? Funny coincidence, that.

Many modules graced this show, but the most intriguing was not analog, but digital – think digital algorithms in an analog, patch-cord-modular hardware workflow. Tom Erbe, maker of long-beloved SoundHack (the app, and then more recently the plug-ins) put some of his sonic wizardry into a module, collaborating with one of our favorite modular builders, MakeNoise. The result: the MakeNoise Echofon. As such, it’s a perfect emblem of our Create Digital Music, Create Analog Music philosophy. Dear Berlin friends: let’s plug this into your monster modulars, okay?

Big City Music is a wonderful place. The other candidate for best new module: brilliant creations by Metasonix, as previewed here. We’ll be watching for these to be patch-able, too.

Casio had its classic CZ-1000 synth on-hand at its booth. The Casio XW isn’t quite a successor to the CZ, though it does include some of those waveforms and phase distortion sounds. What it does appear to be is a very affordable, do-just-about-everything workstation at a fraction of the price of any of its rivals. For someone who wants a jack-of-all-trades gigging keyboard, this could very much be a contender.

Our friends at Beatport are evidently getting into the hardware business. The most interesting launch wasn’t a set of TMA headphones with Slimer-green cords (I’ll take the Studio model, thanks, or just a non-Danish set of studio cans). Instead, I was intrigued by the eminently-practical line of gigging cords Beatport is working on with Hosa. They include features live digital musicians and DJs badly need, like color-coded cords you can find easily at a show, and hinged USB cords you can cram into tight spaces. More on those soon.

Thanks, all. Lastly, I want to thank everyone I got to spend time with at the NAMM show, and particularly Marsha Vdovin, who is responsible for these photos and keeping our schedule together. NAMM is always too crowded and too short, but it can lay groundwork for a whole year. And I’m excited for this Year of the Dragon. Be seeing you.

For the rest of our NAMM coverage:
http://createdigitalmusic.com/tag/namm/

Photos by Marsha Vdovin / Words by Peter Kirn.

There’s lots of new stuff for musicians. Sometimes, the best thing to do is to leave some of it out, and skip to what’s really interesting.

Neil Bufkin did a great job last year covering NAMM for CDM, shooting some lo-fi, informal videos that got right to the heart of what we wanted to know. So, I’m pleased to share Neil’s work again, since unless you’re following forums (fora?) closely, you might miss it.

He picked out some of our absolute favorites. Highlights: Moog sums up the Minitaur in one, excellent word (“knobby”!), the Arturia shows off its sound shapers, Teenage Engineering flaunt their DIY prowess (hint: you can make your own inputs for next-to-nothing for the OpLab), and we get some up-close highlights of other hardware, too.

Bonus: I’ve included a quick upload from my, cough, phone of the QuNeo hardware. We’ll wait to shoot prettier videos when this gear actually ships. In the meantime, find a really old CRT (maybe from an old Commodore) and plug into that, if you can.

Minitaur: It’s Knobby!

I didn’t get to shoot a video, because I was too busy for the few minutes I had with the Minitaur just playing. The controls are simple, elegant, and – here’s why you know it’s a Moog – absolutely every conceivable position of the parameters sounds brilliant. It’s a bit spooky, or unfair, or something. I’ll have a full hands-on hopefully around April from Berlin. Here’s a tour with the Chief Engineer of Moog.

(For more of why we love Moog Chief Engineer Cyril Lance, see him show us the Moogerfooger Cluster Flux.)

Moog also posted some celeb visitors to their booth jamming away and making this thing sound even better; see other tidbits from their Twitter stream.

Arturia Minibrute

It has a name that sounds Moog-like, and it might be an analog hardware synth, but make no mistake: this synth is all-French, and un-Moog. The feel of playing it different, it has a great rotary-controlled arpeggiator, and the sound shapers and oscillator mix controls can take it into some very different sonic territory. I made repeat visits to the booth just to wrap my head around the feel, and got to really love it.

Akai MAX49

So now that you’re looking for a keyboard with MIDI and CV to go with all these new sound modules, here’s a surprising candidate – Akai. Yes, we’re utterly relieved to see the company that was recently making tiny keyboards for iPhones and things with only USB MIDI on them return to MIDI DIN and CV.

In my hands-on with the MAX49, I was very impressed by the feel. The keybed feels terrific and just springy enough, and the pads are more traditional MPC-style pads shared on the new MPC controllers. They’ve also sorted the velocity response. (That is, they aren’t the pads readers were complaining about on previous Akai keyboards.) Also, the red color that looks so garish in the product photos looks very nice in person; it’s a high-gloss, thick finish that is reminiscent of car paint.

Here’s a more detailed look at all the features via Neil:

Smithson Martin Emulator

It’s likely spendier than what at least some readers will want – especially with the iPad as an everyman’s alternative – but I really enjoy Neil’s detailed look with Smithson Martin at the custom control layouts on the Emulator hardware.

Our friends at The Verge also take a look at the new hardware. (I’ve become a great fan of Joseph Flatley’s general tech writing, so I’m really pleased to see him covering the music tech area … and Joseph, one of these days we’ll be in the same place at the same time.)

Teenage Engineering OP-1 Update, Oplab

While some may resent the gloss of marketing around their work, the truth is, the Teenage Engineers are also doing some great engineering. The OP-1 updates take a synth that was conceptually interesting and make it more musically inspiring and productive, finally starting to realize some of its original potential.

And then there’s Oplab. At $300, it’s not an Arduino – but what it is is a unique, programmable combination of CV, MIDI, and USB hosting (that’s the key) to which you can connect virtually any hardware or custom sensor or hardware creation. Some onlooked misunderstood what it was initially, comparing its pricing to boxes that only to CV-to-MIDI conversion, and missing the advantages of USB hosting.

Here’s a better look at what it actually does, and I can guarantee, having talked to the TE crew, that there will be more details to come. I hope that this will also inspire other DIY projects, even those not involving the Oplab per se, so we’ll document those aspects, too.

Again, The Verge gives us a second look with a nicer camera.

Livid

Livid has been very, very busy of late. And their latest controller, in collaboration with Richie Hawtin and M-nus, is an extraordinary example of what iteration can do for hardware. The first pad-and-fader-and-knob controllers from Livid were very, very good. This is even better. Quietly, Livid is making the kind of all-around controller many musicians will appreciate, even as big makers struggle to find the formula artists want.

Since I hear there’s some association between M-nus, techno, and Berlin, let’s hope we can get a closer hands-on. Anyone interested in that? Show of hands?

Watch This Space

We have more photos and hands-on details of new tech from NAMM to bring you. I’m working through them slowly, as is my speed, so we can go into the stuff we really care about in greater detail. And since I can’t only look at new gear, new music coverage coming, as well. Be seeing you.

One is a keytar. One is a master controller with touch faders and real MIDI and — control voltage, for working with analog gear. Seriously. The keyboard controller market may have faded into a dull, gray blur of nearly-identical models, but under the Alesis and Akai monikers, there’s some fresh-looking variety. Love it or hate it, these are not the same keyboards you’ll get from anybody else at the moment.

I got to meet with Alesis/Akai/Numark today at the NAMM Press Preview, get my hands on a prototype of their new Vortex keytar, and talk about what they’re doing. And I have to say, I’m impressed. (I didn’t get hands on the second model, the MAX49, but will visit their booth in the next couple of days.) Finally, we get the return of the MIDI DIN port for working with a wider range of hardware, without sacrificing USB. One model even does CV for analog equipment. And both can supply their own power so you can use them with iOS. And they at least are interesting enough to have an opinion about them – even if you hate them.

Here’s a look at each of them and what why they’ll be on our radar when they ship later this year.

Alesis Vortex Keytar

First off, let me say it, once and for all: I don’t think there’s anything dorky about a keytar, other than the name. Us keyboardists are plenty capable of being dorky on our own, but don’t blame the instrument.

What keytars are – or strap-on keyboards, if you can say that without smirking – is eminently practical for one-handed playing. For two-handed playing or more conventional piano or organ parts, of course, you’re better off without them. But the keytar lets you move around, play expressive solos, and also free up your hands if you’re using other machines, as in electronic music. Unfortunately, the options out there have been overly large, making them too unweildly for many people to play, and overly expensive, pricing them out of a lot of their market. I’ve played and advocated the Rock Band game controller because it’s lightweight, inexpensive, and nicely made, and it even has a MIDI jack. I actually hear one Harmonix veteran is now at Alesis, so that may be no coincidence. (The Vortex even has a touch strip on its neck.)

The Vortex, though, looks like the first really balanced keytar controller in the market … well, ever. Features:

• MIDI DIN and USB MIDI
• Velocity-sensitive pads in addition to the keys
• 37 velocity-sensitive keys (good number for a keytar), plus channel aftertouch (heck, yes)
• MIDI-assignable accelerometer. And this is cool – it’s not on all the time; you make a quick sweep of the neck to enable the accelerometer in a clever gesture control.
• MIDI-assignable touch strip, but also a full pitch bend wheel underneath your thumb (I rather prefer the latter, but it’s nice to have a choice).
• Assignable slider under your thumb, mapped by default to volume.
• Dedicated sustain button, plus octave selection, transport, and patch select.

With all due respect to Roland, this appears to fix effectively all of my complaints about the Roland keytars at a fraction of the price.

And you can add a strap via standard guitar strap pegs.

The best part:
Q2-2012
MSRP US$399
Estimated street US$249

http://www.alesis.com/vortex

Akai Pro MAX49: Touch Faders, CV

I’ve all but begged manufacturers to explore what an advanced or high-end MIDI controller would look like. The MAX49 likely won’t please everyone, but it’s one compelling-looking answer. Features:

• 49 semi-weighted keys, with channel aftertouch
• 12 MPC pads, backlit, four banks each
• 8 LED touch faders in place of physical faders, four banks each
• Control Voltage and analog Gate outputs for use with analog and vintage gear
• Arpeggiator with latch
• Step sequencer
• MPC swing, Note Repeat, Full Level, navigation – and yeah, I use this stuff, even if the software can do the same
  USB MIDI, MIDI DIN, connect to anything
• Control surface mappings plus full Mackie Control and HUI support – and, sorry, but for all the fancier solutions, sometimes that’s the easiest way to control a variety of software like Ableton Live, Reason, and the other DAWs

So, basically, all the features you want. My only questions are what it looks like in person and how the action feels, particularly those touch faders, as that can be tricky to pull off.

But the features are just perfect. It’s about time to bring back aftertouch and to connect with actual MIDI gear. Adding CV is a delicious addition. And honestly, features like being able to switch on an arpeggiator are far more useful and appealing to average musicians than the hard-to-configure, often-gimmicky automatic control features on many of the keyboards out there. So I’ve got my fingers crossed that the build quality and usability here are good — and that some of Akai’s rivals start taking on similar features. It’s bizarre to be applauding adding features from the 80s and 70s, but some recent progress has been steps backward, not forward.

Q2 2012
MSRP US$699
Estimated street $499

http://www.akaipro.com/max49

There are other new Alesis keyboards out this week, but the Akai MAX49 pretty much steals their thunder.

More Vortex Photos

Back to the Vortex, since I got to snap some shots this morning in Anaheim.

Discuss.

What should DJing software look like, anyway?

It’s just a teaser, but for once, the idea is simple, straightforward, and clear. Native Instruments have taken their DJ software, Traktor, and combined it with a grid of pads for sample triggering and loops. The upcoming hardware/software combination we expect later this spring.

At the risk of stating the obvious, what’s significant about adding loop triggering to any DJ set is that you can more easily move beyond playing and mixing tracks. Even without drum machines, this kind of manipulation is part of the grand tradition of DJing, made all the more impressive when ground-breaking DJs were able to accomplish it using only a turntables. (It’s perhaps a triumph over the linearity of recorded music in the 20th Century that, at last, artists found a way to subvert recorded music’s permanently-frozen state and reclaim the playback device as an instrument.)

What the upcoming product does is to take the virtual deck metaphor of Traktor and makes each deck a sampling machine. Each deck can trigger one-shots and loops, coupled with the mixing, cueing, and effects possibilities of Traktor as a DJ tool.

The obvious comparison will be to Ableton Live, but here, it’s as significant what is different as what is not. This wording from NI’s description will admittedly sound a lot like Ableton Live and colored renditions of the monome: “Stylish multi-color pads trigger loops and samples, allowing for on-the-fly remixing.” There’s definitely some influence there.

But the grand-daddy of all these things is sampling drum machines, the first instruments to popularize triggering one-off or looped audio content from a grid. (Tip of the hat here to Roger Linn and his designs.) Ableton’s breakthrough was taking that sample-triggering grid metaphor and cross-breeding it with the DAW, the all-purpose studio workstation with its channel strips, tracks, and arrangements. In Live, the track is king.

NI’s breakthrough here promises to be seamlessly making each deck – not each track – the focus for sample triggering. And their hardware literally combines the DJ mixing and effects functions with those pads. In the future Traktor tool, the deck, not the track, is king. And that makes all the difference. The deck will behave like a deck for cueing (a common complaint about Live), for one, but it’s also important that whereas Live gives you as many tracks as you want, you’re forced into the limitation of four decks in Traktor. That limitation is neither positive nor negative, but rather something that will influence every other decision you make. (Having looked over the shoulder of Richie Hawtin’s impossibly-enormous Live set recently for Plastikman, with tracks that scrolled on seemingly endlessly, I can tell you this isn’t a minor point.)

Of course, the other amusing point is the timing of when NI is tipping their hand. NI already makes a popular sampling drum machine, Maschine, combining a dedicated controller with software. Akai has just entered the ring with their own revision of the MPC – combining a dedicated controller with software to make a sampling drum machine. NI, for their part, here reveals that their next move is a new dedicated controller/software combo that also adds in DJing.

Anyway, for now, it’s just a video, so everything else is speculation. Feel free to have a look and let us know what you think, which, knowing comments, I’m certain you’ll do in no uncertain terms.

Side note: My brain is fuzzy; can anyone remind me of the capabilities of 4decks? This was, as I recall, a Reaktor patch that combined looping and decks.

Guess who’s gotten really bad at keeping a lid on upcoming product announcements? The manufacturers.

We’re suddenly utterly awash with teasers. Yes, it seems from intentional leaks to advance campaigns, we’re now destined to see every significant new piece of music gear before we see it, cast in shadows and partial photos and more. Apparently, the folks doing publicity think that this will cause people on the Internet to talk about them. They’re … right, in fact. And with the biggest American trade show for music gear landing next week, we’re in a flood of stuff.

I would willfully ignore such things, but I think it’s worth a quick round-up just to remind ourselves which booths we should visit next week in Anaheim at NAMM. And amidst more predictable teasers, the other good news is, the synths just keep on coming and coming. Who would have thought it? 2012 could be the year of the synth – again. (Even with MIDI DIN, no less!)

CDM is proud to bring you all this news, last. (I made the coffee and everything, but then seemed not to actually post this stuff when it arrived.)

Let’s take a sneak peak.

The best teasers:

NI tipped me off to their new @Traktor feed. There, we see, curiously, something resembling the colored buttons on color-mod monomes. And that’s all I can see, but I’m told we’ll see more from NI soon. (Note that NI doesn’t have a NAMM booth, so I don’t necessarily expect a NAMM announcement.)

Oddly, after I made a reference to the StealthMountain account, I see that tweet reads “Sneak Peak.” I’m going to assume that either that was a cheeky attempt to attract the ire of snarky grammar-correcting Twitter bots after I made mention of them, or that I should shut up as a lot of 2012 will be about me utterly butchering the beautiful German language.

Ken MacBeth takes the wraps off his MicroMac on The Facebook. “Micro” for Ken means basically “normal size” for the rest of us – the guy designs Paul Bunyan-style modulars. The Micro looks nice, indeed, three oscillators, loads of CV, and a VCF, plus Ken hopes for portamento and glide. This is still a prototype, but we hope to catch it in person. Compare the earlier proto design, second from top (which I actually quite like – anyone else?):

French synth maker Eowave is definitely on my must-visit list, with not one but two compelling new synths. The Domino (top) is a little more in the meat-and-potatoes category, a lovely, minimal analog monosynth. Koma (second top) is a bit more modern-looking and different, combining an analog bassline synth with a push-button step sequencer.

Koma @ Eowave
Domino @ Eowave [rattle your floors with the sound that autoplays]

More has leaked out about the upcoming Casio XW-P1. And yeah, basically, it sounds like what we’re getting is a general-purpose workstation, more along the lines of what Roland and Yamaha offer than the personality of the beloved CZ series. (SonicState does the math, too – it’s been since 1988.) The bad news: it’s a big workstation keyboard rather than something a bit more unique. The good news: coming from Casio, I’ll bet we see some serious value pricing … and you can still get your CZ on via eBay.

SonicState quotes Keyboard:
“A Mono solo section with up to six oscillators: two virtual analog, two PCM, noise, and external audio. Poly section with wide variety of gig- ready sounds. Drawbar organ mode. Six-way HexTone multis. Nine-track step sequencer with dedicated drum track.”

We’ve also got more details on Akai’s second controller-plus-software combo offering, the MPC Studio. (Curiously, if it’s small enough to carry with you, it’s called “Studio.” If it’s so big, you have to leave it in your studio, it’s called “Renaissance.” Got it?) As with the MPC Renaissance, the big story here is that you get a “dumb” hardware controller that doesn’t produce sound, and the operation itself all happens on your computer via software, a la Native Instruments’ Maschine. Unlike NI, though, Akai doesn’t really have a track record to speak of in software, so the big variable is how well their software works.

The MPC Studio, meanwhile, looks far more luggable and is presumably more affordable than its nonetheless cool-looking, monster truck-style bigger sibling.

It does look very, very slim. Unfortunately, with all those buttons crammed on the right side, it looks like a remote control for a home theater. I’ll be interested to try it in person and see if that’s usable in real life.

http://www.akaiprompc.com/mpcstudio.php [yup - URL still looks like "Prom PC" to me]

I’m probably most intrigued by Livid’s latest controller, the CNTRL-R, made in collaboration with M-nus Records and Richie Hawtin. That collaboration is interesting just because of the amount of live parameter control Rich and company are doing live. And Livid and their booth-mates should have loads of good toys. Livid’s Peter Nyboer writes in comments:

We (Livid) are showing with Mode Machines at E1009. We’ll be previewing some eurorack MIDI+analog things that we’ve been working on, the CNTRL:R that ships next month, and all our other controllers and DIY parts. I will also stand in the acoustic center of all the electric guitars and attempt an air guitar performance mimicking all the simultaneous shredding.

http://lividinstruments.com/hardware_cntrlr.php

Nord has a new organ and a new drum module coming. Sweet. I’m holding out for a Nord Virginal.

“The drums of the future come from the past” is the tagline.

Or to put it another way, “The key to saving the future, can be found only in the past.” [1]

Or to put it another way, “The future is history.” [2]

Or to put it another way, “He will erase your past to protect your future.” [3]

Or to put it another way, “Fight the future.” [4]

Or to put it another way, “In the future, one man is the law.” [5]

Or to put it another way, “The people aboard Flight 35 are about to land 1,000 years from where they planned to.” [6, and I hope that doesn't happen during my Delta connection in Atlanta on the way to LA ... again]

If you want to hire me to do your next PR campaign – yes, conflict of interest, blah, blah – give me a call. Several commenters have said I’m a great shill. I think that’s a compliment.

Answers below.

[1] Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

[2] Twelve Monkeys.

[3] Eraser.

[4] X-Files: Fight the Future.

[5] Judge Dredd.

[6] Millenium.

Show of hands – how many of you got them all?

Also on our teaser tracker:
bodo notes:

Loads of new Eurorack by the likes of Pittsburgh Modular, WDM, Syntech, LZX, but the most eagerly awaited modules will probably be the Make Noise Oscillator (yay!) and Echophon (basically +pitchdelay http://soundhack.henfast.com/freeware/ in a Eurorack module)

We know Teenage Engineering is bringing something, and they win the award for most obscure teaser video. (TV dinner, suggests one reader.)

I look at 10 things I’m excited about at NAMM, though I think I may have to remove the one about “surprises.”

See you from Anaheim.

The MPC name and MPC legend are as big as ever. But the current products? Not so much. Let’s face it: Akai could use a bit of a renaissance. Users these days put just as much stock in the MPC as a concept, and the MPC hardware still attracts users, but other products are stealing Akai’s thunder (Ableton Live, Native Instruments Maschine), and the human faces beloved by users aren’t at Akai (from the hacked JJOS firmware to Roger Linn off working on the Dave Smith-released Tempest). And while it doesn’t have the same mass appeal, hardware from other makers – the Tempest or the Machinedrum and Octatrack – have more street cred these days. That isn’t to say Akai isn’t doing well, but ironically, most of the Akai users I run into these days are using the APC with Ableton, or a treasured MPC from some years back.

This week, we get a glimpse of Akai’s strategy for changing that. The surprise: all three products are controllers for software, not the all-in-one, integrated hardware that made the MPC famous.

To many, it may be more the sad end of an era than the beginning of a new one. With plenty of software tools on the market, Akai was in the eyes of a loyal user base the go-to name for integrated hardware. But we’ll see if the MPC can win over those same folks with greater flexibility, as an apparent concession to the reduced development cost and expanded capabilities of relying on a computer for horsepower.

The MPC Renaissance is a larger controller with integrated audio and MIDI interface. It has a “Vintage Mode” said to emulate the sound “character” of the MPC3000, MPC60, and other units. And it comes with a fold-up LED screen and backlit pads. But the actual sound generation relies on the computer; it’s an interactive controller. We’ve, of course, seen this notion before, in Native Instruments’ Maschine. Whether that direct comparison is ultimately fair or not, the popularity of Maschine and the fact that it came first will make such comparisons inevitable. The major difference in Akai’s approach is that this is a big controller, complete with vintage-style palm rests and loads of I/O. It’s a Cadillac Escalade to NI’s Volkswagen Jetta. And with that extra space, you get more controls, like a stunning 4×4 array of encoders with LEDs, as popularized on Akai’s APC.

And the hardware looks far more elaborate than what we’ve tended to see, even from Akai. It’s the first controller that seems like it’d look at home next to an original MPC.

I like that the controller won’t be mistaken for anything but an MPC. The big question is, is Akai any good at making software? The first screenshot isn’t exactly pulse-quickening, though it does have plug-in support out of the gate. I wouldn’t judge on a preview, but I’ll say this: I think the software will make or break this product, and that’s what I’ll be asking about when I visit Akai at NAMM in Anaheim.

The other two products are teased now and coming soon:
MPC Studio is a “slimline” controller. (Well, almost anything would be more slimline than the massive, wide-load Renaissance, so we’ll see what that means.)

MPC Fly is a controller for iPad 2. If you can get over the name and the latest leap on the iPad bandwagon, consider this – there’s some seriously major consumer appeal here, and of the three, the Fly is the one where Akai is first to market. That makes a big difference. I can see why they kept it for last, even if it may be the least appealing to MPC loyalists.

I’ll reserve judgment on any of this, as I have no idea who worked on these products at Akai, or what the quality will be. My concern is that the appeal of the MPC is really integrated hardware, and mixing the computer into the equation is something other products already do reasonably well – ironically, including Akai’s own APC coupled with Ableton. It seems a huge test for Akai going into this generation of music production.

Now, I’m willing to accept the possibility that this will be a flexible, functional approach. But first, I’ll just wait through what I imagine will be a hailstorm of angry MPC purists. After that settles down, we’ll finally see if Akai is, as they’re putting it, “changing the game” – or if they’re in the same league. What determines that may be just how much the game has changed already. (And from the Ableton side, it’ll be a big test of the partnership with Akai for integrating hardware and software.)

Video below, with some artists onboard already – AraabMUZIK, Sean C, and LV.

Product specs and full info will be available week after next, coinciding with the massive NAMM trade show in California. We’ll be there with Akai.

Early spec highlights – basically, think MPC-style sound samples and features, and lots of audio I/O, as the two things missing from most rivals:

MPC Note Repeat, MPC Swing and MPC transport controls
MPC software for Mac or PC with 64-track sequencing capability
Two XLR-1/4” combo inputs and dedicated turntable input
Four-channel USB 2.0 audio interface and two-port US B 2.0 hub built in
Up to eight pad banks
Two MIDI inputs and four MIDI outputs
Stereo 1/4” out, stereo assignable mix 1/4” out & S/PDIF I/O
MPC SOFTWARE
64-track sequencing capability
6GB+ sound library, including all of the sounds of the classic MPC3000
Instant mapping and real-time adjustment of VST plug-ins
Record each track as an MPC drum program, Keygroup program or VST plug-in
Runs standalone and as VST, AU or RTAS plug-in
Supports WAV, MP3, AIFF, REX and SND
Supports samples and sequences from any MPC ever made
Mac and PC-compatible

http://www.akaiprompc.com/
http://www.akaiprompc.com/mpcrenaissance.php

If you just want to fire up Renoise, the modern tracker/music production app, and not worry about the fact that its innards are hackable, you can. But for a reason why you might at least want to explore customization of this music tool, give the video above a look. It starts sleepy and slow … and then, part of the way through, as creator Dac Chartrand starts demoing the tool, something really special happens. (Anyway, that’s what I think. See if you agree.)

Dac explains his work, completed at the recent Montreal Music Hackday:

My Renoise hack was Grid Pie. One of the new trends in our community is the concept of a meta-interface. In essence, programmers use the Lua API to transform Renoise into something else, hide the Renoise window, and work with hardware interfaces connected to their own scripts. Three current examples: MPE, Step Sequencer Lauflicht and Duplex. Grid Pie is “yet another meta interface.” It turns Renoise into a live performance audio recombination machine. Still in alpha, but people were into the demo I gave. I got a lot of handshakes and positive feedback.

It’s an alpha, so your mileage may vary, but I’ll bet this whets some appetites for people who hadn’t yet realized the power of the Renoise API.

http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=Grid_Pie

Lovers of the grid for music control now get to reenact the scene in MGM’s The Wizard of Oz, stepping out of the world of black and white into one of color. The OhmRGB, the latest controller from Austin, Texas-based controller and custom hardware shop Livid Instruments, adds multicolor LEDs behind its array of controls.

We’ve already seen red, green, and yellow add color feedback on Novation’s Launchpad (and of course the APC line from Akai). The Livid piece bests Novation’s three colors with seven possibilities. For those who prefer their grids to come with knobs, faders, and crossfader, the OhmRGB has the same generous complement of controls that its (monochromatic) Ohm64 sibling does. It also has expansion ports for additional flexibility, plugs into USB connectivity and power without the need for drivers, and has extensive options for remapping lights, controls, and interaction, so it works dynamically not only with Ableton Live but any tool you like. Livid also does their woodwork and assembly in Austin, Texas – keeping the shop on-site was a wise business move, believe me.

In the top video, you can see artist Pailo do a quick demo; obviously, you could perform with this however you want. In the video below, the Livid gang explain a bit about how they’ve made the Ohm64 RGB work with Ableton Live:

This video is presented by Pailo and shows how you can use it with OhmModes, a sophisticated remote script for Ableton Live

Jay Smith from Livid has some other comments – and even those seven colors aren’t necessarily the limit:

Currently it supports 7 colors, we plan on adding more with a firmware update in the future. It has the same expansion jacks the Block [controller] has, we plan on making side cars for it later this year. Also we’ve added banking so you can save multiple mappings to the internal memory of the controller.

And here’s a video that shows why the expansion ports are cool:

Want one? Check it out at Livid Instruments:
http://lividinstruments.com/hardware_ohmrgb.php

US$699, available now direct or via your dealer.

More RGB Action!

While Livid doesn’t make hardware that can be technically qualified as open source, they have built a strong relationship with the DIY community. Their software patches, built in Max/MSP, are available under an open source license, and their hardware is well-suited to hacking and modification. And beyond the finished products themselves, they’ve got a full-blown DIY platform called Builder and have generally built a good relationship with DIYers through their shop and interaction with the community.

All of that is to say, there’s a lot happening with exploring what grid controllers can be as hardware hackers and musicians take matters into their own hands. Unlike the OhmRGB, you can’t easily go out and buy one of these at the moment, but it’s fantastic to see the rainbow (ahem) of control experimentation out there.

Thanks in particular to Mutis Mayfield, aka Mudo de Nacimiento, who helped remind us of some of the major RGB grid efforts to date. Mudo himself is working a project, seen in the image below.

Clarification/correction: Mudo adds some notes on that project:

I had to say that the project in the picture wasn’t mine, to be exact I’m part of the project as a free-lancer taking the task of community management and concept designer for the software implementation with third party softwares.

This project started as a revision for the Octinct from Jonathan, Owen and Jordan whit the aim to give a Octinct unit to some artist at Hangar.org over workshop over the Sonar(matica) 2009 (these workshops were free admitance) but it was evolving into a new project (with new design for the boards) which is the one from the picture.

We expect more information on that project soon.

I have to start out with the insanely-awesome Polynome 5000. It’s about the dreamiest color controller I can imagine, a one-off monome by capricorn one, aka Los Angeles-based monome musician and inventor Colin Mann. Colin describes it thusly:

After more hours than I’d like to admit, even if I actually knew how many, I’m done. I started this, believe it or not, before the APC40 was even announced, and at the time there weren’t many products out there like it. Now, obviously it would make more sense to just buy one of those products, nevertheless, where are you gonna get an RGB monome with a nixie tube display that takes OSC commands? Exactly.

FEATURES
RGB monome (64 buttons, 64 colors)
6 slide faders
1 infrared sensor
1 touch strip sensor
4 arcade buttons (internally lit)
1 toggle switch
4 digit nixie tube display
12 button keypad
xlr microphone pass through
6 port usb hub (powered)
4 external power jacks
1 12VDC power output source

Don’t miss Colin’s huge post on the topic; see also video below.

http://www.capricorn1.net/avr/polynome-5000/

Next up, another DIY project — from artist and hacker BIM0X, the Rainbow:

Presentation of my new MIDI controller : the Rainbow.
Soft touch buttons Monome like, each one has a RGB Led inside.
64 buttons, 7 colours available. Based on midibox (www.ucapps.de)

Powered by PIC18F452. Completley independent, it doesn’t need a computer to work.
Midi and output via MIDI messages

Open source RGB grids?

Owen Vallis and Jordan Hochenbaum, aka FlipMu, have been working on their own open source project. It’s not just RGB – it’s also pressure-sensitive, a feature generally missing from these sorts of grid controllers, adding a whole new dimension of possible expression.

Owen shares some other comments, and walks us through yet more RGB and even pressure-sensitive projects:

The Livid stuff is always awesome I think. I’m all for more DIY or any open source projects. There have been a lot of RGB style button grids over the last several years, starting with the Octinct from Johnaton Guberman and Brad Hill ( <-- the original Arduinome Shield designer). The Octinct was finally made open source last year and is now being worked on by the guys at Hanger.org. There was also the RGB mini Monome by Grumpy Mike at the arduino forums (vimeo video), and also the Lumi from stanford which combined pressure and a touch screen using the spark fun RGB pads in a 4×8.

The Chronome is different (and has been taking so long) because it not only uses a Mega (hopefully allowing for expansion later), but also adds 64 independent pressure and RGB buttons. Trying to solve for noise on the ADC while lighting all 64 RGB leds was super hard to solve ….but it works now woop woop. The other major thing is that the Chronome works natively with SerialOSC from monome, and still works the exact same as a regular monome. The only difference is the Chronome also accepts an RGB message, and send an additional pressure message. This means the Chronome should work with all existing monome apps.

The Chronome, based on the open-source Arduinome project also from FlipMu, is progressing nicely. You can track its progress – and even try your hand at building it yourself – on the FlipMu site and blog (hosted by createdigitalmusic):

http://flipmu.noisepages.com/blog/
http://flipmu.noisepages.com/work/chronome/ [beta, but with loads of files for your use if you're brave]

Here are some of the projects Owen mentions:

The best resource I could find on the now-open-source Octinct project is on the monome forums:
Official Octinct Package Thread

It points at where to find the newly-released documentation, code, PCBs, and whatnot.

Also, there’s one further device that may be available commercially, though, for now, it remains mysterious. The Electrix Tweaker has specs similar to the OhmRGB, but we’re still waiting for it to ship, and have only the grainy image seen here.

So, there you have it – color is coming to grids in a big way. We’ll be watching the development of the OhmRGB, in particular, and it remains the full-color controller you can have right now. And we’ll watch these more experimental projects, too. It’s like a rainbow…

http://lividinstruments.com/hardware_ohmrgb.php

Practical iPad Music Making: Connecting Hardware

What’s this MIDI thing about?

Creatively, music is about assembling a new whole out of lots of pieces. So it makes sense that in a music workspace, making connections is important. Like traditional computers before it, part of what makes the shiny, new iPad musically useful is its ability to work with other gear.

Enter MIDI. For the uninitiated, MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is the de facto industry standard means for communicating musical events between different hardware and software. It doesn’t transmit sound, but it does transmit information like pitch, note events, knob twists, button presses, and clock and transport information.

I’ve been working with Tekserve, an independent Apple service and sales shop in Manhattan, to help show iPad owners how they can use this protocol – now more than a quarter century old – to make all their gear work together. Tonight at an event Tekserve titled “the future of music,” then, I’m the Ghost of Music Technology Past.

In the video at top, co-produced by CDM and Tekserve, I show a hands-on with MIDI gear and the iPad. Of course, by definition, what I’m saying also applies to other computing platforms that can support MIDI, which includes Mac OS, Windows, and Linux.

MIDI and iOS: Seen in this Video

Various iOS apps let you send MIDI (or other protocols, like OpenSoundControl) wirelessly, via the WiFi connection. (Bluetooth seems not to be an option, because of how Apple provides access to that connection.)

But here, we’re using good, old-fashioned hardware connections, which means you can work with hardware from the 80s through today – and you don’t have to have your computer with you. So, we need a hardware adapter.

Apple Camera Connection Kit: Works with USB devices that support MIDI class, and USB MIDI interfaces that connect to hardware with a 5-pin MIDI DIN port. Below, here’s a demo of the CCK with the Korg iMS-20.

Line6 MIDI Mobilizer: Works with any device with a 5-pin MIDI DIN port, no additional hardware required. Also the only device that works with the iPhone and iPod touch and not just the iPad. Line6 points out that it also theoretically supports faster speeds, but the thing I like most about it is that you get little LED lights that flash when MIDI is sent or received – ideal for troubleshooting! SonicState did a great video hands-on review:

If you’re serious about MIDI, you probably won’t regret having both.

MeeBlip is an open-source, hackable synth designed by James Grahame and sold and supported in collaboration with Create Digital Music. And if you don’t necessarily want a $500 iPad, here’s a demo video of the MeeBlip “gex0008″ shot with a used Yamaha QY10, a portable MIDI sequencer.

Synthetic Bits little midi machine: A hardware-style analog step sequencer.

Edirol UM-1 EX is a USB MIDI interface that has those 5-pin MIDI DINs on one side and USB on the other. It’s now discontinued, but the UM-1 line lives on — see the UM-1G, now sold as Cakewalk by Roland. Just like its predecessors, there’s a little “advanced mode” switch that you can toggle to “OFF” for driver-free operation with the iPad.

MIDI Touch is a brilliant little app for making custom MIDI controller maps. (It works wirelessly, too.) I need to actually make a template for the MeeBlip. Check out microKORG and Shruthi-1 templates on Palm Sounds. Version 2.0 recently arrived.

Audio interfaces work, too. There are various driver-free audio gadgets out there; the $30(!) Behringer UCA-222 just happened to be sitting out Tekserve’s show floor and worked just fine.

The Akai LPK25 is a cute little music keyboard; Akai now offers a whole mess of controllers that work without drivers. That’s also true of similar, portable options like Korg’s nano series. I might opt for the Akai MPK mini, as then you get pads and encoders, too.

No iPad music demo would be complete without the insanely-deep iMS20 from Korg, which is what I use with the Akai keyboard (sorry, Korg) at the end. You could forget every other app and immerse yourself in the Korg app and probably be happy.

More Essential MIDI Apps

I’m not a believer in the notion of loading up your iPad with a zillion apps – I learned that lesson the hard way long ago loading up my computer with a zillion plug-ins. For me personally, I’d rather have a few good apps I depend on. For MIDI, here’s what’s on my machine:

• StepPolyArp is the other MIDI sequencer I use, aside from little midi machine. It supports wireless DSMidiWifi and Line 6 Midi Mobilizer, and it’s utterly brilliant – you get to just focus in on editing a MIDI pattern with some truly powerful tools. I actually wanted to fit it into the video, but just didn’t really get it in.
• Midi Monitor from iOSMIDI is a must-have app for heavy MIDI users: it’s perfect for diagnosing hardware support, messages in and out, and even comes with a layout for testing gear, modeled after Midi Touch from the same developer.
• MidiVision is a simpler monitor app; this is an iPad story, but MidiVision is your best bet for an iPhone or iPod touch (and doing MIDI monitoring fits a handheld nicely).
• S1 MIDI Trigger works really nicely with hardware MIDI. Like MidiTouch, it’s a custom layout app; it started out wireless-only but added hardware support. I haven’t yet decided which I prefer; stay tuned.
• AC-7 Core is easily the most powerful controller app out there. It’s primarily for controlling your DAW on your computer, but it has MIDI support for hardware, too.
• Synthetic Bits’ FunkBox is a fun little drum machine, focusing on simple, finger-friendly, hardware-style interaction like the awesome aforementioned little midi machine. Bonus here: it will send MIDI clock in version 2.0, which will allow tempo-synced fun. (That means you could use this with an iPad and something like an old Yamaha QY10, as seen above, and have it all clocking together.) Must-download. Get it. I wish there were more desktop apps this simple and fun.
• One Red Dog Media’s Molten is similarly excellent. It also has MIDI clock support. As with FunkBox, it’s a standalone drum machine, too, but the fun part is that you can also use it as a controller or sync other devices (or your computer) via MIDI clock.

S1 was spotted this week on Synthtopia, demonstrating how you can use an iPad to extend tangible controllers you already have:

Here’s FunkBox in action, using MIDI clock:

And while it’s at the very end of the video, at around :50 you can watch Molten synced up to a MacBook Pro running Apple’s UltraBeat drum machine. This video does not show hardware MIDI, but that’s possible, too, via Core MIDI, the Camera Connection Kit, and a MIDI adapter.

What I really desperately wish had hardware MIDI / Core MIDI support: Shiverware Musix, a hexagonal music grid, and Audanika SoundPrism, which aligns music to a sophisticated pitch array.

Caveats

There are some details to be aware, lest this seem that I’m simply advocating the iPad – I’m not; I’m really advocating using MIDI to keep everything compatible.

MIDI clock is pretty rare. Molten is the only app I know of at the moment that both transmits and receives MIDI clock over a hardware connection for synchronizing tempo. The MIDI Mobilizer evidently only recently added clock as a feature, so that could have something to do with the delay.

Bluetooth isn’t yet, as far as I and developers can tell, possible — too bad, as it’s a good option for wireless MIDI.

For hardware support, power is a consideration – a lot of gear has to be externally powered. Here’s one good write-up on that.

Let’s say that again: if you expect anything other than a very simple MIDI input device or adapter to be powered by the iPad, you’ll be disappointed. Even on desktop computers, we often find issues with power availability. Imagine that an order of magnitude worse on iPad; most devices beyond things like that portable MIDI keyboard above will require external power. We had a hub handy while we were shooting this. I like Richard Lawler’s idea of hacking together a battery-powered hub as a workaround for this (and other mobile devices likely to suffer the same issue).

There’s some serious fragmentation. Core MIDI works via a camera adapter – an unrelated device – but a lot of developers haven’t added it to their apps, and it doesn’t work on the iPhone. The Line6 MIDI Mobilizer is great, but it requires using a proprietary set of APIs (though some developers do say they prefer its simplicity). Apps tend to support one or the other, but not both – and a lot of apps don’t support hardware MIDI, period.

One thing I found in the demo that I can’t stress enough is that that tiny 30-pin dock connector is very, very delicate. The iPad seems a little precious to use in a gig. Sweat and multi-touch don’t mix, some people have told me, and the dock connector has a tendency to pop out. Akai’s dock might be a good solution, but I haven’t tested it yet. And using up the dock connector means you have to plan ahead and power up your battery, since the iPad doesn’t have a separate power jack. (That makes docks appealing, but then you may wind up spending more than you intended on your tablet.)

Maybe it’s so obvious that people forget to say it, but because MIDI has been around so long, traditional computers, netbooks (at half the price), and even used MIDI hardware are very competitive options. If you’re in the market for an iPad and trying to use this to justify the purchase, you’ll probably need some added reason – like, for instance, you love these apps or have other uses for the iPad.

Those things said, what is great about MIDI and enduring standards is that it means technology isn’t disposable, and isn’t cut off from other technology. You can have a synth you’ve loved for 25 years that works with something you’ve just bought. That’s pretty great.

Where to Find Resources

At top, a hands-on video with iSequence by Hank Lepstein on Noisepages.

Compatible device round-ups:
Synthtopia has reader reports with the Camera Connection Kit

Midi Touch and Midi Monitor developer has a nice round-up of other apps with CoreMIDI support

Notably, SyntheFX and Luminair are your choice if you use DMX and lighting.

iosaudio is keeping a running list of apps with support for different MIDI (and even OSC) features. You can see some of the fragmentation that’s happened, but you certainly don’t lack options.

Akai is the first company to offer integrated docks for MIDI support. The SynthStation49 is a big keyboard. More useful, at least from my perspective, is the Alesis iO Dock. (At the NAMM show, Alesis called it “StudioDock” but seems to have changed branding.) It helps alleviate some of the issues I had, with spaghetti cables and easily-disconnected dock connectors. But pricing and availability are uncertain, and since it’s not done, no one has yet tested how good it is.

If there’s interest, one developer suggested starting a spreadsheet on which readers could collaborate; I’d happily start one.

See also our Noisepages iPad/iPod musician group.

Lastly, iConnectMIDI is a high-end MIDI interface box. It looks pricey at nearly US$200, but it also works as a standalone MIDI box and with computers as a 2-port MIDI interface. That plus dedicated USB and power connections for an iPad means that for serious users, you could probably justify the purchase, especially since you can use it with your computer. It also works with the iPhone and iPod touch, so it will be a direct competitor with the Midi Mobilizer (albeit not nearly as portable). I hope to review it, because apparently I’m a MIDI fanboy. (Who knew?)

Want wireless support and compatibility with hardware? See our previous story:
The Missing Link OSC/MIDI Translator Makes Your Electronic Music Gear Wireless

Developers? Android?

If you’re a developer and want to talk more about this stuff, we have two excellent running groups:

There’s an epic thread running about using the open source Pure Data (Pd) environment on iOS.

We also have the mobile music + visual hack group for developers.

Pete Goodliffe has some terrific, open source sample code for using CoreMIDI in iOS. I’d love to see more.

Android developers, the future looks a bit murkier as far as hardware MIDI support, though most everything else is possible on Android (and even, increasingly, in mobile and desktop browsers). But if you’re curious to play around with Bluetooth MIDI – something you can’t do on iOS – Peter Brinkmann just shared some sample code with Pd and has it available open source on Gitorious.

iOS and Android developers may both want to check out libpd; see my previous write-up.

Will MIDI be available on mobile devices that aren’t on iOS? Signs point to yes. MIDI is (conceptually, at least) about the age I am, which is an eternity in computing, but it appears to be going strong.

You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers

I hope this guide can evolve to be a comprehensive starting point for people wanting to integrate their iPad with their MIDI rig. So if you have questions, ideas, tips, apps of your own, sample code, sample apps, templates, or … you know, music, let us know!

Huge thanks to our friends at Tekserve for co-producing this video, especially to Chad Carino for shooting and editing.

http://www.tekserve.com/

Touchscreens? Good, old-fashioned faders, knobs, and pads? Why not just use what suits the job – especially when you can choose both on the cheap?

Nay-Seven shares some of his latest work with Usine, the brilliant, modular and touch-centric tool for Windows. It’s a futuristic rig that’s also down-to-earth. Touchscreen monitors can be had for around US$300 street, and the Akai LPD8 and Korg nanoKONTROL controllers each figure under a hundred bucks. Usine, the software, is a bargain for its depth at EUR120, and free and educational versions are available.

Cost aside, though, this also puts sound making directly under your fingertips. Even aside from live performance, that means making sound kinetic — essential in the studio, too.

I asked Nay-Seven to comment on how he’d thought through this particular set of controllers – coming just as we cover the work done on grid-based sample control with mlrv2 and fader-based control in Max for Live:

Yeah, was funny to see your article at the same time I was working on this video..

My actual reflection is about the best place of a touchscreen in a set. And I join you in the idea that software has added a layer to the hardware.

Here, I use the LPD8 and the nanoKONTROL as an instrument, because we all prefer to use real pads and push-buttons to play, but it’s so fantastic to customize those tools to our own needs. And it’s more and more easy and quick. I’m using here the next version of Usine (it will be public soon), which adds polyphony in sub-patches. You create a sampler with the switch, add the buttons you need, change the polyphony of this patch to 5 and it’s done — you have a 5-voice polyphonic sampler !

I suppose the future will be a balance of all this, some customizable tools for users, more and more easy-to-use, real pads, keys, and faders so we can feel our musical expression, and a touchscreen to provide new tools like graphics and physical models.

Heaven, in fact.

More from the video description:

Here’s a work where I use the sequencer of Usine not to sequence audio or midi but patches: patches appear only when I need them, an easy way to have only the controls you need on the screen. I also associate here works with faders and pads via personal patches for [Akai's] LPD8 and [Korg's] nanoKONTROL and the use of a touchscreen . Made with Usine ( sensomusic.com ) thanks also to Michael Ourednik for his great vst Argotlunar

Note: Argotluner is free and open source (GPL) and has both a Windows and Linux (32-bit + 64-bit) build. Someone could build it for Mac, too.

nay-seven also uploads some patch images, so I’ve included those here. The granular patch, top, controls Argotluner. LPD8 and nanoKONTROL patches, bottom, connect to hardware (see callouts on the Korg image).

All images courtesy Nay-Seven – be sure to check out his excellent Flickr account.

Bonus: here’s a nice video demonstrating the touch side of things, posted in September.