The Melodyne editor, which promises to make working with audio as fluid as working with MIDI, has long had some impressive technology under the hood. But it’s as the tool gradually matures in terms of workflow and usability that I think it could win some additional converts.

Melodyne 2.0 is a major update to the editor all around, with additional timing and tuning options and better usability, and the addition of ReWire (atop plug-in compatibility) is a big plus for some. It’s easiest to just see the videos, but the overview of what’s new in this release:

• Attack Speed tool for editing transients. (That could make this a lot more interesting creatively.) New Time Handles for changing time in the notes. These tools have special applicability to percussion and vocal phrasing, respectively, but may have some other interesting alternative applications.
• Edit notes in other scales, temperaments, and tunings. (Re-tuning to alternative tuning systems, anyone?)
• Keyboard shortcuts work in plug-in mode, display and highlight is improved.
• Work via ReWire with hosts that lack plug-ins. Read: Reason. And that could make this an interesting companion to Reason’s record workflows.

Now, sure, all of this is often understood to be for people who just want to obsessively correct pitch and rhythm of recorded audio. But I remain interested in creative applications, just because the upshot of this is having audio you can modify after it’s been recorded.

There’s just one bottom line: will this stuff be compelling enough that you add an additional tool to your DAW just to get it? I still have yet to hear from die-hard Melodyne users, so if you’re out there reading, I’d love to learn how you use the tool, particularly if you go a bit beyond the way it was intended to be used. (That’s always interesting.)

US$/€399, $99/€99 upgrade, or free if you registered after October 1. More vids:

If you want to be promptly ignored, the best way to do it is to try to release a new DAW. Aside from the fact that even most musicians don’t know what the word “DAW” is (hint: it’s a big program that puts all your computer production, mixing, and recording stuff in one place), you’re up against the likes of Cubase, Ableton Live, Pro Tools, DP, SONA… sorry, I get tired even just doing the list.

Here’s how to get some attention: be the first DAW to add Celemony’s crowd-awe-ing direct pitch modification, which lets you change the pitch of polyphonic recorded audio, right in the software.

That’s what PreSonus’ Studio One version 2 does. It’s something we’ve been waiting for ever sense we first saw Melodyne. You can now, without the restrictions of a plug-in, edit recorded audio and change pitch without having to leave your DAW, all in “one click” according to PreSonus.

PreSonus isn’t the first to add transient detection, editing, groove “extraction,” and groove quantization – features that let you make rhythmic modifications to recorded audio. Indeed, these features, once exotic selling points, have almost become prerequisites as DAWs leap-frog one another. But as PreSonus adds these features, they promise more seamless editing: to quantize, just group some drum tracks, and quantize; to do groove extraction, just drag and drop. Some tools require more steps; others promise this kind of seamless operation but don’t always work perfectly. This sounds like one to test – made, again, more interesting by the pitch editing changes.

Now, I have only one concern: Melodyne “Essential” is included, and only with the full-blown “Professional” edition; I hope we see the same degree of integration for people who buy Melodyne DNA, the all-stops-pulled “direct note access” editing. WIthout it, the integration is nice, but with it, I might even use the phrase I hate – “game changer.” Updated: Yep, DNA works. That’s a pretty big deal. Other DAWs have “pitch correction” – but I already see many readers share my comparative disinterest in just correcting pitch. Being able to directly edit recorded sounds gets really interesting, by comparison. And whatever other tools may claim, I haven’t seen anything that works quite like DNA, yet. What you need is just a copy of Studio One “Professional,” and a purchased copy of DNA.

Also in this release:

• Comping (making finished tracks out of the best bits of different takes) without switching tools – something I’ve found annoying elsewhere.
• Studio Browser for organizing assets and instruments and effects with search. (Yeah, we’ve seen that in tools like Ableton, Logic, and SONAR; now it’s here, too.)
• Folder Tracks – organize tracks, group and bus in one click. (PreSonus claims this is “exclusive,” though I’m fairly certain you get something like that group+bus function elsewhere. Anyway, it is nice.)
• Edit more than one MIDI track at once.
• New amp models, convolution-based cabinet models, convolution reverb, and an IR Maker for adding your own impulses.

So, the pieces are very similar to what you see elsewhere; PreSonus’ potential here may be how they put it together. I’m certainly ready to have another rival.

I’m always suspicious that fancy pitch and rhythm correction are just there to help you try to perfect imperfect performances. That’s something that can erase the human feel of good musicians, and make for soul-crushingly long editing sessions with bad musicians. (I’ve heard some horror stories on the latter.) But they can also be powerful remix and creative tools, especially if the workflow is improved, and that’s where they can be exciting.

I’ll be watching.

Not So Fast, Copywriter

We’re going to have to have a PR Shame Scoreboard every time a press release says something outrageous. Here’s PreSonus: “Only one DAW on Planet Earth lets you record, edit, mix, master, and distribute your music in an integrated and truly professional environment.”

Uh… no. If you send Studio One to planet Mars, then you can make this sort of claim.

(Maybe because they have SoundCloud export? I don’t know. Maybe “professional” means something that I don’t understand.)

This week:
Moog – I
PreSonus – I
Put a quarter in the jar, please. (I can forgive PreSonus, only because this has the feeling of the sentence you write when you’re exhausted and at the end of the press release: And that’s why we’re just ridiculously awesomely better than anything you’ve ever seen before and now I’m going out for a beer. ###)

So, the hyperbole beast rears its ugly head. But I’ll say this: PreSonus, who entered a category in which it’s nearly impossible to get anyone’s attention, you’ve got everybody’s attention now. And if you pulled it off, Studio One 2 could be the sleeper hit of this week’s AES show.

Because since numerous DAWs let you record, edit, mix, master, and distribute your music in an integrated and truly professional environment, on this crowded planet Earth, you do have to do something to stand out.

Update: PreSonus’ spokesperson responds:

“Oh no? Name another one. The key word is “integrated.” You can master in other DAWs but not using a dedicated mastering suite that’s intelligently aware of and fully integrated with the song editor. You don’t get that with Logic, Pro Tools, Sonar, DP, Live, Cubase, Nuendo, Reaper, or Record. I don’t know what the Martians use, but here on Planet Earth, the statement is true. “

Now, here we’re getting to the point – behind the vague statement is something that gets interesting (i.e., how it’s integrated with the song editor). I still stand by what I said, though – Record, specifically, could claim a fair degree of integration of the mastering tools within their own (different) paradigm. Anyway, I suspect users don’t need to get planetary with this; they care about how it work specifically in their own workflow. So stay tuned as we test this.

In DAWs, there are the familiar names – MOTU DP, Pro Tools, SONAR, Ableton Live, Cubase, Apple Logic. All have functionality to recommend them – hence their longevity. But then, there’s one upstart that continues to win over fans: Reaper. Its developers actually advertise that its upgrades are evolutionary, not revolutionary – which may come as a comfort to pro users easily jangled by radical UI changes.

But evolutionary as it may be, Reaper 4 has some highlights I think could significantly broaden its appeal. The changelog is utterly, terrifyingly long, so let me pull out some of the big points. (See also the preview we ran in December.)

A new, customizable user interface. Various DAWs keep trying this, but Reaper has a nice take: easily drag and float or dock windows and toolbars, then customize navigating them with mouse modifiers. There’s also the ability to make your own layouts.

Multichannel and surround. Multichannel track metering, plus a 3D panning ReaSurround plug-in with “rotations, transformations, and diffusions,” make this a serious offering for people working with multichannel diffusions. (Incidentally, that appears to look nice enough for people doing configurations other than conventional surround, too.)

Improved STEREOPHONIC SOUND. Okay, so you’re not quite ready for this 3D speaker diffusion surround business? There’s still some goodness for you. Track pan improvements give you additional control over stereo width – and you can even set stereo width to envelopes for some serious headphone ear candy. You can also set track pan to one of several modes: “balance, stereo pan (L/R + width), dual pan, and classic (3.x) balance.”

Batch capabilities. New batch conversion and rendering options let you easily send batches to folders and files, and use customizable wildcards for more control. You can also save render presets. Translation: people working on complex projects like games are going to love this. (I wonder if the collaboration with Rock Band developer Harmonix might bear fruit here.)

A Project Bay collects media and effects and lets you organize lists of assets for different projects. The Project Bay also manages comps directly – usually comps, multiple takes, are handled only within tracks; seeing them in project management is an interesting new idea. These things you really have to try out in practice over some big projects, but I’m encouraged by the addition.

MIDI musical manipulation: Interestingly, the project management magic also includes the ability to pool and edit and share MIDI data, which is something I’ve never seen before. I imagine you could develop some elaborate compositional workflow based on this, with patterns you modify all at once for … generative techno? Micro-edited ambient? You figure it out! There are also new MIDI constrain features that let you create MIDI patterns based on chords or scales. For the first time, Reaper is looking like a contender as a tool for imagining new musical ideas with MIDI.

Envelope editing lets you customize envelope segments with the mouse. New pitch shift envelopes let you mangle and modify the pitch of sounds.

Did we mention that Reaper costs as little as US$60 for a non-commercial license, and with that or the $225 license, you get upgrades through Reaper 5.99? Mac + Windows (+ Linux, via WINE).

Check out the full, new feature set:
Reaper 4 Changelog
Version 4.0 discussion at the forums
http://reaper.fm/

Thanks to Jeffrey James and everyone who sent this in!

Reforge, an iPad audio editor, has gotten a major update with version 2. It’s a ground-up rewrite with a new audio engine, and adds support for Sonoma’s increasingly-popular AudioCopy/AudioPaste API, which provides clipboard functionality for sound between iOS apps.

The novelty of running an audio editor on a tablet is clear. But how would you actually use it, in practice? I asked Tib Horvath, Reforge’s developer, to answer that question. He responds to CDM with some tips. It’s a pitch for his product, of course, but then that’s true if you describe the utility of any tool, and he has some nice ideas about what makes Reforge unique and how you’d work with it in production.

Tib writes:

Let me preamble that with what I believe Reforge is good at: Reforge modifies waveforms nondestructively. So copy, cut, paste, crop. But [it's also good at] also splitting stereo files into two mono files, or a mono file into a faux stereo file.

Then there is automation for volume, stereo balance, stereo widening and low and high pass filters, [as well as] time stretch or pitch (each is independent, but not yet automated).

You get all of this with a feel for actually touching the waveform and directly working with it.

So how does it fit in a production workflow?

1) None of the multitrack [iOS] apps support automation to the extent that Reforge does. So, if you need a sweeping low pass over a drum beat, copy the beat into Reforge [using AudioCopy, if you like], do the adjustments, render the file, and copy it back to where it came from.

2) Some apps work with mono files, but [what if] you have recorded/generated this great sounding stereo loop? Import into Reforge and split it into two mono files to copy over to your multitrack of choice.

3) Some multitrack apps do not work well with loops that just don’t fit. Get the loop into Reforge and make it fit by time stretching it. Clean up pops and other problems at the same time with the automated filter features.

4) Adjust the pitch of a voice recording — for example, if it is off-pitch or if you are looking for a special effect.

5) Podcasters tend to generate long recordings. They can now (since long audio files are only supported with Reforge 2.0) split and splice them. Or import podcasts (any other audio except audiobooks, [since they have DRM applied]) from the [iTunes] Library [accessible in the iPod app], and chop it up for easier digestion or further processing.

All of this is familiar to those who use dedicated audio editors on desktop. While many tools, such as DAWs, incorporate waveform editing, having a dedicated tool can be useful in assisting everyday audio tasks, making the drudgery of dealing with audio files take up less time.

Putting this on a mobile platform has a number of potential benefits:

• Form factor and interface. It’s just easier to pick up a tablet as a representation of your audio and carry it around, show it to others, and edit by touching the interface. You could manage some waveforms over a coffee before heading back to the studio or other workspace, in a way that involves different sorts of interactions than you’d have with a laptop.
• For the all-iOS producer, a tool like Reforge means you can work between other iOS apps more easily, producing sound and music all on the tablet without having to resort to the computer.
• For the person on the go, Reforge of course means the ability to do this editing in the field, as it were, without carrying along a heavier computer.

I do wonder, however, if this kind of easy audio copy-and-paste couldn’t come to desktop environments. Computers and hardware have long borrowed ideas from one another; it seems inevitable that traditional computers and tablets will do the same. And that means, even if you don’t ever touch an iPad, you could see positive benefits in the tools you use.

So, that’s what the developer says — and my speculative take on matters. Are you using Reforge, or other related tools? Let us know how you work.

Also, if you’re an iOS user who doesn’t already use Reforge, and you can tell us something useful about your workflow, I’ve got a promo code for you. Just be sure to leave a real email address in the comment field; only CDM administrators can see it, and we will only use that address for your code.

We’ve been watching Harrison Mixbus, a DAW and mixing, editing, and recording workstation, as it has matured. In a crowded world of similar tools, this tool, powered by the open source Ardour DAW, nonetheless sets itself apart. Robust, console-style mixing meets modeled Harrison DSP and extensive editing options, appealing enough that many Mixbus users employ it as a mixing front end even with other tools. On Linux, it finally makes the open source Ardour more palatable, but on the Mac, too, it’s winning some converts. Finding an inexpensive DAW from a leading, ultra-high-end console maker – let alone one that plays well with free software – continues to be a pleasant surprise.

Mixbus 2.0 adds a great deal of additional functionality. As expected, that also includes a price hike; the software will cost US$219. That’s still awfully low given the quality of mixing and track processing effects you get; similar channel strips alone could cost as much or significantly more, and wouldn’t be integrated in a host in the way they are in Mixbus. And you get a far more fleshed-out tool with the upgrade.

New in this release – mixing:

• Mix bus sends, the signature and namesake of the tool, are doubled to eight from four.
• Map plugins controls directly on the mixer strip – that I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a host before, actually.
• Improved views: More controls in the main Mix window. Narrow mixer strips, hide/show mix buses. Consolidated plugins, sends, inserts, faders.
• Phase correlation meter, for checking how stereo mixes will bounce to mono.
• Polarity (phase) buttons for every mixer strip.

Editing:

• Crossfade, layering, and automation editing improved.
• Ripple edits in Ardour, at long last.
• Transparent regions during drag operations for easier edits, and a “Smart Object” mode that requires less tool mode switching.

The upgrade also expands upon previously rather lean documentation, improves installation, adds key bindings, improves the UI and menus, enhances range selection, improves realtime automation recording, and enhances various other features which Harrison says were user-requested.

The images here make this a bit clearer:

I’ll be evaluating the new version on both Mac and Linux. Stay tuned – and let us know if you have any questions (or if users out there have any tips).

Harrison Mixbus
Harrison Consoles

FL Studio, aka Fruity Loops, has always been like opening a toybox of sound goodies for sound nerds – up to 30 instruments and 40+ effects in the latest edition. Just about every tool offers deep control for serious sound programmers, but there’s also a sense that those tools can be fun and immediate. And oddly, while developer Image-Line does introduce some instruments and effects as add-ons, all the functionality in the core program is covered by their lifetime free updates program. This isn’t feature bloat intended to entice you to upgrade; it’s more like what happens when you let the oompa-loompas run Willy Wonka and make whatever they want.

Or just forget all of that and think “FL Studio, the music app that makes you glad you’re running Windows.” (Don’t worry: fullscreen mode means you can actually even hide the fact that Windows is there at all.)

FL Studio 10 adds countless improvements to editing, from shortcuts to editing tools to display zoom, and gets smarter about working with 64-bit plug-ins and memory, as well as introducing new tools for manipulating audio pitch, time, harmony, and rhythm.

Among many new features in this version:

• More 64-bit: Automatic 64-bit plug-in support
• Smarter Memory Management, Audio Settings. Even on 32-bit Windows, you can get up to 2 GB of memory for plug-ins, with up to 192 GB for 64-bit Windows, and separate memory allocation for samples. There are also tweaks to ASIO audio performance.
• Better Mixer: Improved mixer views (with wide strips, at last), metering, and automatic delay compensation.
• Notation-ready, Smarter Piano Roll. It’s easier to edit with the piano roll view, thanks to new zoom, shortcuts, stretch handles (finally), display sync, and a “magic lasso.” It’s not just editing that’s better, though: you can also export directly to a PDF score by choosing Export.
• Better Playlist: The Playlist feature now has loop, pause, and skip options for more dynamic live backing tracks, plus new shortcuts for editing and previewing.
• File autosave and backup.
• A new Patcher that lets you save instrument and effect chains as single presets, visually. (Not SynthEdit – it’s a new way of patching together instruments and effects.)
• Optional add-ons for Celemony Melodyne-like pitch and time manipulation (Newtone) and pitch-correction, manipulation, and harmonization (Pitcher).

The addition of Pitcher is interesting, I think, because rival Propellerhead added their own take on this to Record in the form of Neptune.

If there were any comparison to make to FL Studio these days, Propellerhead’s software would be an obvious choice. But the two tools remain differentiated. Unlike Propellerhead’s dual Record/Reason offering, FL Studio is an all-in-one package, and it works as a plug-in and not just via ReWire. Record has more conventional mixing and arrangement tools than FL Studio, and the open signal patching interface in Reason and Record is unlike anything else available. And… actually, this list is so long as to not really fit in this article. But what I like about both is that you get a self-contained, unusual box of tools. Each has more of the sense of walking into a fully-stocked studio with some personality to it rather than a generic tool. (The generic approach has advantages, too, but the sense is different.)

FL’s capabilities remain:

• Flexibility: use it as a VST plug-in or connect via ReWire.
• Host anything: VST 32-bit and 64-bit, DX, and FL-native plugs.
• Multi-track audio and MIDI, with unique, tracker-like and step sequencer interfaces in addition to traditional piano roll and audio views.
• Unique built-in tools for manipulating audio, slicing and beat detection, warping, and now increasingly pitch and harmonization. (Yes, other tools do this, too, but FL has some unusual instruments and effects integrated with the workflow.)

FL Studio itself is really beyond comparison, a bundle of some of the best editing and instrument and effect tools out there. And that’s before you get to the stunningly-affordable pricing, which runs US$49 – $299 for download editions (up to $399 boxed, but I recommend the download version), all with free lifetime upgrades.

There’s just not a more affordable package in the long run, taking into account the breadth of the software and the endless upgrades.

You know where to go:
FL Studio 10

FL users, as always, I’d love to hear both what you think about the new release and how you use FL’s tools (new or old) in your work.

Update: yes, you can win things linking to FL, as Synthtopia notes. I’m not in love with this sort of marketing gimmick – I’m happy to write about FL purely based on its merits, personally – but it’ll certainly be awesome for you to win the prize, and if I for some reason do (which would be amusing), I’ll put the cash toward doing some free FL tutorials on CDM.

Full rules, if you want to enter:
$1010 competition

Of course, if you also link to CDM, I might just buy you a beer or two next time I see you. Odds of winning: 1 in 1. Beat that.

Users of Cubase seem to be a kind of silent majority. Web data suggests this may be the most popular DAW on the planet, thanks to Windows and Mac support, over 25 years in the business, and the absence of any particular hardware requirements. But the Cubase users I know, while fiercely loyal, just aren’t as evangelical about their choice. “Oh, yeah, I use Cubase.”

One basic problem is that Digital Audio Workstations have been locked for years in leapfrog-style, me-too feature battles. These mature, do-everything, kitchen-sink products add tweaks that evidently matter to their users but are hard to make exciting for anyone else. Digital Music Doctor, echoed by Synthtopia, went so far as to ask if the DAW was dead. Some might wish as much, but I doubt it. DAWs in the last decade were engaged in feature-for-feature competition, but the same was true in the 90s and even, particularly on the Atari ST, in the 80s. Perhaps fueled by an overabundance of smart audio programmers, certainly by the inexhaustible potential of music’s complexities, we’ll never reach the DAW singularity.

Case in point: Cubase 6. There are new features here, but they could only be termed, as Steinberg PR does, “new and revolutionary” if you hadn’t seen nearly-identical features crop up in rivals like Apple’s Logic and Cakewalk’s SONAR. You get automagical features by which audio drum recordings are supposed to be as easy to edit as MIDI, new comping that’s supposed to save you time, and countless “workflow” enhancements. In the never-ending quest to attract more guitarists to music production, you get some built-in amp models and stompbox effects. There’s a tiered set of offerings allowing different features at different prices (here reduced, at last, to two basic choices, a EUR600 full edition or slimmed-down EUR300 “artist” version).

In fact, I’m tempted to copy and paste ad copy from recent updates to some of Cubase’s competitors and see if you can tell the difference.

The reason the DAW isn’t dead – or even this number of DAWs – is that I suspect a lot of these features do work pretty well. And while they look the same on paper, in practice, using Cubase, Logic, or SONAR doesn’t feel quite the same. Music producers are so loyal because they are tuned into those subtleties and naturally creatures of habit, eager to satisfy their creative appetite. So, the cycle of DAW life continues, and the circle is unbroken (so long as something catastrophic doesn’t happen, like Gibson buying Opcode and Studio Vision).

Familiar features, done Steinberg-style

The features, while not unfamiliar in competing DAWs, do look impressive, and they could be good news for Cubase users:

• Enhanced transient and tempo detection for easier, glitch-free drum editing and more musical detection
• Phase-accurate audio quantization and drum replacement. (Actually, a key point here – without phase accuracy, you can create some nasty artifacts quantizing audio.)
• Track edit groups turn comps quickly into tracks. That we’ve seen before, but Cubase does have a nice feature for editing those groups simultaneously.
• A built-in set of guitar effects called VST Amp Rack.
• 64-bit support on both Mac and Windows.
• New time-stretching algorithms. (These seem to crop up in every version upgrade, too.)

Don’t get me wrong – implementation is everything. It’s really impossible to cover a DAW just based on a product announcement. In fact, I think it’s difficult to cover a DAW without spending some weeks in production actually using it, even in terms of an upgrade, which is part of why it’s hard to write DAW reviews.

To Steinberg’s credit, in the promo video included here, they do make an effort to contextualize these features in an actual recording session. While comping is unquestionably terrific, I’m not entirely convinced everyone wants to quantize audio drum recordings. But otherwise, these are fair points, and you can bet the reason these features show up in so many DAWs is in part because users ask for them. User needs are complex, challenging, but also very often similar. DAW developers have little time to analyze their competitors, so I don’t think copying features is commonplace. More likely, users keep asking for the same things.

LoopMash, now fleshed-out and performance-ready

Now we know Cubase has features similar to its competitors, and why that might be, there are additions in Cubase 6 that are unique.

One feature I’d even go as far as calling “weird,” and that’s Cubase’s LoopMash. It’s a really unusual approach to loop editing and slicing. Slicing and looping and new file drop and such isn’t new in and of itself, but Steinberg’s interface is genuinely different. Performance controls mean you really could use LoopMash in a performance for stuttering, sliced-up loop triggering. “Hey, what were you using? Was that Ableton?” “No, that was LoopMash in Cubase 6.” “What? I couldn’t hear you. I’m going to get a vodka and Red Bull.”

Seriously, if anyone does try using LoopMash, I’d love to hear about it. Ableton Live is a great product, but having every laptop musician on the planet use the same software is boring.

A revolution in MIDI editing?

Buried among these other features, though, is a new approach to editing notes. It’s called VST Expression 2 and Note Expression. Normally, in MIDI editing, you have a lane of note events and then a separate lane of controller data that determines how those notes are played. The issue with this is that it’s more in line with how a synthesizer works than how anyone thinks musically. In fact, if the two lanes get out of sync, you can easily wind up with a pitch bend happening in the middle of a note instead of the beginning, or the wrong note.

The basic notion of Note Expression is to make expression happen on a note-per-note basis. Cubase even has a nice interface by which you can click a note and edit the controller data for just that note.

Aside from making editing easier, this is really a big deal as far as how Cubase’s editing interface interacts with samples libraries and scores. (That, in turn, may explain why Hans Zimmer is quoted as being so excited on the Steinberg website.) In the old MIDI editing paradigm, you wind up having to do some complex acrobatics in order to get extensive sample libraries to behave the way you want. With some help from VST 3.5 and VST Expression 2, this note-by-note editing can be extended to making MIDI events in the sequencer work better with those big choral and orchestral sample libraries.

Scoring should also be vastly easier, since notation also assumes note-by-note expressions of various kinds. In the past, translating a MIDI sequence to a score has required thinking in two different ways; this helps change that. Accordingly, Steinberg has also added a “Dynamics Lane” so that you can see dynamics (forte!) alongside your MIDI events while sequencing.

Not all composers really want to work this way with scores, period, but for those who do, Cubase 6 is a big advancement.

The question I have is whether this new-fangled editing approach will take place outside of Steinberg. The narration in their promo video attempts to answer this:

“The only limitation is your imagination. Well, that and you do need a VST-compatible instrument. But remember, we invented VST, so we’ve got you covered.”

Actually, the problem is just that – Steinberg invented VST. It’s a de facto standard, one controlled entirely by one developer. It competes with other standards (AU, Avid’s TDM and RTAS, and Linux’s rising star LV2). Third-party VST developers often don’t invest in the latest plug-in standards, especially because other VST hosts that aren’t Cubase often don’t support them. (Cue ranting developers here with more reasons they don’t like VST.) And we’re still communicating with plug-ins not only with VST, but with another de facto standard, albeit one with the input of more than one vendor, MIDI. Phew.

So, “we’ve got you covered” can either mean that Steinberg makes this easy for other vendors to adopt, or that it instead becomes their way of driving more sample library business to their HALion sampler engine and not competitors like Kontakt.

Whether it’s “revolutionary” or not, though, it is a truly new idea in editing. And as should be plainly obvious by now, new ideas in MIDI editing – for better or for worse – don’t come alone that often. So I do look forward to seeing more of this editing concept. It is news, after all.

And I hope some of my Cubase-using friends stop being so silent, and tell us how this all works in practice as they get Cubase 6 in-hand in the near future. Since the DAW isn’t dead, I’ll wager that will be useful information. What would happen if we got past the marketing descriptions and really learned from users? That might well be revolutionary.

All photos courtesy Steinberg.

Cubase 6: What’s new [Steinberg]

Audition, a favorite, previously Windows-only wave editor from Adobe, is coming to the Mac this winter. Adobe is touting native surround support, multi-channel effects, and performance optimizations; you can check out how the new tool looks at Adobe Labs. The public beta is due this winter. Interestingly, Adobe is pushing the video side of this more than audio, even though Audition is popular with audio users. The demos are hosted by video specialist Jason Levine, and “post production” is the phrase that keeps coming up.

The Mac is quickly becoming spoiled for choice with dedicated wave file editors, maybe enough that the half-decade-plus absence of Macromedia SoundEdit can finally be put to rest. WaveLab from Steinberg was announced back in March, joining the likes of BIAS Peak, Audiofile’s Wave Editor, DSP Quattro, Sound Studio, Apple’s Soundtrack Pro, and Audacity. Readers are divided on whether such dedicated tools are even needed, given expanded editing features in music and video programs, but those who do love them are very particular in their tastes. That means lovers of Audition on Windows, and people looking for more serious post-production tools to complement Adobe’s video offerings, now have some good news.

What made Adobe make the decision early? Well, I don’t know if you can chalk it up to a scathing review by my colleague Chris Breen for Macworld. But I do think the message he brought – that Soundbooth CS5 wasn’t quite up to pro tasks – was probably one Adobe was hearing from a lot of other people, too. Here’s how Chris opened his review:

When you think Adobe, the first thought unlikely to pop to mind is audio. And yet Adobe continues to include its Soundbooth audio editing application in the Creative Suite 5 Production Premium and Master Collection bundles and sells the application separately for $199. Compare the latest version of Soundbooth with its predecessor, however, and you can be excused for thinking that audio is not among Adobe’s priorities. Soundbooth CS5 is a meager update that fails to address the application’s most glaring shortcomings.

Ouch. For what it’s worth, while I think you’d have to be pretty nuts to buy Soundbooth standalone for two hundred bucks, it’s worth trying out if you own CS. It’s great for quick edits and podcasts and such, though I agree with all of Chris’ criticisms.

Windows users, though, very often do think of Adobe Audition as a close rival with tools like Sony SoundForge and Steinberg WaveLab on the PC. (Now, only SoundForge hasn’t announced a Mac port.)

So, to what can you credit Adobe’s ability to port the tool? Without knowing the specifics of Audition, generally with Adobe apps, you can thank the use of cross-platform libraries and some shared code between applications. That could also mean that the announcement of Audition for Mac is simultaneously good news for loyal Windows users – it means Audition is getting some attention, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Audition for Windows gets an update around the same time.

What I wouldn’t read into this is any larger conclusions about Windows-to-Mac porting, as Synthtopia does:

Adobe Bringing Audition To The Mac. Could Sonar Be Next?

I can answer that question: no. Cakewalk has told me repeatedly that, while they’re enthusiastic about supporting the Mac, SONAR is closely tied to Windows. A DAW is also a lot more complicated than something like Audition. Tools like Cubase (in its current generation) and Ableton Live were built with cross-platform support in mind; adding it down the road is a much harder task.

I don’t think anything about this landscape has changed. Developers who can do it easily are happy to be on both platforms, most of all a company like Adobe that makes cross-platform support part of their business strategy.

But as I said, even Windows users may wind up getting a refreshed version of a favorite audio editor out of this.

Stay tuned for when you can audition this tool for yourse— oh, jeez. That’s a terrible way to end this post. I apologize. Someone must have dropped a CS5 box on my head or something.

Updated: Jim Dalrymple at The Loop talks to Adobe about Audition. Notable – Audition for Mac is getting some of the great noise reduction features from the Windows release (as noted by readers in comments), as well as some of the more unique and effective tools in Soundbooth (Paint Brush, Healing):

An audio engineer himself, Levine said that Audition has a number of features that cannot be matched in other applications. Most notably, Levine said Audition’s noise reduction and restoration capabilities will be something to watch out for.

“There are plug-ins that can do noise reduction, but quite frankly, Audition is just better,” said Levine.

Audition will also feature some very familiar tools like a Paint Brush and Healing Tool. Photoshop users know these tools well and they work just the same in Audition, except with audio instead of images.

Adobe Audition coming to the Mac [The Loop]

The bigger picture, indeed: by blowing up the screen of the iPhone to tablet proportions, the iPad has become a lightning rod for discussions about the future of computing. It has also left interface designers with a challenge: what should interfaces look like? Can you simplify designs, as on the iPhone, but also make use of a screen size closer to what’s available on desktop computers? Those questions are especially potent when applied to making this new generation of devices expressive in music.

Even though the device won’t be in consumers’ hands until the weekend, I’ve managed to compile a list of what’s coming, with the kind assistance of the best mobile music blog out there, Palm Sounds.

Talking to developers reveals some news you likely expect – many (though certainly not all) iPhone developers plan to port their tools to the iPad. But it also includes some surprises, like a renewed interest in other tablet and netbook platforms. (Nothing quite compares to the surprise that a popular Palm developer was switching to open-source hardware design.)

And as iPad developers reconsider the design of musical user interfaces on Apple’s device, it’s long past time to evaluate how UI design can work in all digital music platforms.

Here’s a first look at what to expect.

The Apps: Full-Featured Studios

Sonoma’s StudioTrack deserves its own category: it’s an attempt to build a full-featured multitrack recording studio for the iPad. The price matches, at US$39.99 – very cheap for desktop software and even in line with, say, console games, but (comparatively) pricey for the iPhone. That makes this an early test of whether users of such platforms will spend more than a few dollars at a time.

Features: compatibility with internal mic and headphones, sync over wifi with a desktop, multitracking, metronome (with Jason McGerr drumming if you like, not just the usual tick-tock), bounce, effects on each track, master effects, compression/limiting, calibrated faders and meters, and latency compensation. In fact, the one thing that seems notably missing is the actual recording hardware to take advantage of these features, which could consign the app – while cool – to being a novelty.

One big upside, though: because it supports AudioPaste, which allows transfer of sound from other apps, you could use WireWorks as your mobile “DAW” for pasting together bits produced in other (supported) iPad apps.

Here’s a video:

Official product site:
http://www.sonomawireworks.com/iphone/studiotrack/

Via Palm Sounds

You have to love the interface, though. It looks like what Apple could have done, had they created a GarageBand or Logic app for the device. And it makes me wonder, yet again – why can’t we try design ideas like this on computers, too, especially as they begin to ship with touch support?

One potential competitor: MultiTrack, currently available for the iPhone, is coming to iPad on April 20.

GrooveMaker is a remix / loop mix / beatbox app previously available for the iPhone and iPod touch, remade for the iPad. The larger screen area affords a more integrated environment. Sold by genre with 300 loops included, US$9.99 each. Video below.

Looptastic is a loop-based editor with support for the (proprietary) Audio Copy and Paste SDK. Now, I do note one general trend here: the basic UI elements from the iPhone version are merely spread out on the iPad version in this and many apps, which to me makes the iPhone/iPod version perhaps more appealing – you focus on one activity at a time. It’s a challenge going forward. Updated: I will say, though, looking more closely at this, what you do get is reasonably-sized controls laid out in a way that you don’t have to switch screens — a “flat” layout. I’ve received additional details on the app itself, as well. The widescreen mixer gets up to 22 loops onscreen at once (32 total), free loop downloads, real-time effects with X-Y pad control (bit crush, multimode filter, delay, flanger, “glitchy repeater”), automatic tempo-matching time stretch, a “scratch strip” for retriggering from within the waveform, and import of AIFF, WAV, and OGG from Mac, Windows, and Linux over WiFi. Availability: now / pricing: US$19.99. See: iTunes page for the previous app, or skip straight to Looptastic HD [iTunes] or the developer, Sound Trends.

And yes, via AudioPaste, you can use Looptastic HD with the Sonoma tool above.

The Apps: Controllers

AC-7 Pro: The developers haven’t said much about their upcoming control surface, but it looks as though it may support some sophisticated (Mackie Control?) control of DAWs. Of course, I could remind you that again you lose tactile control – something you can get with the faders and buttons and jog wheel found on this UI – but the ability to run this as an app has some clear appeal. Saitara have an existing iPhone/iPod touch app, though it’s nowhere near this pretty. Availability 4/3; pricing unconfirmed.. See also the teaser vid.

MidiPad: I talked about this controller in some detail already; its big pitch – aside from a lovely, minimal interface – is support for networked MIDI. That makes this a near-zero-configuration controller to use. Now, if they’d just provide a reverse color scheme so it isn’t blinding to use live. Pricing/availability unconfirmed.

mrmr, the open-source, open-standards controller app which allows users to share controller presets and to deliver them dynamically to the device, will have an iPad version. Follow mrmr on noisepages, and watch for some CDM-specific coverage of mrmr in general soon. (I’m working on an Android port, but I’ve run into a big roadblock – zeroconf is stymied by bugs in multicasting that should be resolved over the coming months.)

TouchOSC, the venerable OSC-based controller app for iPhone and iPod touch, is promised for iPad, as well.

Entrackment is a controller for GarageBand ’09 and later; it requires an Intel Mac and the download of a plug-in. It supports dynamic layout — showing only those tracks you’re using at the time — and quick shortcuts for track parameters. Available now; as seen on Synthtopia.

TrixMix 2 is an iPad DAW controller; it also makes use of an app for Mac, Windows, and – nicely enough – even Linux. There are pre-configured Ableton Live and Propellerhead Reason templates. There’s an iPhone version, too. US$2.99. Via Palm Sounds; official site. Available now.

The Apps: Instruments and Sound Software

Air Harp is an iPad translation of the classic lap harp. In keeping with the tradition of those instruments, notation can appear beneath the harp for those learning to read. There are five songs and lyrics included, and the developers promise a future release will have blank sheet music for recording and saving your own music. (Selling additional sheet music as add-ons appears to be part of the model here.) The configuration is 2 octaves in G major across 15 strings and “concert-quality audio.” Of course, I’m a bit of a fan of the actual instruments, but then again, if there’s a household that already owns an iPad, things like the Air Harp could prove gateways to those acoustic instruments. Availability: April 3, approved. Pricing: Unconfirmed, though I’m anticipating around US$1.99.

RjDj reactive music: RjDj is the reactive music environment built on the open-source interactive music patching tool Pd (Pure Data). RjDj will now run on the iPad, and interfaces with the new RJC1000 application, a tool that’s intended to arrange reactive/generative music scenes into larger performances, borrowing the interface metaphor of drum machines like the MPC. The iPad itself will also allow drag and drop for adjusting scenes, whether you want to use Pd-based scenes in live performance or just bliss out to music on the couch. Updated: See also the fantastic Voyager layout, pictured above. Very sci-fi. The interesting twist in all of this: you can make your own dynamic music, using new authoring tools released by the RjDj folks. (Incidentally, if you’re thinking of learning the insanely-powerful, free Pd patching tool, RjDj’s library of patches is a terrific resource, even if you don’t intend to author for RjDj.) Pricing/availability: unconfirmed.

bleep!BOX Already a terrific little music workstation / beatbox / synthbox for the iPhone and iPod touch, bleep!BOX is already submitted for use on the iPad. Unlike some software, it’ll run on both platforms, so you’ll only have to buy it once. New in this release: a delay effect for each synth part, easier drag editing, rendering optimization, and work to ensure that the app runs in both portrait and landscape modes. Availability: shortly after launch / Pricing: US$9.99.

More info: bleep!BOX update submitted, plus CDM talks to the developer about UI design.

SunVox: SunVox developer Alex confirms to CDM that his excellent app – a combination modular workstation and tracker – is bound for iPad. Thanks to its support for numerous other platforms, that could mean seamless workflows from everything from your phone to a Linux laptop. I’m waiting on a screenshot (apologies for the iPhone tutorial video above, though it gives you a sense of how the app works). Pricing/availability unconfirmed. See the story on SunVox from earlier this week. Updated – now available.

Pianist Pro is something unlikely to replace a real keyboard, but it could be handy when you can’t get to a keyboard – and something I’d want on other touch devices, too. I also really dig the “retro”-styled view and alternate tuning interface. It’s also demonstrates how something fairly useless on the iPhone screen becomes more interesting on a bigger display. Pricing/availability unconfirmed. Via Palm Sounds.

Symphony Pro – music notation. Of all the apps that I’ve seen, this is perhaps the most exciting, though it also illustrates a major limitation of the iPad – its lack of pen input. Nonetheless, while I’m not sure how rapid input is, the idea of having a tablet on which you can create notation is fantastic, and it makes the leap from quick sketches to something you might actually sit on your piano stand with the move to iPad. Since you can save to the Internet and export MIDI files, it’s something you can then bring into your desktop notation software of choice (Finale, Sibelius, etc.). The blog post from the developers promises a basic version up front, with a more advanced version to come. Of course, if I were Finale or Sibelius, I’d be tweaking my UI for use on touch-equipped PC laptops and tablets about now. Pricing/availability unknown, but the devs do confirm they’ll continue to support their iPhone/iPod touch version.

dPad is a drum sequencer. I’m not a big fan of the somewhat simplistic interface, but it’s an interesting start. See the TUAW preview. Pricing/availability unknown.

Smule Magic Piano, the spiral/radial piano? Smule have been the one music creation app to be a true breakout hit, topping the charts not only for the iPhone, but arguably making some of the most-used music apps ever, racking up enormous numbers in participation by users around the world. That success has been closely tied to the iPhone and iPod touch and featured by Apple, so it’s little wonder they’re working on the iPad, too. Dr. Ge Wang, known in these parts as much as a music technology researcher, educator, and ChucK developer as for Smule, shows off Magic Piano briefly in the ABC video above. Other than that, we’re left with Smule teasers, but there is a signup. Smule’s apps tend to be targeted at a mainstream market more than musicians per se, and consciously so. But because of their lineage, even if you view them as toys, they’re likely to be smart toys.

As seen via Gizmodo.

Updated: Here’s a video of the app in action. Apparently you can play preloaded songs by following beams of light on the interface, with more advanced options for tuning, number of keys, impromptu musical playing, and alternate, more traditional hand positions.

miniSynth Pro has made the jump from iPhone to iPad – with a new engine in the process. It’s a virtual analog subtractive / FM monophonic synth with some nice control features. More details on Palm Sounds.

Reforge is a touch-based audio editor, with support for fades, stereo balance, and filtering. Right now, it looks fairly simple, but it’s an interesting beginning.

TabToolKit, a guitar tablature app for iPhone, is now available on iPad, too, as a universal app. (Looks like no major iPad-specific updates yet, but perhaps those will come.) More at Palm Sounds.

The simply-named Synth! by Retronyms is a Casio SK-1-inspired synth, with an internal sampler, built-in instruments, 5-note polyphony, mod wheel, delay and distortion, and an intro price of US$0.99. Check out their blog for more. I have to admit, for a simple synth app, this may be one of the most appealing.

PatternMusic by Richard Lawler has a fascinating approach to music making. It’s a matrix-based synthesizer intended to inspire experimentation and creative musical making. You play a polyphonic synth, via a unique, non-linear matrix. I’m working with the version for my iPod touch, but the new iPad version – representing a year in development – affords greater control and input flexibility. For a limited time, the app is free. Richard wrote me to tell me about the release last week:

I have a new version of PatternMusic coming out for the iPad called “PatternMusic MXXIV”. It has all the same features as the iPhone version, and it will be available free (at least initially). I too have some mixed feelings about Apple’s direction with their new platform, but there is no question that the large screen and immersive environment the device fosters will make the iPad an excellent host for my PatternMusic app. It is almost as if the iPad hardware was designed for PatternMusic. Also following shortly thereafter will be an update for both the iPhone and iPad versions adding song file export.

Blog post

Screen shots

Official site – and iPhone/iPod touch users, that version is still only US$1.99 on sale

The Apps: DJ Apps

Sonorasaurus Rex expands on a related iPhone app with additional features – like live waveforms. The result is an eminently usable-looking, lovely DJ app. It’s not hard to imagine people carrying these around, even perhaps as a backup to their more “serious” rig or something they use pre-show / late nights, for those of you lucky enough to afford various toys. Pricing/availability unconfirmed, but the devs say it’s coming soon. See the developer website, not to be confused with Sonosaurus, makers of SuperLooper. (I confused them.) Now, I just want them to do some design with their obvious terrific illustration skills.

PadDeckX is less attractive, I think, than Sonorasaurus, but it demonstrates that one thing we’re likely to see on the iPad is apps that look for all the world like desktop apps. After all, with a 1024×768 screen resolution, the iPad isn’t so different from a computer.

I couldn’t find much information on the PadDeckX app, but for more on DJing and the iPad, check out the excellent story our friend Donald Bell wrote for cnet (in which I’m quoted, though that’s not what I think makes it an excellent story). Through the charming world of the Internet, Donald gets accused of being a “wedding DJ” who knows nothing – amusing to me, because some of us know Donald as glitchy and experimental IDM artist Chachi Jones. (I got to play with him once at Robotspeak; he’s a great guy and I love his music.)

Will DJs trade laptops for iPads?;

See also the image gallery, though it mostly includes iPhone screen shots, and at least one of those apps (Star6) is not getting an iPad treatment any time soon.

As a counterpoint to this, the iPad may not be the best solution out there. If you are a wedding DJ (a gig’s a gig), for instance, I can imagine you’d be better off running djay on your Mac laptop and controlling it remotely from an iPhone or iPod touch with the new remote app. It looks far more functional than the relatively bare-bones iPad apps in the pipeline – and iPad’s low app prices are likely to keep it that way.

Updated: Two more DJ apps. My friend Jason O’Grady (of PowerPage) posts two virtualized representations of turntables, mixr (bottom) and an app currently with the working title Flare Scratch (top). I can’t say I’m a big fan of the faux-deck style DJ software – I’d prefer a waveform and ideas that stray from emulating hardware – but I can’t argue with the pairing of this with touch. I also find this personally amusing, as way at the launch of the original iPod from Apple, when I was writing for PowerPage, Jason and I had discussed the potential of these devices as they might be reimagined for DJs. I can’t say we imagined anything like this at the time, but here we are.

From ZDNet:
iPad app for DJs: mixr
Ride of the iPad DJ (updated

Mixr seen in video form below:

And the rest…

Confirmed by Ashley of Palm Sounds:

AudioTools by Studio Six Digital (iTunes link) has a US$20 suite of audio and acoustic analysis for iPhone which they’re promising for iPad, too.

Technobox is confirming a version of its very nice 303/808/909 emulation.

Also in store: the NLog (see PalmSounds’ writeup), Mixtikl generative engine (see CDM), and AudioMIDI’s/VirSyn’s iSyn synth. Palm Sounds also notes some creative but non-musical applications, like Final Draft script-writing software and art apps Brushes and ArtStudio.

I also expect some audiovisual and musical apps. My friends Morgan Packard and Joshue Ott are doing a collaboration; I’ve seen an early demo on iPhone, and it’s mesmerizing to play with on that platform. We’ll have a look at the iPad version once their iPad arrives.

Many developers have confirmed they’re working on iPad tools, including the developers of Flourish, Sampletoy, and others. Some note that they want hands-on time with the device. For that reason, I actually think some of the best iPad apps won’t be the ones that ship right away — they’ll be prepared by developers not caught up in a Gold Rush mentality, the ones who take their time and spend weeks or months considering the best design for the device while experiencing it first-hand. That’s not to take away from the apps above, some of which I think are designed really well – developer styles are different – but it does mean you can’t really judge the level of design just based on the apps you see right away. (Also, the music devs I talked to, even those shipping at launch, were doing it because they thought it made sense – no one writing this kind of niche app has any illusions about a Gold Rush.)

Evaluating iPad: Future, Drawbacks, and Competition?

Most readers are likely already familiar with my iPad launch day editorial, in which I had some strong criticisms for Apple’s platform:
How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

I don’t apologize for being critical of technology; it’s my job, and whereas to some, saying anything critical of Apple equates to an “anti-Apple bias,” I think it’s consistent with what I’ve espoused about open development generally. If anything, I think I may have overstated Apple’s role in some respects – there’s plenty of competition in this market emerging, albeit slowly. I also don’t expect everyone to agree with me; that’s not your job. But that article, in turn, got picked up by a lot of outlets. One reason was not so much that it was a lone perspective of mine, but that it resonated with other articles written on the Web.

Computing is enough a part of our culture and life that it’s bound to be wrapped up in political, ideological, artistic, and economic issues. But let me be clear: many of the dimensions on which one would judge the iPad are as much technical and practical as they are anything else, and that includes what it does right. It’s already apparent from the above round-up what some of those things are that Apple does so well:

• Apple has exceptional UI tools. That includes the way the UI framework itself works, and how Apple has developers interface with it.
• Apple gets multitouch. Lawsuits aside, Apple’s technology just seems better implemented. Multi-touch supports five or more touch points, accuracy is extremely good, latency is low, the APIs work well — the whole thing just works, and that makes touch more expressive as input. I’m disheartened by Apple’s legal attack on its competitors, but I’m also frustrated that – for reasons apparently not legal-related – so many would-be competitors have managed to botch multi-touch input so that it isn’t expressive or even (often) functional. That’s a topic for another day, but there are a lot of pieces Apple puts together, from hardware to firmware to software to developer tools.
• Apple gets sound. I don’t actually think you need Core Audio or AU support or (often) even native code to make sound work. But the simple reality is that a lot of mobile devices can’t output the kind of audio performance that the iPhone platform can.

All platforms involve trade-offs, however, and it’s worth considering the limitations of the iPad, too. After all, $500 (or more) of your money, while not an enormous investment relatively speaking, is still an investment. And some of the restrictiveness of Apple’s platforms impacts music making on their device:

• Limited expansion and the lack of, say, a real USB port is a big tradeoff. Readers have already complained about the low-level audio output from the iPhone, even in the dock; I expect the same to be true of the iPad. While we’ll no doubt see some hardware specially-designed for iPad, the lack of standard I/O means you can’t, for instance, assume an audio input or MIDI interface will work with your app. That may not matter to the mass market, but it could matter to you, and you’re who matters.
• The iTunes app lockdown still limits appeal to open source developers, but that’s not the only problem. Even for proprietary apps, that can mean difficulty testing and delayed updates and bug fixes from developers.
• The hidden file system and iTunes-restricted syncing can make it harder to integrate the iPad with your workflow. Other devices with standard storage make managing your work and sharing it with your computer much easier. iPad apps, like the iPhone apps before them, are likely to have a variety of non-standard ways of exchanging files with your desktop. I’ve already been tipped off by early-adopter developers for iPad that there’s been some confusion about this. We’ll see how the final product works and if this stuff is addressed — it’s an area to watch.

For more on the topic of hardware restrictions:
Of MIDI, iPhones and iPads, and a Restrictive Future for Hardware?

Specifically, the one MIDI adapter currently shipping is limited in its ability to support third-party applications, and there are various factors that could discourage further development for anything using Bluetooth or the hardware connection, as both of these require special hardware agreements. (More details in the story and as we get them.)

By the way, this is not to let similar platforms like Google’s Android off the hook. Google’s OS shares some of the limitations of the iPad (like a lack of external hardware support), and adds some new problems of its own (deficient multitouch, still-evolving audio and networking systems), even as it improves on Apple in some areas (open development, in a whole number of ways). More on Android soon, though, because there’s plenty to say.

All of this is worth saying, because I do expect competition in this space. The biggest competition for iPad for musicians may actually come from Apple. For these sorts of simple apps, it’s tough for the iPad to compete with the cheaper, smaller, lighter, eminently more pocket-able iPod touch – especially when you may already own an iPod or iPhone. And for more sophisticated apps, the iPad still has to compete with Apple’s own laptops (to say nothing of PCs running Windows or Linux). Touch is cool, but that means little to people who like hardware that runs, say, Ableton Live.

This is not to form an opinion one way or another – I think there’s an argument to be made for and against the device. Mostly, what we don’t know is how the touch-enabled competition will stack up, aside from a few early devices.

Competition and change are, at the very least, interesting – and they do offer promise for making our tools better. So, stay tuned. More on some of these other platforms and how they stack up later this week.

And hey, for a device that hasn’t shipped yet, this is a pretty extraordinary list of software. It says something to me not only about iPad, but about pent-up imagination for what touch-equipped music making can be in the future.

Let’s get this out of the way right at the beginning: dedicated audio editors are important. For sound design, for tweaking audio assets, and for just getting close to your sounds, editing waveforms in a DAW often doesn’t cut it.

That’s made a lot of Mac users unhappy, because it’s one of the few areas where the Mac platform lags seriously behind Windows in available choice. Windows users have been spoiled by choices like Sound Forge (now Sony), Adobe Audition, and Steinberg WaveLab, all three excellent editors that are functional and fast to work with. The Mac, meanwhile, has been all about BIAS Peak. And Peak has been divisive: some users love it, but others want an alternative. Possible choices like Adobe Soundbooth and Apple Soundtrack Pro, while useful in their own workflows, haven’t caught on with audio editors. (One notable “underground” choice is the favorite of many CDM readers – Audiofile Engineering’s Wave Editor – a smaller name, but I doubt WaveLab will shake the loyalty of its devoted users.) Clarification: okay, it depends on who you ask. See comments for some intelligent debate of my thesis here – yes, there are many options, including DSP Quattro and some lightweight choices like Amadeus. So, perhaps the real issue is Windows users migrating to the Mac (or cross-platform users with favored Windows editors) who don’t find something with which they’re comfortable. And yes, whether you really need a dedicated editor is all about how you work with assets – see comments.

Steinberg bringing WaveLab to the Mac is already turning a few heads, particularly among recent PC-to-Mac converts. (Even on Windows, with Adobe Audition having fallen behind, WaveLab may gain some ground.)

Don’t think it’s big news? Have a look at recent Facebook and Twitter activity and other chatter over the announcement. Amongst the elite sound design lovers, WaveLab is the news of the week. That’s a small group of people (as any of the developers of these apps will readily tell you), but they also have a big impact on the sound of media today.

The reworked interface still has a last-generation feel, but on the other hand, it’s functionality over form that defines this category. I’m still waiting to see some more material details, but Steinberg at least has a preview of what’s new in 7. Wading through their PR materials, I translate that to include:

• A new workspace UI built around dockable, scalable multiple windows and customizable toolbar. (I hate toolbars, so I may customize it by … turning it off. To each their own, though.)
• “Ground-up” re-engineering effort to support cross-platform Mac and Windows code (based on past experience, that may benefit the engineering on the Windows side, too)
• New VST3 restoration tools developed by Sonnox, including DeNoizer, DeBuzzer, DeClicker, and plug-ins gathered from Steinberg’s pro audio line, including the Nuendo Post Filter.
• New CD and DVD-A burning engine.

The inclusion of mastering and burning materials really puts this right opposite Peak – and for those of you who didn’t even bother with Peak, could fill in some key gaps in suites like Logic Studio (in case you aren’t a fan of Apple’s editor and burning tools).

I’m not a WaveLab user, though it’s always been a program I respected from a distance. So if you are an old-hat WaveLab lover, do get in touch; we may need to you to review the new release when it ships.

WaveLab 7 preview at Steinberg