I have a problem. Let me explain.

Au Revoir Simone’s “Shadows” presented by David Lynch Foundation Television

Au Revoir Simone have released the debut music video, “Shadows,” from their forthcoming album, “Still Night, Still Light.” Yet again, the music is warm and wonderful, with clever, deceptively-simple ostinatos and earnest melodies delivered in wispy vocals. But the release also suggests the new album is going to be more of what we got in the last albums – pleasant and dreamy, but absent, ironically, any hint of “shadows.” The music video comes again from Vikram Gandhi and Brendan Colthurst of Disposable, a firm with expertise in indie-tilted but finely-crafted and always-safe music videos. Their previous outing on “Sad Song”, featuring un-ironic, sweet footage of the trio baking cookies, seemed to capture the blissfully good intentions of the talented Brooklyn outfit. Here, though, the video seems to fixate on its crushes, alternately on the ladies, their vintage synths (just one more effects shot over the top of the JUNO-60), or both. It’s product placement for hardware that isn’t made any more.

I begin to wonder if all of this is moving us, the music fans and critics, into dangerous territory, tangled in indie cred and inescapable nostalgia. I expect some of you wonder why, years into an avalanche of releases with whisper-thin vocals of [boy/girl] atop vintage [square wave synth] and [lo-fi beat box] it would take me until now to come to this conclusion. I love Ms. John Soda and Lali Puna and the many other bands whose stripped-down style is close to Au Revoir Simone’s, but it seems by definition the sort of music that doesn’t need description or explanation or analysis. Yet, oddly, we have even more publicity for a band that seems not to need it.

After all, for a Brooklyn band that makes lovely, earnest tunes, do you really need to know that it has an endorsement from David Lynch? Lynch is a talented visionary, but does that mean you need his musical advice – and isn’t there a danger that it’s not longing for his insight but yet more 80s nostalgia, for headier times with landmark art, here for Elephant Man (1980) and Blue Velvet (1986) in place of a Roland JUNO-60 (1982).

This is not a critique of Au Revoir Simone, or their lovely music. It’s meant as a critique of us, in 2009 – of me. I expect this trio has found their identity and musical voice honestly. It seems not to be changing – that’s fine; change for change’s sake is never an appropriate answer for an artist. But their output it just one place on the musical spectrum, and it’s a place with which I fear the rest of us have become overly fixated.

It’s possible to become crippled by nostalgia and romanticized ideas of what constitutes authenticity. There are times for synth-art-folk. But there are times when we need to find music that’s dangerous, uncomfortable, radical, and not in any way like a batch of warm cookies, to find men and women who are recluse and don’t have any endorsement from anyone.

Therein lies my problem. I know that this is in part the responsibility of those of us in the press. As writers about technology music – in that order – part of what we can do is to highlight things that are genuinely new. New technology does not necessarily mean new music, but the presence of radical tools can be connected to radical artists. I think we risk becoming, instead, caught up in gear lust, in artist lust, and hero worship.

To everything, indeed, there is a season. So I put it to you that it’s perfectly appropriate to admire the new work from Au Revoir Simone – but also that we need to talk about the opposite end of the spectrum. And as I always do, I ask you for your help: who should we cover? What artists would merit the time of outlets covering technology and new music, so that we talk not only about the lovely gadgets and lovely tunes?

My problem is, I often don’t have the perspective to track the output of music in the age of global abundance, while also troubleshooting driver issues, programming, and making my own humble attempt to be an artist myself. I can never be a perfect critic, because of the dangers inherent in being artist and critic simultaneously. But I am nonetheless a lover of danger and the new. I hope that our abundant, globally-connected community can find a way to tell the story of that music. I expect a lot of it is outside of Brooklyn – love that borough as I do. I hope we can find more work there, the stuff that truly lives in the shadows.

Side note, in the interests of explanation: Aaron asks in comments, isn’t it unfair to single out a band? Indeed, yes – it is profoundly unfair to single out this band, as Au Revoir Simone is neither the cause nor symptom of anything. But a blog is, by definition, a medium in which you try to find deeper meaning in the day-to-day news item. It’s trying to make cosmological sense of your inbox. The problem I have here is that posting Au Revoir Simone’s new video is entirely appropriate. But their promotion is, at the moment, focused on David Lynch’s endorsement, and the video on their instruments. So the dilemma is, I either post such things without question, or I ask a larger question we should be asking of everything – that I’m obligated to ask myself regarding my own artistic output (a test I myself will often fail, by my own standards).

And I say this is a “problem” not specifically because of one band, but for every band that we’re not covering. Is that all there is? If my inbox isn’t making much sense (and, perhaps yours), how can we get something different in there?

Here’s a different take on soundware business models: offer your stuff for free, then depend on donations. That’s the tack at Togeo Studios, who have an impressive collection of packs. Wave Attack I, for instance, includes single-cycle waveforms with arpeggiated sequences and leads. Their work is available on BitTorrent, too, which could help defray bandwidth costs. (Well, single-cycle waveforms don’t take up much, but perhaps larger packs might.)

I have to admit, I’m skeptical of the donationware model. The issue is, it seems like a lot of folks just aren’t going to donate – not necessarily for any sinister reasons, but simply because they don’t “get around to it.” Heck, just selling soundware is hard enough. And the brilliant, open source Ardour DAW has struggled to cobble together even a few licenses’ worth of income monthly, despite very reasonable subscription fees and powerful features.

I’m skeptical, but I’m also intrigued. Donationware or freemium models once powered the PC shareware industry and launched the now-massive game company Epic Games (of Unreal fame). Challenging as it might be, these models could open new tools to musicians and would be particularly powerful with open source. It’s something that could help us start new projects here on CDM, while paying our rent / electric bills. So what do you think of Togeo’s work? And that specific example aside, would you be willing to “donate” to software, soundware, and learning materials the way that you do American public radio and TV?

Togeo Studios
Wave Attack 1 Live Pack – mininova [Torrent page]

It’s nearly the holiday season, and as CDM has just completed its fourth birthday, I want to give all of us a present. The idea: a holiday guide that’s a bit different.

• The first CDM treeware. We’ll have PDF and print-on demand versions. And part of the reason we’re doing this:
• Something you can share. CDM certainly has its share of (sometimes frighteningly) advanced readers. But we believe in what we’re doing enough to share it with people with less experience. So we’ll include content you can share with nieces, cousins, strangers on the street. And, of course, it’ll be Creative Commons-licensed.
• Gifts of knowledge as well as objects. You’ve seen the countless lists of “stuff to buy” in other holiday guides. But we believe in DIY tech, and that knowledge can be priceless. So we’ll include information from the best of CDM in 2008 and special guides for the occasion.
• Designed by you. This time, we want to know what you would want to receive, what you would give to newcomers, and what you would want to read. So we need your help – fill out the survey below and this will really be a grassroots effort by the CDM community.

It’s a really tough economy out there. But that’s all the more reason to invest in things that really matter, to look for value, and to look for things that can be shared freely with one another. So, in my mind, I could think of no better time to do this. Give the survey a go.

If you complete the survey, you’ll be entered in a drawing to receive another gift: a free copy of the new, cross-platform T-RackS 3 mastering and mixing suite donated by IK Multimedia. (We’ll have one other opportunity to put your name in the hat later this week, too.)

Fill out the survey below or head straight to:
http://cdm.holiday08.sgizmo.com

And watch for the guide by the beginning of December.

Advertisers: We need your support to help bring this guide to CDM readers free of charge. If you’ve got a message you’d like to get out and want to support our community, do get in touch. (We have some creative possibilities to offer, too.) Use the contact form or email ads (at) createdigitalmusic (dot) com.

I’d be interested in asking your readers how they set up their laptops for live performance OS-wise. I’ve been giving some thought to doing a dual boot WinXP install. So I can have one install as my desktop, mail, etc. And another one with say XPlite or nLite with Live set up, audio drivers and everything ready to go for rock steady live performance. Wondering if anyone has experience with doing this, if it’s worthwhile, what their favorite tools are, etc.”

Both of those items sound like great advice to me. Setting up multiple accounts works well on both Windows and Mac OS X, in fact, though generally it’s been XP where I’ve most wished I had done this. (Thank you, annoying pop-up balloons and rampaging Logitech webcam drivers.) I also like the idea of using nLite for a custom OS install in emergencies, though nLite is also good at cleaning out settings and tweaking Windows to your liking.

But, Windows mavens, any further tips? (And I imagine a lot of this — like the multi-install — would work just as well on Vista.)

1. Play out more: I’ve been in a cycle, personally, of going back to develop material and ideas and get out of the playing-out mode, and I’m ready to cycle back and go play some more. How about you?
2. Practice: It’s all too easy as an electronic musician to let your chops go to slush. Fortunately, I have the staff of Keyboard Magazine to intimidate me, and the fact that they’re such brilliant players is easily enough to drive me back to running some scales and finger exercises and getting back in shape. For added inspiration, you can fire up GarageBand or another easy looping program to build some interactive accompaniments (or go to the old-fashioned method and put on a Jamey Aebersold CD). Trust me: scales are a lot more fun when there’s a rhythm section behind you, even as a classically-trained player.
3. Build some software patches: I’ve been spending time teaching tools like Max/MSP and haven’t gotten to build my own performance patches. Fortunately, it’s possible to keep your projects on a manageable scale, something I’ve learned from my students. Find a simple solution and solve that is usually the advice I give, and now I’ll go take it myself. With tools like Ableton Live, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to performance: it’s easy enough to add custom tools built in Reaktor or Max/MSP to Live.

I’ll be checking my own progress against some of these goals. But I’m curious what our readers have as resolutions for 2007. What are your goals for the year?

I get a regular stream of Q&A in my inbox, so as a new feature on CDM I’ll be answering selected questions for all our readers. Today, we’ve got a new Mac switcher wondering if an iMac will suit his needs, and a reader who wonders why he hasn’t been able to find any of those Novation keyboards I keep raving about.

iMac: Sufficient for Music?

Michael writes: “I have been running Ableton Live and “[Propellerhead] Reason on a very outdated 800MHz [Pentium III] Gateway which I’ve owned for over five years. I’m finally ready to purchase a new computer and was looking at an iMac, due to the fact that I am on a limited budget. I was going to run Ableton and Reason on it with a PreSonus FIREBOX; do you think that an iMac would be sufficient?

The short answer is, yes, you should be quite happy with a new iMac G5. The current models pack 1.9G and 2.1G G5 processors, reasonably fast RAM, fast hard drives, and plenty of I/O. I’ve been very happy running Reason and Live on a new 1.5 GHz PowerBook G4, but if mobility isn’t an issue, the iMac G5 is significantly faster. Your other option would be to try to get a deal on a Power Mac G5; if you don’t mind the higher power consumption and bigger size, and can get a deal on a cheap LCD, it might be worth finding a fast refurb dual-processor tower. But with the 17″ iMac going for just $1299 (less if you’re a student/educator with the academic discount), I think it’s absolutely the perfect budget choice. And, incidentally, the overall value proposition compares very favorably with the PC at that price point. (Not having to deal with Windows: priceless.)

You’re also going right choosing the FIREBOX interface; they’re a terrific choice. Speaking of PreSonus, they’ve posted a decent computer recording basics page with some nice hookup diagrams. (No plug for CDM, sadly, but I’ll set them straight!)

Novation Keyboards, Where Are You?

Spiro writes: I read your review of the Novation ReMOTE 61 LE MIDI Controller on CDM. Do you know where in the US I can order one of these. I read that they have been available since September, but I don’t see them on Sweetwater’s Website, MacMidiMusic.com, Audiomidi.com, etc. I do see them available via British Online vendors (example), but I’d like to avoid the high shipping, customs, and credit card foreign currency transaction fees.

Before I answer this question, let’s first be clear about the different Novation keyboards, many of which are available from US stores like AudioMIDI.com. The existing model line, as shipping currently, includes the ReMOTE and X-Station in 25-, 49-, and 61-key varities. The ReMOTE is a controller only; the X-Station adds an audio interface and a superb built-in virtual analog synth (which integrates nicely with your software). Both include extended templates for software, plenty of buttons and knobs, a pitch/mod joystick, X-Y touchpad, and aftertouch. I tested an X-Station and it’s a superb keyboard with a great feel, well worth the price premium over some cheaper keyboards.

Novation has two new models to add to this line: the ReMOTE LE and SL. The LE model, which is the one I think you’re asking about, is a “light” version of the existing ReMOTE keyboards. It has fewer knobs and faders (meaning it’s also more compact), and lacks aftertouch, but otherwise has everything I love about the ReMOTE keyboards at a lower price. The SL is the one I’m most excited about; it has new features for automatically mapping to your soft synths. (below)

Product pages with more info:

Novation ReMOTE SL

Novation ReMOTE LE

CDM sometimes gets a bit ahead of the curve; the 25-key LE and SL keyboards were shown at AES, but weren’t shipping at the time. Novation told me that they’d have 39 or 49- and 61-key version of each, but that’s basically a CDM exclusive — no formal announcement yet. Why wait at all? You might like the cheaper LE or the soft synth integration features of the SL.

What’s shipping when: So far, only the 25-key LE is shipping; for more keys or an SL model, you’ll simply have to wait. Signs point to availability in January or February, though sometimes the US shipments get delayed. (In fact, for our European readers, as far as I know they’re not widely available even in the UK; check your local reseller for details.) We should know more at NAMM next month; I’ll be there talking to Novation / Focusrite so watch for news here.

For the record, European readers can check directly with Novation for availability; North America should look to our distributor American Music and Sound.

Below: Novation ReMOTE LE

See, these seemingly basic questions often have complex answers. If you want to try to stump me, send your questions, and maybe we’ll run yours in the next edition! Until then, Happy New Year!

Okay, CDM readers. We’ve got a dual challenge this week: what headphones are perfect for gigging, perfect for DJing, and make a perfect birthday present? Reader-turned-CDM columnist atariboy writes:

I am looking for some good headphones for my girlfriends (jemgirl) birthday later this week. Around the $100 mark. Will be used for DJing/gigging. The Sony mdrv700dj’s seem to fit the bill. What else should I look into? Thanks! -atariboy

I was going to suggest the Sony headphones, assuming you want the DJ-style design. (If not, there are plenty of classic headphones, like the Sennheiser HD280s; I’ve used my Sennheisers on a gig.) If you can get a deal on them, the Pioneer HDJ-1000 models are terrific; see Jason O’Grady’s piece on them for CDM.

So, what do you think, fair readers? Headphones ideal for yourself AND your significant other? (Too bad my birthday’s in January . . .)

In celebration of tonight’s monthly Eyewash party here in NYC, CDM brings you a day of VJ coverage. And yes, I’ll be on tonight, so New Yawkas, stop by and say hi. To get things rolling, we’ve got a letter (cue the Official Mailbag Theme Song). Wally writes:

I saw that you are going to be VJing soon, and I wanted to ask what tools you use to VJ, and also, what is your approach? I’ve been asked by some friends of mine to VJ a gig of theirs on July 9th, and while I’ve played around with a couple tools here and there (Union, Resolume, Grid) I’m a little intimidated by the project.

At any rate, a friend of mine loaned me a Panasonic video mixer, so I’m planning on running Resolume on the PC, and either Grid or Union on my Powerbook — can’t decide which. My goal is to have tightly integrated video with the audio, but it seems like that’s more difficult with VJ apps for some reason. I realize that one has to have an exact number of frames to get video to loop in sync with audio at certain BPMs, but very few VJ apps seem to have clip playback control that starts and stops with MIDI clock.

(Read more for the answer)

VJ software is right now deluged with similar tools. First off, you’ve done absolutely the right thing with a hardware VJ mixer — definitely a must if you can get your hands on one. You can add hardware effects on the mixer to save your CPU, and of course cross-fade between cued stuff on each machine, especially in the event of the crash.

For software: Resolume looks very cool, and tops my list of tools to check out on Windows, thanks to full video scratching, MIDI controllers, Flash and support for the open FreeFrame plugin format. (Mac users, Resolume is PC-only.)

Union has a similar feature set on Mac. I’ve seen a fair number of people using Union, and it seems to work well. All of these apps are fairly feature-driven. (Windows is promised, but I haven’t seen it yet.) GRID2, in contrast, is really bare-bones: it stores a bunch of clips in a grid, and can play them back, scratch them, quantize them to a beat . . . and that’s it. But that may be exactly what you want.

KISS: In fact, that’s the question I’d ask myself: how much do you want to do in your first set? If you’re nervous or intimidated, go simple. In fact, a lot of VJs I’ve seen pull too many stops as far as video effects and wind up destroying some of the beauty of their footage. It’s too bad GRID Pro isn’t out yet; it should take the simplicity of GRID but add some extra bells and whistlles, which could make it the killer app. (I’ve been very impressed with Vidvox’s software.)

The Free One: While you mull this over, let me throw one last recommendation into the ring: if you’re having trouble deciding, why not give the free Neuromixer software a try. These free apps were all built in Max/MSP Jitter, they’re cross-platform, and they work really well. (Like a lot of Jitter patches, you probably will want to ramp down your video size to 320×240, though, so it’s best for pixel-aesthetic.) And here’s my confession: I’ll probably be using AVMixer Pro tonight on my PC, hooked up to a control surface for scratching. (More on that soon. Then again, I may switch to GRID2 at the last minute.) I’m trying some of the other tools, as well, but while I work on my own custom patches for Jitter and Quartz Composer, Neuromixer fits the bill for the time being! It’s super-simple, but with more than enough features, it’s great for beginners, and you can use it after a few drinks. Or, uh, so I’ve heard.

What about going modular? While I wouldn’t necessarily suggest it by July 9, Max/MSP Jitter is a flexible environment for creating your own custom patches — and Neuromixer should give you some inspiration. Or for a system built for modular patching a la Jitter but more optimized for VJ and live video work, check out Vidvox’s excellent VDMX. Much as I love Jitter for general-purpose work, VDMX is really geared for video.

Beat sync: As for beat sync, a number of apps can slave to MIDI clock . . . but that kills the fun. I think it’s better to do this live. Make sure you’ve got a tap tempo (so far, I’m fairly certain all the apps we’ve mentioned so far do) and set tempo manually. This gives you lots more flexibility to determine what the tempo is, break with it, go loose.

Anyway, that’s my initial take. Other ideas? I would love to do an all-app VJ roundup in July; as you can tell, you’ve got my wheels turning on this one!

Pierre Hilaire writes:

Thank you for taking my e-mail. I am a Recording Engineer who has [Cakewalk] SONAR Producer Edition Software. Can I Master songs on SONAR? I know the ideal mastering tool is Pro Tools, but how about SONAR?

This sounded like an important opportunity to correct some common misinformation — namely, that Pro Tools is the only “real” digital audio tool. Secondly, mastering, which traditionally meant making a final 2-track stereo mix from which you could produce a stereo record (though a master these days might be in surround), is a process that can be done in any Digital Audio Workstation app.

Different DAWs have different facilities for mastering, so I went to the source, and ask Steve Thomas from Cakewalk. Steve has some great insider insight into what SONAR can do on the mastering front. Read more for Steve’s answer . . .

“Peter: thanks for the opportunity. Of course, it’s not a question easy to answer in a few sentences. First I am curious as to why Pierre believes PT provides the “ideal mastering tool” and, of course very pleased to see he uses SONAR PE. As we know Pro Tools like SONAR are DAWs that provide powerful music production tools and, unlike two-track digital audio editing programs designed specially for “Mastering” they provide more overall flexibility.”

“One of the most powerful features in SONAR introduced with Version 3 is Universal Bus Architecture. This feature provides dynamic bussing flexibility at its best: route buses to other buses or to the main outputs; use buses for subgroups, effect sends, headphone mixes, alternate monitor mixes, or insert buses on the fly pre- or post-fader, yes and of course there’s more ;-)”

“So, when it comes to mastering a project in SONAR its flexible bussing is key. All you do is assign certain tracks to busses then bounce those tracks out. You can think of this as creating subgroups or for a more sophisticated term “stems.” Now you have your guitar, bass, drums, and vocal all on separate tracks, all at unity gain. So, if you need a little EQ boost at 1.5 K to punch up the vocal you are not shrilling out the high hat or affecting the guitars. If you need to compress the bass a little more you are not squashing the entire mix! Once you are satisfied with the tweaking of the plugs you have on all your subgroups or stems then, bounce all down to a stereo mix. And, at that point if you feel the entire mix could use a little sparkle then, add a 1 or 2 db bump at 12k, it works wonders ;-)”

Other SONAR features that can help:

SONAR has Pow-r dithering and plenty of options to tweak the algorithm to fit your project Ed: High-quality dithering algoirthms mean that when you go from higher audio resolution to lower, as you would when mastering a 16-bit CD from a 24-bit project, for instance. And yes, Pow-r dithering is a very good thing. -PK

SONAR’s bussing makes it easy to audition effect chains (A/B’ing).

Using markers and SONAR’s looping, users can quickly target loud and soft passages to test their FX chain (a slightly different form of A/B’ing)

Bus Envelopes: very helpful for setting up fades and crossfades while mastering from stems

MIDI control of external gear: Ok, this one is for experts – you can use SONAR to automate MIDI-capable outboard FX units. So, for those who own say a Weiss EQ1, you can change EQ settings automatically via MIDI to better match each song in your project.

So, Pierre, hope this is useful to you. Let us know how it goes!

Once upon a time, “composers” wrote only for Classical instruments. The greatest found ways of pushing their instruments — even violin pizzicato was once avant-garde extended technique.

Now, of course, composers are writing for film, digital media, multimedia, robotic guitars, cell phones, and yes, video games. While Hollywood movies have remained conservative in their taste for original music, games have become a new field for exploration.

So, while we’re on the topic of orchestral concerts of game music, I’m curious: what video game scores do you think are the most original and inspirational? 8-bit or 64-bit, I’ll compile your faves — email or comment here.

(Watch for an interview with composer Jesper Kyd soon; I’m editing it now. And if you write for games, by all means drop me a line!)