Look past the plug-ins and controllers and hosts that work with controllers and iPads sitting in docks and such. If you like dedicated, analog monosynth hardware, life is actually pretty darned good.

Okay, so for those of you without deep pockets, you may not know some of the back story here. Moog’s limited-edition Taurus 3 was a brilliant update of the classic Taurus bass pedal, complete with luscious foot pedals. And with a street dipping down near US$1699, it’s honestly not a bad deal. The problem is, not everyone has that cash, or the ability to lug around a big, heavy pedal.

So, let’s change that equation. Leaked on the Web and then formally announced today, the Minitaur is just a little Taurus. And it’s kind of nothing but awesome. It’s got the footprint of a small-ish book, weighs less than 3 pounds, and will cost US$679 when it ships in the spring.

This isn’t Moog’s first adventure in the sub-$1000 range. But for the first time since the Rogue, you get a truly entry-level Moog synth with a one-knob-per-function interface – something that the Slim Phatty, while it sounds fantastic, lacks.

And you get a lot of goodness for your $700 or so: a steel case, two saw and square waves, the Taurus-style ladder filter, and envelopes a la Minimoog. That gives you Moog-y sounds, and then you add in modern Moog-y control: MIDI DIN, MIDI over USB, and analog inputs for pitch, filter, volume, and gate.

The beauty of all of this is that now, in 2012, your choices for analog monosynths you can actually afford are numerous. The Minitaur sits nicely next to rivals from smaller names – the Doepfer Dark Energy, Vermona Mono Lancet, and DSI Mopho. (Thanks to reader Philip Viana for pointing that out – and yeah, I hope to see all these four compared soon. I’ll get on that.)

Now, if only Moog could put this in a strap-on and call it the Minitar, my life would be complete.

I hope to go visit the new creation at Moog. That is, assuming there isn’t a dart board with my face on it – yes, I did sort of get some flack for admitting to liking hardware synths better than iPads on a certain site paradoxically with “digital” in the name. But consider this: you and a friend each spend just under $700 on an iPad 2 and a Minitaur. (We’ll include tax and the cost of some apps.) Apples to oranges, yes, but – considering the invariable release of an iPad 3 right after you buy the thing and your battery will be shot in a couple of years, come back in 2016 and look at these two purchases, and I’d ask, how do you like them apples?

I mean, seriously, what a*****e would be pushing all that digital technology?

Okay, I’ll go sit in the corner now.

Let’s look at more pictures. And stay tuned for some hands-on time when this is out.

Despite being a musical technology enthusiast, I really do think of my Android phone first and foremost as a communications device. I imagine I’m not alone, just as I’d guess that people who want a mobile music maker may look first at the iPhone. But that raises the question, are there tools you’d install on an Android phone purely because they’re genuinely useful? What tools would you use in your music, or even refuse to be without?

There are actually a surprising number of tools out there on Android for music-making, though quality can be quite variable. So here, I’ll look at ones that are not only impressive to look at, but which I absolutely make sure are installed on my phone and come back to over time.

The timing is relevant – one of the most significant Android music production apps was released this week.

Quick side note – if you’re in New York City tonight, libpd developer Peter Brinkmann and I will be talking about using Pd on Android, with a little cameo of Processing for Android, at the NYC Android developer meetup.

A New Sampling Sketchpad

“Mobile” to many people means sketchpad, the musical equivalent of carrying a little steno notebook. It’s not the place where music gets finished, but a place where electronic ideas might start. So, it’s fitting that the newest tool from developer Mikrosonic, SPC, is described as a “music sketchpad.”

SPC is, as the name implies, an MPC-style sampling machine. Features:

• Edit samples in a waveform view, up to 24-bit/96k, with envelope controls
• Create variations for each pad, played either in sequence or random
• Use steps to sequence and combine different audio slices and samples

Working with loops can often produce monotony, so something that can slice up samples, randomize or sequence playback of variation, and combine different loops is a welcome change of pace. The workflow is simple and touch-friendly, but focused on variation.

SPC also has some key features that separate it from mobile toys by allowing you to do something you can actually use on your (cough) “real” computer. You can share files and export to lossless WAV. You can load the app itself, and its data, on the SD card to save internal memory space. And you benefit from one of the key benefits of Android. While iOS apps rely on iTunes for sync, plus a cobbled-together, unpredictable selection of cloud services (maybe you get Dropbox, maybe you don’t), SPC’s files save on the SD card and can be loaded directly from any connected Mac, Windows, or Linux machine. You could even theoretically connect the phone or (with an adapter) the SD card to sampling hardware without a computer.

At US$4.99, it’s a steal. And in another advantage to Android, you can download a free demo before you even part with the five bucks.

http://www.mikrosonic.com/spc

That’s not to say it’s all sunshine and happiness on Android. Microsonik have faced extra testing challenges to ensure their software works properly. They also tell CDM that they’ve been frustrated with the “sadly limited” number of music creation apps. (Yes, even though that’s competition for their work, they’d like more choices.) They also say they’ve been frustrated with persisting latency issues and the absurdly slow rollout of the updated Gingerbread operating system to handsets. (I feel their pain on all of this. My research, and information from Google engineers, suggests the latency problem is largely an issue with audio chipset and firmware on the hardware itself, not, as is commonly believed, Java or the OS, though that’s a topic for another story.)

That said, the software is eminently useful, and can be a great starter for sounds you work with on your much more powerful, lower-latency computer.

The developers have also integrated with their own groovebox app:

303-Style Groovebox

RD3 is a 303-style bassline synthesizer and drum machine with step sequencer. Controls are big and touch-friendly, without any excessive amounts of UI chrome, and you can work with three live waveforms for the bass and plenty of sampled drum kits for percussion. You even get eight lovely sampled drum kits: 808, 909, 606, CR-78, Linn, KR55, RZ1, and DMX.

You can cut, copy, and paste patterns, and export to audio loop. With integration with the SPC, though, this really starts to get interesting: put the two tools together, and you can build patterns and then sample them. That looks perfect for long bus rides or waits at the airport. It’s US$4.49, also with an available demo.

http://www.mikrosonic.com/rd3

Music Notation

GUIs may be more widely-used in notation, but because of the nature of engraving, I find simply typing in notes can often be quicker and more accurate. They’re also a natural on a phone screen, which can’t easily fit a full score view.

Enter Zap’s abc. Using the Abc language, which lets you use standard characters to reproduce notation, you can type in simple or even advanced, page-formatted scores. You can convert to MIDI and PDF scores. Oddly, the conversion itself is actually done in the cloud via your network connection.

It could be pretty painful on a touchscreen, but if you have an Android with a keyboard – the Droid line, etc. – it could be terrific. (I’m using a Droid 2 with it and have managed to bang out some snippets, at least. It’s the best mobile notation solution I’ve used yet, which is handy if I forget to stash a manuscript notebook in my bag.)

Make no mistake – this is a very powerful solution. I just wish there were an easier way to import ABC notation into Lilypond; open to suggestions. (That’s not this tool’s fault – ABC is simpler and makes far more sense on mobile – but it’d be nice to then take ABC and use the more powerful Lilypond engraving language.)

I was also lucky enough to meet developer Jonas Petersson at an Android developer conference in Stockholm, so Jonas, hi!

http://home.petersson.se/android/abc/

Musical Pro: A Bunch of Stuff You Might Need

The Swiss Army Knife of music-making on Android, Musical Pro is full of simple but useful tools. Even if you’re a skeptic when it comes to handheld production, it’s hard to argue with this feature set. The metronome and pitch pipe are worth it on their own. Touch-ready piano, keyboard, piano practice mode, drums, and MIDI over WiFi are just a bonus. The “Pro” version is just US$1.99, and the Lite version – which has the esssential metronome and pitch pipe and basic piano/keyboard – is free. The free version absolutely suits my needs; I think the main reason to buy Pro for many may be to support the efforts of developer Christopher Souvey.

Cutest feature that’s also handy: you can blow into the mic for the pitch pipe.

http://www.androidmusical.com/

(Sorry, that domain name makes my head go someplace entirely different. I hear a chorus of people singing “Fragmentation…”)

Jasuto, a Deep Modular Environment

Christopher Wolfe’s Jasuto is a mind-bending, touch-centric modular blank slate designed for mobile. It’s not for everyone – there’s a learning curve as with any fully modular environment, only here you’re doing it on your phone – but it can be rewarding. It’s also one of the most ambitious mobile projects I’ve seen. It runs on iOS and Android alike, but on Android, the order’s even taller: support a wide range of devices. I recommend only using it on a fast processor, and unfortunately, it does indicate just how hard it is to do this kind of development on the platform.

On a fast phone, it can be extraordinary – and it might be the only mobile music production app you need.

Best of all, you can take your work with you, with Windows and Mac plug-ins that let you bring your resulting creation into your desktop environment.

See previous coverage.

http://www.jasuto.com/home/

Samalyse TapeMachine

This mobile recorder is darned near perfect. True, the mic on your phone is probably not perfect, but for (intentionally) low-fidelity field recordings or practice sessions – or attaching an external mic – TapeMachine is terrific. Despite the name, there’s no silly faux-tape interface; instead, you get a waveform view with cropping and undo. There’s Dropbox support for sync and email, plus the aforementioned ability to load directly off an SD card. And you get terrific codec support, including lossless WAV, AIFF, and FLAC, which I find a must. You can even record in the background.

As with most of the other options here, you can try a free demo.

http://tapemachine.samalyse.com/

Pd, SuperCollider, Processing

If you are interested in hacking your own instruments – or using increasingly-powerful, portable gadgets as pocket-friendly containers for your work – you’ve got options.

libpd takes the insanely-powerful, mature Pure Data patching environment and makes it run on phones. You can even use externals (with a little effort), and there’s a scene player for RjDj patches. Learn more and discuss with a group working with this environment not only on Android, but everywhere from Python on the desktop to iOS, too.
Pd Everywhere [Noisepages]

Platforms like iOS don’t allow the distribution of GPL-licensed open source software, but Android does. As a result, you can get a full port of SuperCollider, the rich synthesis coding environment. The best place to get started is on GitHub:
SuperCollider-Android

Because Android is based on Java, Processing has now been developed to run natively on the mobile platform. It’s simply astonishing what you can do: connect a device, hit “play,” and your code is instantly up and running, something almost nothing else can do. Performance is striking, too: a new OpenGL render pipeline does hardware-accelerated 2D and 3D graphics. And you can mix and match Processing code with Android APIs.

Processing for Android isn’t out yet, but there’s a very stable version to try, and it will be fully integrated with this lovely artist-friendly sketchpad for code with the upcoming 2.0 release. That’ll mean that, for Android users at least, going from desktop to mobile will be as easy as flipping a switch.
http://wiki.processing.org/w/Android

Wireless Control

I can’t recommend the crippled TouchOSC port for Android, but perhaps that’s just as well – it’s worth trying out new ideas on a different platform.

FingerPlay MIDI is a simple but effective controller that sends MIDI over WiFi, and is a good choice right now.

I’m personally most eagerly anticipating tools that aren’t out just yet. The promising, Web-based, open-source Control is bound for Android, for one. I think the widespread availability of tablets will make control apps more interesting; phones are a bit limited in this regard.

Listening and Productivity

As I suggested earlier, creation is hardly the main application for most people of their phone. So, many of my must-have apps fit other categories. And quite a few offer options not available on iOS, lest this platform rivalry feel lopsided.

Winamp: Winamp is simply my favorite mobile music tool, full stop. You can sync wirelessly via WiFi (including if you’re a Windows Winamp user), or sync to iTunes, or simply drag and drop music to the SD card. (I’ve found the latter ideal when I want to keep listening to a mix I’m working on.) There’s even Shoutcast radio support and Last.fm scrobbling.

I oddly sat on the plane last week next to the guy who runs this division, and sir, if you’re reading this, I, uh, hope you didn’t catch my cold.

I think Winamp is the best option for Android, but music enthusiasts also get something on this platform they don’t elsewhere: choice. With a variety of music apps from which to choose, you can select one you really like.

XMP Mod Player: Tracker fans will like this one – this omni-platform player (BeOS and Apple II and OS/2 are all supported) is now on Android. Mod files are tiny, so you can now have fairly unlimited music on the go. It’s also a neat example of what you can do with native development on Android.

Todo.txt Touch: My favorite to-do application now has a terrific, community-build, Android-exclusive tool. You sync to text files via Dropbox and can then use a command line to manage your to-do list on any platform. It’s simply the most productive task management I’ve ever done, leaving your mind free to focus on music when you can. The app is $2, and free elsewhere – only a Dropbox subscription is needed for cloud sync.

Dropbox for Android. A life-saver – instant file sync.

Google Listen: This lightweight podcast manager syncs directly to the cloud, as it should. Google-powered search makes finding your favorite podcasts easier, as well. I use it to keep up with music podcasts from XLR8R, Bleep, KCRW, the Bunker, NPR, and others, which remains a great way to discover music. And it’s free. Early versions were a bit … twitchy … but recent builds have been rock-solid in my experience.

Evernote for Android: The ability to capture photo notes or type in notes is key. Also, Android makes it easier to clip materials between applications: share buttons will connect to any aware installed app. This can also be a great scrapbook for ideas and inspiration; in addition to the more utilitarian notebooks, I try to keep a couple that tend to the creative.

Last but not least, Soundcloud for Android is a must-download, providing both mobile recording and sharing capabilities and the chance to keep up with discovering music on the service. You even get widget support so you can keep it on your homescreen. I just wish TapeRecorder supported SoundCloud, too.

Did I Miss Any?

To me, the above selection of software is more than I could ever really use on a phone; I feel happily spoiled. I’ve largely ignored flashier, more experimental tools – these are all chosen with productivity in mind. But there are some gems there, too. Ethereal Dialpad is an exceptionally good, experimental soundmaker, and its developer had lots to say about the platform when he spoke to us last spring:

Ethereal Dialpad Touch App, Development Experience on Android and Beyond

Rhodri Karim’s student project Spectral, developed at the University of Cambridge, is also fascinating, turning images into spectra into sound. (See the Android Market.)

And lastly, MusicRadar has done a terrific job keeping atop music apps on Android as they have on iOS; you can read about their top picks, updated regularly:
The best Android music making apps in the world today

We haven’t really seen tablet-specific tools, as the first Android tablets worth using are just now hitting the market. I’ll be pleased just to get a good tablet workflow with Pd, myself.

But if you’re an Android user (or developer) and have feedback, I’d love to hear from you. And beyond that, do stay tuned. No OS, no machine – not even the Apple IIGS – goes unturned here.

What Harmonix has achieved with Rock Band, and their original Guitar Hero, is remarkable. At their core, these games are descended from arcade rhythm games, reducing music to simple coordination of a few buttons. Yet numerous studies and anecdotal evidence suggest that, in an age in which recording has made musical experience passive for many, the fantasy of holding a plastic instrument is enough to convince people to explore music making again. Rock Band’s collaborative gameplay has people singing and playing again, karaoke style, and more than a few gamers have decided to graduate to real instruments and lessons. Don’t be surprised to walk into a Best Buy and see instruments and pro audio tech in the aisle next to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The genius of Harmonix is that music is again entertainment, not specialization.

What people may not realize is that designing these games is hard. The illusion of simplicity, the experience of fun – these are some of the most daunting challenges in design, period.

So what happens when Rock Band evolves beyond mere rhythm game?

John Drake of Harmonix colorfully sums up the spirit of the new, real-transcription Pro game: “Good luck on that solo, asshole.”

Ramping up the difficulty of a game to real music was a transformative design challenge. We go behind the scenes to hear how Harmonix approached it, what it means for how music works, and what it can mean for your music — or the next time you want to use a game with friends to hone your musical chops.

A New Game

Rock Band 3, released today, introduces new instruments and new play modes that blur the line between rhythm game and musical exercise. The hardware inputs are now actual MIDI controllers. A new guitar, the US$150 Fender Mustang Pro, uses around 100 buttons to allow real chord fingering positions – minus the callouses. A new keyboard features two octaves, velocity sensitivity, and touch controls. The guitar and keyboard each have standard MIDI DIN output feature extensive mappings of even the Xbox buttons onboard to MIDI control changes and custom MIDI assignments. A MIDI adapter lets you use your own MIDI hardware. (Ironically, this puts the Mad Catz-built hardware ahead of many supposedly “pro” sub-$100 devices, which now have only USB connections. CDM will have a detailed hands-on with information on how to make use of that MIDI controller in a separate article.)

Accordingly, “Pro Mode” songs feature more extensive transcriptions; learning them is tantamount to simply learning the music. Chords are real chords, and, while reduced to an octave or so, the keyboard parts really are what’s in the song. Needless to say, the presence of a keyboard also opens the floodgates to properly providing keyboard music in the game, from Elton John to John Lennon.

To understand how these changes came about, we have an epic interview with some of the folks at Harmonix. Even if you’re not a music gamer, there’s plenty of reason to pay attention: what they have to say could be relevant to getting your music to a wider audience, and many of the design considerations reveal insights into how people process musical information visually.

And if you are a musician and gamer, you may finally have found a music game you can share with non-musicians without dumbing down your playing.

Speaking to CDM: Daniel Sussman, Rock Band 3 project leader, John Drake, program manager of the Rock Band Network, and Matt “Nord” Nordhaus, senior producer for Rock Band Network. (RBN allows musicians to author their own content for the game and distribute it to players.)

Beyond Rhythm Games

CDM: We know already that your games have turned people on to music, and now it seems Rock Band 3 bridges some of the gulf between game and music. What does that mean for the evolution of Rock Band?

John: From my perspective, it’s certainly opened up a whole new angle to approach people who aren’t rhythm gamers. And as rhythm gamers, people who laugh at Expert guitar charts and say, I can five-star this on a five-button guitar, no problem, like Harmonix are wusses. And I’m like, okay, now you have [Ozzy Osborne's] Crazy Train on expert, so, good luck on that solo, asshole.

Daniel: Rock Band 3 is welcoming and doesn’t take into consideration any kind of musical background or education. As it relates to a feature set, we really look at making our game musical, but also fun and crazy interactive. What’s unique about the Rock Band Network aspect is that the RBN experience is not really so much a game – it’s more of a pipeline that musicians can use to get their content, their songs into the Rock Band world. If you think about the musical community out there, the ecosystem is really a way into that musical community. You have a game that appeals to a non-musician, they play the game, they have fun, maybe they take a greater interest in music. They use the game to learn how to play guitar or drums, to appreciate music. They start writing their own music, and then put that into the game world for other people to play and interact with.

It’s a kind of funny thing. I don’t think it was totally intentional – the idea that Rock Band would get to the point where you’re able to play the game on controllers that then you can plug into your laptop to make music and then use that same laptop to do all the game authoring and then put that back into Rock Band. That was sort of where we ended up, and it’s great because it all works really well together, but it speaks to the ambition of the studio.

Do you have a sense of what will happen as these new hardware inputs make their way into gamers hands? I guess you have to wait and see.

Daniel: We’re very excited to see what happens. If you read a lot of the statements we’ve made about the ambition for Rock Band Pro, part of it was to draw a deeper connection to the music. Another part of it, really, was to provide a new gameplay experience to an audience of gamers that had been playing the same game for five years on the guitar, or three years on the drums. Really the problem we had to solve was, how can we reinvigorate the category? How can we give these gamers something new to play? And how can we continue to challenge the music gamer in a way that doesn’t just involve the content? Can we build gameplay around something new and unique, and then use that to drive the progression of the franchise?

What’s been interesting is that we get these hardcore gamers who are the cream of the crop in the Rock Band world, they can beat every song on Expert the day it comes out. And then we sit them down with the Pro guitar, and we say, alright hotshot, you probably want to start on easy. I know that’s a novel concept to you know, but try it. And they do, and what happens is, they’re getting like three stars and 60-65% of the notes. And it’s kind of the same experience they had when they first played Guitar Hero 1, or they first tried the drums in Rock Band 1. And that’s really the phenomenal thing here, is that we’ve found a way to reconnect people to all of this great music through the gameplay. And almost as a bonus, the gameplay is totally steeped in actual musical ability, so by playing the game you develop skill that can be applied to things outside the game. But really, that’s secondary, from our standpoint.

What does that mean for play testing and authoring, then, to have these new tiers of difficulty? I know in the past, the first step in authoring was to just do a full transcription of a song, and then try to reduce it to what’s playable on the game controls at different difficulty levels.

Daniel: Well, I think we still start at the Expert authoring level, which is the basic note-for-note transcription of the song. And then as you pare down from there to get to hard, medium, and easy, consider that it’s more like the “campfire” version of the song. On Easy, it’s really root notes of chords on downbeats. It’s more like you’re playing along with the song; you’re not playing exactly what the song is. And then on Medium, we introduce power chords, so you’re playing that root-fifth combination on downbeats. And then on hard, you start playing the full chords, major-minor chords, open chords, and riffs. Expert is everything. We use a lot of the same design strategy as we pare down from expert to easy that we do in the core game, in the core five-lane game.

Rock Band’s Place in the Music World

It seems like there’s a strong awareness of what RB3 is doing in the game community, that it is at this new level of musicianship, but maybe not in the music community yet.

Daniel: Our focus really has been on the gamer out there, because we want to make sure the experience is accessible and not intimidating. But we see a lot of potential for an intermediate- to pro-level guitar player or keyboard player who wants to use Rock Band 3 as a way to learn new music, to learn new songs. And I suspect that we’ll get there as the game gets out and people realize what’s going on, the guitars get out and people put it together.

I spoke at a panel earlier this week; it was a panel that was sponsored by NARAS. [That's the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences - yes, the folks who give out the Grammy.] We were talking about digital distribution in this day and age, and how musicians can take advantage of some of the tools. And I was stunned at how few people were aware of RBN, and Rock Band 3. And I still think that in the musical community, music games have this stigma as a game, as a toy. And I don’t think enough musicians out there are as aware of the powerful distribution that’s offered through the Rock Band franchise, and then the actual musical benefits that our game has afforded all the way back. I’m looking for the tide to change within the musical community. I’m in two bands, a lot of people here are very musical people, and deeply, we feel that we want to use the Rock Band platform to promote music and to promote musical experiences, and to encourage people to be musicians. We want to be a part of the musical community, not competing with the musical community in any way.

Have you gotten feedback from musicians as you worked on Rock Band 3, apart from, obviously, the numerous musicians who work for Harmonix?

Daniel: Some. We worked pretty closely with a couple of folks at Berklee College of Music. We’re building this game, we want to make sure that we don’t want to teach people any horrible habits, and all of our chord language is correct, and our fingering is correct, and our ramp is from easy to medium and medium to hard, following loosely with stable, academic doctrine. And so we had a couple of people come in on a weekly basis to play the game. And people were very excited. I think a lot of people have seen the potential of this within the music community. So there are certainly people that are very impressed with what we’ve done and are looking forward to applying it as a tool in the music community.

Do you have hard numbers on the relationship of the game and this game genre to people going out and learning instruments? It seems Rock Band 3 has the potential to make that happen even more.

Daniel: Obviously, it’s too soon to tell what the impact of RB3 will be on, you know, the society that we live in. [laughs] There have been studies, vendors have done studies, Cornell did a study, just on the attach rate between music gamer and how many people play Guitar Hero and then go buy a guitar, how many people play Rock Band and take musical instrument lessons. I know that it’s an interesting topic in the musical academic world. And I think RB3 definitely changes the game. The connection between the game and the actual musical ability is way less tenuous than it has been in previous games. It’s pretty real. I think you’ll see a higher attach rate, but you know, we’ll see.

Some of those hard number… Harmonix provided us with a study, announced in January of 2009, by Fender and non-profit music education organization Little Kids Rock, looking at schools around the United States. The results: educators widely attribute a renewed interest in music education to the games. The study looked at teachers with students in the 8-13-year-old age group.

Results:
67% said guitar enrollment increased as a result of Rock Band and Guitar Hero; 46% bass, and 52% drums. A tiny fraction thought it decreased.

78% said they felt these games had a positive effect.

88% said it had increased interest in classic, guitar-based rock, and a whopping 95% said the two games would help attract new students.

Rock Band Network, Meet Pro Mode, Keys

How are the tools being received in the Rock Band Network community?

Matt: We’re working on the toolset now to add keyboards and harmony to Rock Band Network. The creative community has been incredibly excited about it. I know a lot of them are both holding songs back that have keyboard parts in it, and sort of going after artists who they know might be interested in it. We’ve already had interest from a few major-label artists who have already gotten in touch with us to try to get their stuff in. So I think it’s going to certainly expand the RBN stuff into the keyboard-centric area.

What made the difference for them — is it, okay, now I have an engine that can represent my music, is it that now it’s something that I can take more seriously, or a combination?

Matt: I think it’s more the former. I think these are people who are very keyboard-centric. Billy Joel’s a great example of someone who was added. We’ve had people who said, oh, cool, you have keyboards? I really want to get my songs in there, people who are known for playing keyboards.

John: I think it’s people who make music on that instrument want to see even the representational gameplay. Even if you’re playing keys mode, you don’t have to play the two octaves, we still have that five-button-style gameplay even on the keyboard, I think we’ve always felt a little weird about it when it’s been like, play the organ solo to Smokin’ by Boston on a guitar controller. We did it because it’s an amazing song and we didn’t want to hold it back, but it makes so much more sense, and it’s so much more fun for them to see their music expressed on an instrument, even in a simulation format that’s that much closer to reality. I think it opens the door for them to get excited about it. And then once they’re excited about it, it’s kind of a no-brainer to get their music in.

Of course, as a keyboardist, I’m pleased to see the addition of keyboards; what does that change mean for Harmonix, especially coming from only the guitar and drums?

John: The exciting thing for us is, keyboard is so fundamental in terms of the way that people process and understand music. It’s probably the most linear layout of notes that you can have. It makes a lot of sense to be able to look at a keyboard and be able to understand what that harmonic structure is, versus a guitar. When you see people trying to learn theory from a guitar, they’re able to do it, but it’s a very disconnected and disjointed thing in their minds a lot of the time, if they’re not musicians.

I come from a jazz background. You have great pianists and great piano solos in the context of jazz, but at laest half the time you’re comping. That’s always part of it. It’s such a versatile instrument that can do all those things. I think with Rock Band Network and with Rock Band DLC, what we’re seeing a lot of is the ability to highlight those songs. We’ve got music like Billy Joel, like Imagine by John Lennon, like Bohemian Rhapsody, where the piano has those stand-out moments, where we’re really looking at the keyboardist as featured player. But also we have have songs like Roundabout by Yes, or Freebird by Leonard Skynard, where the keyboard has a standout section or there’s a crazy keyboard solo or sort of insane part, but really it does work as an instrument that’s part of a collaborative effort, which is what Rock Band’s all about. Rock Band’s not about Guitar Heroes, and it’s not about drum solos. It’s about your band playing together. So the keyboard will have its stand-out moments, it’ll cast more light on an instrument that’s often overshadowed.

Matt: The thing about RBN is that you typically see the more the fringe-y, niche-y stuff. It seems likely to be that we’re going to get some of those, like maybe we’ll get a jazz tune where the keyboard comps the whole time. And that would be cool. It’s the sort of thing that we probably wouldn’t release as DLC, because we have more high-profile bands in front of it. But it’s exactly the sort of thing that people put into RBN because they’re passionate about the bands they love and the kind of music they like.

What will the impact of these new levels be on the authoring process? I know you’re working on releasing new tools to work with the new implementations for Rock Band Network; what are you changing?

Matt: We’ve improved a whole bunch of the audition tools to make auditioning much, much quicker and easier — like adding rewind and skip forward, vocal guide pitches and keyboard guide pitches. We actually brought a group of people in, some of the more advanced authors, to check out the MIDI spec, and one of the things they reacted to is that the keyboards are really, really complicated. The difference between five lanes and two octaves doesn’t seem that big, but when you figure out that you’ve got chords and it’s real stuff in real time, it’s a very significant increase in difficulty.

John: Both to author and to play test.

Matt: — and to play. So we’re trying to add some tools to allow them to make sure what they’ve done is correct according to what’s actually in the song.

John: The thing now is that it’s pitch-accurate. So it’s not just charting what feels right; it’s charting what is right.

There’s still compression going on. It’s not the same compression that we do to take all the sonic stuff that you’re hearing down to five colors, but we’re still talking about, if you have a full keyboard part, taking it down to about an octave and a half — you have to think about both the theoretical, what is the best way to do that to make it feel right from a gameplay standpoint, but also how to communicate information so that it’s still pitch-accurate, and it still plays well, with jumping around. When do you leave the bass note in, when do you take the bass note out? It’s a lot of thinking.

It’s not like when we launched originally, when we had four years of guitar authoring under our belts.

So it’s like doing a transcription, in other words — it’s like doing an orchestral transcription for piano, or in this case a piano transcription for toy piano.

John: Yeah, exactly. That’s sort of a funny way to refer to it, but it’s pretty accurate. It’s more an art than a craft.

Learning Music with Rock Band

Last week we got to see GarageBand ’11, with additional lessons, and metrics behind those lessons. In a way, the games and the music tools are converging. It seems like what the games are doing can help with learning music.

John: You know, I grew up playing piano. I’m a classically-trained percussionist, and learned piano when I was six years old, and all that good stuff. And the thing that sucks about learning an instrument in isolation is that you play scales, and you play Mary Had a Little Lamb, and you play your A harmonic minor scale. And when you mess up, it sounds bad. And when you do it right, it doesn’t sound that great either. It sounds like a scale.

The fun thing with Rock Band 3 is that the stories we have, we back you with a full band of music all the time. Even when you’re playing your C major scale, or your C major triad, you’re playing it on top of a bluegrass band, or a metal riff. And you feel like you’re accomplishing something. And it makes you want to get over that hump and get over that musical boredom and inertia that holds people down, where they’re not getting engaged on a real instrument. I’m hopeful we get people to feel like they’re learning, to feel like they’re engaging with a game and playing something, and they actually develop some chops and maybe some habits that can get them thinking about musical theory and maybe taking a piano lesson, or reading Keyboard Magazine, or downloading some GarageBand lessons. That’s all good.

It’s like the Jamey Aebersold tapes, where you have a backing track.

John: Exactly. Oh, God, those tapes… I was trained on those tapes. I was trained on… oh, God. They’re good. They’re torture.

So, now we have these full guitars and real two-octave keyboards — was there some iteration to arrive at that solution? I got to poke a little fun at the process when the announcement was made, mocking up a whole staff coming at you in the interface. Maybe at one point there was even something a little like that.

John: God, there was tons of iteration on that. I think this is sort of the genius of Harmonix games. To be very clear. I’m not a UI designer, that’s not my job or my baby, but having seen the iteration process it went through, when you see the end result, when you see the polish, you think, “oh, it must have been a really natural process to come up with this.” But what you’re looking at is hundreds of hours of painstaking thought and work that went into it.

With keyboards specifically, I think the biggest challenge was really getting people who are not used to reading piano roll, and not used to understanding the difference between a fourth and a fifth onscreen, being able to identify that quickly through a seamless UI and jump right in. And I think that our team did a killer job of what’s coming down the display on the screen. I think it’s pretty much the only way you can do it. The idea of having one octave of gameplay at a time, because we tried it with more than one octave.

Matt: And you know, adding the colors. I sat in on all those meetings. I go to all the design meetings. It was fascinating to watch us work through it. We tried not having black and white notes and coloring all the notes, and eventually we ended up on black and white because people are used to that. We struggled with, like, do you light up the lanes when you press them? How thick are the dividers between the lanes? We were tweaking stuff literally until the last day. And it was a nonstop process of iteration through the whole cycle to get it right. It’s very, very hard.

John: And it’s because people are so deep into music here, and want so badly to give people that experience and make it accessible. We can get my mom to play keyboards, and then get a great keyboard player, both being able to sightread something on easy and having a good time, not feeling like they’re reading music and suffering through a rehearsal process.

Matt I think it was a huge debate whether we had a key signature list at the beginning of each song. The keyboard people wanted it, and the design and UI people didn’t want it because they felt it was clutter. We went back and forth on that a bunch of times.

John: At the end of the day, that’s what designing games really is for something like this. If we’re translating a real-world experience, making decisions to give the most amount of information to people without overwhelming them. I think Rock Band Pro really walks that line of filling that screen with all the notes in the keyboard solo in Roundabout, without making you feel like you’re going to have an aneurysm from trying to play them.

My favorite thing is what people said about the pro guitar — that’s been in development as long, if not longer, than keyboards. We’ve been futzing around with that for two-plus years. And playtesting it, people were saying, oh, sure, you can play on it, and it makes sense to you, but you’re a guitar player. And to bring people in who never played guitar before, and give them our tutorial system, to see them like an hour later playing power chords? Playing I Love Rock and Roll? I mean, they’re not mastering it and no one’s playing crazy guitar solos, but to be able to fret three or four chords based on learning it through the game in an hour or two hours. Having them have to stop because their hands hurt — they were grinning from ear to ear, and they were doing it and loving it.

That’s the power of someone learning an instrument and getting excited about it. That’s what we had hoped would happen. The idea that anyone could pick up a guitar and spend two or three hours in our game and walk away knowing two or three chords and how open notes work and how they can move their way around a fretboard — that’s pretty crazy.

That’s the biggest surprise to me — that it fucking works.

It’s why people have been playing music for thousands of years.

All photos: Kyle Mercury. Images courtesy Harmonix.

Ah, Mondays. If you’re looking for a way to brighten your work week and you’ve got an iPod touch or iPhone you can drop into your pocket, iOS music and audio developer Pulse Code tells us they’ve made four of its apps free for this week only, through August 8. That includes BtBx [iTunes], a simple and fun drum machine, DB-303, a simulation of the Roland TB-303 bass line synth and a particular favorite of pocket iPhone musicians, as well as a couple of fun toys – a robot tone synth and sound effects maker called Android FX and a text-to-speech “robot comedian.” These will all run on iPad, too, of course, though none has yet been adapted to iPad’s native resolution.

The development house has also just released on a couple of other (paid) apps, including a fascinating-looking graphical subtractive synth called PolyWave. It works with some similar ideas to the hardware proposed with our Dreams contest, in which you draw the sounds you want. And on the subject of transforming voices – a topic we covered last week on Android and desktop, there’s a new vocal transformer.

The microphone input itself on mobile devices is an interesting one. It becomes a sound source, a modulation source, and a controller. (It’s not hard to add to hardware projects, too – DIYers, take note.)

Developer Amaury Hazan, a former developer of the interactive music app RjDj, writes to say he’s just finished his PhD thesis (ah, that… yeah, working on it), and that some of his doctoral research helped lead to a new iOS app. We covered that research some years ago here on CDM, and now it’s found its way into a new “beatboxing” app, which uses your voice as an input to sequence sounds. It’s a fascinating idea, if one that may require some practice. You can see the technique in the video above, or go grab the app for iOS at US$2.

http://billaboop.com/en/boomclap
iTunes link
A nice Wire to the Ear write-up

I’d love to talk to Amaury – and anyone else, if interested – about research in using mic inputs, so consider this a teaser and conversation starter.

Operating small runs out of his basement, Justin Owen is on a mission to bring his idiosyncratic, all-analog sounds to musicians in affordable, portable form.

“Affordable” and “portable” often aren’t associated with analog, though even players as big as KORG have gotten in on the game recently, with KORG’s monotron. Now that musicians are spoiled for choice in “things making noise with numbers or electricity,” though, I think there’s added pressure. For lack of a better way to put it, you have to be interesting.

And Justin’s circuits are indeed interesting. The latest addition is entitled “Kicker,” a 100%-analog “low frequency percussion synth” that’s as specialized as it sounds. At GBP95, I don’t doubt that some of the few dozen of these that will ever be made will find their way into digital workflows. For my part, I’ve hidden my wallet in the other room and placed a block filter on eBay. (Don’t ask about the other evening when James Grahame of Retro Thing and I narrowly avoided investing in multi-port MIDI merge racks.) But I have got some details on this gear for you, and some thoughts from Justin about his approach.

First, the specs on Kicker, Justin’s latest creation.

100% Analog, hand-made and tested in-house
Dual sine-wave oscillators with independent Pitch control
Punch switch for aggressive, high-impact sounds
Attack switch & Envelope Decay control
Can be Triggered using line-level Audio or a CV Pulse
Kick drums, sub drops, bass hits and more
Capable of very low frequencies
Manual available for download as a PDF file
Chrome-plated case & pro hardware
Runs off a standard 12 Volt DC adapter (not included) at approx. 300-500mA with a Negative Tip.
Limited-edition run, on sale while stocks last

You can have a look at the full manual:
Kicker manual [PDF]

Here’s a sense of the sound range of the device – overdubbed, but completely dry:
Kicker Preview 02: Deep Drops, Hard Hits & Bass Percussion by abstractjuz

And here’s the sound of just one of the two kick oscillators:
Kicker Preview 01: Single Oscillator Kick Drum by abstractjuz

“Abstract Data is currently just me and it’s still early days. I run this entirely off my own back out of my basement,” says Justin. “My priority right now is the design and build of affordable, portable, analog instruments and effects that sound good and are good to play.”

I asked about whether he’d consider going open source with his designs, and Justin says he’s interested, though lacks the experience to make that a priority. (Open sourcing hardware is not trivial by any means; I’ll be covering some of those issues later today and through the fall.)

Here’s Justin on his approach to sound:

I have fairly specific views on how analog should sound and part of that is that it’s not always linear and easy to control. Sometimes it’s downright unpredictable. Sometimes that contradicts ‘good’ design rules – so getting it working alongside the digital domain is something that needs to be done right – rather than just poking a micro at it.

FYI – the core circuit is based on my own implementation of the Twin-T oscillator which has been around since at least the 70′s. It’s a *great* circuit with loads of funny little oddities to explore and for people who are into tinkering/modding/hacking I’d definitely recommend they look up some variations of it and get it on a breadboard.

Naturally, unpredictable and non-linear don’t exactly scream “MIDI control,” but that’s something that may be on the horizon, as well:

MIDI control of my instruments is a huge priority and that is coming. OSC is another thing I’ve had my eye on for a while now. Small steps and for now my priority is building ‘instruments’ – not computers.

For now, what you get instead is a unique box full of personality. I can imagine for people with computer-based rigs, having something like this to inject some unpredictable analog goodness can have a lot of appeal.

The Hex range of analog synths and effects are also quite nice to look at; here’s a glimpse of them all in action:

More info on Justin’s official site:
http://abstractdata.biz/

…and his eBay page:
http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/ad_tools

Trifonic: Editing Beats – Part 1 from Next Step Audio on Vimeo.

No more secrets: that could well sum up the zeitgeist of music making in 2010. So it is that Trifonic, aka virtuoso beatmeister brothers Brian and Laurence Trifon of San Francisco, share their technique for chopping up and glitching out audio. Their new blog, Next Step Audio, is entirely dedicated to sharing their production techniques:

http://nextstepaudio.com/ [site slightly erratic response-wise for me at press time]

The video tutorial on beat editing, published by Next Step Audio, starts out generically enough: grab the ubiquitous “Amen break” as a sample, load it into Apple’s Logic Pro, slice it by beat and adjust to transients, gate… but Trifonic explains how they take the results further, drawing envelopes for modulation and winding up with something far removed for the original. Of course, if you’re fatigued of the “Amen break,” you could apply the same technique to samples of your own playing, and you could substitute your DAW of choice, from Live to Pro Tools, for the editing.

Part of what makes this tutorial compelling is that the duo has a distinctive musical identity, rather than being the anonymous, all-knowing voice music tech instructors had tried to be in the past. It’s worth checking out their music, too. Digitally-distorted, glitching beats had threatened to become a tired cliche years ago, but Trifonic combines those sharper digital timbres with rich, warm layers of sound. The shifting textures of the video for “Parks on Fire,” a big single for them, matches that musical structure perfectly in visuals. (The video is the work of the terrific Scott Pagano, an LA-based visualist.)

There’s plenty more music to share, too, and you can even grab a free Trifonic bass patch for Logic’s EXS24 and Native Instruments’ Kontakt 3 (or compatible samplers, which includes just about everything).

You can grab a free MP3 of Trifonic’s “Transgenic” in the “Rust Mix”:

And Trifonic are regular contributors to ccMixer, the Creative Commons-licensed remix site. They’ve got loads of work under an attribution / non-commercial license. That has, in turn, encouraged a crop of remixes of their work, which seems in keeping with the techniques they’re espousing.

(See my rant last week for some concerns about the non-commercial license relative to images. It’s less of an issue, I think, with samples, but I do hope to connect with the CC folks soon and talk on CDM about the relative advantages of Non-Commercial versus ShareAlike or some combination.)

http://ccmixter.org/people/trifonic

In part two of the beat editing tutorial, Trifonic go further with glitching and special effects.

As noted by commenter Bryan Gilstein, “It doesn’t matter, we’ll go nuts with it.”

Amen, brother.

Trifonic: Editing Beats – Part 2 from Next Step Audio on Vimeo.

Trifonic have a bass patch sample that they share for free, too, in EXS24 and Kontakt 3 formats. It’s a wobble bass, yes, but with a few nice twists.

Good music, good production tips – I’m sold. (Now, is anyone else aside from me thinking about how these techniques could become real-time / live instruments?)

Lots more Trifonic at the artists’ website:
http://www.trifonic.com

See also:
Tirfonic @ rcrdlbl [free music]
Trifonic @ Last.fm

…and I’ll see them next week in LA, where I’m sharing a big bill with them at the unofficial NAMM afterparty (more details on that soon):
http://whambamthankyounamm.com/

Sometimes, the best sounds come not from synthesis, not even from electrified instruments, but from the purity of a mic and acoustic instrumentation. It remains electronic, or even digital sound, but its source is organic. And so, one of the best reasons to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie in theaters is the wonderful noises that bounce around Hans Zimmer’s score.

Behind many great film scores are great soloists as much as great composers, and Sherlock Holmes is no exception. Zimmer worked with Diego Stocco, sound designer, sound artist, inventor, and composer in his own right. To realize the inner workings of the mind of Sherlock Holmes, violin player, the pair turned to Stocco’s own creation, a kind of meta-instrument made of all string instruments, dubbed the Experibass. Looking only at its appearance, the instrument looks like a practical joke, with the bridge and neck of a violin and viola pasted onto a Double Bass. But once you hear the creation, the instrument is sheer genius, combining the Double Bass’ superior resonance with the more delicate sounds of the treble instruments.

Brilliant as this instrument may be, let’s not get entirely distracted from the really important things in life, like how to make great pasta. Watch the video interview above for insight into the sonic and culinary recipes in the duo’s kitchens.

That’s just the beginning of the inspiration to draw from Diego and other artists whose work is heard from behind the silver screen in this blockbuster cinematic month of December.

The above video alone is unlikely to sate your Diego appetite, so fortunately there are some other interviews with the artist – features that are guaranteed to inspire you to attempt inventing your own instruments around the house. (Contact mics, you are truly the world’s greatest invention.) Jacob Resneck talks to Maestro Stocco about his ideas as a player and creator:

Interview with Sound Artist Diego Stocco [Cool Hunting]

On Bandcamp, you can find short albums devoted to their sound sources, including sand, a tree, and broken instruments:

Diego Stocco @ Bandcamp

On Diego’s Vimeo account, you’ll find a series of short films that not only feature and document his inventions, but serve as lovely audiovisual vignettes. Among them is this film “Dissonant Echoes,” featuring dismantled piano, antique zithers, and chimes, as discovered at the blog Synthtopia last month.

Diego Stocco – Dissonant Echoes from Diego Stocco on Vimeo.

Diego is, naturally, not the only talented collaborator on Sherlock Holmes. Tina Guo is the stellar cellist who worked on the film, and speaks about her work on the film and her experience as a cellist; you can see more of her on her YouTube channel. Ann Marie Calhoun provided violin – yes, there is violin in the score, even if Holmes himself may have actually played viola (depending on whose argument you hear).

Ultimately, though, it’s the strange and broken instruments, recorded intimately in place of the usual, overblown and overused “lamplight” symphony orchestras, that forms the sound of the movie. (Believe me, you might hate the film and still love the score.) In addition to the Experibass, Zimmer made heavy use of detuned, abused pianos, one of which was defaced in an underground parking garage. I have no idea why he talks about Kurt Weill, but the results are nonetheless fantastic, and a reminder of how much can be done with real, recorded sound. Hans Zimmer talks himself about his ideas behind the score to The Times:

Hans Zimmer: ‘The sound of Sherlock Holmes? It’s a broken piano’ [The London Times]

Zimmer also speaks to CMusicTV in a video interview:

More Behind the Scenes from Winter’s Movie Releases

For still more inspiration, Migul Isaza’s wonderful blog Designing Sound probes some of the other talented folks who worked on Hollywood’s record-breaking December films at the box office. Whether you were fans of these films or not, there’s still plenty to learn from the soundtracks. (Hey, does this mean lots of movie watching can be a tax write-off?)

"Invictus" Sound for Film Profile from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

Via that blog, here’s a powerful story of using real sounds for film sound design. The audio team, working with director Clint Eastwood, went to extraordinary lengths to achieve sonic realism in the picture Invictus. Not only did they research the sport of rugby, but they recorded audio in Nelson Mandela’s prison cell. Of course, those sounds might have been recreated nearly as accurately on a California soundstage, but to me, the spiritual journey to the original location is even more important. It’s an attention to detail beyond what even the listener may directly perceive. Perhaps, after all, that’s why we do field recording – not simply for the results, but for the experience and the process of being in the places in which we make the field recording.

At the other end of the spectrum, Designing Sound has an interview with Paul Ottosson, who used sound design on the movie 2012 to create imagined worlds and play directly to the audience’s reactions and emotions.

Exclusive Interview with Paul Ottosson, Sound Designer of “2012? [Designing Sound @ noisepages]

“Destroy the Earth” might seem to be the simple charge of that movie, but in practice, the work goes beyond that. For his part, Ottosson emphasizes storytelling.

But, wait – there’s more. For a sense of what the experience of being a sound designer is like, and – whatever your career – how to manage your professional and creative demands, look to Andrew Lackey, whose work with sound cuts across box office blockbusters (They) and hit games (Dead Space).

Lackey tells Designing Sound blogger Isaza about the sound tools he wishes existed but don’t, and how to survive the economic crunch and stay mentally and physically healthy.

“Heard” a movie lately that inspired you? Seen good behind-the-scenes information from the worlds of movies, television, or games? (These are all bigger-budget releases; there’s plenty happening in the “indie” scenes, too.) Let us know.

And keep recording.

The market is clear: guitarists (and other instrumentalists) want to plug in a piece of hardware, fire up their Mac, and start playing with GarageBand right away. The announcement of Apple’s new Logic Studio 9 last week coincided with the release of new hardware from Apogee, the audio vendor that has gone Mac-only and Apple-centric. Today during a meeting with Apple, I got my first in-person look at the GiO (pronounced “Geo,” like the compact car, not G.I.O. as would rhyme with G.I. Joe).

A number of impressions that I didn’t get from the press announcement:

The hardware looks great. It’s tough to describe until you see in person, but while it seems to look almost cheap or toy-like in photos, the hardware is quite substantial, solid, and attractive. It’s also nice to see a pedalboard that’s fairly simple, with ample clearance between controls – essential for playing with your feet.

It has awesome colored lights. No, really. Not only do the lights change color, but they’re actually color coded. So you can see, for instance, which stompboxes you’re using based on the color.

It uses MIDI. Let’s get this out of the way. Apogee made such a big deal of saying this was compatible with GarageBand and Logic that I began to wonder if they’d somehow found a way to make something as simple as a pedalboard incompatible with everything else! Not so – the GiO just sends standard MIDI over USB. I’ll have to ask Apogee how this maps, and you may still be Mac-only assuming they wrote their own drivers. But I would imagine at the very least, if you want to swap between Logic and AmpliTube or Logic, you should be okay.

GiO [Apogee Digital]

If you’re in love with Logic and GarageBand, GiO looks quite nice. $399 would be steep for a few buttons for your feet, but in a nice housing with an audio interface, if you get heavy use out of it, you may feel differently. You get integrated control, low-latency audio (instrument in + line out), 5 stompbox buttons + 5 transport controls + next/previous controls, and expression control. Of course, this is not news if you’re happy with similar solutions from IK Multimedia, Line6, Native Instruments, and WAVES – all of which also have impressive software and integrated hardware. And there’s nothing stopping you from using that hardware, or other MIDI pedalboards, even with Logic. And I’ll just keep dreaming of a thin-but-large magical pedalboard that I can toss in a bag with a laptop. My feet need more to do.

Moog’s Moogerfoogers, the boutique all-analog hardware effects units, are brilliant piece of sound gear. They’re accessible, terrific sounding, and exquisitely-designed in terms of interface and control. Even as a software person, I just have a lot of respect for the design of these boxes.

I’m sure Moog Music hopes you collect these things (oh, if I had that budget), but if you had to take just one Moogerfooger, the just-announced MF-105M might be your strongest candidate. First, it combines the two previous Moogerfooger MuRFs – that’s the Bob Moog-designed Multiple Resonance Filter Array. The MuRF (rhymes with “Smurf”) is basically eight filters which are sequenced to “animate” the effects in interesting ways. The original MuRF led to a set of bass filters, aimed at bass players or guitar players “looking for a heavier, darker sound.” Previously, you’d have to buy two separate Moogerfoogers to get both; the MF-105M just gives you both in one box.

More importantly, the “M” in the MF-105M stands for MIDI. Modulation is only fun if you have something with which you can modulate. As on the whole Moogerfooger line, you can use Control Voltage, but the MF-105M also uses MIDI, as seen in the demo video below.

• Change from pattern to pattern using MIDI Program Change
• Sync your patterns to tempo with MIDI Clock, so you can play along with a drum machine, Ableton Live, whatever
• Control any front panel with MIDI Control Change messages – for instance, control the envelope with your Mod Wheel
• Play the filters with MIDI notes

It’s still US$479, but you get what would otherwise require two of these units plus a MIDI-to-CV converter. And it’s all set up to use out of the box. It’s definitely a keyboardist and synthesist-friendly Moogerfooger – and for guitarists with MIDI guitars and a lot of imagination.

Moog Moogerfooger MF-105M

Thanks to Ben Hovey over at Moog for sending this our way. (And yes, everyone is free to send us your product news, please – can’t guarantee it won’t get lost in my frightening inbox, but…)

Available in August. Video (silly titles, but about halfway through they have some useful demos):

Nick Maxwell of the excellent Nick’s Tutorials Ableton Live production site shares some free explorations with us, complete with downloads you can reverse-engineer the instruments and play with the topics the video cover. You can also use these in your own work, royalty-free.

I really like some of the work here, from a kitchen knife to a found sound bass. Here’s Nick:

“Icy Shimmer” Effect

In this video, I use a few field recordings of a kitchen knife being unsheathed as well as a door closing as the layers for the eventual sound effect.  Basic things like reversing the waveforms, filtering , panning, and retuning are employed.  I also go beyond that into some more interesting stuff like using a grain delay, simple delay, and an autofilter to create a little effects section to further realize the sound.

Download

Two Drums Created From Samples

In this video I use field recordings to create a kick drum as well as a snappy percussion sound. Some of the techniques include pitch and filter enveloping, working with non-zero crossings to create an interesting attack for your drum, layering samples, and more.

Download

“Jungle-Bass” (2 Parts)

In this video I use field recordings to create a bass patch that might be used in a Jungle or Drum’n'Bass production. I go over some basic intermodulation between LFO’s, describe the Saturator effect’s controls, use the morph parameter to create an interesting filter curve, and more. Additionally, I show two effects that were released with Live 8: The Limiter and the Frequency Shifter.

Download