Moog Music has made official the launch of the Moogerfooger MF-108M Cluster Flux. Leaked specs went out yesterday. I was editing a book; hopefully you were doing something less work-like, such as sipping beers aside the beach with your iPhones completely powered down and stowed. But now that it’s official, we know full specifications on the hardware (below), and pricing and availability. The Cluster Flux will list for US$599; expect lower prices street. You’ll be able to get it third quarter of this year.

Why is the Cluster Flux worth leaking? Moog already has a lovely line of analog Moogerfooger effects units, but the Cluster Flux is a unique flanger / chorus / vibrato / modulated effect unit. It promises to do the usual sounds those features entail, but loaded up with hardware controls, it can do more, too, says Moog – like a “wider range of modulated delay line effects” more. And in usual Moogerfooger fashion, you get a full complement of CV and MIDI controls, too.

Two other observations: first, the design of this will look familiar to those of you who have used Moog’s iOS app. Second, Cluster Flux to me sounds more like a Metasonix product name than Moog. Actually — no, then it’d be just Clusterf***, and one of those knob labels would require you to shield youngsters’ eyes. And there would be a tube stolen from a rotting Soviet submarine, not what the Moog press release describes as “state-of-the-art all-analog circuitry.”

I’ve been waiting some time for a Moogerfooger to move from “nice to have” territory into “have to have.” And for those of us on a budget, who can’t fill up our studios with Moog hardware the way the company’s NAMM booth exhibits do, that means being choosy. This one could be the one, looking at the specs. I’ll reserve judgment until I get to play with it.

The specs (copying and pasting; I hear editor-sent attack dogs scratching at the door and actually need to run for it so they don’t savagely tear off my limbs — catch you later):

The MF-108M Cluster Flux is more powerful than traditional chorus/flange effects offering musicians the added modulation of multiple LFO waveforms: Sine, Triangle, Square, Saw, Ramp and Random, to create many kinds of new modulated BBD Delay effects. MIDI IN allows control of Delay Time, Range, Feedback, Output Level, LFO Waveform, LFO Rate, LFO Amount and Mix. Additional features include:

· The ability to sync LFO modulation effects to MIDI Clock or Tap Tempo
· The ability to control Delay Time w/ MIDI Notes for “tuned” flanger comb-filter effects.
· CV control of Delay Time, LFO Rate, Feedback, LFO Amount, Mix
· Send/Return Insert for external processing of BBD signals.
· A second output configurable via DIP switches for different types of stereo outputs
· A Spillover mode allows for creation of interesting drones and other feedback effects.
· Control of Delay Time, Mix and Feedback in Chorus setting for extreme chorus effects
· Bi-polar feedback design creates Flanging effects w/ even or odd harmonic emphasis.
· Wide-ranging LFO Rate for very slow to audio rate modulation
· Input/Output Level controls for use w/ wide range of devices.

Readers are already pointing to rival gear from maker Eventide. It’s an apples-to-oranges comparison in some ways — but, then, sometimes you want an apple, sometimes an orange. I hope we’ll get to cover more soon from both these vendors.

What if blowing tunes on beer bottles was raised to the level of musical science?

Through even the mundane medium of packaging, design can transform the everyday. DJ and designer Matt Braun of Philadelphia, collaborating with Chris Mufalli, use labels to tune the level of beer remaining in the bottle for musical results. Pitches are printed on the labels, allowing you to exactly match the liquid inside to a pitch you want, and join along with your fellow imbibers for a performance.

It’s not just a label that’s different. Ridges on the sides of the bottles make them double as Guiro-style percussion. The neck was adjusted for ergonomics. Even the wooden box becomes a tongue drum.

It’s all decidedly non-digital, group fun – Create Beer Music? (Actually, technically, they’re printing with digital tech, the quantization of liquid to discrete equal-tempered pitches is a digital process by definition, and you hold it with your fingers. So there.)

So far, this has been used in a microbrew, but the duo are looking for a partner. I’d love to have this at our next Handmade Music, if any of you are in the bottling business.

Tuned Pale Ale [2d3d5d.com - project site]
Found via the wonderful, whimsical design blog etre, maintained by a usability and design consultancy
Thanks to Johan Strandell / 40hz for the tip.

The Tuned Pale Ale are just one of a number of unique designs from Matt Braun, all emphasizing making the ephemeral world of sound more physical.

Matt’s site is a smörgåsbord of design concepts, many involving creative uses of lasercutters and 3D forms. There are “tuned gig buckets” for busking similar to the beer bottles, useful tools for DJs using 45s, and wooden drums made from digital images of the sounds of other drums, producing “generations” of instruments in which the sound of one gives form to the shape of another.

Two of my favorites are pictured here. Custom-made shirts use user-modifiable CAD illustrations to produce wearable art made from analysis of any sound file – below, Michael Jackson’s P.Y.T. becomes a pink tee. Another project in early development explores making skeletal three-dimensional forms from the structure of musical harmonies.

I look forward to seeing how these projects evolve; Matt’s looking for collaborators.

http://2d3d5d.com/

Digital technology has made music oddly invisible, virtualized somewhere inside a screen – but it also allows music to be mapped more literally to the physical world than ever before. Some of these experiments may even be silly, but they suggest a lot of possibilities.

From Poland, BeatMachine is a project that sequences beats in a step sequencer using discarded beer bottle caps. Would-be Internet haters, I suggest you count the number of beer bottle caps on the table, and start drinking that number while watching. I guarantee eventually it’ll seem like a brilliant idea.

Make sure you keep watching to the clever-looking software they’ve evidently developed for the task.

http://mw.boo.pl/beatmachine/

If this seems familiar, it was in fact inspired by the Bubblegum Sequencer featured here previously, and its rival I Eat Beats. Through the power of the Internet, iterating and improving ideas isn’t just something you do for yourself alone – it’s something you can share with others. That’s the idea behind our own tangible interface hackday coming up on Saturday:

http://hackday.noisepages.com

Thanks to Artur Nowak for the tip. I know we have a number of readers in Poland, so is there anyone who could help with a quick translation?

(Oh, and Poland, by the way – my book was actually translated into your language!)

Ben Rogerson and the blokes at Future Publishing / musicradar.com in the UK got a nice piece of swag: a Pilsner, to be specific. Thank UK distributor Focusrite for this one (which I assume means the brew has not yet graced Ableton’s office here in NYC.)

They did miss the obvious opportunity to offer an Ableton Live Lite. Or perhaps a liqueur called Ableton Evil (that t-shirt remaining the best Ableton swag ever). “Lively up yourself” I guess appeals to UK audiences. I would have called it Live Lager.

That got me thinking – what other music technology beverages can we make up here? Reaktor already sounds a bit like some kind of energy drink. FL Studio aka Fruity Loops could clearly be a sweet, bubbly soda. Someone could stake out organic tea – maybe MetaSynth. Thoughts?

Ableton Live beer: the ultimate live performance tool [musicradar.com]