Like the modulars themselves, an upcoming documentary on these analog synth beasts has been lurking behind closed doors. But that won’t be the case for long. “I Dream of Wires,” the crowd-funded documentary that probes artists’ fascination with making music by connecting patch cords, will see a public showcase at Montreal’s MUTEK Festival. This and an upcoming film release, atop a big get-together in New York, could make this a proper summer of modular.

In anticipation of their showcase, MUTEK has released two significant excerpts from the film. One talks to Carl Craig, Detroit techno legend, top. Craig describes how this tech has influenced his music, and what inspired him to look at modulars. The other clip – true to MUTEK’s Canadian home base and the origin country of the film itself – looks at Canada’s contribution to electronic music history. Detroit’s place in techno certainly needs no introduction, but it’s about time Canada got its role in synthesis recognized (below), having given the world pioneer Hugh Le Caine and the University of Toronto Electronic Music Lab, among other highlights. This excerpt turns the clock forward to modern-day synth goodness. We’re of course happy to know of a certain digital synth designed in Canada, but here the modular Renaissance gets the spotlight. As the film creators explain:

Recently, Canada has again come to play a significant role with the modern day resurgence of modular synthesizers; it is home to two highly respected manufacturers: Modcan, founded by Toronto’s Bruce Duncan, was the first company to reintroduce modular synthesizers to the post-MIDI marketplace, and Intellijel, founded by Vancouver’s Danjel Van Tijn, is one of the fastest growing and most respected lines of Eurorack synthesizer modules.

The MUTEK showcase will include live modular performances by Sealey/Greenspan/Lanza (Orphx/Junior Boys), Keith Fullerton Whitman (Kranky/Editions Mego), Solvent (Ghostly International/Suction Records), Clark (Warp Records), and Container (Spectrum Spools).

The film itself is a production of director Robert Fantinatto and Jason Amm (aka Ghostly International recording artist Solvent); Solvent is also composing the musical score. This isn’t simply a history of electronic music; instead, it focuses on the modern revival of the instruments. (The history is a subject of a future film, but we’ll let them finish this one first.)

It’s worth saying that modular synths aren’t all pleasure – they bring some pain, too. That’s why it’s worth watching the interviews excerpted in the November promo for the film. In that piece, even as they sing the praises of modular analog’s joys, musicians talk about challenges ranging from live performance setup to tuning. It’s impossible to understand the love for these instruments without grasping some of their idiosyncrasies. In the earlier clip, you see everyone from builder Lori Napoleon to pioneer and custodion of electronic music history Joel Chadabe to composers like the late Richard Lainhart and the legendary Morton Subotnick, as well as builders and the film’s own Solvent.

The filmmakers continue to raise funds from fans. A recent West Coast USA tour, funded by IndieGogo, added interviews with Trent Reznor, John Tejada, cEvin Key, Jack Dangers, Bernie Krause, Richard Devine, Make Noise, Cynthia, The Harvestman, SynthTech/MOTM, Metasonix, Intellijel, and others.

Round 3 funding: http://www.indiegogo.com/IDOW-round3

Keep tabs on the film on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/idreamofwiresdocumentary

Big or small, talk to many music gear makers, and you’ll find they’re in the business largely for love. But it’s still amazing just how many gear makers choose to go it alone. They build equipment in their flats and garages, hand-packing their creations and shipping it to a world of fellow musicians. Koma Electronik is just one of those in the worldwide scene of boutique hardware makers. We’re especially fond of their interfaces and the company of musicians they keep. So, following up on the video that showed what it’s like getting a demo in a van from Koma, complete with champagne, here’s a more serious look at their process. Kristin Trethewey went to their studio to take a look around, and offers this profile – along with, in its entirety, a conversation she had about what it means to be in this business.

The young Berlin-based pedal producers combine effects and technology in sleek, black-and-white cases, with analog Control Voltage I/O. Inspired by the resurgent interest in modular synthesis, their effects combine multiple effects, as in the Gate/Gelay BD101 and the Filter/Sequencer, FT201.

One feature common to KOMA Elektronik is a patch bay that’s accessible on the face of the unit. This allows the user to directly input and output signals, playing with the possibility to generate new sounds easily. Ed.: Models like the Moogerfooger have similar ins and outs, but tucked away on the back of the unit, not on the top where they’re easier to get at. And, of course, lots of modular equipment has these sorts of ports, but not necessarily on a stomp-style effect. An infrared motion sensing system gives musicians the freedom to bypass the knobs, and control the sound with a hand, foot or any other object.

In 2010, the founders, Wouter Jaspers and Christian Zollner, took a pause from musical pursuits to work full-time on making KOMA a reality. Zollner, originally from Linz, Austria, studied social work at school, but consistently played in bands and had an inclination towards building modular gear. He still gets in a show or two with his band, Regolith. And somehow he also fits in an experimental online MIT course for circuits and electronics.

From age 17, Jaspers was dedicated to music. Although he also didn’t study anything related to music – instead working in Dutch and social science — he viewed his formal education as a means to expand his mind rather than his CV. He jumped into forming a record label, Vatican Analog, where he released his own records as well the work of as a growing community of other Dutch “anti-musicians”. This past-time became a full-time profession, taking Jaspers all over the world touring under his own name and different aliases. (Check out his music on SoundCloud.) In 2010, after five years of constant movement and music making, Jaspers decided to switch gears and focus on setting up a base. Soon after he met Zollner, the two decided to work together, and have been happily married to KOMA Elektronik ever since.

KOMA Elektronik’s mandate is to make “pedals for serious players,” but they also want to build a music community. They emphasize that this means more than receiving user feedback about their products. By hosting events and workshops, they seek to connect to a growing scene, playing along with musicians using KOMA pedals. They’ve moved to a larger and cleaner workspace in Berlin’s Neukölln neighberhood – a big step up from their previous home, living and working in a cramped, unfinished apartment. Bringing musicians to the space gives it a special, backstage kind of feeling. Here you could talk not only about gear, but also about music and travelling, common topics regardless of their various musical backgrounds.

This week the whole team made it to Musikmesse in Frankfurt am Main, the world’s largest music show. However, they skipped the booths. KOMA does things a bit differently, and as a young start-up, they often need to find creative solutions. This year they pimped out a rental car, dubbing it the “KOMA cab,” and offering free tours around the Musikmesse convention center. They followed up the tours with a big bash on March 22 at Silbergold. Celebrating their one-year anniversary, fellow KOMA friends Serena-Maneesh, Kaap De Goede Hoop and O Tannenbaum DJs played through the night, bringing a Berlin-style party to the generally-sleepy, buttoned-down Frankfurt trade show scene.

In the coming months, you can expect to see more growth from the small company. Aside from an expanding product line, they have further plans to substantiate their ties to both the Berlin and international music scene. In May they will travel to Poland to present workshops at the Asymmetry Festival.

Ed.: Indeed – the gear is great, but I look forward not only looking closer at that but also getting to know the Koma crew’s musical friends. After all, that’s what all this is about – and it’s the communities that form around all these makers, all you folks we’ve built relationships over the years, that’s why we keep doing it. Enjoy the weekend; go hear and play some live music, wherever you are. I know I will. -PK

Kristin has an extended interview she did for us with the Koma guys, on SoundCloud. (Some audio issue toward the end, but quite listenable.)

More photos inside the Neukölln studio. (All photographs: Kristin Trethewey.)

Mouse on Mars’ Parastrophics for Monkeytown has been an early highlight of the year, a record packed with musical ideas in densely-configured arrays of sound. The duo is now taking that music on the road, in ambitious, improvisatory live performances.

Perhaps all of this can be summed up in one word: energy. Their studio and its arrangements of objects has an energy, an energy that’s present in the craft in the record. And talking to the artists, you get a sense of energy, of enthusiasm, crackling away like an amped-up oscillator.

It was therefore a pleasure to get to hear some of the thought and philosophy that produces all that musical energy. Jan Werner talks to CDM about how he and Mouse on Mars think about sound, melody, and the act of listening – and why he hopes people will find a way to listen to this record actively. I was glad to convince Jan to put this into written words, because they take on a dynamic of their own. I overuse the word poetic, but I find what he says poetic and provocative, in how I think of my music as well as his. And unlike a live interview, here those answers had some time to simmer.

It’s fitting to place those words amidst images of the workspace, their studio deep in Berlin’s Funkhaus facility. Against that backdrop, here’s what Jan has to say about music:

CDM: What does your studio setup, and all of this tactile, traditional hardware, mean in your music making? Obviously, sound is important, but apart from sound, what does it mean for you to be in that place and surrounded with those particular objects?

Jan: Our studio is very important to us, because it acts as a workspace as much as a hideout, an archive, and a rehearsal space. Still, we would pretend that we could make music anywhere and even without any electronic tools, if necessary. Maybe this gesture of personal freedom provides us with the artistic freedom to change things at any given
time, in any given direction, and be at ease with our complicated digital protheses.

We collected quite a bit of hardware over the years, too, without becoming collectors, and we are very keen on software applications, plug-ins, Max patches, etc. We like to use as many different sound sources as possible, and then go for the challenge of bringing all these elements together as one consistent idea of music.

You speak articulately about the idea of listening. What did listening mean in the making of the record? How would you like people to listen to the album – or how do you listen to music, when you wish to focus on it?

Listening can happen in any situation that allows your brain to adjust to acoustic sensations in a non-judgmental way. By non-judgmental, I mean taking the sounds for what they are, and not using them as vehicles for pre-set intentions. Also, active listening does not mean to identify and understand a sound’s origin, but to let the idea of what a sound can be in itself evolve to a possible maximum. This maximum of what a sound can become surely depends on your experience, attention, interest, ambition, fantasy, physical condition, etc.

We’re all limited and skilled at the same time, and that’s what makes a difference in how sound appears to us. You could say that ideal listening would be listening without prejudices and even without expectations. But here, a paradox kicks in, because without any preparation or expectation, you might not even be aware of listening to something. Music is a great tool to avoid this paradox, because it attracts a listener’s attention, draws the focus away from the purely physical origin of a sound, but opens up to a vast field of references and emotional and rational responses.

Music, as such, has no purpose, and does not make sense other than offering more or less appealing arrangements of frequencies. The problem is that this definition, which lies within the nature of music, can easily be covered by propagandistic intentions, coming in the form of lyrics, performances, visual stimulations, etc. Blindfolding is not the answer, because all our senses take part in making sense of listening.

I got to see your live performance at Berghain, though admittedly, being in the back of the space I could only listen and couldn’t always see. What I felt was a sense of fresh energy, that this was indeed something new and spontaneous. How are you adapting the studio album to live performance? What elements do you maintain live, versus those that must be prepared in advance? What did you find as you tried that in that first performance?

Each concert is different, and we usually pretend that we don’t care about an upcoming performance as much as we consider all of them to be our first ever performances.

Berghain went well, because the setting up during the day was relaxed, the crew was great, the sound was superb and the atmosphere in the room was concentrated. We also premiered our new visual show, which our long-time friend Karl Kliem had put together, and we were glad that it worked out well.

During a show, we play parts that we’ve rehearsed in the studio. We throw in samples and pre-recorded elements, but also sample on the spot, and use each other as sound sources. Most of the sounds are synthetic and use software to produce and manipulate sound. We play and modulate synthetic sequences a lot, use plug-ins to manipulate and shred sounds or song elements, and add new and unexpected elements on the fly. We also use the drum kit to trigger sounds, use microphones and analog effects and hardware samplers. All in all, it’s more than we can handle at once, which sometimes stresses us out or makes the sound more dense than it needs to be.

How do you approach melodic gesture in your music? There’s much discussion of rhythm in your music, but to me there’s also almost a sense of polyphony across textures, a sense of depth that requires listening on more than one level. How did you assemble this in the composition and production of the music?

There are always various timelines across one song or album. Some sounds appear only once, others repeat and get manipulated throughout the course of a song with every reappearance indicating a rhythmic idea. We try to avoid a strict hierarchy between melody and rhythm, and consider one being as important as the other. That means that a melody can have a strong rhythmic character as much as rhythm can have a predominantly atmospheric or harmonic (balancing?) quality.

Sometimes a melody might stretch over the course of a whole song, so only if you time-stretch the track, you would get the full melodic phrase. Maybe it’s the continuously-changing distance towards a song, like you would quickly twist the zoom of a camera, which makes fun for us. Or, maybe, it’s rather a discontinuously-changing focus, because we allow ourselves to slow down and even suddenly stop the movement as much as we cut elements so fast that they seem to skip. Music for us is a play on time and spacial tension. You can add layers along time as much as you can stack them in depth. And coming back to melody vs. rhythm: there is a blurred border, where one becomes the other, and we have great interest in strolling around this wasteland.

And more from inside and around the Funkhaus on a wintry, Prussian afternoon.

http://www.mouseonmars.com/

Like a World’s Fair of all the invention in music technology, the big trade shows still gather many of the latest creations from around the globe. And while the NAMM show in California is big, Musikmesse is bigger: spanning some 11 halls (together with a live lighting and event show called Pro Light+Sound), it’s the biggest on Earth. Having covered NAMM for German publication DE:BUG, I’m thrilled to get to do the reverse and highlight the best of Messe for California-based Keyboard Magazine.

Musikmesse 2012 Gear Report [Keyboard Magazine]

Instead of trying to cover absolutely everything, this is the stuff I found especially significant – and I got the luxury of giving into my personal bias toward things with keys on them. Some of the highlights:

• RME getting 36 channels, 24-bit, 192 kHz audio … on a computer and on your iPad. (Also, thanks to RME for the delicious beer.)
• Mode Machines’ wonderful German x0xb0x, SID drum machine, and other treats.
• More accurate modeled pianos, including the epic ALPHA with its full-sized hammer action inside. (No, not what keyboard makers usually call hammer action – like, the whole hammer.)
• Roland’s clever mechanism for using your iPhone to record and jam along with their instruments, wirelessly. (See my hands-on video, below).

And, of course, there’s lots of gear to look at. It wasn’t new to Messe, but if my ethics circuitry were to short-circuit and I decided to hide something under a coat, I sure do love that Buchla modular and touch plate, for all its quirky strangeness. In fact, apologies to the folks at Moog, but I have to recount this story. Evidently a couple of Moog reps went over to the Buchla display to try out the new modular, and came back frustrated about the touchplate and the lack of a conventional keyboard. (Believe me, they’re not wrong: these can keep you from making useful sound if you don’t have a lot of time.) Now, I cut my teeth in analog on two modulars side by side, an original Buchla and Moog setup. I was charmed by the reenactment of the controversy over Buchla – its unconventional input, its creatively-worded labels, and its different approach to patching. I talked to others with the same split reaction, not just Moog. It’s all the more topical after my passing mention of a giant sphere triggered a minor flame war in comments. (And don’t get me wrong: as I said before, I love keyboards, and still favor them over other means of input.)

I always loved both the Buchla and Moog for their differences, and the fact that these philosophical difference survive decades later gives some hope for the longevity of what we do – sometimes even the longevity of our peculiarities.

Let me know what your favorite finds were from Messe, even if you were watching online. (In all honesty, your odds may be better than if you get lost on the giant show floors!)

You’d expect that holding the world’s largest trade show in Germany would mean some serious analog and gear love – and you’d be right. Andreas Schneider of SchneidersBuero/SchneidersLaden, the famed Berlin gear hub, was this year gathering some of the finest analog gear at a booth for ALEX4, a European distributor for some of these names.

Now, in the meeting room there was of course real business to do, but that shouldn’t stop drool from pooling on some of the equipment.

Among the highlights:
Doepfer Musikelektronik, the company that perhaps more than any other ignited the current modular fever, was on-hand with some new prototypes, including a step sequencer (video) and touch plate, all works-in-progress.

Doepfer also had a demo unit of the Dark Energy II, the new version of their lovely, affordable desktop analog synth. The Dark Energy is discontinued because Doepfer was unable to continue to stock the CEM3394 chip used in the filter. The revision, slated for availability this summer, was available. To underly the point that the filter is the only major change, you’ll see that knob highlighted in yellow. (There are some other subtle tweaks; the resulting instrument sounds really quite nice.)

Alyseum showed off the MS-812, an embedded computer board that works on an Ethernet network to provide MIDI, CopperLan (a futuristic, new high-resolution and high-bandwidth protocol), and analog Control Voltage. Just how much of it? Think 8 dedicated CV outs, 12 digital outs, and conversion between everything. If I were building a new computer lab and wanted to network a whole bunch of analog gear and computers and MIDI equipment together, or making some massive MIDI/CopperLan/CV art installation, I think I’d be looking at this.

Vermona also had a multi-MIDI, multi-CV module, pictured. (Please: whoever owns all this gear, send pictures of what your rig looks like.)

You may spot a few other gems in our gallery, including the Synchrodyne WMD recently previewed by TRASH_AUDIO. As I can walk to Schneidersladen, let us know if there’s anything about which you’re especially curious.

And that concludes today’s episode of Create Analog Music, which raises the question – will I have to start a reader campaign to see if TRASH_AUDIO will give us their createanalogmusic.com domain name?

The abundance of music, and the preceived ease of producing it, comes to some as bad news – or even harbinger of apocalypse. But load up a craft with quantity, and quality is what stands out.

Francis Prève is a perfect Renaissance producer. With years of experience as a music technology journalist and sound designer, his own, signature flavor of tech-house is uniquely focused on timbre. His label, Academik Records, debuted last year at Austin’s South by Southwest, but it’s just now kicking into high gear. (If you are in Austin for the world’s best known week of music, be sure to check in on the second party, running downtown from afternoon past midnight, for free.) Sure, a city like Berlin is associated with such things, but in the Internet age, Texas works just as well – minus the vitamin D deficiency.

Academik Contest giveaway
Lanai Rooftop Party, Saturday March 17 3p – 2a

Francis has rounded up a gang of emerging and known artists for Academik, and while age range and style are loose – sometimes dubstep, sometimes tech-house – what those signees have in common is attention to detail. They’re a veritable faculty in how to use Ableton Live and Massive so that you don’t sound like everyone else who’s using Ableton Live and Massive just because everybody else happens to be using Ableton Live and Massive.

The output is nicely represented in a podcast, mixed by Francis, that very much embodies his style:

Alternatively, check out the SxSW 2012 Chart Francis put together for Beatport.

Anyway, party – if you’re in Texas, go there, dance, have a good time.

But if you’re not from Texas, or you’re avoiding it because all your exes are there (okay, darnit, I’ll stop quoting song lyrics), through The Power of The Internet, we have a bunch of music to hear and tips and techniques and samples and loops and Ableton Live Instrument Racks and Sets to download – all free.

That’s because Francis has been as sharing music and techniques for how to produce it as he has the usual label activities (remix, release). Now, disclosure: I’ve known Francis for a long time, as a colleague at Keyboard. But it’s partly because I know him that I have a sense of that quality of attention to detail – because we’ve spent countless hours discussing the fine points of synth design and production technique, because he’ll call me up to talk about some particular I happened to mention writing, because he even spent hours with me and James Grahame talking about the exact organization of knobs and switches on the MeeBlip. I figure part of my responsibility in this world is to get to know people like that really well. (It happens to be a lot of fun, too.)

As it happens, you can be in on the same conversations.

Analog+Digital, Hardware+Software

One ongoing discussion has been ways of bringing in a few, select pieces of beloved hardware into a software studio. Even before talking about sound, the motivation is clear: it can make music making a lot more rewarding. And we’re not talking wildly-expensive modular setups, either – even inexpensive offerings like the KORG MonoTribe can get in on the action.

A lot of people working with software aren’t clear on just how to make hardware and software integrate nicely. Francis wrote a really comprehensive article on that subject, using his own rig as the subject, for Keyboard recently.

He writes about the process of using Live’s brilliant – and sometimes underused – External Instrument and External Effect devices:

The first order of business was to create custom devices in Live for sending MIDI to a specific synth—for example, the Phatty—then routing its audio output back into that same device via the MOTU [UltraLite Mk. 3 audio] interface. I then saved the results as presets. Thus, when the laptop is docked, all I have to do is drag the device I’d created for the Phatty into a track, and the Phatty comes online…

The next thing I did was create an External Audio Effect device that sent audio to a device but didn’t receive any audio back … by setting it up to send audio but not receive, I can drop it at the end of an instrument chain within an Instrument Rack and send any soft synth into the Moog, SEM, Dark Energy, or Monotribe. From there, the combined analog-plus-soft-synth audio runs from the analog synth back into a free input on the MOTU, to be recorded in Live.

By doing this, I can use Operator, Razor, Kontakt or any soft synth as the “oscillator bank” for one of my analog synths. The whole of digital tone generation combined with the warmth and fuzz of analog filters and the snap of analog envelopes is far more than the sum of its parts.

Francis also describes “hybrid” devices, combining Ableton instruments like Operator with outboard ingredients like the Moog Little Phatty filter and amp — all while controlling modulation and step sequences and such on the hardware with MIDI and Live clip envelopes. (He even talks about how to tame the MonoTribe, despite its – cough – lack of MIDI.)

The full article is online:
The Integrated Synth-Based Studio [Keyboard Magazine]

Free Sounds

Apart from being a producer, Francis has long been a sound designer, working for the likes of Roland and Ableton His free-sampling, hardware-loving, sound design-addicted spirit has been gradually developing a vast selection of free sample packs on his blog. Some come from software (NI’s Razor), some from new hardware (Moog’s aforementioned Slim Phatty), and some from oddities (my favorite being the Mattel Synsonics drum machine toy).

But whereas the Academik Records music will be dependent on your personal taste and aesthetic, here these are sound packs that are versatile enough to bend to your will and needs, and to produce something very different from what anyone else might produce. And that, ultimately, is the point.

So here, all in one place, are those great downloads from Fran’s blog:

21st Century Sawtooth Pad [Instrument Rack/Live Set, Live 7+]

The String Machine [Instrument Rack and Live Set, Live 7+]

Arkade [8-bit emulating Instrument Racks, Live 7+]

Ableton Preset: Wavescraper [Simpler-based Instrument Rack using Saturator waveshaping, Live 7+]

Sine of the Times [All sine-wave Instrument Rack, Live 7+]

Mattel Synsonics drum machine toy [Drum samples, Live set]

M-Audio Venom Loops [128 bpm, in C | Raw audio, Live 7+]

Native Instruments Razor Loops [128 bpm, in Cm | Raw audio, Live 7+]

Moog Slim Phatty Loops [128 bpm, in C | Raw audio, Live 7+]

Native Instruments had already revealed that it would add new hands-on remixing capabilities to its flagship DJ hardware and software line. But today, we get to see precisely what form that will take, with a grid of light-up, colored pads that seek to make DJing with Traktor as much about remixing tracks as playing them.

Plenty of DJs and electronic musicians have been doing just that via a variety of methods. Some use samplers like the MPC, some hardware like Korg’s KAOSS line, some combine live and DJ sets in software like Ableton Live, and some even use custom creations built in tools like Max and NI’s own Reaktor. What sets Traktor Kontrol F1 apart is an approach that melds those sampling/remixing features with DJ-style decks, in something NI calls “Remix Decks.”

The function of the touch-sensitive, light-up LED colored pads is a bit different from similar offerings, as well. Any light-up grid of pads will recall hardware for Ableton Live and devices like the ground-breaking monome grid controller. As with the Ableton solutions, those F1 pads do indeed launch clips, as well as everything from full tracks to loops and one-shot samples (samples that play once without looping).

These triggers act as shortcuts, too, however, with settings like Punch mode, effects assignment, and sample muting mappable to the matrix of pads, too. There are 16 pads, as on iconic hardware like the MPC, but you can scroll through pages on an encoder. You can also trigger functions like Sync, Quantize, Sample Size, and Reverse. As such, the F1 is a bit like a compendium of everything we’ve seen in grid controllers. You could treat it like an MPC with more conventional samples, you could treat it like Ableton’s Session View of clips, or use it as a set of shortcut keys as we’ve seen in hardware like DJ Tech Tools’ MIDI Fighter – or some combination, or more than any of those things.

In case you don’t want to combine this with another controller – perhaps hoping to squeeze into cramped quarters in a DJ booth – there’s also a set of four volume faders and four filter knobs.

The release today is also about new functionality in Traktor Pro software itself. Delivered in the 2.5 release, the new build packs up to 64 slots for samples – much as you’d find in a sampler or something like Ableton Live – right in the DJ tool. These samples then play on up to four decks. The “Remix Deck” is differentiated from a normal “Deck” in that it adds beat grids, BPM, and key information associated with those samples – again, a bit as you’d find in looping software. (I’d utter the word Ableton again, but it’s really Acid and Propellerheads’ REX that introduced that idea.)

To me, it’s really the combination of those sampling-style functions with DJ-style decks that are interesting. The moment you bring the deck metaphor back, you’re re-entering a realm that’s more comfortable for DJs. On the other hand, all this remix business could finally bridge some of the gap between DJ software and production tools for producers who find themselves juggling both roles.

We won’t get shipping hardware until May 30, but I hope to talk to NI more about it before then. US$279 / 249 € is the full price. Given that comes with a full copy of Traktor Pro 2.5, I’m not sure if the software has become free or controllers are becoming standard dongles for software. There are also 4 GB of pre-remixed sound content to get you started. You existing users of the Pro hardware and software will get Traktor Pro 2.5 as a free update.

NI is assuming you’ll use this alongside a mixer or their own S4 and S2 controllers, but it’d be nice to try to only use this, I must admit. Oh, and there’s also a new bit of luggage for it for when you hit the road.

DMC champion (read: internationally-recognized) DJ Shiftee shows off the new instrument. I got to meet Shiftee through Dubspot, and the guy is an immensely-talented musician with an incredible sense of rhythm, as well as a supremely nice guy.

Now, I want someone standing behind me shouting me on as I work. It’d sound a little different.

“P.K.! P.K. here in X-Berg! Berlin, baby! It’s cold! It’s wet! You’ve got the granular reprocessor! You’re crunching up sensitive acoustic piano sounds! You’re making MeeBlip noises acid basslines, you’re coding now! You’re doing generative – what’s that? I think you’ve got a bug. You lost your 3D camera in your reactive Processing.

And now you’re blogging, blogging, go hit the spell check. Add in that Oxford Comma. My boys, Struck & White.

Publish that s***…”

www.native-instruments.com/f1

Looking a bit like the love child of a Nintendo DS and a microKORG, the Miselu neiro is a different animal in mobile music. The upcoming device is powered by Android and has a touchscreen – a bit like a tablet – but it’s hardware dedicated to music-making, complete with a compact, piano-layout keyboard. The gamble is that people wanting to make mobile music will choose this dedicated device instead of a general-purpose gadget like an iPad.

Whether they can pull it off or not is a big question, but in the meantime, the specs are intriguing. And it’s worth mentioning now, because if you’re reading this from Austin, Texas, there’s still time to check out the Miselu in person at SoundCloud’s open house. (I’m in Berlin, so I just have to pour myself a beer, stare at the gallery, and munch on some barbeque and pretend.)

Here’s what we know:

• Connected: The creators call it a “network-enabled mobile companion,” so online connections and “social” interaction are part of the plan. That includes, out of the gate, SoundCloud.
• Internal DSP: The neiro will include the Yamaha AudioEngine Series Sound Chip NSX-1, a dedicated DSP for synthesis and signal processing. (Now, the creators say that “almost matches the sound of real musical instruments,” but while DSP chips add predictable horsepower, native processing remains competitive.)
• I/O: Product mock-ups show USB (2x), HDMI, audio in and out (stereo minijacks), and, in a nod to the Atari ST, dedicated MIDI DIN jacks. There’s also an SD card slot.
• Custom software: Retronyms, makers of the popular iOS modular app Tabletop, have already revealed that they’ll be doing a custom app for this platform; see their blog post on the announcement and image below. (Thanks to Freesoulvw for the tip!)
• Platform: The hardware is an “open platform environment” that will run custom apps and “solutions,” say the creators. Exactly what that means, we’ll have to see, but of course Android does offer application deployment possibilities (even outside of Google’s Android Market, now called Google Play).

http://www.miselu.com/products/

Before the Android aspect of this invites skepiticsm, the big challenge with Android has been unpredictability with OEM-delivered hardware. While the audio API doesn’t work in the way many of us would like, if you do have dedicated hardware with predictable performance, you can side-step many of those problems, so the possibility of music-focused gear has always been interesting.

I think the real challenge is whether this keyboard can stand up to an iPad in a custom keyboard housing. Akai recently demonstrated the clever solution of adding a 4×4 set of MPC-style drum pads just by designing them into an iPad case. In order to compete, Miselu will have to do something unique both with the hardware and software add-ons; they have to actually be better at what the iPad does, not just “as good.”

On the other hand, just looking at the ports they’ve got on the prototype could easily make you drool. If they nail the hardware and get this out the door, there could be some real possibilities with this.

Of course, there’s far more we don’t know than do know about this, but that just means it’ll be interesting to watch. See some pictures, teaser video, and check out the site.

I missed the chance to write about it, but I’d be curious to know if anyone is picking up a KDJ-ONE, a Linux-powered dedicated music-maker that seemed a bit like the love child of an oversized classic Game Boy and a tracker, as seen last year on Synthtopia. (They exhibited again this year at NAMM, as Chris Randall reminds me in comments.)

In one of the records we’ve been most anticipating this year, Mouse on Mars today release Parastrophics, a densely-layered Magnum Opus of a full-length album. If you want to audition the release before buying, there are two places where you can do so:

SoundCloud has a set that will give you a taste
XLR8R has the full stream

But the overwhelming sense I’ve gotten talking to the duo (Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma) is that you should resist the temptation to stream this is the background whilst you respond to emails or sort your socks. If you want to hear it in the sort of environment the artists intend, in other words, you should find yourself a comfy couch, your favorite listening device, and listen to the higher-quality, lossless version. (“Mastered for iTunes” be damned. Come to think of it… anyone want to sell me a couch?)

Care and attention to detail is a real watch cry for the record, so another way to understand it – once you’ve done that proper listening – is to take in the superb behind-the-scenes video shot by Berlin’s Electronic Beats, top. (That’s the print and online magazine also known to locals as the best thing Deutsche Telekom has ever done with their spare change.) As part of the beloved Slices series, Holger Wick interviews the two in their studio at Funkhaus Berlin, the former-GDR broadcasting center whose recording facilities have been converted to new, more democratic use in the reunited city. There, it’s clear that the two apply craft and philosophy in equal, mixed measure, that the process of making is itself a kind of process of listening.

Perhaps the word that’s better than “quality” is “depth”: the reason the album demands close listening is the sense that you need to devote those neurons to a beyond-superficial experience of what’s happening, like donning 3D goggles and listening to the musical activity on more than just one level or plane. There are rhythmic and timbral lines to follow on multiple levels, a kind of digitally-constructed polyphony of both melody and sound, some of which unfold after repeated listens.

That said, it was equally a joy hearing the first live performance of the material at Berghain, as a featured act of the CTM Festival. There, the two improvised their way through the raw ingredients of the record almost as if a dance, their creative energy and enthusiasm unleashed in frenetic fashion. There were even some cameos of squealing and vocoded gestures on iPhones, powered by Pure Data patches, as a handheld instrument.

We should have more from this duo and a look at the record soon, following their lead and taking our time. In the meantime, sit back for some good listening and (thanks to Electronic Beats) watching – highly recommended.

http://www.mouseonmars.com/

Official notes, well worth reading in this case, I think:

Over the course of ten albums – not to mention an avalanche of side projects, remixes and collaborations – Jan St Werner and Andi Toma of Mouse On Mars established themselves as two of the most inventive and unpredictable artists in electronic music.

In 2012 Mouse On Mars’s triumphant return comes in the shape of Parastrophics, a life-affirming and constantly surprising album which is crammed with ideas, exuberance and sheer kinetic energy. It’s like listening to the entire history of pop music – distilled, refined and crystallized into a string of compulsive new shapes, full of glitter, intrigue and addictive detail. Atomised fragments from two lifetimes of listening flare and fade, tiny scraps of memory shrapnel hover, tantalizing and insubstantial, before being whisked away by the next impatient idea.

But despite all that restless curiosity, Parastrophics also demonstrates a peerless command of pace. Whereas some previous Mouse On Mars releases have bordered on the frenetic, their latest displays a subtle but persuasive sense of control. Even when tempos climb, 303s squirm and kick / snare patterns snap to brisk attention, there’s an elegance to the way that each element slips in and out of the mix which speaks, whisper it, of maturity. Parastrophics is as a playful as ever, but it’s never throwaway. The closing “Seaqz” is the perfect illustration, a frenetic romp which is perfectly held in check by gracefully undulating melodies; it brings into focus the beguiling sense of confidence that suffuses the whole record. All of which is a roundabout way of saying that – after six years away – Mouse On Mars have come back with their best record yet.

Chris Sharp

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.