For the last few decades, generally speaking, we’ve had computers, and we’ve had physical, modular, analog gear. Computers are endlessly patchable, but not using physical cords. Modulars use physical cords, but they lack the flexibility (and affordability) of a computer.

Now, US$25 and an Arduino can change that.

rePatcher is a simple, tangible modular interface for computers. It could work with any software, but right out of the gate it already works with two popular (virtual) patching environments, Max/MSP and the free and open source Pure Data (Pd). You use physical patch cords to make connections, and those connections are reflected in the patch you see on the screen. The patch cords are coupled with requisite encoders for dialing in additional parameter changes. (Reason comes up as a possible candidate for additional compatibility, which would, of course, be really sweet.)

rePatcher is built as a shield for Arduino, so you’ll need one of those, but that still keeps the price low enough to say I absolutely have to have one of these right now.

It’s not the first attempt to do something like this, but it might be the most accessible and affordable – and interesting. And while those cute little patch cords are fun, there’s nothing stopping someone from building on this idea and going to bigger cords and something more extensive than this 6×6 matrix.

Best of all: the magic happens entirely over USB, so if you want to make this work with something else – say, your favorite VJ software – you can do so with anything that can communicate over serial.

More information:
http://www.openmusiclabs.com/projects/repatcher/

Touchable tablets may be all the rage at the CES trade show, showcase to consumer-friendly gadgetry. But quietly, developer Sensomusic has accomplished multi-touch control of an open-ended music system on standard-issue PCs and accessories. They’ve pointed the way to just what this mechanism could be.

The latest video isn’t terribly easy to see, but it realizes something that has been the dream of fans of the music control protocol OSC (OpenSoundControl). “Learn” functionality lets you touch a control, then assign that control to something in your music software. But because these functions have relied on MIDI, they’ve generally been a bit arbitrary – touch one thing at a time, get a number for that thing, then assign that number to a controller. It works well enough, provided you step through each control. OSC promises to do more, though: an arbitrary touch controller on, say, your iPhone (or anything else) can have a plain-English name. And you can see multiple parameters appear on the screen at once, so that a sensor or multi-touch pad could have all its messages pop up at the same time.

Finally, Usine does OSC Learn correctly, with messages that pop up with names and get connected to whatever you like. I still think there’s more potential here to be plumbed, but it’s a great step.

If you don’t follow why that’s cool, check out another mapping notion from last year – here using a touch panel to make any graphic playable. And at the end of this story, check out the clever multitouch gesture recognition they’ve added.

Again, all of this you can do with standard-issue hardware – Apple iOS hardware, if you like, controlling a PC, or non-Apple hardware displays with touch or Android devices and the like. (Unlike the Emulator we saw earlier today or the original Lemur device, it’s a software solution that works with your hardware of choice.) More to watch:

More information (and more videos):
http://www.sensomusic.com/usine/

For fans of slicing, dicing, glitching, reversing, and shuffling incoming audio streams, this Max for Live Device is for you. Shuffler 2.0 is the latest in a series of “modular” Max for Live devices from developer Isotonik Studios. Mappable to MIDI, the suite of Devices focuses on simpler tasks in ways that can be combined. There are interactive Follow Actions, for instance — a feature I’ve long argued should be native to Ableton Live — plus tools for more easily mapping MIDI to envelopes. There’s a convenient Looper.

From last week, there’s a module called Smart, capable of mapping some eight macros to one knob.

The entire series is sold as a subscription for 17 quid:
http://isotonikstudios.com/modular/

Check out the Follow actions in the video below.

First-party touch control is gradually coming to big-name DAWs. There are plenty of third-party applications that allow control of music software, but until now, we’ve only seen Cubase iC from Steinberg for native control. Anyone who was betting Apple would be first for GarageBand or Logic, guess again – following Cubase over one year earlier, MOTU Digital Performer now comes with bi-directional mixing, transport, and editing features. (This should come as little surprise after MOTU added native OpenSoundControl support to their flagship Digital Audio Workstation.)

Correction: In the original version of this story, I suggested that MOTU DP Control was the “first” first-party app to offer native iOS touch control support, which is patently wrong. Steinberg’s Cubase iC absolutely deserves that honor, as noted by Chris Randall. I apologize for the mistake – it illustrates that, in over a year, no one other than Steinberg has entered this area, satisfied to leave it to third-party developers. MOTU does deserve to be the first major commercial DAW with OSC control, however, meaning one difference between the Cubase implementation and DP implementation is the fact that it’s accessible from any hardware or software that uses OSC. (Previously, that was true only of the open source DAW Ardour.)

In a wisely generous gesture, MOTU has released the control app for free for customers of DP 7.2 and up (as is Cubase iC also free, incidentally).

The app looks quite nice. I doubt that it’ll fully replace motorized control surfaces, but it doesn’t have to – even if you own such a control surface, having a handheld additional controller can be quite convenient.

DP users have expressed a desire to control more than the current OSC API allows, so I expect they’ll be vocal about what should be in a future release of this app. In the meantime, though, there’s access to quite a lot of the functionality you need. From MOTU’s feature list:

• Real two-way communication: changes made in DP Control are immediately reflected in DP, and vice versa.
• Editable time counter with selectable format (including real-time, SMPTE time, samples, and marker names).
• Main transport control and many other transport-related Control Panel functions (click, countoff, memory-cycle, etc.)
• Page-controlled, scrollable mixer with animated, recordable pan knobs and volume sliders, plus level meters and peak indicators.
• Solo, Mute, Record-enable, Play automation, Record automation and automation mode settings for each track.
• Track list for the host DP project, complete with collapsable nested track folders and dynamically linked track organization that matches the currently open DP project on the host Mac.
• Infinite undo, with the ability to step through the next and previous tasks in the host DP project undo history.
• Marker creation and naming.
• New Take, Previous Take, and Next Take functions that operate on all of the record-enabled tracks at once (essential for tracking drums).
• Take selection, by name, for individual tracks. Also New Take, Delete Take, and Rename Take for the current take on any individual track.
• Save function for saving changes made to the DP document.

Full details:
DP Control App

Of course, it’s one thing to read about software on paper. DP users, let us know how this works in practice, especially since you’ll be able to grab it for free if you own an iPod touch, iPad, or iPhone.

Touch performance control on devices like the iPhone and iPad has become increasingly popular, but the question remains: can developers push these interfaces further? Richie Hawtin has initiated a new touch control project and promises more “advanced” control of Ableton Live for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users.

Details remain murky – developers Liine say they’ll tease out features over the coming weeks. But the system, when fully revealed, will be modular, with a set of touch objects and gestures across a set of apps that provide touch control. The first application is Ableton Live-specific, and provides a new mechanism for controlling Live’s grid of clips. The developers say Griid makes it easier to find clips and see information about them, even when navigating large sets of clips. (You know who you are, those of you with enormous Live sets with a zillion colored clips.)

Different editions will scale to different screen sizes, with Griid Pro for iPad, and Griid for iPhone/iPod touch, plus a Lite version for free.

What all of this means or whether it lives up to these claims is, well, a complete unknown outside of the Plastikman stage. That is, unless you happen to be in Barcelona at SONAR this weekend. Tomorrow, Saturday, Richie will be demonstrating the app in person. Liine tells us:

“At the hands-on Richie will show how he uses the app in his Plastikman Live show. There will also be another laptop or two set up and hooked up with Griid so that they can give it a try themselves.”

If you can make it and want to report back to the rest of us, I’d love to hear it. And I expect to bring more info to CDM soon, if not. But it certainly works for Richie; check out the video below of him using the tool at Detroit’s Movement festival, for his new Plastikman Live show. (And yes, this is bringing back Plastikman and more of the live performance, rather than simply DJ, the side of Richie a lot of us love best.)

http://liine.net/griid/
http://liine.net/

If you’re at SONAR, check out http://ghost.m-nus.com/ (and if you’re not, that site has live streams and audio – warning, audio auto-plays!)

The video cuts fast, but in these still images, you can get a better view of the software and Richie’s setup, including the JazzMutant Lemur touch hardware and Behringer BCF-2000 motorized hardware faders alongside the iPad:

Ander sends us his creation, “Station,” a brilliant-looking MIDI controller built on the ucapps.de hardware platform. It could easily have qualified for the kinds of designs in the dreams competition – except he went ahead and made it. He filled it in with RGB LEDs, touch pads, and new SMD-based hardware.

The impact of the colored LEDs is something that provides some of the visual feedback of a touchscreen, but with real, tactile control and the satisfaction of using something physical. I challenge the iPad running TouchOSC (or Lemur, or anything else) to a smackdown with this gorgeous beast. Even as a fan of some of the advantages of touch, I suspect the iPad would lose rather spectacularly.

I asked Ander for more technical details:

have a look at MIDIbox of the Week: Station MIDI controller by Ander – MIDIbox Forum There is a diagram about the LEDs and knobs. For the touch pads I am using force sensors at the moment, but they are terribly expensive. I will be switching to FSRs

Some stats, if you want to know more just ask.

- based on the open hardware platform ucapps.de
- Aluminium casing, custom made
- Acrylic knobs, also custom made
- Modularized, can be made into any form
- Flexible PCB: can hold sensors, encoders and/or buttons
- Custom firmware on the microcontrollers
- Custom software interface on the host computer which interfaces via MIDI (in my case to Live)
- RGB LEDs, 24bit color depth (technically)
- USB interface (plus power, this thing needs a lot of power for all these LEDs)
- I have not counted the buttons

It’s an epic piece of work, a real testament to the efforts of its builder. We’ll need a new category of competition, for things other people already made that we dream about / covet anyway.

Nerd alert: Ander, the name “Station” is a reference to Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, and “Do you want to know more?” in the YouTube description to Starship Troopers … right? (Actually, even if I’m wrong, I’ve just identified myself as a dork cinematic connoisseur.)

Thanks to cooptrol for the tip, too!

Didgeridoo from bar|none on Vimeo.

You can’t quite dance to it, but bar|none has a beautifully-shot video of a strange, invented instrument constructed with some of the technologies we saw last week. As noted then, new support for OSC in the powerful Kyma sound system means the ability to control imagined instruments in more sophisticated, higher-resolution ways. Just days later, bar|none responded to my post with one of his first experiments. It’s just the beginning of his work, so judge it accordingly – think of the first emanations of a newly-created musical instrument – but it’s a reminder that far-out ideas are possible when you combine custom soundmakers with expressive control.

The controller is Jeff Snyder’s Manta, a touch-sensitive controller with velocity sensitivity and a 6×8 array of hexagons. Jeff showed off his instrument at Handmade Music Monday night here in New York; I hope to follow up with a closer look at the Manta soon. Notably, the Manta is not an OSC device; it’s an HID USB device, just as a typical mouse or keyboard is. HID, the standard drivers for which are included in every desktop OS, also supports high-resolution data, so it’s a second alternative to MIDI for input.

My first Kyma X patch for the Pacarana. Kyma is unreal and let’s you do almost anything in Sound Design. I took a concept of a didgeridoo patch on my modular and built it back in Kyma but with even more expression. This is still a work in progress.

The touchplate is a Snyderphonics MANTA. I spent some time coding some algorithms in MAX to enhance the performance control of the patch using velocity, aftertouch and polyphonic aftertouch + controls using OSC to Kyma.

The Manta is a fantastically wonderful controller. It shows it’s [sic] flexibility and feel here.

The patch is microtonal meaning pitches are in divisions of the western concept of half and whole tones.

Since that video, he’s been trying more sonic ideas:

Been messing with this sound and here’s a version where the didgeri is resonating as if it were a metalic vibrating tube as well. This is just trying to see the kind of sounds I can get out of the patch.

soundcloud.com/barnone/karplusdigeri

This makes me wish I could afford this setup, but if, like me, you’re on a tighter budget, the ideas here could easily be applied to other rigs. Keep the experiments coming!

Updated: bar|none aka Chris Lloyd shares his camera of choice: it’s a Canon 7D with a 50mm 1.4 lens for the “Bokeh blur effect,” a tip from stretta.

Connecting stuff is one of the things musicians naturally do with gear. So, there’s really no reason that musical gear shouldn’t network as easily as Web servers. And yet a basic protocol, built largely on existing standards, meets with responses like this:

“We’ll support OSC when there’s hardware out there.” “Name one piece of hardware that supports OSC other than the Lemur.”

OSC has some major advantages as a network protocol, as a way of connecting software with software, software with hardware, and yes, even hardware with hardware. It doesn’t have to “compete” with MIDI – you can even send MIDI message data over OSC, thus taking advantage of features OSC has that MIDI doesn’t (like time stamps, which your tools could use to calculate latency even if you don’t use them directly). Yet I’ve been listening to this argument for years now. “Any computer” counts as an OSC device, but even when tens of millions of iPhones and iPod touch devices hit the market (not to mention other mobiles), software developers were still pointing to a (completely absurd) “lack of hardware.” How tens of millions of gadgets can count as “nothing,” I don’t know, but maybe it’s because a lot of them were phones, not music devices.

Well, here’s a combination that ought to get someone’s attention. With the iPad about to launch next month – likely to be followed by more multitouch devices running Android, Linux, and Windows – we’re not just talking phones any more. And the folks at Symbolic Sound, makers of the insanely-powerful sound generation Kyma environment, are adding a proper OSC implementation. Even if you have no interest in the (wonderful) Kyma, now available in more-affordable Paca(rana) devices, this is one to watch.

What you can do:

Use OSC directly, via a direct connection and even onboard Ethernet on the Paca(rana). That opens up the use of devices like Lemur, and, yes, iPad.

Use MIDI over OSC from your existing MIDI devices and software. Explanation (again, worth reading even if you aren’t in the market for a Kyma):
http://www.symbolicsound.com/Learn/BidirectionalMIDIStreamsOverOSC

In this case, the OSC connection acts as a virtual MIDI devices, with three merged inputs and one output. The same is possible on other devices, too, however, meaning that combining OSC and MIDI doesn’t have to be a chore.

Details on the software update:

OSC-enabled Kyma X.74 is a free software update for registered Kyma X owners. OSC communication requires the Paca or Pacarana sound engine. Kyma X.74 also comes with additional features, including an 11-times speedup in the Virtual Control Surface, support for the MOTU Ultra Lite Hybrid mk3, TC Electronic Impact Twin, and Prism Audio Orpheus converters, track-pad compatible menus, refinements to the Tau resynthesis, and more.

Open Sound Control (OSC) for Kyma: Bidirectional communication between Kyma, iPad, Lemur, and other OSC-enabled devices & software

And if you’re using Max and Max for Live, you can use a custom external for MIDI over OSC in that environment, as well. (That said, control of Live could be more intuitive if Ableton were to evaluate native OSC control support in Live, as currently exists in nearly all mainstream live visual applications. There’s an unofficial method that demonstrates just how powerful this can be — see comments.)

Max and Kyma

Kyma is still a high-end solution, but at least the entry-level Paca – still absurdly powerful – is now down below US$3000. If I had $3 grand handy, I’d certainly consider buying one. I don’t, so I think of it as that Steinway grand I can’t afford or fit in my apartment. That doesn’t mean I can’t pay attention to what it does – and, indeed, OSC implementation like this could apply as well to a $5 or open source app, to mainstream hardware or DIY solutions, as much as the Kyma.

The phrase is overused in the media and culture today, but I think it’s appropriate here:
“Just sayin’.”

Thanks to Lowell Pickett, Martin Wheeler, and others who sent this in.

Argos Interface Builder, v0.20 from Dimitri Diakopoulos on Vimeo.

You know the game: you decide you want exactly 8 knobs and 10 faders. But your hardware interface has 8 knobs and 8 faders. And then you realize you could use 4 more knobs.

The appeal of touch interfaces is clear: you get controls that grow and change. So now, a generation of mobile apps is working on giving you that flexibility on touch devices. The iPhone is just the start: now the iPad, with greater real estate, will go head to head with 5″, 8″, and laptop-sized screens running Android, Linux, and Windows.

Argos is an early-stages (but usable), free and open-source tool that could help you be ready. Built in openFrameworks, the C++-based cousin to Processing, the app lets you drag in basic widgets like buttons, sliders, toggles, and x-y pads, and assign them to OSC. That opens up control to various music and visual apps. (The OSC assignment tool does bear some similarity to that on the Lemur, though it’s simpler.) The openFrameworks roots should make this easier to port to multiple platforms.

http://argos.dimitridiakopoulos.com/

Developer Dimitri Diakopoulos, a BFA student at CalArts, is looking for developers and actively working on making this work on the iPad and its additional screen real estate – with other platforms possible, too. (If some of the PC “slate”s simply run Windows 7, you might be able to just switch the thing on, no port required — and run the app you’re controlling on the same machine if you so choose. We’ll have to wait to see what ships.) Stay tuned for more news on this, but this is well worth a look now. (Synthtopia was on top of the story earlier today.)

I’m personally interested to see if the protocol established by open iPhone app mrmr could allow over-the-air template sharing, and whether all these apps can interoperate with TUIO, the touch protocol developed for the reacTable. I said it earlier today, but there is some real potential in convergence, so I invite anyone who wishes to join that conversation. The trick is, you want to initially let people do their own thing, but then take all those “my own thing” solutions and put them together into an actual standard. If you try to impose the standard first, it might not actually work in the real world, but if you fail to standardize, you lose the advantage of interoperability. On the other hand, I think this very quandary is best solved by small groups of passionate developers, not overly-formalized process.

As multitouch becomes more widely available, there’s an opportunity to re-imagine all sorts of interfaces. And yes, that includes the guitar.

I’m way behind on mentioning it, but thanks to all the readers who spotted the fascinating Misa digital guitar. Strings and frets are each replaced with digital touch controls, and the soundboard touchscreen is set up to control notes, velocity, pitch, and filters. In fact, it makes the guitar more like a keyboard, and less like a guitar. But as with all digital instruments, abstracting the gesture from the actual sound means that you can arbitrarily redefine what the instrument really does.

Engadget wrote up the Misa last month

Misa Digital of Sydney has a bare-bones site and waiting list / queries via email.

Don’t want to wait around on a list for the fully-integrated version? Thinking about how you could just strap an iPod touch or iPhone to an instrument and use that instead? You’re in luck. In fact, if you’ve got an Apple mobile and Ableton Live, you can start right now.

Jim Purbrick first experimented with iPhone performance at an open OSCestra. Unlike the Misa, his guitar remains a real guitar. The addition of an iPhone (or an iPod touch, if you’d rather) is simply a way to augment the instrument. In the grand tradition of the one man band, touch control with the open-source control application Mrmr allows him to manipulate Ableton Live tracks.

The solution is an open source Python hack that connects his mobile device to Ableton Live through Live’s LiveAPI. And incidentally, this solution requires far less effort – and yields more immediate integration – than running a Max for Live device. (I have to point that out, because while I’m impressed by Max’s extraordinary capabilities inside Live, there are practical ways in which direct OSC integration is better for controlling Live itself.)

And good news, Windows users – this all works on your OS, too. In fact, the only problem is the lack of an interface builder for Mrmr on Windows, which is something I think we’ll soon solve. (JavaFX would be a nice choice, as you’d have a cross-platform Java interface that looks nice but runs anywhere, without the pain of developing in Swing. That last sentence will be meaningful only to Java developers; everyone else, pretend I just temporarily started speaking in tongues.)

Details and full instructions for the hack:

An Open Source, Guitar Mounted, Multi Touch, Wireless, OSC Interface for Ableton Live [The Creation Engine No. 2 (Jim's blog)]

Videos

For further inspiration, here’s both the Misa and Jim’s own (real) guitar augmented by touch, in action: