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?

I really have no words for this one, other than there’s a hilarious APC40 meme happening on the Ableton forums. Is it love? Disdain? The APC as the new “All Your Base” for the Live warping set? Does it really matter?

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=116396

It’s good to know that, even as Ableton Live use has spread, us computer music folk are really not normal.

Via Tara Busch on Twitter of AnalogSuicide.

In fact, the Create Digital Noise forums have a whole active community of musicmakers, encompassing a broad range of styles, sensibilities, and production techniques. Let’s sift through some recent works by the CDM community, shall we?

Leading the pack in can-do professionalism is UK’s Creature and his new album Distant Horizon:

Creature Audio

Creature is the project of Stephen Haunts, who some of you may recognize from last year’s Circuit-Bending Challenge. Stephen is the proprietor of Haunted House records, and his album is available directly from Haunted House, or via download from iTunes, CDBaby, and a whole slew of others.

A name you may recognize in pairing with the phrase “Buchla Modular Synthesizer” or “Haaken Continuum controller” is that of Richard Lainhart.

lainheart

This track, “The Orchestra Of The Damned” is a track from Richard’s new MusicZeit release “The Beautiful Blue Sky“, a collection of electronic landscapes for the Buchla 200e and Haken Continuum. It was performed and recorded live without post-processing or editing.

Richard’s studies in modular synthesis, sequencing, and improvisation are blow-your-mind good and totally worth checking out. He also creates work in video and animation. Richard’s a very experienced electronic composer and it shows in the depth and breadth of his work. He will occasionally impart valuable nuggets of wisdom to n00bs on the forums, and for that he is truly a saint.

A great example of the other end of the CDM spectrum is forum member Adambomb and his group Born Again Abortion, taking a completely different approach.

born again abortion

Their myspace page contains some hilarious and also NSFW photoshopped images that very effectively communicate their irreverent punk rock aesthetic. This is exactly why freedom was invented. Also, Adambomb is a super nice guy with good advice, especially regarding live performance with electronics.

From Toronto, Canada hails Shamann and his group SIGHUP.

sighup track

They’ve got a free digital single called “Face” up on their website, which is just the sort of thing you’d expect from socialist-leaning, progressive Canada.

Jatun is a project from forum member Dead_Red_Eyes.

jatun audio

These guys apparently have a Norweigan connection- their music has been featured on HHTV and will be in an upcoming ski/snowboarding video by the Helly Hansen co. Way to be, gentlemen.

Relatively new forum member Slew has been up to something, and it’s good.

Slew audio

MZW!! hails from Spain and it looks like he’s been working with light-sensitive resistors.

mzw audio

Devin Kerr is a man whose tastes run parallel to my own when it comes to MIDI footcontrollers and joystick audio modulation.

devin kerr audio

Forum member te2rx is working on a Japan-themed album under the name Renzu.

renzu audio

And that’s just a small sample of the wonders to be found within the CDM forums, where most questions are answered with a minimum of snark, and everybody loves sandwiches. Stop on by, why dontcha?

Getting good gigs is a challenge for all genres, and it touches even more issues when computers are involved. So, as we’d hoped, Liz’s tips for getting booked has generated a lot of discussion. In addition to comments here on CDM:

The wonderful community at EM411 has some discussion, including a great tip: bring VHS tapes or books to prop your computer atop the booth turntable.

LivePA, a great blog dedicated to these topics, takes issue with the “no dead air” advice. I’ll defend it, though: “dead air” might not mean the same thing if you’re not doing dance music, but it’s still essential to keep some connection with the audience. (And silence, I think, is not the same thing as dead air. I’ve had performances where I created each. Greatly prefer the former to the latter.)

I somehow missed it in the chaos of my RSS reader, but LivePA also has a beginner guide of its own. Whereas Liz focused on the practical, LivePA covers some of the questions to ask yourself about what music you’re making. It’s an ideal complement to Liz’s take:
My personal “Getting Started” for LivePA

There’s far too much for one comment thread or article, so I’ve also set up a new sticky discussion in the Create Digital Noise “Share Your Work” thread:

Getting good music/visual gigs — let’s share advice

Take the poll to let us know how you’re feeling, and let’s start sharing tips on (and challenges with) breaking into the scene, from Canberra to Arkansas City.

I first heard about the fantastic sell-stuff-you-make community, Etsy, from a reader here on CDM, shortly after the service launched. Now, Etsy has become a real phenomenon for people who make stuff, giving them a high-quality venue in which to network with other makers and start real businesses out of what they produce.

Etsy is best known for, well, fuzzy things, from shirts to knitting to plushies — that is, craft-y work more than the harder, electronics-based music and motion technology that’s our bread and butter here. Some of you readers have turned out to be quite crafty, in which case, give us a shout and let us know your Etsy page!

But Etsy may soon become a great venue for other things, as well. Imagine:

1. Limited-run CDs and DVDs, with hand-screened artwork, from indie artists like yourself (music, visuals)


2. Handmade music-related stuff (think t-shirts, posters)
3. DIY electronics, circuit-bent instruments, alternative controllers, homemade synthesizers and guitar pedals, etc.
4. Custom plug-ins and code on limited-run, handmade discs

You can imagine some of the other possibilities. In that spirit, we’ll be collaborating here at CDM with the good folks of Etsy, who happened to be headquartered just over the river from me in Brooklyn, about 15 minutes away. I’ll be talking more about some of the possibilities as they evolve, but first up is an Etsy group:

Digital Music + Motion Makers [Etsy.com Street Team Forum]

Just reply to that message, and I’ll add you to our group. If you’re currently an Etsy member, please stop by the forum on Etsy.com and let us know. If not, and you want to join the group, just sign up for a free Etsy account and post to the forum with your account name. (You can always get approved as a seller later — if you’re like me, that’ll be in about six months when you’ve actually got something to sell.)

Like making things but not necessarily selling them? No worries, as we’ve got some opportunities for you, too. Stay tuned.

Bless K-mart and their $2.50 contact sheets of faux woodgrain. They can turn your average, ordinary plastic M-Audio USB MIDI keyboard into a retro-styled custom job that just screams, erm, class. Melbourne-and-London-based CDM forum reader soloandata did just that. (Talk about bi-coastal — they have K-marts there?) Kudos: it takes a steady hand to line up those contact sheets. The woodgrain looks great on the curved design of the new Axiom keyboards — tres 70s.

Just finished Pimping my axiom-25. check that woodgrain! [Create Digital Noise]
solo andata [Artist Page]
solo andata [@Myspace]

Thanks, Kane. Now the gauntlet has been thrown: who has the pimped keyboard / audio gear that can top this? (And if you don’t have it already, by all means head to the local K-mart. Kane wonders if faux marble might be the logical next step. I’m rooting for something pink and furry.) I know some M-Audio folks read this site, so feel free to play (or introduce faceplates at NAMM).

The HPD-10 hand percussion controller by Roland could be a terrific controller for synths and clips, from its traditional purpose (drums) to lots of other applications:

My main interest in getting the unit, though, is as a midi control over softsynths. Its 10 pads can be freely assigned to any note numbers on a per kit basis (64 kits can be saved in the unit). So far, I’ve set up different kits for Live’s Impulse, Reason’s Redrum and an Alesis Micron Setup that I have dedicated for drum sounds.

Check out velocipede’s full review:
Handsonic 10 (HPD-10) [Create Digital Noise]

The news from Tokyo’s Music Instrument Festival is mostly what’s going away as what’s new: Alesis selling off the last stock of Ions in Japan, and Roland discontinuing their cult favorite AX-7 strap-on keyboard controller. Fortunately, velocipede dug up two gems. Vestax’s Guber line has some far-out hardware like this crazy-looking turntable:

And from the non-electronic end of the spectrum, the Xaphoon is an original hybrid instrument that packs sax-like sounds in a recorder body; velocipede assures us that it sounds far better than its toy-like looks suggest:

Music Instrument Festival in Tokyo [Create Digital Noise]
Vestax Guber players [Japanese only]
Xaphoon instruments product page

DJ Monday continues … CDM reader Corporation shares a number of tips, resources, and reviews of the new M-Audio DJ solution, involving the Conectiv hardware and Torq software. The basic downsides: bad documentation, and hardware that may not work for everyone. But on the upside, M-Audio has a solution that, at a fraction of the price of some of its competitors, will let you do some serious digital warping of vinyl both in terms of processing timecode off records and adding VST effects.

If you are thinking of early-adopting Torq and Conectiv, you’ve got some good resources and tips from fellow users:
The Unofficial Torq DJ Forum

Informal review/discussion at ScratchLIVE.net forum

Review on Pro DJ Forums

Video

User guide PDF

M-Audio Conectiv Product Page

Perfectionism is the enemy of productivity, in music making, in blog posts, and in forum messages:

Less activity in the forums … because there’s no “off-topic” forum

We know you’re out surfing in this beautiful summer weather, or, erm, trying to prevent death by heat exhaustion here in the newly globally-warmed United States (101 in NYC?), or enjoying the Aussie winter if you’re Jaymis and Nat.

So, here’s a suggestion for getting your chat on via the CDM Forums:

1. Don’t forget there is a General / Chat forum
2. Do feel free to post any “off-topic” messages there you like, such as important threads on sock color
3. Do subscribe to the createdigitalnoise.com RSS feed for the latest posts
4. Don’t be afraid to post “dumb” questions, because we’re happy to lend a helping hand. And if we’re not, remind us to lighten up.
5. Do feel free to promote your latest music or website if you’re an active member of the forum, on the Share your Work forum. (That goes for Create Digital Motion visual work, too!)

And, of course, if you’re out there surfing, please don’t get off your board to get on ours. I mean, that’s just silly. Create Digital Noise is refreshing, but not that refreshing. Salt water, please! ]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/08/01/say-anything-on-our-forums/feed/ 0 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/06/27/when-laptops-go-bad-hp-laptop-lemon/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/06/27/when-laptops-go-bad-hp-laptop-lemon/#comments Tue, 27 Jun 2006 16:53:10 +0000 Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/06/27/when-laptops-go-bad-hp-laptop-lemon/ When the magic works, it’s wonderful. And when it doesn’t …

Jim Aikin, whose writing you know from Electronic Musician, Keyboard, his books, and many other places he pops up, has been having a pretty bad time with a brand new HP laptop and his shared his misery on the forums. The computer in question is a Hewlett Packrat Pavilion dv8000 dual-core machine. (Here’s confusing model numbering for you: the dv8000 series includes both Intel Core Duo and AMD Turion models; Jim has the Intel version.) It’s the latest-and-greatest on the inside, but it sounds as though Jim either got a lemon, or there are problems with the way HP configured this machine, bad luck, or a combination of the three. I think there’s some sort of FireWire issue going on from the symptoms Jim is describing. If you haven’t already read this thread, please feel free to offer a better diagnosis if you’ve got one.

Updated: Don’t you love it when companies do the right thing? Jim writes: Hooray!! HP very generously agreed to take the machine back, even though the 21-day grace period had passed.

So, hip, hip, hooray for great support from HP. Now, erm, that said, someone want to suggest a laptop from a maker other than HP that might fit Jim’s (and other’s) needs? More after the break …

This does raise a broader issue: user experience on Windows can be widely variable. Different hardware vendors choose different components, drivers, BIOS, and other setup options that can have a big impact on your experience. It’s tough to go back to a “clean” Windows install, too, because Windows XP out of the box supports only some of your hardware; things like chipset drivers mean you’re reliant on your product vendor. And, yes, this is generally not the problem you have with Apple since they build the “whole widget.” (Or Linux, since most driver support is community-based and open source, though that generates some other problems.) It’s part of the reason I decided to build my new PC, for a level of control you don’t get from PC vendors — or Apple.

Of course, there’s another possibility, which is that the laptop itself is fine and either a component is working incorrectly or an installation got botched. For what it’s worth, the dv8000 has gotten pretty good reviews from Laptop Magazine and PC Magazine. (Though, interestingly, those reviews both cover the AMD models, not the Intel Core Duo, meaning they may have zero bearing at all on Jim’s machine since it has a different motherboard.) Unfortunately, the symptoms don’t narrow down the potential source of the problem.

But here’s another question for you: is there a PC laptop maker with whom you’ve had great experience? I notice today on Engadget, Alienware has their own Core Duo-based laptops now. And there’s even the option of building your own laptop, as covered recently in Maximum PC magazine. Any success stories to go with the sob stories? (In my own experience, I’ve been disappointed with a Toshiba M35-S320 PC and pretty happy with my rock-solid, if slightly underpowered, PowerBook G4 1.5.)

I will say, laptop music making can be a fantastic experience. But, like everything else, that’s only true when the magic works.