Not everyone agrees with all my raves about FL Studio 8 — including some loyal FL users. Whereas Ableton Live has taken some flak in recent upgrades for catering to requests for more conventional functionality, even some FL lovers are frustrated with the program’s quirkier bits. Evan X. Merz writes a rant on FL Studio and version 8:

FruityLoop’s approach is so unique that it negates the value pricing. If you want to use FruityLoops, you basically have to commit to another DAW. So while you will save money by getting everything you get with FruityLoops, you will still find it necessary to purchase another DAW to streamline your recording … so the final price you pay will end up being about as much as if you had just bought another product in the first place. …

‘

FL Studio 8 is here, more or less — as I write this, Release Candidate 3 is available for download, but the final version appears imminent. So, as other tools have matured, why is it that FL is one of those few programs that seems to attract real love?

The press release for the new FL Studio (known to everyone except developer Image-Line as “Fruity Loops”) keeps using the term “DAW.” I have nothing against that, even though DAW as a term has little do with music. (It is the sound English speakers make when they see a cute little lambie or puppy. You know, “dawwwww!….”) It’s a familiar situation: Ableton Live, whose developers came up with the far more descriptive “live sequencing instrument” for their product, felt (rightfully) that Live could compete with more traditional programs and so adopted an otherwise meaningless name. As in that case, FL’s combination of MIDI and audio tools, plug-in hosting and (cough, Reason!) audio recording means you can produce music end to end with it. (Too bad the acronym “DAW” does nothing to hint at what it means.)

What it means to be Fruity

  So, it’s not that FL isn’t a DAW — it’s that it is something else that other programs may not be. I think it needs its own acronym, especially with FL 8 stronger than ever after nearly a decade of ever-maturing releases, a passionate audience, and a dedication to talented developer Arguru, whom the music software community lost last year.

Some nominations:

Insane Idiosyncratically-Awesome Music Suite — IIAMS! Wait, no, that sounds like dog food. (Dawwwww!)

Toybox of Sonic Wonders — TOWS.

Beat Bonanza Tracker Sequencer Hybrid — pronounced BbbbbTHHS!, which is the sound I suggest you make at anyone who suggests FL isn’t capable of serious music or “sounds bad.” (Try to produce some spittle in the process.)

(your superior idea here)

Why am I making a fuss over this? Let me see if I can boil it down:

• FL’s approach to sequencing is like nothing else. Rich MIDI sequencing tools meet up with a unusually-focused approach to patterns and loops. It’s really a kind of hybrid between conventional sequencers and music trackers, blending some of the best of each. At first, that can make it confusing to use, but once you wrap your head around the combination, it can be very powerful.
• It’s kind of a ridiculous value. US$50-$100 buys you a perfectly usable version of the program — not a stripped-down, crippled version; you even get some extras. The most you can spend is about US$199-299, or $399 if you absolutely have to have it in a box. Opening that collection is like walking into an art museum of plug-in development, from avant-garde oddities to classics, with all the bundled noisemakers. Only it’s a museum where you can lick the paintings. For soft synth lovers, even the $500 Logic Pro bundle or new $1000 Ableton suite can’t compare in sheer value.
• It keeps getting better. Cheap and free upgrades keep you getting new features. FL has gradually matured from a nifty niche tool to one of the most mature programs out there. And download versions have lifetime free upgrades.
• It’s not for everyone. Some people find the interface maddening. Its kitchen-sink approach may frighten away people who don’t have an appetite for synths and sequencing. And it generally seems to attract a special crowd of FL lovers. But that’s why we love it. And go ahead, hate it if you don’t get it — FL lovers won’t care.
• It’s a reason to use Windows. Because of the way it was developed, FL almost certainly won’t be appearing on the Mac any time soon. But FL can make Windows look better, with rock-solid platform support, Vista support on day one when a lot of other things were broken, and rich ASIO support. It even installs ASIO4ALL by default so you can use the headphone jack on your laptop and other non-ASIO hardware. You could do that yourself. But it shows they care.

This is the new Steinberg control surface. (See the hands-on video at SonicState.) It’s built to integrate out of the box with Cubase 4, which if you’re a Cubase 4 user should be good. You or I might give it a name like “CubaseControl” or something, but Steinberg has seen fit to call it the CC 121, which sounds like it was lifted off of a MIDI specification. No matter — they can call it Eustice if it’s a good controller.

But that’s not the only odd thing about the CC 121. There’s a little light that goes on to say it’s “Cubase Ready.” (The marketing materials say this gives it “instant plug and play.” I’m not entirely sure why you need an LED for that, but I guess it’s comforting or something.) Then there’s the control layout, which has so much blank space that it looks a little like someone dropped a stack of encoders and buttons on a piece of paper and glued everything where it fell.

But the oddest thing about the CC 121 is the controller choices themselves. The whole point of previous single-fader control surfaces — at least, so I thought — was creating a compact device that can sit by your mouse. The point of the CC 121 seems to be, well, EQ. There are a full twelve dedicated EQ encoders. For everything else, there’s … uh … one knob. (It’s the one that says “VALUE” on the right side.) It is supposed to be a really smart knob, at least. Here’s how Steinberg describes it:

“Ultra-precision Advanced Integration controller knob with ‘point and control’ support: controls any visual Cubase 4 parameter, internal FX setting or VSTi parameter using mouse pointer selection”

Translation: you can click on any setting in Cubase and control it with our encoder, one setting at a time. Want to control more than one setting at a time? Say, delay time and wet/dry mix? Sorry. There are four buttons so you can change the function of the one value knob, but not the obvious solution of having any more than one knob. I know what you’re thinking. There’s blank space all over this unit, so why couldn’t you just have four “Advanced Integration Controller Knobs”? I think I have the answer: if you did that, you wouldn’t have room for the “Cubase Ready” light.

You may think I’m just using this opportunity to beat up on Steinberg and be snarky, but I’m not.

The Magic of Third Parties and Broad Compatibility

No, on the contrary, this illustrates something I’ve suspected for a long time. Just as most screenwriters shouldn’t direct their own films, software developers shouldn’t necessarily make hardware controllers for their own software. Sometimes the magic works; sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, having choices beyond those the software vendor chose is a good thing. Third-party hardware can work with more than one app (in case you ever use something other than Cubase), it can provide more choices (in case your needs are different than someone else), and it provides the much-needed perspective beyond the folks who built the software. You may not get the brand name of your DAW on the unit, but smart software can still make the out-of-box experience just as integrated. That doesn’t mean I think the software vendors shouldn’t try — as Alan Kay is often attributed as saying, “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.” But, even assuming he did actually say that, and assuming we should all listen to him, he didn’t say that you had to make that hardware for your own software, or that you’d be successful all of the time.

Someone out there I’m sure really, really loves tweaking EQ. Congratulations: the CC 121 is for you. For everyone else, you have not one but four excellent choices: Novation’s SL line, Frontier’s AlphaTrack and TranzPort, and PreSonus’ FaderPort. They all integrate fairly automatically with Cubase (even older versions which are incompatible with the CC 121), and give you lots of control. And that’s just compact control surfaces.

Not only that, but Novation, Frontier, and PreSonus all make hardware that works with other stuff not from Steinberg. The AlphaTrack, for instance, just added extensive support for GarageBand 4 (adding to a long list of other supported software), plus software you probably haven’t even heard of — SAWStudio by RML Labs and MultitrackStudio from Bremmers Audio Design. SAWStudio support didn’t grab the Messe headlines the way a Steinberg control surface did, but I’ll bet if you’re a SAWStudio user, you’re really excited. And that’s the point: we choose our software personally, so we should choose our hardware the same way.

Here’s a quick review of the other compact control surfaces available — not only for Cubase, but a lot of other software, as well:

The Digidesign Digi 003 is a strong value if you need this much mixing and I/O facility. But is it overkill for our reader Lynn?

Gear isn’t everything — but getting geared up is the one hurdle that can hold up beginners. In the Ask CDM series, we’ll be answering at random some of the questions we regularly get in our inbox. First up, Lynn Morgan, who’s ready to make the jump to digital. Lynn writes:

My questions will quickly [make it] apparent that I’m from the old “tape” school of recording. But nonetheless, I do understand sound recording to some degree, having recorded 5 long-play projects in “Guitar City”.

I want to set up a home studio where I can record my own tunes. I’ll use guitar, guitar synth, bass and some keyboards and, of course, my vocals. I want the sound to be totally professional and I want the ability to interface with other users of Pro Tools, for possibly background vocals or drums, etc.

My question is this, What do I really need for equipment? The 003 Digidesign looks impressive but what would I need beyond that?

It turns out Lynn isn’t currently a Pro Tools user, but she added this when pressed:

I want to set up a recording system that will not be outdated in 6 months and sound quality to equal the best out there. The transition from “tape” to digital they say has its advantages and disadvantages. I’m just not sure what I need in the “digital” world to make it all happen.

Good questions — and ones I expect will spur some reader comment, too. But let’s divide this up into some smaller questions and look at it that way. I did intend to answer just this sort of question with my book Real World Digital Audio, but there are some specifics I didn’t get into there, so we’ll look at the specific questions.

This wound up being a huge answer, but I know it’s a very Frequently Asked Question.

What do you need?

I think the best way to begin is to think through what you need to do and work backwards from there. With audio hardware, you’ll want to think literally to inputs and outputs and how much you’ll be recording at a time.

Alex le Lievre has built what looks like an insane custom controller for Pro Tools LE using an iPhone. He seems to have mimicked the look and feel of Pro Tools so successfully that some called the results a fake. There’s incredibly detailed feedback on track status, including live audio signal feeds and transport controls. It even uses iPhone’s tilt mechanism.

This is interesting for two reasons: one, those lusting after iPhone and iPod Touch have another reason to drool. But secondly, Digidesign has been pretty closed about their controller mechanism. If this is real, Alex did a pretty great job of cracking into it. (I only just heard from JazzMutant, by contrast, that their Dexter won’t support Pro Tools because it’s not possible.)

ProRemote 0.0.1 on YouTube (darned nice “0.0.1″ release!)

Alex’s video on his .Mac page

Thanks to Chris O’Malley for the tip.

Could Apple be working on a Control Pro? One commenter thinks so, and this patent evidence from last year at least suggests they’ve thought about it. (Keep in mind, though, sometimes experimental ideas don’t become products, and patents are hard to read.)

Updated: How Alex Did It

Alex wrote in. He’s in fact a very experienced programmer with background in Pro Tools plug-in development, software architecture, and Macromedia’s multimedia architecture (pre-Adobe), among other things, and he’s kind enough to share with us how the whole thing works.

I expect I’ll be somewhere over the Pacific Ocean on my way to Australia when it happens, but now that Ableton has closed its beta list and sent out a release candidate, you can expect an official Ableton Live 7 release really soon now. (I can share that, as the forums and beta list said as much!) Francis Preve has a good Cliff Notes-style guide to what’s new for Beatportal. I’ve been using it in performance and hope to do that some more on the road, so stay tuned.

You can now go ahead and buy Live 6 and get the upgrade, so no need to wait.

It was 20 years ago today …

It’s easy to take for granted the mature tools available for music creation, and forget their history and the folks who made them real. While today it’s one of the biggest music software developers in the world, Cakewalk’s first sequencer of the same name started as a college project for a Philosophy major. Cakewalk founder, CEO, and original author of the Cakewalk sequencer Greg Hendershott was that student. For the twentieth anniversary year of the founding of his company (then known as 12 Tone Systems), Greg sat down with me in their Boston headquarters.

This was a personally meaningful meeting for me, as Cakewalk 4.0 for DOS (pictured above) was the first software sequencer I ever used — and remained my favorite some time after going to Windows. In those days, programmer’s names were front-and-center more than they are now, and so Greg’s name popped up every time I sat down to work. Greg also studied with Gary Lee Nelson, who was my first electronic music instructor (albeit for me at a summer camp). Of course, part of the reason it’s meaningful is that I’m far from alone — over 1,000,000 users have used Cakewalk’s software. A look at Cakewalk is also a look at the computer music software industry’s brief but fast-moving development, and the design of the tools that have evolved alongside it.

This winds up being a huge interview — you’ll believe me when I say this is basically a transcript of what Greg said. But it’s also a genuine slice of history, and also a glimpse into what the industry’s next 20 years might be like, so we’ll have at it.

My review of Apple’s Logic Studio (including Logic Pro 8) is now live at Macworld.com (it’ll also be in the January 2008 print issue).

Summary:

Pros: Single-window view speeds editing and setup; MainStage program ideal for playing instruments and effects live; powerful, easy-to-access editing and take management tools; bundles Soundtrack Pro but halves the price; no more dongle; can sync with others via .Mac or Bonjour.

Cons: Some MIDI features are still obscure; MainStage doesn’t integrate with Logic or ReWire.

Or, to put it more simply: take away a dongle, slash the price, and make Logic easier to use, and you’ve got a winner.

Logic Studio: All-in-one music creation package is easier to use, more playable

I do hope competitors are taking a notice of what the Logic team at Apple has done with the interface.

My friend Francis Preve has been working on Live 7 through its development, but he’s finally gotten a break long enough to talk about what’s new in this version:

Ableton Live 7 - sneak preview [Beatportal]

Being close to the development, what Fran says has some weight. The preview runs through the features one by one, as you’ve seen before. But there’s good reason Slice to MIDI is right on top.

With a single right-click on any loop in Live, you can automagically slice it into dozens of smaller segments — like individual kicks, snares and percussion — then import these slices into a Drum Rack, which is then played by its own unique MIDI sequence.

The sequences can then be reordered so that you can create entirely new grooves from a single drum loop.

It’s a huge feature. Slicing in this fashion is nothing new, particularly on beat workstation hardware. Doing it this easily — that’s new. On the record, Francis says “Fortunately, it’s so flexible that many producers will approach this tool from their own unique perspective.” And I believe that, yes; I’ve seen other features of Live warped (excuse the pun) to extremes by experimental Live users.

I like how Fran described this feature yesterday over IM, though: “Slice to MIDI will be the drop shadow of 2008.”

Hey, someone has to record this stuff for posterity. I’m working with the Live beta now, and it’s just getting to the point where I think it’s hands-on preview time, so stay tuned. See our previous preview:

Ableton Live 7, Ableton Live Suite: Quick Look at What’s New (and 90-odd comments from you good folks!)