Commercial developers are now releasing music creation apps for mobile game systems, in the form of the KORG DS-10 for Nintendo DS and Rockstar’s Beaterator for PSP. But some of the best ideas still come from the homebrew community.

What’s most impressive about ToneSynthDS is not so much what it does as its interface, fitting all its functionality into the DS’ two compact screens. Its minimal interface finds an elegant arrangement of everything you most urgently need, with a sequencer screen on one DS screen and basic virtual analog synth parameters on the other. A 4 x 4 matrix next to the main sequencer grid lets you switch between patterns, in a step sequencer reminiscent of the monome and Tenori-On. There isn’t a whole lot of depth to event editing in this early version, but it could be a lovely way to sketch melodic patterns. (And some of those limitations come from the DS itself. Note, though, that this app gets a full 16 real-time channels on the original DS hardware to the Korg DS-10’s paltry two.)

Developer Fanta/Hotelsinus Sound Design has been posting mock-ups, demos, and now builds as he goes. That means that he gets feedback from an audience of readers and incorporates those as he develops the app – another key difference between the DIY/homebrew scene and conventional commercial development.

More good news: this DS app should also run as a PC VST in a forthcoming version, opening up the fun to folks using netbooks and laptops instead of the DS and creating a nice mobile-to-computer workflow.

http://ndscomposer.blogspot.com/

In related Nintendo DS news: If you’re thinking about getting the new DS-10 Plus Limited Edition of the KORG DS-10, you’ll need to get it for the region coding of your DS. (In other words, you probably won’t want to import it.) The “Dual Mode” functions are region-locked, so North American and European users can’t use the Japanese DS-10. That’s not such a big deal, as North American distribution was announced, and other regions are expected to follow, but it’s good to know. See details on the All Things KORG DS-10 blog. (Thanks, DS-10 Dominator!)

Check out some demo videos and a quick run-down on specs, and if you’ve got the capability to run homebrew, you can give this a try. Thanks to Art/toitoy for the tip!

What happens when you mix technical chatter on the Cakewalk forum, Samuel Beckett, and The Matrix? I’d wager you get something like the surreal video above. Prompted by the posting of technical details for a new update to Cakewalk’s SONAR production software for Windows, and empowered by a strange, new tool that generates eerie virtual reality from typed text, we get banter like this:

The arpeggiator is now on every track, so you are supposed to use it. It is one of the new rules of recording.

Yes, I came from the days of one-finger piano playing. This is a total blessing to me.

I’m going to take that as a challenge and base my review of SONAR 8.5 on using an arpeggiator and step sequencer on every track. And I’ll have to pronounce all those hard g’s in the voice over, clearly.

And no, this is not some twisted viral campaign on the part of the folks of Cakewalk; I’ve been assured that this came from a user.

Okay, what was this post originally about? Oh, yeah – the actual technical details of the SONAR 8.5 release. Noel Borthwick talks about all the details of the new SONAR release on the Cakewalk forums. Apparently, some people care deeply about whether this is SONAR 9 or 8.5 or some conspiracy theory there, but what interests me is the technical details of the software itself.

SONAR 8.5 Fine Print

Noel goes down to a code level. Interesting tidbits: working with Intel, Cakewalk was able to do a demo of SONAR running an absurd number of tracks, instruments, effects, and live video without pegging the CPU, with a tiny 2 ms of latency. The Cakewalk engineering effort also has put together what may be the most highly-optimized VST support and richest 32-to-64-bit bridging on any platform, anywhere.

Whatever the opposite of “marketing speak” may be, I think that’s what Noel has achieved, getting into a sort of developer-to-developer level discussion. It is still readable, and worth digging through.

See also: Intel Developer Forum details and video on the Cakewalk blog

I could talk more about that, but let’s just leave it at step sequencers and arpeggiators on every track, okay?

Windows matters. It’s what roughly half of CDM readers use, and – for all the attention Apple gets – it’s a big part of the computer music world. Windows today also faces many of the same under-the-hood challenges that other operating systems do, so even if you’re a die-hard Linux or Mac user, you may want to pay attention.  You don’t need to love Windows, and you certainly won’t be hosting a Windows 7 launch party. You want to know if the OS will get out of your way and let you get to work.

Windows Vista proved what happens when an operating system’s many interconnected pieces are out of alignment. Even a graphics driver out of sync with underlying changes in the OS could render audio unusable, because just one missed sample can produce an audible glitch or dropout. Part of why I’m optimistic about Windows 7 is that Vista today is a radically different picture, thanks to many, many fixes delivered by Microsoft in updates and more mature audio and video drivers. But that means not just whether 7 is better than XP, but whether 7 is also better than Vista.

Vista wasn’t entirely alone: Mac and Linux have all had their share of growing pains in recent years. The devil is usually in the details. So, I again turn to one of the best guys in the business for sorting out all those technical details. Noel Borthwick, the CTO for Cakewalk, probably has a better big-picture view of how music and audio work in Windows than anyone on the planet. He’s a person hardware and software vendors outside Cakewalk often rely upon as a resource. Noel kept us technically honest on Vista, and he’s doing it again on Windows 7, with some exclusive information for CDM.

Those details get mighty technical, so here’s the punchline: Windows 7 is an OS Noel would use himself. It was hard to get anyone to recommend Vista over XP; loyal Windows-using developers I know still largely stick to XP. But would Noel switch from XP to 7?

Yes, absolutely. Windows 7 finally delivers on the stability and performance that users hoped for from Vista. The kernel changes and optimizations for large scale multi-core processors make it very attractive to DAW users who are interested in better low latency performance. I will be building a new DAW soon and Windows 7 X64 will be my OS of choice.

What’s new in Windows 7?

• Better multithreading: Improved performance of highly-multithreaded software and hardware by removing a significant bottleneck, especially relevant to a tool like SONAR
• Better memory management: Improved memory management when working with multiple threads
• Less nagging: More customization over UAC prompts (meaning they don’t have to nag you more than you want)
• More lightweight: Fewer system services run by default on a stock system, plus a leaner footprint of the OS
• Media support: More native media format support, including QuickTime MOV and H.264, plus drag-and-drop media transcoding
• Composite devices: More logical display of hardware with multiple functions (like audio and MIDI).
• FireWire: Enhanced FireWire support, with IEEE 1394b
• Multi-touch: Multi-touch display support
• Usability improvements: An improved user interface, task bar, and Libraries for managing files

If you’re ready for all the gory details, read on – including a frank appraisal of how all of this compares to XP in real-world performance, and what compatibility issues to look out for if upgrading from either Vista or XP.

Noel Borthwick of Cakewalk effectively wrote this story in response to my questions, so these answers all come from him. Microsoft has not responded to my requests for a review copy, so I’ll be able to evaluate this on my own system – albeit far less scientifically than Noel can – closer to launch.

Code, hardware, and software: Hack Days are all about getting actual stuff made. Berliners, the Music Hack Day that took place in London at The Guardian now gets underway in Berlin this weekend. For anyone who thought the first event was overly Web-centric, there are some new players in Berlin. Ableton is a sponsor, and Ableton, Native Instruments, and RjDj are all presenting hack sessions (in addition to the more Web-focused / consumer-focused 7digital, Songkick, Cloudspeakers, Mufin, SoundCloud, and Echonest). The awesome German musician magazine DE:BUG is also in on the action. I also see our friends at Future Audio Workshop (developers of Circle) in the lineup.

Check out the details:
http://berlin.musichackday.org/
Weekend schedule

So, German readers, who’s going? I’d love to have some spies tell us what the discussions are with NI and Ableton.

I’m, as always, interested in how we can get past geography and share work internationally. So if you’re doing a project, be sure to take lots of pictures, screen caps, code pastes, and the like, and we’ll feature your work here on CDM.

Future events are planned for other cities, and I hope CDM will be involved in some of them. Boston will be the first US event, but it’s on a date I can’t make it. Anyone have a space here in New York you’d like to suggest?

Rounding up my catch-up-on-iPod/iPhone-stories, here’s one from the developer perspective – one that could face music creation developers on the entire platform.

The Apple iTunes App Store now faces the risk of becoming a victim of its own success. Music applications could be a big part of that, without some adjustments on Apple’s part. The problem is this: incoming music “fan” apps could flood out the music production apps that had enriched the mobile software platform since its debut. I think the need could be really urgent. Consider that part of the appeal of Apple’s mobile platform – yes, even in stark contrast to the Google Android on which I’ve been developing myself – is its spectacular real-time audio tools. Combine that with a disproportionately large number of Mac-using musicians, lots of ingenious apps build on Apple’s Core Audio platform, and we’ve seen a mobile platform with an extraordinary number of tools for music creation.

The problem now is that that unique set of powerful apps could get overwhelmed by essentially unrelated “music” apps. A developer who has asked to remain anonymous is already campaigning for a change. He does a good job of explaining the issue, and what might need to happen to fix it. If you’re a developer, you can add your support and feedback to the idea.

Here’s the full explanation: