I took a look at Omnisphere 1.5, the synth so big it’ll make your head hurt, for Keyboard in a story out now (and readable now). As I begin the story:

Seeing its six DVDs of sound content, you might be tempted to duct-tape a key down and let Omnisphere finish your film scoring gig. While the director would probably love the results, you’d be missing out on the real fun.

In other words, what I discovered in that review was that Omnisphere, particularly with additions in the new 1.5 update, is a powerful creative sound design tool, not just a preset machine. The highlights:

• Granular section, pictured, made nicer with the ability to combine with glide and intelligent parameter control design
• Harmonia, which allows you to control each harmonic component of a sound independently using individual oscillator and synth controls
Waveshaper, which can not only add bit-crush-style effects, but work its magic on each element, polyphonically
• Individual independent arpeggiator, plus MIDI file drag-and-drop
• An Orb for exploring sonic capabilities – we’ve seen these sort of X/Y controllers before, but here you can even dynamically assign parameters in realtime, and add features like inertia and gesture recording
• iPad control via a really wonderful controller app

Being able to navigate multiple sonic parameters in real-time with touch, and combining sound-bending, far-reaching sonic tools like Harmonia and the granular features means you can really take sounds far from their original source – and sync them to tempo, if you like, with those MIDI and arp features. I need to pick up the whole tool again after the review and see what new sounds I can make; if there are any other users who wish to share, I’d love to hear what you’re making, as the possibility is really deep.

And yes, they now have done a dubstep bass tutorial, so everybody playing at home should take a shot.

Read the full, detailed review at Keyboard Magazine:

Spectrasonics Omnisphere 1.5 [Review by me for Keyboard]

How does it all work? Here are some relevant videos:

Ed. Twisted Tools are a special breed of music software makers, concocting wild-sounding instruments, sequencers, and effects, all with a distinctively-colorful and graphical approach to interface design. And they do all of this in Reaktor, Native Instruments’ deep toolbox for visual development of soundmakers, a patching cousin to tools like Max/MSP, Pd, and Plogue Bidule. Various patchers take a DIY approach to building musical tools in such environments, but Twisted Tools have successfully turned those creations into a business.

That’s part of what makes this interview well worth a read, whether you’re an end user or a developer. Writer Markus Schroeder talked to Twisted Tools’ Igor and Josh for the German publication AMAZONA.de; you can read that translated interview in German. But the interview itself was originally conducted in English. Through the generous permission of Markus and AMAZONA.de, we reproduce that full English interview, edited in its entirety, for CDM.

In it, Markus asks some probing questions about designing and selling musical tools, with some insights into the Twisted Tools’ current catalog. And Twisted Tools share both praise and criticism for Reaktor as a tool – there’s some tough love in there. I’ll let Markus take it from here. -PK

Tell us a bit about the foundations of Twisted Tools and its team members.
IGOR: Josh and I started Twisted Tools about a year ago now. It’s basically the two of us with lots of encouragement and support from friends and fans. Several years back, Josh contacted me because he was a fan of my work. He wanted help building an idea of his, and we got to know each other well using Google Chat. At some point, we decided that it would be cool to start a business together selling such things. At University, I studied Linguistics and worked as an English interpreter, which in many ways comes in handy now with Twisted Tools. When I was studying, I began fooling around with DAWs, then discovered Reaktor and got hooked. The rest is history. As for Twisted Tools, it’s my full time gig now.

JOSH: I think we began thinking about starting a business together because we saw eye-to-eye on almost everything; at the same time, we bring unique ideas to the table. I’m an electronic musician and a teacher, so I think I tend to approach instrument design from a user’s perspective. Igor spends most of his time on the inside looking out, from a builder’s perspective, so the partnership works out nicely. We still use Google Chat as our primary means of communication. In fact, all our work is done using chat, which I also think helps us to focus. Lots of people ask me why we don’t ever use audio or video chat, but I really think we’d lose something in doing so.
Until recently, I was the Course Director of Computer Music Production at a digital arts college in the San Francisco area. Now Twisted Tools is my main occupation, too. I don’t perform at all. Once upon a time, I DJ’ed and produced electronic music. These days, Twisted Tools satisfies most of my creative urges, though I’d love to get back to music making, too.

How long you have been actively developing with Reaktor, and why did you get started?
JOSH: Igor has been building for about five or six years, and I’ve been doing some basic building on and off for several years, but I wouldn’t consider myself a true builder. I tinker and understand the basics, but nothing like Igor, who probably has 20 years’ experience if you’re counting by the hour.

As far as why I got started, I bought Reaktor 3 to basically just use the factory stuff. There are so many interesting and unique things about Reaktor that I can’t remember exactly what interested me most about it. When you crack it open and demo it for the first time, it is pretty jaw-dropping. Then you open up the structure and realize the potential. The urge to make modifications creeps up on you and before you know it, you’re building stuff for fun. It is like an addictive puzzle that makes sounds.

What were the reasons to take the step to commercially selling your Ensembles? And does it pay off, in one way another?
JOSH: Well, I think it came down to simply gaining enough confidence to try. I’d hired Igor to help me build stuff before and was super pleased with the results. So I was totally confident in the quality; I just wasn’t sure if people would buy Reaktor ensembles and/or how many people out there were even using Reaktor. Reaktor hadn’t been updated in years and seemed forgotten, so it seemed like an unlikely business idea. But, when I saw the first versions of Vortex that Igor had made, I was pretty confident that people would buy it and so was Igor. So we moved on that impulse…

IGOR: As far as it paying off, I suppose it depends on what kind of currency we’re talking about We spend a ton of time on Twisted Tools, more than most people would imagine. I would say that we spend at least four or five hours a day, usually six days a week on Twisted Tools. That’s a very conservative guess. The response has been incredible and as cliche as it sounds, I think that makes it worth it alone.

What was the reaction from the Community of the Reaktor User Library?
Were you worried about possibly sending some wrong signals out to them, since there are a lot of high quality Ensembles for free?

JOSH: To be honest, I’m not sure what the reaction was like for everyone. I’m sure some approved and some didn’t, but I think either way people respect the quality. The overwhelming majority of the things I’ve heard have been positive and I think that in many ways, selling Reaktor ensembles has been good for the Reaktor community. I don’t really see much difference between selling a VST/AU or selling a Reaktor patch. In fact, the only reason a VST/AU is better is because you can run it without owning Reaktor. Otherwise, having a Reaktor ensemble is so much more powerful than owning a VST/AU. You can open up our stuff, modify it, study it, make OSC routings, etc. Plus, our development process is faster and our updates/fixes come more frequently than most VST/AUs.

IGOR: In the end, the question is, do people find it useful and of value? If they do and want to pay for it, that’s great. If not, that’s fine too. There are still tons of amazing free instruments in the User Library and if someone finds what suits their needs there, that’s great. But we definitely don’t feel we’re sending the wrong signals. NI sells Reaktor ensembles too now in the Player format, so what’s the difference?

Was it difficult to suddenly deal with issues like online selling and customer support?
JOSH: Absolutely! Especially after our first launch. We didn’t expect that kind of traffic and the e-commerce cart we were using had a poorly-programmed PHP script that ended up crashing the server, due to traffic load. Our host didn’t like that, and not only shut us down in the middle of our first day, but locked us out and I couldn’t get to our files. Nightmare…but, we changed hosts and somehow managed to get things back up in a day or so. I learned quite a lot in those first days.

IGOR: It’s really a lot of work, still since we do everything ourselves — instrument design, GUI design, web design, support, marketing, documentation, videos, etc. At first it was very difficult, but it has definitely gotten a bit smoother. We are kind of lucky to be in two time zones because we take shifts which basically gives us a 24/7 customer support system. It’s rare that a customer sends in a request for help and more than several hours go by without a response. We’re happy about being able to provide that kind of support.

What was the reason of going Reaktor instead of making software on your own?
IGOR: Reaktor is a great platform to develop with. It has a great interface and many possibilities. All that I know about DSP and instrument design, I learned while working with Reaktor. Neither of us know any other programming languages, so there wasn’t really a choice. We’d love to do VSTs and AUs someday, though.

JOSH: If we do VST/AUs, we’d obviously be able to tap into a larger market, so it is something we are considering more seriously.

What did Reaktor already provide as building blocks, and how much did you have to invent by yourself in the form of Core programming or Macros?
IGOR: I use my personal macros and core library wherever it is possible. I trust these structures and know them inside and out, making it easy for me to tweak things and look for bugs. Building this library took years though. The initial steps were back-engineering the factory content of course. I think that this is a very good way to learn things in Reaktor when you are starting out. The documentation is only useful up until a point because there are so many variables involved in building.

If there was a lot of Core programming, can you tell us about the the process of working with it? Did you face any obstacles?
IGOR: Of course, Core is a great environment with lots of possibilities; however, it’s still pretty limited, and some very basic workflow features are lacking. For example, you can’t copy/paste input and output ports inside Core Cells, you can’t duplicate the selected structure preserving connections, as opposed to primary, etc. Then there is the lack of polyphony management, iteration issues, event loops, snap-able memory, the list goes on. Lets hope that the situation will improve in the future.
Ed.: NI engineers, I hope someone is taking notes. Core is incredibly powerful, and could be even more so… -PK

What were the hardest obstacles to overcome?
IGOR: I wish we had the ability to save in the Reaktor Player format, so we could share our work with more people, since it wouldn’t require that you own Reaktor.



Now let´s have a look at the catalog of Ensembles Twisted Tools have to offer, and get some insights on their inspiration.

Vortex

What was your initial conception behind Vortex?
IGOR: The vision behind Vortex was to create a flexible, sample-based groove box that is capable of simple yet powerful control over one-shot samples as well as loops. In Vortex, you can stretch short one-shot samples and create long textures, slice and chop loops, or create drum kits.

How you know when what you’ve got is a final product?
IGOR: Well, as they say, perfect is the enemy of good, so you need to stop at some point when developing instruments. It’s impossible to fulfill everybody’s needs, but I think we did our best and covered the most important areas.

JOSH: There certainly is always room to improve something, but we also run the chance of making it worse by adding too much. Our devices get pretty complex and we always end up having to leave things out, which is usually a good thing. Sometimes simple can be good, too, though, so I think we’ll be releasing a new line of tools that have fewer options, but are still powerful, in the very near future.

Colorflex

What were you ideas for Colorflex?
IGOR: The idea behind Colorflex was to take a simple, 16×16 note matrix and push it to the limit.

JOSH: We wanted to make a sequencer that could be used for both hardware and software, with lots of creative possibilities. The graphic layer approach makes it fun to look at and use.

How much of it have you achieved to get into the final product?
JOSH: I think we squeezed as much into Colorflex as possible. It is a very deep and complex device, with tons of options if you dig into it. It started out as a simple cell matrix based on colors and kept growing from there. If you want to sequence MIDI CC’s you can use it just for that — or you can use it to automate other Reaktor devices using IC Sends. Those were things we added and that took a long time to get working properly, but make the device do a lot more than we’d initially planned. In some ways, Twisted Tools devices are like improvisations that start out in one direction and end up somewhere totally new by the time they’re finished. I think the ability to basically improvise while you build is one of the things that makes Reaktor instruments interesting compared to building standard VSTs.

The Matrix Sequencer is very powerful, as are the editing options. How complicated was developing the different edit layers and make them work?
IGOR: It was pretty complicated, of course; we had to deal with Stacked Macros and it’s not the most pleasant part when working on GUI.

JOSH: Igor is putting it mildly. Reaktor is limited to a four-pixel resolution for moving graphics around on the interface, which makes finalizing the look a true pain.

Buffeater

What was the driving idea for Buffeater?
IGOR: Obviously, Buffeater is not the first effect of this kind, but it was a personal take. It’s also entirely focused on buffer based processing (no filters, lo-fi crushers etc).

JOSH: We definitely wanted everything to be automatable and we wanted it to have a great library of sounds and presets to get people started. That was important. Not only is everything automatable, but each parameter’s automation lane can be set to a unique speed so that patterns overlap and evolve in unique ways. Each effect has presets as well that store the automation. You can even record live automation into a lane by turning on record and twisting knobs.

How much of the original concept survived in the final product?
JOSH: We’re very happy with how Buffeater turned out. It’s a ton of fun and we’ve received a great response. There are a lot of buffer effects out there now, and they all do something interesting and unique. We had a similar effect brewing before we did Buffeater that’s also good for live mangling, but sounds and feels totally different. Perhaps we’ll end up putting that one out, as well … it’s never enough.

What do you think makes these six effects so popular, generally?
JOSH: Well, people like to mangle and twist up audio. Buffer effects are a good quick way to do that.

Scapes

Scapes is another way-out kind of thing. How did you get the inspiration for it?
IGOR: The initial inspiration was to create a multi-faced instrument that’s capable of creating rhythmic structures, soundscapes, process incoming sounds, etc., all with a unique twist.

JOSH: Again, this device was really something that took on a mind of its own. At first it was a soundscape generator, then it started to evolve into a percussive instrument and synth…then it morphed into an effects processor. Eventually we decided that it could do all of those things together in a neat way. Rather than making several devices, we put them together all in one, and the result is a very unique instrument. Whether you are a sound designer at Lucas Arts, a video game composer, musician, or an iPad enthusiast, Scapes is useful and fun.
We hadn’t really anticipated the iPad control potential until we hooked up with the guys from Konkreet Labs. They had just finished developing their Konkreet Performer iPad controller app right around when we were planning to launch Scapes. The two work brilliantly together. When I first set it up, I sat my wife down in front of it and she just started playing for about an hour. I swear I had to tear it out of her hands…she’s not an electronic music producer, but she had so much fun, anyways. This is a side of Scapes that we hadn’t anticipated.

Scapes is so versatile, is there still something that should be included?

JOSH: I think we truly created a unique device that we are both very proud of. The response has been amazing so far. So… no.

A short time ago, I honestly thought granular synthesis was mostly done, since only few products using the technique managed to produce their own distinct sounds or interesting sounds at all. Then, Curtis for iOS, from The Strange Agency , came along and rekindled my interest. What is your take on grains?
IGOR: I think Scapes itself answers this question

JOSH: The funny thing is, we kind of were worried that people would think like you, and we changed the name from Grainscapes to Scapes for this very reason. Scapes makes unique and complex sounds. The sounds can’t be used for everything, but they have their own place, as does granular synthesis.

Your products often revolve around the idea of chaotic and fractalized sequences. Do you see your work in terms of using data of stochastic, mathematic or physics sources as means to create musical events?
IGOR: I think Colorflex is capable of both – fractal, semi-random structures, and more day-to-day musical stuff. Though I wouldn’t place Colorflex in that area, entirely.
Right now, taking an academic approach to instrument development doesn’t excite me. There is definitely a place for this, but in our case, it’s all about music.

JOSH: The more important question for us is, is it going to be something that’s fun to use? Is it useful, simple enough to understand, but complex enough to grow into? What kind of sounds does it produce? Is it intuitive? Does that matter for this particular device?

Thank you very much for the interview Josh and Igor.
And also let´s have a big shout out to the Reaktor community. Without them, Reaktor could not be where it is today – one of the most sizzling music applications you can get.

This interview was conducted by Markus Schroeder and originally published by AMAZONA.de in German translation. This interview on CDM is the original English transcript, which is supplied in approval by the author, Twisted Tools and AMAZONA.de

 More information at:
Twisted Tools – http://twistedtools.com

Granular synthesis… you’ve heard it before. Famously articulated by experimental composer Xenakis, the process of slicing up sound into tiny bits and reassembling it has produced everything from lovely (or terrifying) synthesized sonorities to the underlying time stretching algorithms in popular music software. But with all the tools competing for your granular synthesis time (one seems to pop up every few seconds on the prolific Facebook page of sound designer Richard Devine), the Hadron Particle Synth promises to be different.

It’s a synth, but also an effect – and, for a twist, can seamlessly morph between the two, going from sound source to sound processor and shades in between. Its layering, parameter control, expression options, and all-around completeness lead its developers to confidently dub it “particle synthesis” and not just “granular synthesis.” And what may really convince you, it’s completely free, open source, runs and runs at release either inside Ableton Live as a Max for Live or within the free, geekily-delicious tool Csound. (Plug-ins for Mac and Windows are coming, too.) Whew. Now you’ve got my attention.

No video is out yet, but the Trondheim, Norway-based creators point CDM to their SoundCloud page for some sound samples.

Oeyvind Brandtsegg shares some delightful demo music for your sonic exploratory pleasure, complete with notes on its creation:

All of them made with Hadron as a primary ingredient.
The “Little Soldier Joe” songs are live recorded duo improvisations (Carl Haakon Waadeland on acoustic percussion and myself on Hadron).

Little Soldier Joe walks home with the sugar by Brandtsegg

Little Soldier Joe throws spoonful of sugar in the air just to hear the sound of it falling by Brandtsegg

Little Soldier Joe throws spoonful of sugar in the air just to hear the sound of it falling by Brandtsegg

Little Soldier Joe wonders where he put his keys by Brandtsegg

Little Soldier Joe walks down to The Future to borrow a cup of sugar by Brandtsegg

“Ramblin”, “Walking” and “SpinSync” were actually made as Hadron demo songs (the programmed drums are the only sounds not made by Hadron).

Ramblin by Brandtsegg

WalkingAndFalling(in progress) by Brandtsegg

“Magnetic Forest” was my first electroacoustic composition with Hadron (three improvised overlaid tracks, recorded as midi and edited/composed)

Oeyvind Brandtsegg has a delightful selection of tracks for your sonic exploratory pleasure, with notes:

MagneticForest (in progress) by Brandtsegg

“FeedingTheCharmQuark” (1 and 2) are improvisations with audio feedback into Hadron, where pitch tracking of the audio input is used to control grain rate, so there’s some organic/unpredictable stuff happening as a result of the feedback loop.

FeedingTheCharmQuark2 by Brandtsegg

FeedingTheCharmQuark1 by Brandtsegg

More on the tool:
Hadron Released [News Item]
Partikkel Audio
The team of creators (sound designers, DSP gurus, and Max for Live aficionados all)
and for the really good bits (including that Csound source): Partikkel Downloads

By the way, if you’re wondering how the business model works here when everything’s free and open source, so far it looks like Partikkel, cleverly, has a Hadron expansion pack of “Time Dilation Effects.” Clever — free and open source software, plus what in gaming is called DLC (“downloadable content”). It could be The Future. Either way, it’s The Awesome for now.

I may fire up Csound this week so I can play with the source version. I also need to dig up the Csound for Pd external so I can use those two tools together. And of course I’ll use it in Max for Live, too, just to make sure there’s no chance my head doesn’t explode.

What are those alien, otherworldly sounds coming out of the iPad? That’s not GarageBand. It’s what happens when Reed Ghazala, the father of circuit bending some decades ago, meets the iPad. Not that it’s his first encounter with products from Apple – he’s been approaching that company’s hardware as he does everything else, prying unexpected life with modifications and experimentation.

But just as “circuit bending” need not be seen as “breaking,” here, too, Ghazala’s modifications make the device more humane, more musical, and – for all the shouting about how the design is perfect – far, far more usable. A breakout and controls mean that you can finally extract sound and video from the iPad in usable form, without the usual, fragile, impractical connections. Reed sends the details to CDM; I can’t wait to see readers build some of these. (I may wind up building two – one for my Apple tab, and one for other hardware experimentation with whatever Honeycomb Android tablet I pick up, which at this point is probably going to be a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. It’ll be doubly important, as apparently Samsung in their infinite wisdom juggle the usual pinouts on their 30-pin connector.)

Whether your sounds tend in this vein or somewhere else altogether, Reed’s DIY instructions look to beat promised commercial offerings from the likes of Akai. (The Akai dock, for the record, hasn’t shipped yet, so it’s no contest for the time being.) As Reed describes it:

I’ve been sneaking around Apple’s garden for a long time, dating back to the Apple II motherboard hacked into my code-munching poly-synth of the early ’80′s. I’ve modded iMacs, towers, endless accessories, and I’ve drastically bent mac-centric code with wonderful result. This movie loosens another brick in Apple’s wall, and opens the iPad’s usability tremendously.

I know I’m not the only individual appreciating the experimental music apps available on the iPad. I’m anxious to support the developers’ fine work. But for musicians, the iPad’s interface can be frustrating. Do you really want to use dongles, mini-jacks and flimsy wire to get in and out of the thing?

This audio breakout solves these problems, is easy to do, and is inexpensive.

No bending here, just a quick, theory-true hack based upon iPad docking charts I found online. Not a superdock. No competition for the Alesis breakout. But if you want a slick, basic and functional DIY audio desk, on the cheap, check this hack out!

The breakout board is available at kineteka.com

Be sure to see the photos and REVISIONS, and pick-up the printable schematic at my iPad Audio Desk flickr gallery:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/moonbear3325/sets/72157626688587705/

This audio desk is really fun to use. Hacking the apple is always a good thing. I hope you’ll enjoy the movie! (Let it download for full-screen 1080).

Instructions in the final slide of that Flickr deck:
iPad Audio Desk Schematic

If someone would like to be commissioned to write a step-by-step tutorial with CDM, get in touch and I can help.

They’re not great in number – only a handful of producers have monome hardware, scattered across the globe. And their obsession is unique, the boutique grid (and now encoder) creations of Brian Crabtree and partner Kelli Cain. But in the latest signs of how committed this community of artists is to using these hardware interfaces for DIY software and to doing it with one another, the monome community has been busy. They have a new compilation, the first experiments (via monome maestro stretta) with the new arc, and now a festival planned for New Mexico in May.

arc Sounds

Let’s skip straight to the news of the arc. stretta, who created many of the most popular patches and music with the original monome, now gets his hands on the two encoders of the arc. (As seen on Synthtopia.) Previously:
Arc: New Music Controller in Video, Detailed Q+A with monome Creator Brian Crabtree

While I’m intrigued by the arc, I do have to sympathize with the skepticism we’ve heard around it, too. The monome’s grid brought a clear compositional paradigm, and, especially in kit form, was accessible for musicians. The arc is pricey, hard to acquire (in extremely short runs), and seems more a companion to the monome than a complete control paradigm on its own. It’s so minimal – with two or four high-resolution encoders ringed by lights – that it lacks some of the self-contained cleverness of its monome predecessor. For those who do love it, though, I’ve been anticipating for a while how the force of their faith in this design might translate to actual music. As I pointed out before, an automobile is controlled with just two pedals and one very big wheel. (Well, at least in the automatic-transmission United States.)

stretta does some beautiful design with it and a granular patch, dialing in both rich textures and rhythmic beats.

More details at his blog:
http://stretta.blogspot.com/

The software here – as has always been the case with the monome – is an essential part of the equation. What the hardware does is to provide a way of touching that digital realm. stretta describes his work with Grainstorm, the patch he produced for the arc, and something I imagine might inspire some of you even if the arc itself does not. He writes:

I like to work with my hands. This is one reason why I enjoy working on the modular. The monome arc advances the ideal of touching sound, to be able to meaningfully improvise with audio in real-time, to sculpt like clay.

He also writes:

I have a bit of trepidation about something monome related appearing on music technology blogs because the reactions I’ve seen recently have gone non-linear. In other words, there are people that are not capable of judging something monome-related on its merits, rather, they are reacting out of existing prejudice. Of course, this isn’t the exclusive domain of monome, some people will have something against ANYTHING out there, whether it comes from Avid, Behringer or myself, but the problem seems particularly acute with the monome.

What? Music technology blogs? Where? Quick, duck!

Oh.

Actually, I think the key line is the last one. The problem isn’t acute at all with the monome. The difference is, whereas traditional forums have covered technologies from vendors like Avid, most of the heated discussion gets funneled through, well, for monome at least, this site.

I could simply refuse to post the above video. I also have the power to turn off comments on this post. I don’t think either is appropriate. For whatever powers of overexposure the Internet may have, it also affords its readers near-infinite abilities – barring direct censorship – to look at anything else they choose. And as for comments, I still have faith in the open forum, even if it isn’t always pretty.

So, please, stretta, don’t quit the Internet, and don’t let the turkeys get you down. Critics, criticism is a worthwhile activity – put it in terms that let people consider your actual criticism rather than just get defensive.

A Community Compilation and Festival

In other news, the monomists have put together both a community-built, eclectic compilation, and plans for a festival in New Mexico.

The compilation is available free on Bandcamp, featuring artists Gaubie, Ghosts of the Field, Lokey, Watson, noiseflowr, 01100010b, CizreK, and Kristoffer Lislegaard. As noted in comments, this is a quickie, free compilation produced for the RPM challenge. (We covered that earlier – the idea was to make an album in 28 days). It’s quite nice, especially given the time allotment, and more is on its way:

And the gang is planning for Gridfest, an all-monome festival in Santa Fe, New Mexico, planned for the first weekend in May. They’ve got a Kickstarter out looking for funds, which can net you CDs or even a track or “monome flower” made just for you, among other prizes.

Gridfest at Kickstarter

http://gridfestival.com/

In other words, even if The Internet sometimes rises up to criticize the monome movement, it’s also the medium through which a disparate, loosely-knit group of artists spanning hemispheres has been able to connect. It has probably made what would have been an isolated oddity into something bigger. Earlier in the Web revolution, we saw ever-more-select genres. Now, we’re seeing friendships form around specific technologies, paradoxically often spanning genres instead of narrowing them.

So, my main question isn’t for the monome community at all. It is, simply, what’s next? What other design — if any — might have a similar impact? And will lovers of other specific technologies come together in the same way?

Producer/composer and Reaktor super-guru Peter Dines is back with a new concoction for Native Instruments’ graphical development environment for sound. Entitled the Reaktor Sample Pack, it’s a collection of three granular sampling instruments. Updated with new download links (no more divshare!)

Frame is a looping sampler with smooth/crossfading, envelope controls, and built-in saturation, plus graphical loop point selection. Free | download

Loupe is a “polyphonic looping slicer,” which is to say you can slice up a sample and assign it to different MIDI keys. Press a note, then graphically set loop playback parameters from reverse to envelope to filter. US$15 via link below, or get Loupe + Mirage for US$22.50 | download

Mirage is a granular sampler that focuses on ambient textures, by creating snapshots of various parameters. There’s some deep sonic functionality in there, including an LFO with a “whirl” effect (and accompanying whirly graphic widget), per-voice filtering, global envelope and EQ, and tons of grain-level controls. US$15 via link below, or get Loupe + Mirage for US$22.50 | download

They also all look lovely with Reaktor’s recently-overhauled UI. Pete isn’t just a good programmer, though; he’s a talented producer, so I’ll let the sound samples speak for themselves:

Peter Dines Sampler Pack – Frame 2 by peterdines

Peter Dines Sampler Pack – Loupe drums by peterdines

Peter Dines Sampler Pack – Mirage demo by peterdines

And here’s a look at Mirage’s UI; click through for a bigger version:

If you have Reaktor, I can’t imagine any argument for not picking these up. Through the end of February, you can pick up all three for US$22.50, and Frame alone would keep you busy for free.

Full details on Pete’s terrific Modulations blog at Noisepages:
Introducing the Reaktor Sampler Pack

If you’re interested in using this in Ableton Live, read on for Reaktor+Live tips. If you’re a fan of Maschine, Pete has also been putting Reaktor and Maschine together while testing the upcoming Maschine 1.6, and he’s got some fantastic tips:

Ableton users…
More on routing Reaktor in Live: multi out audio UPDATE: VST works too, not just AU [PS - little tip, VST is usually a safer bet than AU on the Mac because so many AU plug-ins actually use compatibility layers]

Maschine + Reaktor (and Loupe!) Maschine 1.6 beta just dropped!

And if you love running patterns at different lengths, routing patterns into one another, good stuff:
Sound to Sound MIDI routing in Maschine 1.6

Thanks for the great ideas, Pete. Well worth checking the rest of his site:
http://modulations.noisepages.com/

Touchscreens? Good, old-fashioned faders, knobs, and pads? Why not just use what suits the job – especially when you can choose both on the cheap?

Nay-Seven shares some of his latest work with Usine, the brilliant, modular and touch-centric tool for Windows. It’s a futuristic rig that’s also down-to-earth. Touchscreen monitors can be had for around US$300 street, and the Akai LPD8 and Korg nanoKONTROL controllers each figure under a hundred bucks. Usine, the software, is a bargain for its depth at EUR120, and free and educational versions are available.

Cost aside, though, this also puts sound making directly under your fingertips. Even aside from live performance, that means making sound kinetic — essential in the studio, too.

I asked Nay-Seven to comment on how he’d thought through this particular set of controllers – coming just as we cover the work done on grid-based sample control with mlrv2 and fader-based control in Max for Live:

Yeah, was funny to see your article at the same time I was working on this video..

My actual reflection is about the best place of a touchscreen in a set. And I join you in the idea that software has added a layer to the hardware.

Here, I use the LPD8 and the nanoKONTROL as an instrument, because we all prefer to use real pads and push-buttons to play, but it’s so fantastic to customize those tools to our own needs. And it’s more and more easy and quick. I’m using here the next version of Usine (it will be public soon), which adds polyphony in sub-patches. You create a sampler with the switch, add the buttons you need, change the polyphony of this patch to 5 and it’s done — you have a 5-voice polyphonic sampler !

I suppose the future will be a balance of all this, some customizable tools for users, more and more easy-to-use, real pads, keys, and faders so we can feel our musical expression, and a touchscreen to provide new tools like graphics and physical models.

Heaven, in fact.

More from the video description:

Here’s a work where I use the sequencer of Usine not to sequence audio or midi but patches: patches appear only when I need them, an easy way to have only the controls you need on the screen. I also associate here works with faders and pads via personal patches for [Akai's] LPD8 and [Korg's] nanoKONTROL and the use of a touchscreen . Made with Usine ( sensomusic.com ) thanks also to Michael Ourednik for his great vst Argotlunar

Note: Argotluner is free and open source (GPL) and has both a Windows and Linux (32-bit + 64-bit) build. Someone could build it for Mac, too.

nay-seven also uploads some patch images, so I’ve included those here. The granular patch, top, controls Argotluner. LPD8 and nanoKONTROL patches, bottom, connect to hardware (see callouts on the Korg image).

All images courtesy Nay-Seven – be sure to check out his excellent Flickr account.

Bonus: here’s a nice video demonstrating the touch side of things, posted in September.

Kflux looks like a killer patch for Max for Live, a granulator you can drop in for sound-bending effects and, if you’re decent with Max, open up to learn more about how it works or edit to customize for your own purposes. At EUR9,99, seems like a must-buy if you’ve got a copy of Max for Live.

Features:

• Automate parameters on the Live timeline, envelopes thanks to M4L’s functionality
• Make streams of grains, big clouds, textures, and the like
• Multimode filter
• Transposition
• Static, sequenced, and MIDI-triggered modes
• Freeze or bounce tracks
• Unlocked; open, edit, and reuse. GPL-licensed, so you explicitly have the freedom to reuse and modify it. (I think that’s a perfect choice for M4L patches; more on that discussion soon.)

Video overview, plus some sounds via SoundCloud:

Kflux demo : overview from k-devices on Vimeo.

I enjoy some of their creative sound demos:
Kflux samples by k-devices

It reminds me a bit of some of my favorite granular patches from Reaktor, like Grainstates.

You’ll need Live 8 and a copy of Max for Live. The French developers promise more releases in future, too. Buy direct:
http://www.k-devices.com/kflux/

Those of you more hard-core Max for Live users may know of other, similar devices to check out. I’d love to hear about them, so let us know in comments.

The sounds are alien and twisted. The user interface looks like engineers from Boeing and the Klingon homeworld got together to collaborate on a new spaceship cockpit. It can only mean one thing: GrainCube is here.

Built on sound designs and conception by sonic renegades Richard Devine and Josh Kay (Devinesound), with development by Rick Scott (Rachmiel), Igor Shilov (Twisted Tools), and a Lemur control-surface and additional input by Antonion Blanca (absoundscapes.com), this is a dream tool from a dream team.

The tool is free, a gift to people in the Reaktor and Lemur communities. (A Lemur isn’t necessary, though it is fun; Reaktor 5.x is required.)

I’m not just hyping this up for the sake of it, either. Seeing work like this is inspirational to me as a sound designer and sometimes-developer. I love the sounds they’re coaxing out of Reaktor and the insane mad-science of it all. At its heart, it’s a sample map of 400 mb of sample material, the sonic raw material for the work. An all-stops-pulled array of randomization and modulation then warps and melts and smelts that into audio ore.

For a sense of the tool in action, see the video at top, which Richard shot exclusively for CDM. If you’re a Reaktor user, you can then go grab it at the site below. If you use another tool or want to make some of your own samples, well, you’d better get patching and recording. That is all.

http://devinesound.net/

Lemur template @ Jazz Mutant

Obligatory monster screenshot:

Grain Main Frame is a sound sketch, a one-off piece of software that loads audio files and plays them via several inventive, homebrewed sample players. Via granular techniques, methods of slicing sounds into tiny grains and then re-assembling them, a single sound can be stretched, sliced, and retriggered creatively. The software supports drag-and-drop functionality, as well, so you can drop files and go.

It’s a simple app conceptually, but it’s already packed with functionality in this early version. In addition to drag-and-drop file loading and a folder full of homemade samples to play, the software includes:

• Gesture recording of mouse movements, a la KORG’s KAOSS Pad series
• Rate, interval, loop point, randomization, and pan settings for granular playback
• OSC control, so you can manipulate parameters via an iPhone, a Max patch, etc.

The software is built in Processing, the artist-friendly code environment, using the Beads sound library for Java. Because it’s Java-based, it should run on any platform. (I did have an issue with the executable jar on Linux, but I’m working with Jeremy to see if I can fix the problem!)

It’s free-as-in-beer; no license or source is included, but Jeremy tells CDM he does plan to give most of his work away. (If this does develop into a more mature app, you may see a paid iteration some time down the road, but not any time soon, says the author.)

Grain Main Frame is Released [jeremywentworth.com]

Check out Jeremy’s site for some other cool projects in Reaktor, Max, Max for Live, and Processing.

The iPhone and now iPad have spawned a lot of talk about the idea of small, simple apps rather than big, monolithic workstations in software design – musical and otherwise. But projects like this suggest that we could see similar trends in software elsewhere. After all, there’s no reason you couldn’t load up a new netbook or slate with some simple sonic tools, too; no Apple logo is necessarily required. It’ll be interesting to see how that evolves. (And they could be connected, too: to use Java as an example, there is a Java JACK implementation for routing audio to and from other applications.)

Via our friend Richard Devine in comments, here’s another cool app, this one powered by Csound. It’s a separate project, not authored by Jeremy, but Jeremy has done a lovely screencast. (Grain Main Frame could also substitute other back ends for sound processing).

That project is free and open source, working with Python and Csound:

http://code.google.com/p/soundgrain/

Csound downloads

More information on granular options on Jeremy’s blog:
Obsession with Granular Synthesis