For the lover of musical instruments and technology, southern California’s NAMM show is a giant toy shop. It’s work for many of its attendees, of course, but we know many of our readers dream of the objects that will make their next creations. And sure, inspiring lust is not our aim; on the contrary, there is some love that goes into these things. In the ideal, that’s the relationship of creator and consumer. These are things not to be bought and discarded, but kept and really used.

So, we have a different look at the NAMM show, through the lens of CDM contributor Marsha Vdovin, who has been at this show more times than she might like to count. I’ve added some comments about what these devices are and why they’re important. And the next time we see them, these inventions pictured in silence here, we expect them to be working hard on music far from the din and flourescent glare of the trade show floor.

As always, click for larger images. Photos by Marsha Vdovin; words by Peter Kirn:

Roland’s V-Guitar marks a surprising collaboration, bringing the famed American guitar maker Fender together with the Japanese electronic maker to make an “electronic guitar,” merging the two company’s tech on a digitally-augmented Stratocaster. More on this soon – but the extended playing techniques won over many guitarists.

The Danish design aesthetes of AIAIAI have improved upon their TMA-1 headphones with a studio model. Same drivers, same basic design, but a “flatter” response to sound (rather than beefed-up, DJ-ready bass) and closed ear design. It’s impossible to hear anything at NAMM, but I can attest that the new design is far, far more comfy to wear. Actually, if I could have kept these on the whole show to drown out the sound, it would have been great.

An easy place to spot a talented celebrity was at the Dave Smith Instruments booth, at which artists clustered around Dave and Roger Linn. They were on-hand with plenty of tweaks to their stellar Tempest drum machine.

Teenage Engineering’s OP-1 grew up, with new features (drum sounds! MIDI sync – at last), and grew out, with a companion product for connecting sensors and USB host mode that could be a boutique item for music DIYers. We’ll go hands-on with each this year, and while readers were disappointed on a lack of some details (will the OpLab be open source?), we expect to get more details from the Teenagers when the product is ready in the coming months.

Readers of tech blogs (ahem) may miss out on the fact that the vast majority of NAMM is really for guitarists, drummers, and traditional instrumentalists. And yes, that includes glittery, pink products from Daisy Rock Guitars. We’ve concluded this model will be perfect for Sparkle Pony. (And really, if you’re not watching Portlandia to get that reference, get on it. Also, Jenny Conlee is crazy awesome.)

Thin, responsive, and expressive, the QuNeo from Keith McMillen – funded on Kickstarter – proves it’s really happening. With continuous pressure response on its touch controls and bi-directional control, it could be the most anyone will ever have gotten from a US$200 controller. Yes, we’ll be watching.

Pioneer wasn’t showing anything new at this show — they timed those launches over the fall with new controllers like the Ergo. But they did have a glossly all-white lacquer set of limited-edition devices that looked absurdly gorgeous. Now if I want to do my flat over in the style of a Stanley Kubrick set, I know what DJ gear I’ll be buying. (If you don’t know what I mean, watch the end of 2001 again – or the living room in Tron: Legacy, which is more or less a copy.) White is the new generic-dull-charcoal.

Akai’s MPC Renaissance is unlike any other mass-market controller we’ve seen. It’s actually substantial, something that feels like a vintage MPC even though it’s designed to work with software (pictured). The audio circuitry is straight out of the modern MPC, but there’s a switch for “vintage” modes – think 12-bit output when the MPC60 is enabled, for instance. Akai told CDM they built the software in-house, but we also learned at NAMM that they licensed time-stretch tech from iZotope, giving their upcoming MPC software generous audio-manipulation abilities.

The Renaissance will cost you, with a street expected well over a grand, but that makes it even more welcome that the same superb pads and response curves are also on the maker’s MAX49 keyboard and cheaper MPC Model.

Just expect to wait: these were prototypes, and there were still some bugs to work out.

The Renaissance is for the MPC die-hard; the MPC Studio is the model that will directly take on Native Instruments and Maschine. It’s slim, sleek, and still has great-feeling controls. And while that makes it compelling competition for Maschine, I’m gratified to see this whole market expanding, new workflows for performance and production, and a push to better quality in the controllers. The days when computer gear meant “cheap and plastic-y” are mercifully at an end. Speaking of which –

Akai’s MAX49 keyboard could be a new model to beat. The keyboard action is satisfyingly springy, with a new keybed not seen in previous models. The pads are identical to those on the Renaissance, and feel more the way proper MPC pads should. Not everyone will love the light-up, touch-sensitive resistive faders, but I found with a bit of pressure, they worked well – and that means never having to worry about a fader catching up with the value in software. You also get serious features: Control Voltage, a full complement of MIDI ports, and aftertouch. Did I mention Control Voltage? It’s nice to see a controller keyboard with a slightly premium price, build, and features.

The last surprise from Akai was this MPC DJ. The company says it’s a prototype only, and had little more to say about it, but it’s fascinating to see the MPC and turntable controls converge.

Moog’s Minitaur was my favorite synth of the show. It just sounds consistently brilliant, no matter which way you turn it or play it – and I accordingly noticed it was the synth the most people were actually playing on the show floor.

This is what a 24-karet KORG MonoTribe looks like, alongside a silver-plated model. There’s little more one can say. It is, of course, one of a kind — and already spoken for.

The other thing of beauty at the KORG booth: a limited-edition reverse-key SV-1 keyboard.

iOS accessories were numerous, but a few were genuinely useful. IK Multimedia’s iRig Mic “Cast,” for instance, is coupled with handy software for podcasters, as a quick tool for interviewing or podcast recording.

It’s not a new product, but one of the reviews to which I’m most looking forward is this Eers product. It promises custom in-ears you make yourself, rather than the enormous cost of getting them custom-made. Stay tuned on this one – protecting your hearing and making on-stage gigs go well is perhaps as essential as gear can get.

The just-intonation Hymnatron from the Dewanatron crew was one of the most compositionally-compelling instruments at the show, with a unique sound, tuning, and key layout. And it looks mighty handsome in this one-off wooden case.

LiveWire’s modular was among the many dreamy modular rigs at Big City Music and Analog Haven, two Los Angeles hotspots for analog modulars. Did we mention space was more plentiful and inexpensive, and gigs more generous, in LA than in NYC, Chicago, or San Francisco? Funny coincidence, that.

Many modules graced this show, but the most intriguing was not analog, but digital – think digital algorithms in an analog, patch-cord-modular hardware workflow. Tom Erbe, maker of long-beloved SoundHack (the app, and then more recently the plug-ins) put some of his sonic wizardry into a module, collaborating with one of our favorite modular builders, MakeNoise. The result: the MakeNoise Echofon. As such, it’s a perfect emblem of our Create Digital Music, Create Analog Music philosophy. Dear Berlin friends: let’s plug this into your monster modulars, okay?

Big City Music is a wonderful place. The other candidate for best new module: brilliant creations by Metasonix, as previewed here. We’ll be watching for these to be patch-able, too.

Casio had its classic CZ-1000 synth on-hand at its booth. The Casio XW isn’t quite a successor to the CZ, though it does include some of those waveforms and phase distortion sounds. What it does appear to be is a very affordable, do-just-about-everything workstation at a fraction of the price of any of its rivals. For someone who wants a jack-of-all-trades gigging keyboard, this could very much be a contender.

Our friends at Beatport are evidently getting into the hardware business. The most interesting launch wasn’t a set of TMA headphones with Slimer-green cords (I’ll take the Studio model, thanks, or just a non-Danish set of studio cans). Instead, I was intrigued by the eminently-practical line of gigging cords Beatport is working on with Hosa. They include features live digital musicians and DJs badly need, like color-coded cords you can find easily at a show, and hinged USB cords you can cram into tight spaces. More on those soon.

Thanks, all. Lastly, I want to thank everyone I got to spend time with at the NAMM show, and particularly Marsha Vdovin, who is responsible for these photos and keeping our schedule together. NAMM is always too crowded and too short, but it can lay groundwork for a whole year. And I’m excited for this Year of the Dragon. Be seeing you.

For the rest of our NAMM coverage:
http://createdigitalmusic.com/tag/namm/

Photos by Marsha Vdovin / Words by Peter Kirn.

De:Bug is one of my favorite reads in music technology. And while I can fake my way through French and Spanish, De:Bug is also the one non-English publication I read daily. So I’m gratified to get to write a byline for the publication, which someone was nice enough to translate into German. For our German-speaking readers, you actually don’t have to read this one in English (though there’s an English version, to)

In this story, I pick out the major themes in new music tech at the NAMM show this month in Anaheim, California:

Winter NAMM 2012 Roundup
Peter Kirn von CDM ist für uns über die NAMM gelaufen

It’s also a pleasure to get to meet the folks from De:Bug. Believe me, I’ll be practicing by reading your work, though I’d best leave the translation to the pros for now.

Trade shows aren’t what they used to be. For those of us who love music technology and the spirit of invention, it’s a good thing – why shouldn’t people be coming up with ideas year round? Why not spread them in places other than the gray, fluorescent glow of a big trade show floor open only to the industry?

On the other hand, there’s something to be said for those moments when an entire industry can come together face-to-face. And perhaps with that in mind, NAMM next week in January is gearing up to what looks like a very big week for new toys and tools, even as some vendors – notably a number of the bigger software makers – take a pass.

We’ll be in Anaheim for NAMM at the end of next week, and there are very good reasons to be excited about the trip. Some of the news, indeed, we’ll have in advance of the show, and in some cases can even publish it. Possibly triggered by leaks, we saw a big announcement from Moog last week as well as the first of three from Akai.

Here are 10 reasons to be “stoked,” in California parlance, for what’s happening in music tech this January:

1. Casio back in the synthesizer business. Matrixsynth gets some great scoops and research on this one, aided by ComputerMusicGuide. Whatever Casio’s reputation, the’ve produced some of our all-time favorite synths — particularly those in the CZ line. Sure, some of these twee, adorable low-end models may have become the butt of hipster jokes, but make no mistake: phase distortion is genius. So, that makes it intriguing just what Casio is teasing for NAMM. Will this be just another entry in a crowded entry-level synth market already well covered by the likes of Korg, Novation, and recently even Avid? Or can Casio channel some of the greatness of its history into something genuinely new and different?

2. Teenage Engineering. I’m in regular touch with TE, and I have no idea what this video is about, but I know the Teenage guys always come up with something fun to look at – thanks to some serious industrial design chops and imagination, and a business small enough to get from idea to prototype quickly. Synthtopia takes notice; DE:BUG predicts a designer synth; I’m imagining an accessory.

3. Moog. We already know Moog is in with a new monosynth called the Minitaur, at just US$679. The design is traditional, but the sound and playability look top-notch. With the accessible pricing – even with the cat out of the bag (the bull out of the … pen?) – this could be a show highlight. And given the popularity of Animoog, I wouldn’t put another surprise or two past the North Carolina company. Oh yeah, and since it’ll be hard to play with the Moog but easier to get a feel for the Akai controller and software, this is tied for me with seeing the other big announcement last week in person – the Akai Revolution.

4. Universal Audio: DSP vendor UA has been on a bit of a roll lately, and I expect something big from them. Stay tuned.

5. Line 6 tells us they’re launching something major at the show. No clue what it is, but this vendor has been exploding into markets from guitars to iOS, so stay tuned; they’re atop the visit list.

6. KORG has been especially adept at giving users what they want, from the inexpensive, accessible-analog Monotrons to ground-breaking mobile apps for iOS and even Nintendo DS, and some major, crowd-pleasing hardware. NAMM is a big show for all of the big three from Japan – Yamaha, KORG, and Roland – and of the three of them, KORG are the ones that I hear people buzzing about already. (You hear that, Roland and Yamaha? Them’s fightin’ words… we’ll be visiting you, too…)

7. The Basement. Once the dominion of only hard-core synth geeks, the blogiverse has made some of the odder, boutique creations and analog labors-of-love more interesting to average electronic musicians than the splashy booths and bigger names. From French Eowave to local modules, I know there are some very nice folks showing up I’m eager to meet. I even hear MeeBlip designer James Grahame may be lurking around Disneyland…

8. Parties … off-campus. There are always some good parties around the NAMM area, but it’s getting into Los Angeles and away from Anaheim that has appeal for me. We’ll be teaming up with local live performance collective Interface LA for a Very Controllerist Party at downtown LA’s Bootleg Theater, with Mike Slott headlining and unique performance rigs from Moldover, Rich DDT, and Nonagon, and some great crews from both SF and LA. Stay tuned for details on that. I also hear Droid Behavior will have one of their legendary loft parties going for Wham Bam … maybe I should just stay awake until my early-Saturday flight back to Berlin.

9. Waffle House and IHOP. Oh, yeah.

10. Surprises. I expect enormous displays from Yamaha and Roland in particular. But I can usually keep up with bigger players from a distance. NAMM is a time when I typically get surprised by vendors who I didn’t know were coming up with products – and get to see them face-to-face. And that’s why walking the show floor in person can truly be a pleasure. So, if you’re afraid we might not find your booth, please do get in touch and don’t be shy. Time is short, and stuff slips through the cracks, but we might be able to find a story about what you’re doing.

See also MusicRadar’s take on what to watch, which also looks forward to guitar announcements and some celebrity appearances.

I could go on and complain about Anaheim, the inability to hear on the show floor, the poor conditions for doing any reporting, the fact that “live” coverage is a joke thanks to dreadful wifi networks, and so on. But there are just too many reasons I think we’ll enjoy this year’s coverage. I’ll get stuff up as quickly as possible this week, and then we’re back to our usual coverage of tech and music the following week.

2011 has seen sweeping changes in technology and music, alongside the loss of titans Max Mathews and Tsutomu Katoh, two pioneers of our world. Some of these stories passed quietly; some with great fanfare. Here, we reveal those stories that attracted the greatest number of Internet eyeballs, a metric not necessarily of importance but certainly of what reached the widest audience on this site. And there are definite trends: a hunger for mobile, both the explosive growth of iOS and tablets, but also a resurgent interest in MIDI (not to give away the end) and a desire by owners of devices powered by Apple’s rival Android to find tools themselves. Traditional tools, too, make a strong showing – people still care about DAWs, about production. And affordable, do-everything tools fare well.

Hidden from this list are many other stories significant to me, though remembering just which occurred between January the first of last year and now strains my brain. (CDM is external memory.) If you recall a story that was significant to you on this site – or even one we missed – let us know.

In the meantime, here’s what the eyes of the Internet watched – ranked by page views in our analytics tool:

30.

The Handheld Studio Evolves: Beatmaker 2 Developers Explain their iPhone Workflow

29.

Touchable Music: At Last, Lemur’s Interactive Touch Controls Make it to iPad (Videos)

28.

Music Patchwork: Ableton Makes Max for Live Cheaper, Showcases Creations by Henke, Hawtin, More

27.

Spectral Layers Audio Editor Focuses on Editing Sound Visually, a la Photoshop

26.

Mixing and Audio Interface, in the $450 MOTU Audio Express

25.

Euclidean Rhythms in Ableton MIDI Clips for Polyrhythmic Good Times; Microtonal Operator

24.

Tsutomu Katoh, Korg Founder and Chairman, Has Passed Away

23.

Rumors Mounting for Imminent Logic Pro X, a la Final Cut Pro X; No-Brainer Speculation

Yup, those no-brainer predictions were … no-brainer predictions. Spoiler alert: Logic 9 and Updated MainStage on App Store, at Cut-Rate Prices

22.

Mobile Korg Fun: Monotribe Adds Patterns and Sync, Wavedrum Mini is On-the-go Drum; Impressions

21.

FL Studio Mobile, Now Available on iPhone, iPad; Sampling, Android Support to Come

20.

Modeling Analog in a Digital Age: A Conversation with Universal Audio’s Chief Scientist; Gallery

19.

Playing the City: An Eindhoven Pianola Makes Urban Landscape into Music

18.

Expanding Touch and MIDI, Mobile iOS Control Gets More Mature in New and Updated Apps; Round-Up

17.

Akai Turns an iPad Into a Full-Sized Music Keyboard: Akai SynthStation49

16.

FL Studio “Fruity Loops” 10 Adds 64-bit Savvy, Smarter Editing, New Pitch, Time, and Harmony Add-ons

15.

Apple Gets Into iPad Music with $5 GarageBand

14.

Cubase 6: Amidst Familiar Leapfrog Features, A New Approach to Note-by-note Expression Editing

13.

KORG monotron DUO, monotron DELAY Bring Fun Back, via Mono/Poly, MS Circuits and Pocket Size

12.

Tempest, Roger Linn + Dave Smith Analog Drum Machine, is Official

11.

Virtual DJ Controllers: New Hardware for Serato, Traktor from Pioneer, Numark

10.

Useful Music Tools for Your Android Phone, and a New Sketchpad Joins Groovebox

9.

Making Music with Free and Open Source Software: Top Picks from Red Hat, Dave Phillips

8.

Learn Mastering Technique in Free Videos: Limiting, M/S, Dubstep Bass

7.

Reason 6 Combines Record Features, Adds Effects; New Bundles and First Props Hardware Interface

6.

First Look at Roland Jupiter-80, Images, and Reflections on the Jupiter Legacy

5.

Native Instruments’ Razor Synth: Dubstep to Ambience, Free Tutorial and Loops

4.

Android Adds USB Host + Audio, Open Hardware ADK with Arduino; Good News for Mobile Music

3.

A Flute Made on a 3D Printer, and the Possibilities to Come

2.

A Few Good TouchOSC Layouts, from Waldorf to Traktor to Ableton, and a Brief Rant

1.

How to Use MIDI to Make an iPad More Musically Connected, Productive: Video, Resources

We’ve followed open source hardware – and generally hardware that is more open to user customization and modification – on this site since the beginning. As I prepare for a talk on the MeeBlip at Berlin’s Create Art & Technology Conference, though, I think it’s time to do a proper survey of the hardware that’s out there.

The ability to modify music gear is something that’s important to a lot of people as musicians. It means the ability to learn how the technology we use works, and therefore to have a deeper musical and compositional understanding of it. And it can mean the ability to make music hardware more expressive of your sonic imagination and creative ideas. Finally, it adds an additional avenue through which you can share your understanding and use and modification of musical instruments with other people.

Explanation below, or just skip to the survey, or live event in Berlin.

A Spectrum of “Open” in Music Gear

Even proprietary hardware can become more “open” in the general sense. In the early days of synths, it was commonplace to include detailed specifications and even circuit diagrams. That arguably furthered the evolution of music gear, as knowledge was shared, and it certainly allowed more advanced users to better understand how that gear worked. We’ve seen a subtle return to those days, with examples like Korg’s Monotron and MonoTribe hardware, for which the company released schematics.

The viral, revolutionary spread of the monome design owes in part a community built around modification, access to critical schematics, and some open sourced software which the community took and modified. The monome, however, focuses on a fully open-source protocol and availability to schematics. Those schematics are not free for use in your own creations, which has sometimes caused friction as makers sell modified or homebrewed variants of the monome. On the other hand, many in the monome community value the handcrafted original hardware and don’t particularly want “clones” and the like, and have found the available information more than enough to fuel their musical needs.

Open Source Hardware goes further, by placing everything under a license that makes it free for use. This would include the software (either running on the device, on an attached computer, or both), the schematics of the design, and even visual elements of the design, as well as the documentation. Projects that give their users the most freedom to work with any modifications they make also allow for unfettered commercial use; that is, you don’t have to worry if you sell a few, or even many, if you run afoul of the project’s original creators. Without going into the debate for or against such an approach, if this kind of sharing is your goal, then it follows it will important for you to make that freedom explicit. This sort of explicit use is also what is described in the Open Source Hardware definition, which our MeeBlip project has adopted because we feel the project and definition fit one another.

Note that there’s a very real debate about whether the ideals of free software are applicable to open source hardware. There’s no debating it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison: copying hardware means physically manufacturing something. (I’m surprised to see, in German, the use of the term Freie Hardware, which has generally been avoided in English. See also the Open Source Hardware and Design Alliance, which goes beyond some of these specific – and possibly not-really-applicable – licenses.)

I’ll say this: I think adding in the issues of economics, materials, sustainability, local manufacture, labor, distribution, and international trade make this question more compelling for discussion. It’s messier than software, yes – but given that all software relies on hardware on which to run, dealing with these messy and often demanding questions means engaging more of the many dimensions in which technology interacts with economics.

Resources:
Open Source Hardware (OSHW) definition / principles
Business models for Open Hardware
Amusingly, the MeeBlip continues flying under the radar as an open source hardware project, but once we actually get our shipping picture in place over the next couple of weeks, maybe we can work on that.

Let’s See the Gear!

But first, we just need to find out what’s out there. And that’s where you come in. If you’ve got a project, or use a project, or just know about a project, let us know. If it’s your own project – especially if you feel we’ve ignored you in the past (trust me, you don’t want to see my inbox or brain) – now’s your chance to tell us about it.

Because it’s the narrowest and most sharply-defined category, I’m most interested in those projects that fit the Open Source Hardware definition – not for philosophical reasons so much as taxonomic ones. But other projects are welcome, too; I’d like to hear about them.

About that MeeBlip…

And we’ll have the first of a series of updates on the MeeBlip project later this week. (The new SE and micro projects, and updated firmware, as well as vastly-expanded documentation, are all due soon, held up only by international shipping, weather, and illness challenges I’ll describe later.)

In the meantime, fire away.

Or Talk in Person!

If you’re in Berlin, this weekend join some terrific discussions on creativity, technology, and DIY, including my talk on the MeeBlip, lots of talks on hardware design and prototyping (including for beginners), and projects like the fantastic libmonome. And if you see me, say hi! (My talk is Sunday morning.)

http://createartandtechnology.de/

Survey

Direct link to Google Docs survey (login not required)

Artist Zack Wright, for a handful of followers of what we used to call IDM, will be a blast from the past. Recording as Deceptikon on labels like Merck and Daly City Records, Zack is back. His name is now Dkon, and the story is more than just him: in the absence of a Merck to release adventurous music, Dkon is helping launch a new label entitled Tokyo Ghost Island, with an EP to be followed soon by new records from Jemapur, Secret Palindromes, and an EP from Stockton & Malone, among other things.

Swimming upstream against gear fetishism, the 800 EP is proud to be cheap. The Korg Poly 800 on which the release is focused is a dirt-cheap eBay score, but as Dkon puts it, it’s also “one of the most underrated analog polysynths out there.” I’d be nervous about CDM driving up its value before I can get one – it’s been on my wish list – except that there are a lot of them. It was the first synth for many players.

With that spirit, Dkon sends along a manifesto of sorts about music making. He’s been coupling the Poly 800 with a production workflow entirely centered on Renoise, the modern tracker, for recording and sequencing. But tools aside, there’s a minimal philosophy here I think a lot will like.

Oh, and about the album: it’s raw, unaffected, with the sweet spare sounds of the Korg set to good-natured beats, as clean as your local Poly 800 in a garage sale probably isn’t. It’s not retro; it’s just … well, good. The synthesis is unabashedly front and center, everything perfectly machined in pure economy. Less is more, indeed. Have a listen: the full tracks are on SoundCloud:

Dkon – 800 EP by Dkon / Deceptikon

Grab the EP on iTunes

Facebook fan page

(I love this sound — but for a radically different side of the artist, be sure to hear some of his past work and remixes below; he’s got quite a range.)

For his part, Dkon is based in San Francisco, by way of Tokyo, Seattle, Washington, Eugene, Oregon, and Portland, Oregon, except I ran into him in Brooklyn at Percussion Lab.

Bonus points if you remember Deceptikon. And if you don’t, you know we’re not music snobs here; I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised to discover him through the new Dkon music. (See bottom for some Deceptikon music, too.)

But let’s see if you agree with Dkon’s philosophy, behind this record and DIY, economy-be-damned, do-it-on-the-cheap, make-it-great spirit. He shares those thoughts with CDM:

DKON’S TIPS FOR CREATIVE SUCCESS

1. Less is more.
If you read nothing else in this article, read this. Having more options is not good for your creativity. Learn what you have, use what you have. Having a limited set of options forces you to focus.

2. You don’t need expensive stuff.
There are a lot of people who think you need to keep improving your studio, and getting the latest, most expensive gear in order to have the ability to be able to make something good. This is nonsense. From an economic point of view, the 800 EP cost me about $125 to make. (Renoise license of about ~$75, and I bought the 800 on Craigslist for $40). I made my first several albums (*Lost Subject*, *Greater Cascadia*, and *Mythology of the Metropolis*) with very limited means and equipment. Make do with what you have. Buy gear secondhand, but only what you will actually use. Use free or cheap software. Use free or cheap plugins.

3. It doesn’t matter what software you use.
There are so many DAW options now, but they all do basically the same thing. The only real difference is workflow. Pick one that appeals to you, learn it as you go along, and you will succeed. I have been using mostly Renoise for the past few years because I like the workflow and relatively simple interface. It may look confusing if you’ve never used a tracker before, but once you get the hang of it, it’s incredibly fast to get your ideas down, which is a major advantage. When inspiration hits you, the faster you can start working, the better.

4. Work around the limitations of what you have.
If something is limited in some way, use it to your advantage. Why do you think things like the 303 and 808 are still universally adored? They are both incredibly limited instruments, but what they do, they do very well. Using a more concrete example in my case, the Poly 800. It’s horribly tedious to program, but has a great sound and a lot of character. If it was covered in knobs and sliders, I don’t think it would be as appealing in a bizarre kind of way. The limited nature of the instrument encourages creativity.

5. Treat everything as a sample.
Especially in regards to software like Renoise. Find a sound on an instrument you like. Record yourself playing a few chords or a sequence of notes. Chop it up, sequence it, and rearrange it. Usually, if I do this, the sequence that ends up being used is different than the one that I originally played. Move things around, play with the pitch, change the envelopes. Being imprecise with your editing gives it a more humanized feel, without resorting to adding “humanization” after the fact.

6. Fidelity is highly overrated.
Do you think anyone is going to care if your snares are amazingly compressed and EQ’ed if your song is terrible? No. Making your music sound “nice” should be an afterthought. Focus on content, not gloss.

7. If you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong.
Making music, or art of any kind, should be fun. Treat it as play, not as work. Don’t think of what you want to make before you start – let the finished product reveal itself through your work. Dive in and explore without conscious thought.

http://www.deceptikon.net/
http://soundcloud.com/dkon
http://www.renoise.com/

Inside the Studio: Gear and Renoise Session Screenshots

Click the images for a closer look; all images courtesy the artist and used by permission.

More Music

Remixes by Dkon / Deceptikon

Mythology of the Metropolis 12″ by Dkon / Deceptikon

Artwork for the Mythology of the Metropolis album is, I think, really beautiful:

The painting is the work of Philadelphia-based Richard Bailey, aka artist proem, who also did my album cover as well as the CSS work on CDM. This isn’t some sort of cabal we’ve put together; I keep running into these lads and the connections between them by pure accident. There’s a sort of diffuse, scattered community of people who are expatriated from a forgotten IDM nation. If IDM dies, CDM lives, at least.

And for good measure, the music video for “Broken Synthesizers,” via reader mikrosopht in comments, who worked on it.

Brilliant idea – hacking YouTube timelines to make an interactive 909 – though I can’t get it to work for me at the moment.

Thanks to Dkon for all these ideas.

Care to debate – or echo – his creative tips? Sound off in comments.

Native Instruments reveals some big news for Maschine that’s … well, smaller. A new package has smaller hardware and lower price, with the same full-sized software. And an iOS version lets you use Maschine on iPad or iPhone.

As their drum machine / drum sampler / groove workstation with plug-in hosting and doubling as plug-in matures, and becomes a focus of NI’s production and performance side, things are starting to heat up. And yes, this news comes just as we learn more about an upcoming analog drum machine. It’s a Labor Day full of drum machines.

Shrunken Maschine: Maschine Mikro is, for me, the best news. It’s cheaper than the full Maschine package. It’s smaller and lighter, with a more compact controller. You might expect NI trimmed down the samples set – nope, it’s the same 6 GB ibrary. Or maybe they added a “lite” version of the software – nope, it’s the same, full Maschine version. And you still get full-sized pads. The Maschine pads are some of my favorite currently on the market – controller or otherwise – so that’s quite nice, indeed. You do sacrifice some hands-on control: the Mikro lacks the big, beautiful screens on the full Maschine, and the additional knobs and triggers. The eight macro knobs on the full Maschine are pretty handy, as are dedicated group buttons.

So, why would I think Mikro’s a good idea? Simple: when you’re on the road, or performing live onstage in cramped spaces, the Mikro looks like a winner, and all with the same software and at a lower price. For studio use, the full Maschine is still your best choice. But I’m personally going to switch out to the Mikro, especially because – like many people, I suspect – it’ll ultimately be combined with another controller in my workflow. You can have a closer look at our two product shots from NI and decide for yourself. (Yes, there’s a Maschine Bag, and yes, I was just talking to King Britt about his on-the-go luggage setup with his Maschine, but I’m still partial to smaller and lighter!)

Finger drumming video: NI has also released a promo vid of finger-drumming virtuoso Jeremy Ellis tearing apart their new hardware. It’s supposed to make you want to buy a Mikro, or something, except it may make you feel somewhat … inadequate … with your own finger drumming, instead.

Really Shrunken Maschine: If the Mikro isn’t small enough – say, you’re on the East Coast “Chinatown” Fung Wah bus and don’t really have room for your knees – NI also has a Maschine coming for iOS in October. It seems eminently practical:

• four tracks
• sampling (perhaps the most fun part of having this be mobile)
• “high-quality” effects (no reason that couldn’t just be ported from desktop)
• instrument and drum sounds from the standard Maschine library
• bring back your sketches into the full Maschine and edit them there

I’m only sorry it’s called iMaschine. Oh, well.

Komplete integration: As a footnote to this other news, NI notes that Maschine and Maschine Mikro each now support sound browsing and parameter mapping for instruments and effects in Komplete/Komplete Ultimate – the kind of tactile control originally in Kore, now entirely focused on Maschine.

Bottom line: For lovers of this workstation, it sounds to me like Maschine for iOS on the bus, Maschine software on your MacBook on the plane, Mikro in the hotel room, standard Maschine in the studio.

Maschine product page
Maschine Mikro

Novation has unveiled their newest product, a line of USB MIDI keyboards called Impulse. Shipping in September, they’ll run street/dealer prices of US$249.99 for the 25-key, $349.99 for 49 keys, and $399.99 for 61 keys.

This pits Novation squarely against some similar MIDI keyboards, including the M-Audio Axiom to which I gave the nod in a Keyboard Magazine round-up I wrote. (It even has a similar control surface layout.) The Novation picks up on some of the issues I noted, and adds some unique features:

• Aftertouch. Keybed quality is paramount for obvious reasons. What’s typically missing, for those who like it, is aftertouch support, available here.
• Full DAW control. Available on the Axiom but previously missing on Novation’s offering, you get 8 knobs, 9 faders and buttons, and an LCD for controlling your DAW. (Only one fader on the 25-key model, since all of that wouldn’t fit.
• Automap. It wouldn’t be a Novation keyboard without the company’s Automap feature. Whether that’s good or not depends on whether you like the functionality; I’ve tended to find it a bit fiddly at times, though the implementation with Propellerheads’ Reason is fantastic. (Hosts are a big part of the variable here.)
• Pads that do more. This one’s rather interesting: you get drum pads set up to do arpeggios, rolls, and Ableton Live clip launching. You could do that with any pads, but neat to see it on the keyboard, and I’m curious to learn more about the specific implementation.

My only regrets? The basic keyboard still fits into more or less the same category as what we’ve seen – possibly a worthy choice if you’re new, but probably not if you already have a controller keyboard. That may be what sells and what people want, so I don’t begrudge these companies making keyboards like this, and the cost is pretty incredible. I just long for some variety – which may mean looking to higher-end custom jobs rather than mass keyboards.

And I can’t really say I’m in love with the styling, either, to say the least. I’ll have to see it in person, and your taste may absolutely vary (you don’t need me to tell you what you like); I just would love to see something that’s both conservative and modern, not either bland or tending to be garish. (This just looks sporty in the way those gaming PCs do to me.) Again, custom keyboards may be the only route; watch for some coverage of that soon. (But seriously, Novation — a lot of folks I know really liked your previous styling.)

The product:
http://www.novationmusic.com/products/midi_controllers/impulse/

Video and more pics:

You might not see it on a magazine cover or tattooed to someone’s arm, but the lowly looper is one of those things many musicians find invaluable. And in hardware loopers, the BOSS Loop Station reigns supreme – I’ve even seen a San Francisco-based musical act who call themselves LOOP ! STATION.

Believe it or not, the (actual) Loop Station hardware from BOSS has just turned ten. In one of the more overlooked hardware announcements this week, BOSS has rolled out some significant and promising-looking upgrades to these well-loved, affordable tools. There’s a new RC-3 stereo stompbox-style model, as well as an updated “dual track” model, the RC-30. (That lets you run two stereo tracks at once. No question, the RC-30 would be the one I’d get; it’s still reasonably portable, and having two tracks means geometrically more musical options in my opinion. But I can see the appeal of the RC-3 being small and stompbox-like.)

One weird thing about hardware is that it’s tended not to keep pace with storage capacity in computers and mobile devices. That’s not the case here – both models, even including that little stompbox, can record up to three hours in stereo. I’m not quite sure what people will use that storage capacity for – stompbox version of Erik Satie’s Vexations, perhaps?* But it’s nice to know it’s there.

How do these models compare to the previous models, and to competitors?

• More processing power (a six-fold improvement)
• Aforementioned three hours of stereo recording. (Seriously, you’d probably use that for more loops – up to 99 phrases – not one really long loop.)
• True stereo recording.
• Auto-quantize, which Roland’s Amanda Whiting describes as “forgiving looping.”
• Tempo-synced effects on the RC-30.
• USB 2.0 for import/export of audio, making this a foot-operated mobile workstation of sorts. (Try that with an iPhone or iPad. Actually, really, don’t – just had visions of broken glass and bloody feet.)
• Battery-powered for extra mobility.

If stompbox is what you want, Roland tells us the RC-3 is substantially easier to use. (Any RC-2 users who can tell us what they might mean?)

Check out the shot below of the back of the RC-30, too – it’s nice seeing a proper XLR jack on this kind of device and not just 1/4″; it’s even got phantom power. That makes this practical for acoustic instrumentalists and vocalists who might otherwise ignore this sort of gear.

There’s more to talk about – see additional specs below — but I was already sold on the Loop Station. Having a better Loop Station is just icing. Having talked to many, many musicians, it’s a perennial favorite among everyone from fairly large stars to obscure Game Boy artists. Roland’s Amanda Whiting is quick to tell CDM that competing loop pedals are limited to around half an hour of mono-only recording with no mic jack, but I’m guessing part of the reason I’ve never heard anyone using one of the competitors is that people found that out already.

The real rival: While it’s not a stompbox (no pedals) and therefore is a bit apples-to-oranges, the one competitor I think worth mentioning (and thanks to readers for chiming in) is Electro-Harmonix 2880. It’s the one box that can take on BOSS, provided your hands are free: it’s stereo like a BOSS, it’s got loads of storage like a BOSS (1GB card now), and it has USB connections like the BOSS. While I think it’s not as friendly or accessible as the BOSS may be, it has some advantages in other respects: there’s four-channel recording instead of two for some really advanced looping, and it has the one key feature missing on the Loop Station – MIDI sync. It’s a shame BOSS missed the opportunity to add a MIDI IN, at least on the RC-30. EH is actually here in NYC, and they assemble their gear right here, too, which almost no one does. (In the five boroughs, no less. It’s one of the only things Queens manufactures that’s not a doughnut or other pastry item.) So expect to see more of that EH, ideally close to the source.

RC-3 Loop Station

• 99 phrase memory
• Records to 44.1 kHz WAV, stereo.
• USB Mass Storage class compliant for file transfer. (Actually, here’s a twist: that means you can transfer files from this to an iPad, using the Camera Connection Kit. Or a computer, if you prefer.)
• Tap tempo, and/or play a “guide” rhythm with built-in percussion sounds.
• 1/4″ in (stereo pair), 1/4″ out (stereo pair), plus an aux stereo minijack. (Can’t be used simultaneously, but handy.)
• 9V power; use an alkaline or buy an adapter separately if you want a wall wart. 3 hour expected battery life.

RC-30 Dual Track Looper

The RC-30 has what the RC-3 does, but with some extra goodies:

• 2 track stereo recording.
• Effects: “BEND DOWN, STEP PHASER, SWEEP
  FILTER, TEMPO DELAY, LO-FI.” It also boasts indicators so you can see what those effects are doing. (Sorry, Daleks. No Ring Mod, apparently.)
• XLR mic input with a dedicated level knob.
• 48V phantom power.
• 7.5 hour expected alkaline battery life. (Longer than the RC-3, because you can add more batteries. Did I mention that I would recommend the RC-30?)

The RC-30 even has that handy aux jack for an 1/8″ stereo – another use for your iPad, or your Game Boy, or your Teenage Engineering OP-1.

I’ll try to get an RC-30 in for review, but I’d be curious how you’d review it. Let us know.

*Vexations, by astonishing coincidence, neatly sums up how I felt browsing hotel rooms in Anaheim a few weeks ago. I can stick my head under a fluorescent light, play my BBC sound effects CD cue for crowd noise, and hoarsely shout a press release. It’s just like being there. Oh, and yes, I’m a classical music nerd, too. Bring it.

Can a digital mixer change how you work and perform? After getting a hands-on introduction to one, globe-trotting electronic DJ Kevin McHugh, aka Ambivalent (on m-nus), thinks so. I’m pleased to welcome Kevin to talk about why he’s so excited about this particular kit, not only for DJs but potentially as a useful tool for anyone who needs live mixing. And we hope he’ll come back and talk to us regularly, in the midst of that jet-setting routine. In the meantime, we’ll see if he starts a Pioneer/Allen & Heath flame war. Side note: yes, in response to those in comments, we have to get someone to have a look at the Rane / Serato Sixty-Eight, too. -Ed.

The art of DJing has changed quite a bit in the past decade, giving us a ton of new playback and effects options with digital technology. But strangely, the central instrument of any DJ, the mixer, hasn’t fully stepped into the digital age. If there’s a solution, I got a brief introduction to it at the BPM trade show in Birmingham a few weeks ago.

Allen & Heath unveiled the working prototype for their new digital DJ mixer, the Xone DB4. They invited me and a few others to take it for a few laps around the track in their booth at the show, so I figured I’d share what I learned. I played with a prototype model that is still in the process of being finalized, so please don’t take this as the final word on the DB4. Things change, and it’d be unfair to award or deduct points for something it might or might not be when it is available. Also, the ultimate test of a mixer is how it sounds. While I know that A&H mixers have always sounded better to my ears than any others, I was unable to judge in a convention hall.

That said, I got a pretty decent taste of what it should offer when it’s out. Here’s the key stuff to know about the DB4.

Full disclosure: I’m an Allen & Heath fan both in the studio and in the DJ booth. I love the Xone products, and the Xone 92 has been the essential piece of every technical rider I’ve had in the last 4 years. It’s packed with useful features, great routing options, and sounds fantastic. Before I saw the DB4, I was just expecting to smile and nod politely, as the 92 is a monumental classic, and nearly impossible to improve upon. Like a Deadmau5 remix of the Factory Records catalogue, some classics are just better left alone. I figured I’d make some curious facial expressions, tap some buttons, and make some clever observations about “the future” while remaining firmly planted in the present. What I didn’t expect was to go home completely rethinking my approach to routing, FX, and gear, or that I’d be anxious for more time with one of these freakboxes.

First impressions

The DB4 is fashionably black, and every single centimeter of it is covered with buttons, knobs, displays and lights. If the Death Star had a DJ booth, Vader would be rocking this one. They’ve stayed mostly true to the 92′s layout, with a portion of the real-estate shared for the digital effects section (more on that later).

Let’s start with routing, since that’s where any DJ will first encounter the new options offered by the DB4. The four main channels can be accessed using one of three different methods:

1. Standard analog inputs with phono or line impedance
2. Digital inputs via four S/PDIF connections
3. USB 2.0 connection to the mixer’s internal, 24-bit/96kHz soundcard.

Inputs

This is where the mixer gets interesting. Yes, a digital DJ can solve all their cabling and I/O hassles with just one USB cable — that’s something offered by other solutions. But after you’ve done that, the DB4 still leaves room to be connected simultaneously to several of your closest friends, rivals, or strangers. I have to say this is one part that makes my heart spin. The stress of cabling and re-cabling, navigating the input, output, channels or effects of other cohorts can make a cozy DJ booth into a claustrophobic scavenger hunt. If you’ve ever had to decide how to route a vinyl setup on top of a digital rig without a break in the music, using only a flashlight, you know what this means.

Where A&H have gotten really clever is how to treat these inputs on the top of the faceplate. Each channel has the option to select which source it’s using. Select the source type, then which input you’re assigning and you’ve just rerouted without touching a cable. This means channel 1 could carry analog input 4 and switch to USB input 2 in two shakes. It also means I don’t have to memorize the schematic of this mixers connections or fumble in the dark for the proper insertion point. (No jokes here; we’re keeping this clean.)

Output

The outputs are pretty standard, with analog booth, main, and record outputs. The nice surprise is a digital record out, making it easy to hook up to any ADAT or other S/PDIF-equipped interface. Pioneer users might also like the four deck starts offered. Having never used them, I can’t offer much insight about them, but it may give the DB4 a shot at winning over Pioneer users who haven’t already seen the light. (Hear that? That’s the sound of my inbox bursting into flames…)

EQ

The next thing I noticed is a difference in the EQ section. Here again, I was in for a big surprise. My initial disappointment at the loss of my Xone 92′s classic 4-band EQ was replaced with shock at how many new options were in its place. The three bands each have 3 separate functions, switchable between standard 3-band EQs, isolators, or a filter section with Hi-pass and Lo-pass, with the Mid frequency knob shifting to a resonance pot. What’s more, the knobs have a special backlight, so that the white position-indicators glow in a dark club. The thought of all these different options gives me dry mouth and heavy eyelids. Imagine Homer thinking about donuts…

Loopers

Each channel has its own looper with BPM detection that automatically records a 4-bar loop. The loop length can then be played back anywhere from 1/16 to the full 4 bars. For Traktor users, this won’t be necessarily a revolution, but other setups could really benefit. Somebody clever will no doubt find a way to combine this feature with the routing matrix and/or the effects to tap some options that aren’t obvious at first sight. That clever individual will never thank me, and pretend he or she never read this, but will think of me when they lie awake at night. It’s okay. I’m used to it.

FX

Other digital mixers so far have ended up being combination controllers/audio interfaces, which is fine. To be honest, that’s about what I expected out of this unit before I saw it. But the FX section is where this thing becomes a wrecking machine. Powered by a quad-core DSP engine, linked to the BPM detector, and inserted on each channel, there is a big beefy ton of readily-accessible power here. Steroid-abuse level power. Sounds hot, right? Gets hotter. It’s actually the effects themselves that are so damn sweet. These are literally studio-quality effects. I’d normally use a UAD2 Quad to run an EMT 250 reverb emulation in my studio. Now it’s available across up to four instances on a DJ mixer. That’s one of a huge batch of reverbs and there are even more delays (ping pong, hi-pass or lo-pass filtered, matched to bpm or delay in milliseconds), resonators, modulators and damage (distortion, bit-crushing).

One of my favorite features of the effects is how the Dry/Wet knob’s maximum position transforms it into to a Kill Send mode. This is great for building a nice big rush, and then dropping it off by killing the signal while the effects decay out. Another enterprising reader will note this feature, and also never thank me. They will think of me when they are posing, arms spread, Tiesto-style on a festival stage in front of 50,000 people. It’s okay. I’m used to it.

MIDI

Add to this the fact that nearly every device on the unit can function simultaneously as a USB MIDI controller, making your faders and knobs into encoders, assignable to any software you’re using, and you’re into some serious hot cocoa. The MIDI Shift button also disconnects the FX controls from the effects and the loop encoders from the looper, adding more MIDI-assignable functions.

Ed.: Allen & Heath sends along some additional details on just how MIDI works on this mixer.

MIDI Shift mode disconnects the FX buttons from the FX units so they can be used to launch clips in Ableton, or control transport in Traktor (or whatever the user requires). It also disconnects the loop encoder from the looper enabling this to be used for browsing etc.

Pretty much all of the other controls on the surface (there are a few exceptions) permanently send MIDI (this even includes the EQ Mode, X-fade assign and filter assign switches).

Specs

From Allen & Heath:

• Quad FX Core DSP, providing separate effects bank, BPM detection and tempo adjustment on each channel
• Five FX types – delays, reverbs, modulators, resonators and damage – plus variations, expression, wet/dry
• One looper per channel, loop length from 1/16 beat to 4 bars
• Xone dual filter system.
• Sources: analog Line 1-4 (switchable to Phono on 2 – 3), Digital 1-4, or USB 1-4.
• 3-band EQ, configurable as standard asymmetric EQ (+6/-25dB), Isolator (+6dB/OFF with a 24dB/octave slope), or reconfigured as a High-Pass/Low-Pass filter system with adjustable resonance.
• Mic/Line input with 2-band EQ, gain, cue, and mix level, routable to channel 1 for adding FX.
• Sound card: 24-bit / 96kHz, multi-channel, fully patchable USB2 soundcard ,4 stereo sends and 4 stereo inputs
• USB patch storage: Meter mode, BPM range, USB audio routing scheme and display brightness can be saved to a USB key for recall on another B4.
• MIDI control without changing mixer settings
• Output: Booth, record and phones – source selectable and level trim. Booth and main – phase and level trim controls.
• OLED display, visible even in bright sunlight
• Lightweight aluminium chassis

Bad Cop

Here’s the part where I act real mean and try to break down the witness by showing them scary pictures and punching the table. Okay, I can’t really do that. Most of the differences between the DB4 and my beloved 92 are a positive improvement, or an worthwhile compromise, given what’s offered in return. There are definitely going to be risks in using a digital mixer. Digital devices can crash. But analog devices have their issues, too. It’s what Depeche Mode says, a question of lust, a question of trust. If you lust for serious options and DSP firepower, and trust that Allen & Heath have it worked out, you’re ready to start a beautiful relationship. Of course, there’s also a question of cost. This is definitely not priced for entry-level incomes, but chances are no one serious enough to consider this unit will be able to find something comparable.

I think it’s fair to say I’m enthusiastic about the possibilities created by this mixer. Much of it comes from the fact that it crosses beyond a passive audio summing device, and into a performance tool. Like any great design, it solves problems and opens doors. But even more than that, it moves us in the direction of a common platform where any DJ setup can cooperate and where the booth gains some of the power of the studio. Some DJs might blanch at the idea of having so many options and such a complex tool. I’d counter that if you believe DJing is performance, why would you limit the power of your instrument? And if you’re serious about meeting the musical future, you’re going to be looking right down the barrel of a device like this sooner or later.

I, for one, welcome our digital overlords.

More from Ambivalent, if you don’t already know and follow his body of work and DJing:

facebook.com/AmbivalentBeats

twitter.com/AmbivalentBeats

XONE:DB4 Mixer [A&H Product Page]