When we last joined our friend Gustavo Bravetti, Uruguay’s Ableton maestro, he was showing us how to glitch out with Live. Now he’s on Hong Kong-based DJ site djvox with a comprehensive set of Live tutorials. These are not necessarily the usual “how to use Live” fare. Instead, they focus on musical techniques, with Live as the tool — a means to an end, and a way to approach Live as an instrument, rather than a duplicate manual.

First up — one of my favorite tricks, which is building bass drum sounds in Operator. Not everyone loves Operator, but this is exactly why I like it for certain tasks: it’s a no-nonsense, quick way of building synths that drops nicely into a Drum Rack for quick DIY drum machines. And that pitch envelope and all-in-one time controls are especially handy.)

And for IDM lovers, here are some clever tricks for creating rhythmic variations using envelopes and follow actions. This one is especially worth a trip through the guide, even if you have different musical results in mind, because it’s an exceptional description of how follow actions work — one that’s actually better than the manual’s.

That gives you an idea of what Gustavo is working with, but be sure to check out the full guide for more details and step-by-step instructions, friendly even to beginners.

He even gives a shout out to the open-source 3D webcam MIDI controller for Windows we looked at last year.

Looking forward to more iProducer installments, Gustavo! And readers, now you know what to do with your evening / weekend / sick day you’re about to call in. Erm, if you’re not too busy building an arcade cabinet for Live first, that is.

iProducer: A Creativity Upgrade [Ableton Live tutorial on djvox]

(By the way, for digital crate-diggers: snooping around that Hong Kong site, you can buy downloads there internationally, though they wind up being a bit steep in US dollars.)

Windows is getting enough instrument and effect madness for free to make your head spin — a lot of it previously commercial software. Here’s the latest addition: Beatburner, a looping sampler combined with a wave shaper and enveloped filter. In short, Beatburner takes your loops and makes them into sonic insanity. I’ve been playing with it a bit this evening, and making things sound … well, scary. As the author describes it:

BeatBurner, using innovative wave shaping and filtration methods, turns innocent drum beats, loops or sounds into new, fresh and vibrant audio parts for you to incorporate into your musical arrangements. BeatBurner comes with a myriad of sample loops to get you started but it doesn’t stop there, you can mangle, whittle or process any sound you want! Full automation and preset morphing means there are literally no limits to the soundscapes you can create.

Beatburner is NOT made with Synthedit.

Beatburner blog, downloads, and donation link, via DigitalLoFi

The plug-in also includes a healthy selection of bass and drum loops to get you playing right away.

I like having some free software to add to the arsenal — you get to experiment with some unusual soundmakers without the pressure of, you know, having a financial investment on the line. And if you appreciate the developer’s work, send a donation. There are still quite a few tools worth paying for, but I’ve gotten some musical ideas jump-started with the free stuff, too.

This isn’t the only free plug-in from Fat-Ass (aka CodeAudio, and yes, that’s their real name — I’m not just being mean or something). There are a whole bunch of synth and effects plugs available for free, some quite nice.

Just keeping score: on Windows, you can grab the rich Acusticaudio Nebula Hispasonic edition, a faux Commodore 64, the unique and powerful Open Circuit sampler, many of the excellent xoxos plug-ins and the highly-controllable Mechaverb, and the now-open source discoDSP HighLife sampler from the late Argu, all for free. There are a zillion more great choices from Adrian Anders, as well.

We got an interesting discussion going on the last free round-up here. It almost became a boring platform war, but for the most part, it went more along the lines of asking, honestly, why is there so much more free stuff for Windows? (And 7oi showed up, whose music I really love, a sign that it wasn’t just another boring platform thread.)

The conclusion for Mac users:

1. Check out Studiotoolz to track down hundreds of free Mac tools. There’s still not the quantity or quality of what’s on Windows, but there’s easily enough to distract you from doing any real work — erm, I mean, round out your creative arsenal.

2. Look at the open source SonicBirth for making your own plug-ins, along the lines of SynthEdit and SynthMaker on Windows. If Mac developers start to embrace this tool, it should deepen the available options

Before I start talking about the fact that there’s a full-featured, stylus-controlled, vintage-gear sampling, officially-sanctioned, drool-inducing Nintendo DS synth plus drum machine plus sequencer reimagining of the classic Korg MS-10 analog synth, I have three words you really don’t want to hear:

“FOR JAPAN ONLY”

Correction: Despite what the website says, the DS-10 is in fact getting an international release!

Product info, specs, samples [AQ Interactive; English]

Blog [Japanese only]

Music sample

Via Music Thing and CDM comments (thanks, Thomas)

Features:

• Dual dual synths: Two patchable virtual synths, with two oscillators each
• Drum machine: Four-part drum machines loaded with samples of the virtual synth
• Sequencer: 2 synth tracks, 4 drum machine tracks, 16 steps
• Effects: Delay, chorus, flanger
• Input methods: Touch-control screen with real-time sound control, a keyboard screen, and matrix screen

Free, odd soundware keeps on coming — hot on the heels of faux bent instruments and a tape-recorded Roland 606 and 808, here are more sounds to satisfy your need for unusual sounds.

Stephen Haunts was inspired by the cassette-recorded 808, and writes to tell us he’s decided to give something back. He’s uploaded 22 kits from a Korg ElecTribe ER-1, a kit from a Yamaha DD-10 (pictured amusing the awkward fellow at right from the manual), and a Yamaha PSS-80. The Yamahas steal the show: they’re little toy keyboards with a decidedly lo-fi sound. I always admired the Japanese sound designers for their minimalism on these low-end hardware units. You almost don’t need to circuit bend this.

Free Drum Machine Samples by Creature [Haunted House Records]

Stephen, aka Creature, used these samples for his Distant Horizon album featured in Mike Una’s round-up of music from the forums.

Toy drums not to your liking? How about a toy music box instead?

Our friend Tom at Music Thing has repaired and sampled his Fisher Price record player music box, then uploaded the results to the open source soundware site Freesound:

Sampling a Fisher Price Music Box Record Player [Music Thing]

You may remember said Fisher Price kit from the tongue-in-cheek Fisher Price turntable “review” by DJ Tech Tool’s Ean Golden.

What’s great about both these sound collections is they’re actually different enough to give you some real inspiration musically. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think it’s time to take my handheld recorder around the house and grab some other sounds.

There’s a disturbing amount of free sound-making stuff out there, enough to clutter up your VST folder and make you forget where you put that multi-tap delay you wanted. It’s a beautiful thing. So, as a regular, erm, public service, I’ll be semi-regularly rounding up some of the free instruments and effects appearing around the Interwebs.

This week: a brilliantly deep reverb, plus everything from a beat box (as in human beat box) to a motorcycle simulator.

Hayden Bursk, aka CDMer ohtravioso, has built a brilliant free game-slash-step sequencer for Windows, downloadable free. The ghosts represent music tracks moving across a grid; drag and drop bubbles representing sprites in one of four different views for different samples and simultaneous tracks (4 ghosts each = 4 tracks x 4 screens = 16 tracks).

Beat Step Sequencer [YoYo Games]

You can make your own games at YoYo using simple tools

Where it gets interesting is the ability to change the direction of the moving ghosts. Hold down the W, A, S, and D keys and click on a square, and you can add an arrow that redirects the path of the ghost. That allows you to create irregular, syncopated patterns and manipulate a pattern as it unfolds rather than let it repeat endlessly.

Part of why I think a lot of electronic music ends up being needlessly repetitive is that the interfaces we use too often encourage that repetition — or make it too difficult to introduce change. You can work around that limitation to inject variety, or even musically harness the repetition itself. But changing just a key variable in this case makes a very different step sequencer.

The step sequencer also works with your own samples, so you could actually use it live. Now if it could just sync … get that tap tempo ready.

Next step, Hayden: add in Pac-Man himself (or Ms. Pac-Man, if you prefer) and let us play the game while playing the samples!

Digital samples got no soul? How about digital samples of tape and cassette samples of classic Roland instruments? Huggie from New Zealand (and Goldbaby Productions) has been producing some lovely sample libraries from favorite gear, free and payware. He’s posted two of the best as freebies to the CDM forums. The hook: they’re recorded on analog before being sampled again.

There’s a TR606 recorded to an Ampex 1/2 inch 2-track tape machine, which appeared around Christmas. And this week, we got a superb 808 samples set recorded to a portable Marantz deck. (Funny, I’ve spent some quality time with both recorders, so that adds extra nostalgia.)

Less this all be chalked up to simple novelty, I have to admit you get a nice, warm sound out of the results. I’m dropping these on some Drum Racks in Ableton as we speak.

And here’s what it sounds like in action:
Cassette 808 Demo [mp3]

Free Tape606 sample pack… Merry Christmas! [CDM forums in December]

The Cassette 808 sample pack! Old skool and free… [CDM forums]

Free Stuff @ Goldbaby (other goodies, too, but for these scroll to the very bottom and look for Tape606 sample pack and The Cassette 808)

Thanks, huggie! Good stuff. Anyone else with soundware they want to share, please let us know.

Luigi Felici and the folks over at Nusofting have put the finishing touches on Broken Drum Machine- a VST synth that emulates quite well the sounds and function of a circuit-bent or otherwise broken drum machine.

As they describe it, “To the fact that the broken sound is desirable. Yes! Knobs turn for satisfaction defective!”

Squarely in the “not seen at NAMM” category, the Bubblegum Sequencer uses differently-colored bubble gum balls, arranged in a grid of holes, to create rhythmic patterns. It’s not exactly a leap forward for music — you wind up with a pretty simple drum step sequencer — but it does look like fun. Or it would be, except I’d wind up eating the tangible sequencer. Note to self: make interfaces out of something I won’t devour.

What’s rather interesting here is that the whole system uses computer vision analysis — a camera spots the gum balls by color. One thing that means is that you could skip the grid altogether and apply this to something very different.

The hyper-rational voiceover I find really amusing. Now, just add hard-disk recording next year, and the Bumblegum 5000 could  in fact be at NAMM.

Thanks, Johan!

Updated! Holy crap! Analog Industries has started a blog war:

Peter Kirn got all up in our grill with a bubblegum sequencer over on CDM. Well, Peter. I’ll see your bubblegum sequencer, and raise you one done with Skittles.

“I Eat Beats” Skittle Sequencer

I Eat Beats from Kyle McDonald on Vimeo.

But, come on, Chris. I enjoy my Skittles now and then, but bubble gum is more delicious, and you can’t blow a bubble with a Skittle.

I have heard that Moog Music is introducing a Candy Sequencer OS (Old School), using salt water taffy. And looking at comments, the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression this year may just turn into a massive rumble / turf war of tangible interfaces. Which is why my tangible interface will be Pop Rocks.

Updated, again! Still more. This time, Evan from thisisnotalabel sees our bubblegum sequencer and raises us a ball bearing sequencer. Careful, though, kids. Those are not edible. Choking hazard!

Still more: it’s a dining table as musical interface, in a sonically-augmented culinary artwork: