Japanese fusion “underground music unit” Human Boot Project have a clever take on the music video, one that – well, let’s face it, probably appeals only to music production nerds like us.

Using the free/open source software Gawker (Mac-only screen capture, not to be confused with thegossip blog), they take an extended timelapse of their production session in Apple Logic, as arrangements and various plug-ins flash by. You get to see the track, “Xen,” assembled before your eyes.

I’ll let you play “spot the plug-in” first, then have a look after the jump for what they used.

Artist Masashi tells CDM the toolkit:

Native Instruments Battery 3
Sugar Bytes EFFECTRIX
RNDigital Inspector XL
Audio Damage DubStation
Smart Electronix LiveCut
Logic Plugin (Amp Designer, Space Designer, EXS24, ES2, etc.)

Human Boot Project have a new album “Don’t Forget the Sheep”.
The album will be available at most major online stores.
here is link of album sample.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/523635/SMAPLE.mp3

Human Boot Project New Album “Don’t Forget the Sheep”
Tracklisting:
1. Super Bathroom (4:17)
2. Yuri (3:36)
3. Dying Forest (4:09)
4. Xan (3:18)
5. Ember (4:03)
6. Sneaking Sheep (3:52)
7. Dawn (3:01)
8. Decoy (3:31)
9. Flatline (3:25)
10. U (2:42)

Human Boot Project
http://www.humanboot.com/
Red Robot Records
http://redrobotrecords.com/

?Human Boot Project?
HumanBootProject are a Japanese underground music unit.This is a genre breaker fusing Jazz with Rock and Drum and Bass and one to get the synapses twinging. (Red Robot Records)

Fun fact: this is what Richard Devine looks like in real time. Honest. Or me, if I get enough coffee.

In addition, though, today’s Komplete 7 announcement brought some new tools to the table, as seen in the image gallery above. (Click on the thumbnails for a closer look.) They include a number of surprise effects announcements, and one less-surprising – but intriguing – synth for the new release of Reaktor from NI’s sonic scientist-in-chief.

• Reaktor Prism is a new “modal synth” created by NI founder and Reaktor creator Stephan Schmitt. Stephan walked me through Prism when I visited him in Berlin earlier this summer, and I have to say, it’s one of the software releases I’m most excited about – Stephan’s ideas about synthesis are always refreshing and inspiring. It makes a lot of use of the new objects in 5.5. It’s hard to describe, so stay tuned for more on it soon.
• Reflektor is a “zero-latency” convolution engine for simulating reverbs and other effects.
• Traktor’s 12 brings some of the effects from Traktor into producer’s hands. That’s good news, because some of Traktor’s far-out and granular-based timbres seem a natural for non-DJs.
• Rammfire is a new amp emulation developed with Richard Z. Kruspe of Rammstein.

While some standalone instruments and effects had been casualties of a trimmed Komplete suite in previous releases — Spektral Delay, Vokator, B4, and Akoustik Piano come to mind — those are replaced in this version by the addition of extensive soundware for the remaining flagship instruments. Scarbee Vintage Keys and MM-Bass, Abbey Road 60s Drums, and the Classic Piano Collection more than make up for the omission of dedicated piano and organ instruments, folding these instead into the consistent interface of the Kontakt and Battery samplers. Vintage Organs becomes the new replacement for B4, or as an NI spokeperson described it to me, a “spiritual successor.”

More interesting, you also get some more unusual instrumental creations: Reaktor Spark (also by Schmitt), Tim Exile’s insanely-brilliant performance effect The Finger, and the sonically-adventurous Acoustic Refractions.

So, that’s what’s new in terms of new stuff. But the new Komplete also represents some shifts in strategy, ones that mean cheaper access to sounds for those who don’t want all of the editing capabilities. That shift goes beyond even previous player and Kore soundware from NI.

Player for Guitar Rig, Reaktor

In addition to the expanded sonic palette, Komplete reflects a different way of delivering instruments. Guitar Rig Player allows effects to be delivered standalone in a “universal” (well, that’s what NI calls it – it’s universal for them) effects platform. Reflektor and Rammfire are delivered on the Guitar Rig Player platform, a bit like the soundware we’ve seen for Kontakt.

More notably, Reaktor Player means that Reaktor patches can finally be distributed without having to buy the full release of Reaktor. Unlike previous Kore versions, these won’t have a crippled UI. You’ll get the full, graphical user interface for some brilliant Reaktor patches, without having to buy the whole Reaktor package if you don’t want to edit them. Depending on how much NI exploits this idea, that could make Reaktor a more compelling tool for artists to create new instruments and effects for the platform, at least for those who work with NI directly.

Pricing and “Elements”

At US$559 for the whole set ($229 update), Komplete is also looking more economical, and I think is competitive with the pack-in instrument bundles in tools like Logic and Live.

If half a grand is steep, there’s also a budget “Elements” edition at US$119, which incorporates the Kontakt, Kore, and Guitar Rig engines plus 12 gigs of sample materials and 2000 sounds. You don’t get the full editing capabilities of the whole packages, but it means a cheap way to get a huge dose of preset sound content. There’s also a $60 voucher for adding on a la carte instruments and effects presets.

Upgrading from standalone NI products appears to be more difficult, unfortunately, say a couple of readers. That’s not great news; I’ll contact NI for clarification. Previous Komplete owners can easily upgrade from any version. Some standalone NI products are covered; here’s the upgrade deal:

Introductory Komplete 7 Upgrade
for owners of Kontakt (any version), Reaktor (Version 2 and upwards), Kore 2 or Guitar Rig 4 Kontrol Edition
Available until December 31st, 2010 as long as stock lasts
$339 / 299 €

But this isn’t a review – merely an acknowledgement that some of this is stuff I think will get us excited. Stay tuned for a full review, and details on some of the stand-out creations here, soon.

See comments for some interesting discussion of for whom this upgrade and pricing makes sense, and for whom it might not.

velosynth release#001 from velosynth on Vimeo.

Bicycle transport is cheap, environmentally sound, and quiet – a little too quiet. Since bikes don’t make noise, it can be difficult to hear them coming. And since a bicyclist should be focused on the road, any visual feedback to the bicyclist is potentially distracting. What’s the solution? How about a box that easily straps to a bike and makes sounds? Sounds can provide feedback to pedestrians, fellow cyclists, and other people sharing the road. They can also make distraction-free sonification of data the cyclist might want, as opposed to requiring that a rider take their eyes off the road to read a display. Using network features, you can even communicate amongst a crowd of cyclists.

The Velosynth is an open-source (Creative Commons-licensed), hackable sound gadget that attaches to a bike. To measure speed and acceleration (essential for making vroom-vroom-style sounds when the bike is in motion), the device uses a magnet and sensor combination on the wheel. There’s also a three-axis accelerometer, built-in amp, and Arduino-compatible brain. You can buy the device as a US$100 kit or get a pre-assembled device.

EFFALO, despite the silly and tongue-in-cheek video, are a serious “hyperlocal” maker of new designs to explore interaction, environments, and DIY hardware and fabrication. The group is based in Portland, Oregon, and includes monome community regular Michael Felix, aka “%.”

The EFFALO crew aren’t just looking for publicity, though; they hope that they can get help, including bright ideas for how to make this project useful, from hackers, designers, and musicians. The Kickstarter project they’ve started isn’t just a beg for money, either – it’s effectively a preorder page for kits for hackers or pre-built devices for non-hackers. A few kits are left, though I expect they won’t last very long after this post.

The potential of a bike-mounted synth also shows how transformative mobile sound synthesis can be. Sure, today’s digital synths aren’t far removed from those available twenty or thirty years ago. But whereas early synths required big budgets and big rooms, making them useful to sound studios or academic research facilities but not much else, sound today can be a commodity. Just as with the display, mobile sound synthesis may have uses far beyond just making unusual music. (That’s why yesterday’s mention of batteries wasn’t just a random post.)

Case in point: Velosynth isn’t alone. Electric cars face a similar challenge; their silent operation means that producing synthesized sound becomes a safety feature. That issue appeared just last week on the superb design blog core77:
An update on “vroom tones” for electric cars

Of course, unlike conventional motors, it’s possible to actually design the sounds transport methods make. That can mean producing sounds that are less disturbing to neighbors and that are simultaneously more effective for localizing where the vehicle is relative to the listener. Another project to watch: the makers of the upcoming OP-1 synth by Teenage Engineering have also engineered an electric bicycle, meaning some sort of interaction between the bike and the synth is possible.

All the details on Velosynth:
http://velosynth.com/

For more tunes by %, check out virb.com/owneroperator

Previous posts on the relationship between bikes and electronic music:
Music Sequencing as Bicycle Wheels, Rubik’s Cubes at Fest in Argentina

Maker Faire: Giant Bicycle-Part DJ Looping Reel-to-Reel Tape Deck

Music for Bicycles: Ensembles, Symphonies, and Bikelophones

Nutcracker Suite Played Exclusively on Bicycle Parts

More Musical Mayhem, Instant Art with Bicycles

How much can you do with a suitcase full of soundmakers? Quite a lot, as it happens.

The 20th Century gave sound two great achievements. One was the successful modeling of filtering in digital software form. The other was the production of the electronic filter, first in quartz crystal form. Today, all of those advancements are available in cheap, often battery-powered devices that fit in the palm of your hand. Spurred by yesterday’s discussion of sonic mobility and battery power, Sasa Rasa points us to the recent work of Chris Carter (of Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey fame).

Chris has built out a set he calls “Chris Carter’s Chemistry Lessons,” featuring a suitcase rig of noisemaking gadgets. Among other devices, this includes a new experimental, DIY noisemaker kit that came out of a collaboration with Dirty Electronics / John Richards. The setup, and accompanying performance, were recently the featured item at an event at Amsterdam’s STEIM, a hub for experimental sound. The contents comprise a veritable guide to what’s useful in mobile music making, without resorting to mobile phones or similar devices, and without, even, any use of MIDI.

Below, one of the setups, combining specialized and custom electronics with some familiar sound objects.

He describes a sample set using the rig on his blog, proudly entitling it no MIDI no keyboards:

I generated some rhythms using two [KORG] Kaossilators – going through two mini KPs, and manipulated some bass loops with a Korg KP3 pad. I had a Chimera BC16 synth (the LFO and the ADSR) voltage controlling a BC9 synth and two Eventide stompboxes. I synced and beat matched on the fly using ‘tap-tempo’ buttons on the Korgs and Eventides.

Equipment shown:
Two Kaossilators, two mini Kaoss pads, a KP3 Kaoss pad, a Tom Bugs WOM synth, Chimera BC8, BC9 and BC16 synths, two Zoom PFX-9003 effects, an Eventide Modfactor, an Eventide Timefactor, a Dirty-Carter E.S.G.I synth, a portable Edirol mixer and a Zoom H2 for recording.
No MIDI, keyboards, laptops or desktop computers were used.

Here’s that set recorded to his Zoom H2 mobile recorder:

no MIDI no keyboards by chris_carter

Is there an advantage to working this way as opposed to assembling a similar arsenal of tools in a computer? Not necessarily. But maybe that’s part of the point: whether you assemble a set of hardware sound boxes, some custom circuits and DSP processing in hardware, a Pd or Max patch on a computer, or a set of effects, you’re engaging in what is fundamentally the same process. The fact that you have all of these choices means there’s really no excuse for not finding some set of tools with which you feel comfortable, and with which you can push the envelope of your own performance style.

Not only that, but even the most die-hard computer lover is likely to find something here – the mobile recorder, one or two of the effects boxes – that would nicely complement their rig.

And what I like about Chris’ examples is that, within the “experimental” aesthetic paradigm he’s set out, there are rich compositional and sonic ideas, modeled in the flow of signal betwixt his noise gadgetry.

Lots of great ideas for useful hardware came up in comments on the battery-powered story, so watch for a further compilation.

If the last decades in technology were about speed, this decade promises to be about power. I don’t mean horsepower: I mean power as in electricity. From concerns environmental to practical, power is now a real variable.

After years of misreading Moore’s Law to mean that all technology would forever double in speed (that would be absurd, and wasn’t what he meant), even those lusting after gadgets have begun to think about power consumption, too. People want longer battery life and leaner energy bills – and psychologically, there is something more than a little ominous about watching an oil well spew petroleum into the Gulf of Mexico. New processor technologies are all about doing more with less, with the lower-voltage chips powering Intel netbooks and longer-life Intel laptops to the ARM architectures inside the iPhone, iPad, Android, and other hot-ticket pocket items.

Music’s part of that trend, too. It’s a natural evolution from production as a room – in the studio – to production anywhere, to production without wall sockets. Musicians are using those other mobile devices (iPhone, etc.), of course, but more conventional, music-specific hardware is getting in on the act, as well. Music industry giant Roland made battery power a feature of their exhibit at the NAMM trade show in January, showing off a whole orchestra worth of battery-powered instruments, and has a new generation of DSP that more easily runs on batteries. Rival Korg has found some of their hottest items, like the compact KAOSSilator, are the ones that you can run even away from a battery socket. And there are many other examples, including mobile recording and practice tools and coach class-ready MPCs. It’s not just about mobile devices: it’s about freedom from wall sockets.

All that is something busking musicians figured out long ago: if you can run on batteries, you can play music anywhere, including outdoors. But this isn’t just for buskers: it can mean impromptu music jams without digging out power strips, the ability to bring a few music gadgets onto a sofa and play with friends, or sitting in bed in the evening with some headphones working out musical ideas – no massive power bricks needed.

So, okay – what can you do on batteries? We’ve seen a number of mobile jams; the latest comes from a group in Spain. Juanjo Javierre writes:

We are five musicians from Huesca (north of Spain) We are member of a workshop called ART LAB Huesca. Last week we play a concert with instruments that works only with batteries: Omnichord, Otamatone, Tenori-on, Nintendo DS, Casiotone, Kalimba, IPad, Stylophone…. An unplugged electronic concert! It´s a joke but we are great fans from your blog and we want that you have the video.

It may be a joke, but it’s something I’m increasingly interested in. The ensemble they’ve entitled “Art Lag Geek Orquestra,” and you can see they’re having a blast. Now they just need a battery-powered mixer and PA, both of which are very possible.

art-lab geek from Art Lab Huesca on Vimeo.

So, I turn the conversation to you: what’s your favorite battery-powered device? iPhone? Casiotone? Got something not mentioned here? (Mobile field recording ought to get a nod, too.) Or do you find for live performance away from the grid, the key word is “generator”?

Native Instruments has updated its sampling engine, releasing beta versions 3.0.5 for its Battery drum sampler and 3.5.0 final for the flagship Kontakt sampler. Both are free upgrades. (For anyone who thought that somehow Maschine was replacing Battery, it isn’t: the former is a drum machine, whereas the latter is more like a high-end drum sampler.)

There are a number of significant enhancements, but perhaps the most interesting is the support for 64-bit memory addressing. On 64-bit Windows Vista (and upcoming 64-bit Windows 7), that gives you true 64-bit memory addressing for — well, more memory than you have. (The theoretical limit of Windows’ 64-bit architecture on Intel is 16 terabytes.) This allows native 64-bit memory addressing on Windows for both Battery and Kontakt.

The Mac isn’t quite capable of that just yet (at least no audio applications beyond Apple’s own developer tools support 64-bit memory addressing yet), but the Kontakt Memory Server gives you up to 32 GB on 10.4 and later. Clarification: The Kontakt Memory Server is available now only for Kontakt.

The other important development for both Battery and Kontakt is that compatibility with Pro Tools 8 under Mac OS 10.5 Leopard has been restored.

Getting Kontakt on 64-bit is a very big deal, because of the widespread popularity of the sampler. At the same time, the fact that it’s not alone is a good thing — it suggests 64-bit memory for samplers may be catching on. Steinberg’s HALion, Cakewalk’s Dimension Pro, Garritan’s ARIA, and the open source Linux Sampler Project are some of the more familiar samplers that have gone 64-bit recently. (Note that, despite its name, Linux Sampler can run 64-bit on both Linux and Windows.) Cakewalk did a lot to lead the way here on Windows by getting both its SONAR host and Dimension Pro (among other plug-ins) fully 64-bit early. Garritan is equally interesting, because their Plogue-based engine is getting licensed out to soundware makers and, architecturally, is built more as a cross-platform engine. Garritan ARIA is also targeting Linux, and Cakewalk and Garritan are also supporting the open SFZ format.

Okay, I should have put that in a table. Imagine a table in your mind. Wow, that looks beautiful.

What else is new in Kontakt

64-bit is the headline, but there are other enhancements, too, in the Kontakt engine:

• “Zero-memory” DFD means you use less memory when streaming from disk (and using less memory is usually the very reason you’re streaming from disk)!
• True multiprocessor/multi-core support for enhanced performance
• A virtual rack of all your installed libraries and third-party content, so it’s easier to find your sounds
• Direct MIDI learn (meaning everything is finally assignable), improved automapping, bypass for effects slots
• Pro Tools compatibility now works properly on Mac Leopard
• KSP aftertouch interpretation – so now you can do something with that aftertouch-transmitting keyboard of yours

Update: Note that these are Kontakt-specific features, and not relevant to Battery for reasons clarified below.

Battery vs. Kontakt

Updated: You will note that Native Instruments is updating Battery and Kontakt more or less at the same time, and they do share some core technologies that allow that to happen. They aren’t exactly the same under the hood, though, as NI explains to CDM:

The core engine technology is the same in Battery 3.0.5 and Kontakt 3.5, but Battery uses a “lighter” version because of its typical use case as a drum sampler.

It doesn’t include the Memory Server and the multiprocessor/multicore support because these features really only become necessary with multitimbral operation, high polyphony and a huge number of instrument samples (and heavy effects usage) like in Kontakt.

Let us know what you think if you’re a Kontakt/Battery user.

New features in Kontakt 3.5 versus 3.0 [Native Instruments]
Public beta of Battery 3.0.5 [at the NI public beta site]

Normally, pricing announcements and sales press releases bore me to tears, but this is actually news – Native Instruments is selling Komplete for July only at just US$/EUR 399, instead of $1139/EUR999.

That means if you were looking for Reaktor alone – about as good a desert island music software choice as you can find – this would be a good deal. You also get Absynth, the absurdly deep (if sometimes baffling) synth with surround sound envelopes and a workflow that could change how you think about sound, the very nice effects and loop recording in Guitar Rig, and the scriptable sampler Kontakt, as well as the Battery drum sampler and lovely Massive synth.

As recession specials go, this is a tough one to beat.

http://www.native-instruments.com/komplete5.info

In other news, we’re opening up more discussion of tools like Reaktor (among many others) to the community here on noisepages; check out Peter Dines’ recent modulations blog for thoughts on Reaktor (and the free and open source SuperCollider), or his just-formed Reaktor group, on which he asks, “what problems are you solving with Reaktor?”

The $.08 Ableton Live Controller

His MySpace blog, 13unluckysongsaboutlove, is filled with more video goodies like this. And we thought MySpace had no redeeming qualities. Ableton Live scene control after the jump.

He also has some tips for working with magnetic strips as a controller, a friend’s project that made the blogosphere rounds a while ago.