Evinyatar has commented on our early BCD2000 Not Mac Compatible post to announce that he – sick of waiting for Behringer to actually do something useful with their gear – has written and released OSX Universal drivers (MIDI only so far):

My first subject is Behringer’s BCD2000. When it was released about two years ago it was rumored that MacOS X drivers would be released by the end of 2005. Rather than waiting for those to appear (which they probably won’t) I decided to have a go myself. The result is quite good, if I say so myself. It works, which is more than I expected.

Currently only MIDI in and output works. Audio does not. That means you can control Traktor the way you would on a Windows computer, but you won’t hear anything through the BCD2000’s audio ports or record anything trough them. You can still, of course, use other audio outputs, built-in or external, that do work with MacOS X.

Right now the MIDI input and output are should be identical to the Windows driver in B-DJ mode. Which means a reasonable amount of pain is implied when trying to configure Traktor for the BCD2000. Basically, the same hack that works for Windows (using MIDI-Rules and a loopback device, in our case Apple’s built-in IAC) is also required for Mac. I hope to incorporate similar functionality inside the driver in the future, eliminating the need for the hack. For now, this will have to do. A more detailed guide to setting this up will be posted sometime later this week.

3 days later there’s a release, and he’s gone further: Working on a system which will allow OSX users to actually customize mappings on their BCD:

I have just finished building and testing the Universal Binary driver for the BCD2000. So now you should be able to use the BCD2000 on your PowerBook, iBook, iMac and PowerMac, as well as your MacBook, MacBook Pro, or Mac Pro. As always, you can find the download link over at the “Links” box on the right.

On other news, I’ve been working on a GUI for MIDI Rules, which should make setting up Traktor a bit easier. After that’s done being polished, I’ll release it and write up the HOW-TO for getting Traktor up and running with the BCD2000 on Mac OS X.

Right now, though, I’m being rather intrigued by how audio works on the BCD2000. My pleas for documentation have fallen on deaf ears at Behringer (you’d think they’d be a bit more supportive when you’re doing them a favor like this one), so I’m staring at hex dumps from USB Snoop on my Windows machine trying to figure this stuff out.

This is absolutely stellar news for users, and shockingly poor form from Behringer. That they had both an obvious demand and a 2 year head start and were still beaten to OSX compatibility by a hacker with hex dumps is a pretty apt reflection on their pathetic attitude to customer support.

I’ll be picking up a Macbook (my first) in the coming month or so, but until then I’d love to hear from anyone who’s been able to give this a spin on their Mac. I’ve emailed Evinyatar to get some further information on his process, and I’m thinking of propositioning him to work on an updated Windows driver. Any other frustrated BCD2000 owners out there willing to chip in to fund work on this?

In the meantime, lucky Mac-based BCD2000 owners can download Version 0.0.1 Universal Binary and give them a go.

Guitarists are finally catching up to their keyboard-playing brethren in embracing digital technology due to a spate of recently introduced products, including the RiffWorks guitar jamming software (which includes online collaboration, shown below) and Gibson’s Digital Guitar.

Software for Jamming

We’ve reported before on Sonoma Wirework’s RiffWorks, a brilliant piece of software that allows even technophobe guitarists to jam with their computers simply by strumming their guitar. Version 2, demoed at CES (and Macworld), adds the ability to to collaborate with actual humans over the Internet in real-time or by recording into saved sessions stored on the server. These sessions can be published to a podcast, webcast, or a personal web page with a single click, complete with an embedded Creative Commons license. Personal web pages allow songs to be organized into albums along with album art and liner notes.

The software will be available by the first quarter of 2006 for Windows XP and as a universal binary for Mac OS X on both PowerPC and Intel Macs. Pricing is yet to be determined.

Digital Guitar

Electric guitars haven’t changed much since the 50’s when such new-fangled innovations as humbucking pickups and tune-o-matic bridges were first introduced. But Gibson is about to wake the electric guitar from its slumber with the introduction of the Gibson Digital Les Paul Guitar.

In most respects, this is a conventional Les Paul, fitted with a special HEX pickup that sends signal to the MaGIC-enabled digital transport system. Guitarists needn’t worry that it won’t work with their collection of vintage stomp boxes and amplifiers. The difference is that audio can be sent in both directions over a standard Ethernet cable and signals can be processed on a per-string basis. Guitarists can adjust the volume, pan, and equalization of each individual string, applying different amplification and effects settings for each. That allows for some wicked chorus and reverb effects.

The guitar includes a breakout box with eight ¼-inch jack outputs (one for each string), plus a classic humbucker and a pass-through for microphones. Two inputs can carry audio back to the guitar for monitoring while a split mode assigns strings to different amps.

Gibson also claims to have eliminated noise and hum through the use of digital signal processing technology that occurs within the guitar itself.

Ed.: Note that the good news on the Gibson Digital Guitar is that it should ship this quarter, at long last. The bad news is, it costs US$3900. Don’t give up digital guitars yet if that’s a little too high for your budget: we’ve covered the idea previously in the form of the much cheaper (and arguably more-useful, with a direct computer connection) iGuitar from Brian Moore. -PK

Previously:

RiffWorks Software Perfect for Writing Songs (Music Player Live preview of the software)

Gibson’s Digital Les Paul Guitar: Innovation or Reinvention? Ed.: I should note, I think I was hard on the Digital Guitar as I hadn’t seen it; Lee has and is more enthusiastic. -PK

Blog Coverage:

Live From CES: Gibson Digital Hands-On [Gizmodo.com]

Guitars with optical pickups? Bowed guitars? Weird body-less “frame” electro-acoustics with MIDI? Effects you control with your finger? Why, sure. Read on.

Optical Guitar:
Inventor Ron Hoag will be showing his Optical Guitars (shown at right). If you’re picturing some alien instrument with Theremin-like pickups (something like this, perhaps), think again. The creator says the optical pickups work like ordinary pickups, only better, with “more audio range than other pickups and more responsive to the touch.” Judging by the MP3s on the site, it sounds . . . like a guitar. Should be a good sign.

Bowed Guitar: Now, bowed guitar in itself is nothing new; I’ve even scored music for bowed guitar. But it is tricky to do on a conventional instrument. Enter the DRAMM Botar. (via the excellent AudioMastermind blog) The design concept is great: bend the fingerboard and reshape the body so there’s room for the bow. (The biggest challenge bowing an ordinary electric guitar is usually just accommodating the bow itself, in my experience) There are modifications to the pickups and strings, too, though I’m not clear on that bit. Sadly, no audio files, but maybe I can find this at NAMM.

I Ain’t Got No Body: Also via AudioMastermind is the body-less electro-acoustic Frame Guitar. Is it really “the successful synthesis of traditional craftsmanship and modern technology,” making it the “best sounding electro-acoustic guitar”? I really have no idea. But it looks cool, in that sort of Electric Violin sorta way. (Guitar building is not one of my specializations, so can anyone else out there explain why this design would make a difference?) One thing that’s worth noting on this frame guitar that I do understand: it’s MIDI and digital-ready, with individual string pickups and RMC connectors (low-noise as well as digital), and optional MIDI connectors and MIDI volume. Add this to my list of guitars that seem cooler than the supposedly one-of-a-kind Gibson Digital Guitar that also cost less.

One-Fingered FX Salute: Lastly, if you want an effect as unusual as these guitars to plug into, Modern Guitars gets the scoop on a finger-controlled wah/filter effect called Hot Hands. (via Music thing The fact that it comes from noted hardware maker Analog Devices
mean it’s nothing to sneeze at. As for the fact that a finger sensor on a ring (shown below) lets you control it, that could be a sign that musical instrument design is finally getting more adventurous. Nothing on the Web yet, so I’ll wait for an in-person demo at NAMM if I can find the time. (And I might just find the time: ironically, finger control makes even more sense for keyboardists, I think!)

Open Labs’ NeKos are powerful keyboards that pack a full-blown Windows PC, tuned software, and control surfaces into a single musical instrument. They’ve got some heavy-hitting celebrity endorsements, and they’re rugged: one NeKo managed to continue functioning after being being beaten with a baseball bat and set on fire by DJ Richard Devine.

This month, Open Labs unveiled the next-generation NeKo keyboard: sexier looking, more features, and cheaper. Porsche car paint, faster processors (up to a dual core 64-bit AMD CPU), Pro Tools software, and even Borg-like ability to clone your hardware synths and automatically create multisamples. Priced for mortals, too: US$2,295 gets you all the basics, up to US$5,995 for the absolute top-of-the-line. More after the jump.

What’s new:

Faster/cheaper: The top-of-the-line NeKo 64 has been upgraded to a dual-core 2.0 AMD Athlon 64-bit brain, but it’s $4,000 cheaper than before (now US$5,995).

Quieter: RunSilent features let you throttle back temperature and fan speeds for ultra quiet operation (like during recording).

More responsive: PowerRush adapts CPU clock speeds on the fly to respond to load.

Faster data: Serial ATA 3GB/s support for new high-speed hard drives.

Prettier: New color scheme using the same paint used on Porsche automobiles. (Just hope Richard Devine doesn’t key your keyboard.)

More M-Powered: Pro Tools M-Powered is now included standard. (Though you know I’ll be using SONAR and Ableton Live, of course.)

More Expandable: 5 PCI Express / 4 available. (Note that like the new Power Macs from Apple, plain-vanilla PCI is gone.) Hard drive options are up, too: up to 1 Terabyte on the LE, or 2 Terabytes on the high-end 64.

Sounder: Uh . . . soundier? 5,000 presets plus an upgrade to Open Labs’ Karsyn software (1.5), shown below.

More Controllable: Dedicated buttons launch the most used apps, controllers all map automatically for different software, and more applications now include preset maps.

More Borg-y: The clone hardware option lets you assimilate hardware synth technology into the NeKo.

That last feature is especially intriguing. The Neko’s clone hardware feature lets it automatically multisample any other instrument, pumping out MIDI for different velocities, etc., and then automatically recording, looping, and converting the resulting sounds. You can then export the results as HALion, Vsampler, or SoundFont2. (Hey, no Kontakt? Oh, well.) You can use the features for traditional sample creation, too, by starting with an uncut sample file.

Here’s my question: any reason Open Labs can’t release this feature as software, too? It’s not the first time this sort of thing has been tried, but it sounds like they’ve done a really nice job with it.

But I’ve saved the best feature for last. I hear the new NeKo has automatic defense systems. Now if Richard Devine comes after it with a blowtorch and a baseball bat, it can fight back.

Run, Richard, run!

Gibson Digital Guitar

The success of the digital Les Paul has turned out not to dependent on reinventing anything, but on Gibson actually shipping the product. Friday at Digital Life Expo here in NYC, they at least provided hands-on experience. (See Gizmodo writeup; more on that in a second.) But the product still isn’t due to ship until early next year, and Gibson has delayed promised ship dates before.

The “Digital Guitar” probably isn’t quite what you think, either. The digital connection out of the guitar has to be converted back to analog before you can use it, because of the way Gibson designed the system . . .

Of course, there’s nothing terribly magical about converting analog pickups to digital form. Brian Moore Guitars, among other makers, have been doing this for some time. The ingredients are relatively simple: you have a hex pickup, one for each string, 13-pin RMC connectors which carry analog signal from each pickup, and a USB box like Roland’s GI-20 that converts to MIDI and digital audio for the computer. (The upcoming iGuitar.USB allows direct audio connections, but you’ll still need RMC to convert to MIDI — just in case you want to play that far-out soft synth by plucking, or transcribe a tune into a notation program.)

Here’s where things get a little odd: if Gibson is creating a “magical” connection from guitar to computer, you’d think you’d be able to directly connect the Ethernet cable. Wrong. You still need a breakout box. Not only that, but the breakout box does something kind of strange: it converts analog back to digital again. (See Gibson’s how it works.) The major advantage of this is that you have full control over each pickup and how it’s used. That’s pretty cool, and that’s why at Digital Life they showed off a test with the Digital Guitar and Cakewalk’s SONAR with each string routed to a different surround speaker.

But what’s odd here is, you go to all this trouble of creating an “innovative” digital guitar — only to wind up with analog signals again at the end. That SONAR demo? They plugged the multiple analog channels back into an analog audio card on the computer. You’ve got no MIDI control, and no digital connection to the computer.

So what’s the point of the Digital Guitar? Underneath all the hype, is just comes down to audio transmission. You can run a connection from the Digital Guitar up to 200 meters — something you can’t do with an analog connection. And by putting the digital conversion on the guitar, that keeps the whole connection out of the guitar clean.

Not necessarily a bad thing, but I’ll bet it’s not what people imagine when they hear “Digital Guitar.” For most people, this system simply has no major advantages. Most people want a stereo-only configuration anyway, not some weird surround setup with different strings going to speakers. And you have the disadvantages of digital systems (a breakout box, which Gibson inexplicably calls BoB), with none of the normal advantages (digital recording, processing, and MIDI control.)

If MIDI control is what you want, or if you want a direct-digital connection to your computer, why not just buy a Brian Moore guitar instead? It’s shipping now, and you’ll find the price is less than buying a high-quality guitar and adding pickups yourself.

I’m not dismissing the Gibson yet; I just want more of a non-marketing-speak explanation of why it makes sense. Gibson is in town this week for Music Player Live, so hopefully I’ll be able to go direct to the source. Stay tuned.

See also:

FireWire Electric Guitar (no, I don’t know why it has no knobs)

iUke USB Ukulele: More Details, USB Guitar is Coming Soon

Ars Electronica Review [pieceofplastic.com]

Ars Electronica photostream [Flickr]

Tangible interfaces [engadgeted.net], again featuring the ReacTable — see CDM’s musical table roundup

One of the highlights was the Tenori-On, an interactive LED music toy from the creator of Nintendo’s upcoming game ElectroPlankton, as covered here before. But the coolest event sounds like the opening performance “Suspended Engines” (pictured), with video and music live in an engine shop of the Austrian Railway. (Blog details are sketchy, but see Fashionable Technology.) Now, if only they had a train controller for the performance.

Huggable musical orbs? A tabletop music game in which you throw around virtual MIDI balls? Digital windchimes? Installations of giant ears, spheres, and a washing machine you stick your head into?

Playing with sound like this must mean you’re at Cybersonica, London’s massive interactive music + sound technology expo. And CDM was there to — well, okay, I wasn’t there, sadly. Our online friends were, though; here are their full reports:

Chris O’Shea (pixelsumo) reports on digital wind chimes (and presented, too!)

The new MAzine blog, devoted to networked art, reports on giant ears, spheres, swarms, and more

The legendary Near Near Future’s Regine reports on orbs you can hug, virtual balls you can play with, washing machines you can stick your head in, and a keynote on why digital art in 2005 may be a lot like 1734.

Personally, I like playing with balls, be they virtual balls or giant huggable orbs. So, what’s with all these interactive tables? See my previous report on tracking the use of tabletop interfaces. If this one looks familiar, there’s a reason: it’s based on the previous Interactive Surround Sound Cube. I like the idea of tabletop interfaces: maybe soon we can incorporate pool/ping-pong and cupholders, too, features my factory-standard Mac tower lacks.

Not new, but worth mentioning: fREQ
is a project exploring the conversion of drawn waveforms into sound:
visual waveforms control a drone in real-time. You can download a free
mouse and keyboard version (PC only). That's fun, but the installation
version (first shown about a year ago) is cooler: it takes an outline
of the shadow you cast on the waveform projection and turns that into
sound. fREQ is the creation of UK-based art/music/interactive coalition
Squidsoup.

Thanks to Chris O'Shea for the tip, who incidentally has a great blog on interactive technology (physical computing, installations, etc.).

Music is just getting head-y these days, at least at near near future.

Not satisfied with a single brain cap for making music (see earlier on CDM), James Fung at the University of Toronto has hooked up 48 people's EEG brain waves to the computer for some group biofeedback. (near near future story)

Then again, you could just hit someone's head.
(Well, virtual head in this case, though some of us have tried this
with real people, too!) It's called the drum|head (insert groans here).

Meanwhile, you're not giving up your favorite axe just yet, as indicated by the CDM favorite instrument poll.
What we've learned: you prefer keyboards and guitars to brain caps or
even just jamming with your laptop, and you LOVE voting multiple times
to skew poll results. (Speaking of which, that keyboard / guitar debate
is still quite close. Vote early, vote often.)

We've been saying for ages Apple needs to develop a music player for DJs. Jason O'Grady has been saying it for two years. Well, Apple, HP is likely to beat you to the punch:

The owners of the Playlist club
in London (which features a night for iPod DJs just like APT here in
NYC) alerted CDM to an exclusive interview with the team at HP
developing the DJammer handheld DJ device. Here's why it's going to
replace the iPod in clubs:

• Mic input
• Hold/scratch tracks, via sophisticated motion sensors
• More than a DJ device: sounds like a motion-sensitive portable
  sampler; HP says it will be "the new electric guitar" — we'll see, but
  it does look like a real instrument
• Streaming to other devices for collaboration
• HP team wants an open interface

This sounds huge — if the device makes it to market. Let's hope the honchos at HP see the value of this research.

Read Playlist's full interview with HP.
HP DJammer research page