Looking at the monome hardware, it could be difficult to understand how a simple array of buttons has become the most important musical design of the decade. It’s been the software that has brought this to life, not least the work of stretta (aka Matthew Davidson).

In the early days of electronic music, the creation of modular systems for synthesizing sound was a major breakthrough. Today, we can produce modular systems for composition, for assembling the music itself. And in a world in which “more” is the key word, many of these systems, by design, do less, focusing on the essential.

stretta reached a major landmark late last week, with the release of the maxforlive monome suite. It’s a set of seven Max for Live devices, with variations, which can be dropped into Ableton Live for use in musical projects. But it’s also more than that – it’s a modular model for how stretta thinks, and each module is designed to be used with the others, all without ever having to take your hands or eyes off the monome controller. Included in the pack:

• obo matrix step sequencer
• pitches for playing notes on the monome
• polygomé 64 for polyphonic, step-sequenced, transposing pitches
• press cafe for repeating patterns of pitches
• spectral display for blinking lights to visualize sound
• step filter step-sequenced filter bank
• automatorgator MIDI- and audio- and OSC- controllable pattern gate

Details and download link (no explicit license coming yet, but Matthew has promised an open license):

maxforlive monome suite released

I got the chance to talk to Matthew about the project, how he created it, how to approach using it, and what it was like working with Max for Live.

All photos by Matthew Davidson; released under a Creative Commons attribution license. Click the images for full-sized versions.

CDM: Can you talk a little bit about what these modules are, and how they fit together, for someone who hasn’t seen them before?

stretta: Obo is like tonematrix as a MIDI plug in. I like analog sequencers because they are tactile. They’re limited, though, so the natural tendency is to add memory to them. I’ve never enjoyed the experience of an analog sequencer with memory. As soon as you add memory, the fun evaporates. You can’t tell where the data matches the knobs, you’re looking at LCD menus… bleah. I’m not saying obo is the answer, as it is a very simple device, but obo (with a monome) does provide a pleasing combination of tactile control, visual feedback and multiple patterns.

Pitches turns the monome surface into a MIDI device. Press a button, get a note. The only issue to resolve is how do you map notes across the grid? One of the first things I did with my monome after I got is was create a pitch grid in columns of fourths and chromatic rows, much like a guitar, but more like a touchstyle instrument like a Warr guitar. I liked the strict grid as it made the geometry of harmony completely portable. The pitches application allows you to customize the interval relationships of the rows and columns and optionally add a modal scale filter on the output so it is pretty much impossible to produce a ‘bad’ note.

Polygomé is one of those things that is most easily explained to people by shoving a monome in their hands. It is kind of like if you took ‘pitches’ and added a step sequencer. You recall the sequence by pressing a button, the sequence is transposed based on which button you start on. Then you can play the sequences polyphonically. Polygomé grew out of this massive, overly complicated project for the 256 I was working on called gomé. The idea was you’d create these geometric patterns then define a ‘path’ or vector across the monome surface that they’d walk across; kind of like how gliders move in the game of life. I was describing this on the monome forums and someone said, "boy, I hope you make this so it works on the 64." I didn’t think there was enough room on the 64 so I re-thought the idea and polygomé was born.

Spectral Display is a non-interactive device that turns the monome into a graphic… well.. spectral display. I developed Spectral Display from vu_spec by [monome creator] Brian Crabtree so this is all his brilliance on display. I merely adapted it to maxforlive.

Press Cafe is another MIDI instrument. The original brilliance of the monome is the fact that the buttons are completely decoupled from the LEDs. Nobody had ever produced a device that did that before. There was always some internally programmed or proscribed functionality that was never entirely suitable for much of anything. So I brainstormed about various ways to leverage this unique ability. Press cafe is a pattern trigger sequencer. It works on any size monome, but if you’re using a 256, you get 16 rhythmic patterns of 16 notes. The rows select which pattern you’re triggering and the columns select which note you’re playing. Naturally, you can use the monome surface itself to edit the patterns.

Step Filter is eight independent sequencers, each triggering a band pass filter. The sequence is edited directly on the monome surface. The real fun begins when you start specifying various loop lengths for each of the filters so they loop independently. You can have one band looping in 7, another lopping in 6, etc…

automatorgator comes in two flavors. One is a MIDI plug in that produces MIDI and OSC automation. The output can be smoothed or stepped. The audio plug-in produces gating effects, or cyclical amplitude modulation.

CDM: What was it like working with Max for Live? How did that impact the way you work?

stretta: I’ve always wanted something like maxforlive. Max lacked a powerful timeline. Most DAWs lacked user-directed internal customization akin to a modular synthesizer. I think this is important for a DAW because it is impossible to be all things to all people. I’d hesitate to say much more because my experience with maxforlive is limited to a couple months thus far and there is so much yet to explore. I would be seriously happy for years on a deserted island with this tool, provided there was some mechanism to share my work with others.

Max 5 brought some concepts like a global transport and the ability to specify time values in a metric-centric way. So, instead of milliseconds and samples, you can think in terms of quarter notes and eight notes. Then maxforlive brought all this inside of a functional DAW which made everything more powerful. It is one thing to be able to manipulate audio like play doh. It is another to be able to do it inside a real production environment, using musically-sensible units.

So, maxforlive is a huge leap forward, but the needs of the monome community were a bit more dire. There are applications for the monome that are functional enough to produce a complete musical statement in real time by itself. A good example of this is mlr. You don’t need anything else. My monome applications are not so clever. I never intended for anyone to sit down and try to express something using polygomé in isolation. I figured it would be one tool you’d use in the context of a greater whole. The problem with this is it relegated polygomé and others to the recording studio.

What the monome needed, was, in my opinion, a meta environment that could host multiple monome applications, ensure they were all running in sync, and switch between them on the fly. It would route audio, host virtual instruments, mix everything and add effects. Then you could save a setup and recall everything by opening a single file. If that could be done, then the monome is transformed from this monolithic standalone device, to a piece of integrated performance hardware.

CDM: Many people are now getting started with Max for Live. Any tips for new users?

stretta: The best tip I can offer so far is adding '---' before any data objects. On run, the --- is turned into a unique identifier so the instance is unique. This allows multiple instances of the same maxforlive device with access to their own data. Of course, you may not want to do this, you may want to retain the ability for multiple maxforlive devices to ‘talk’ to each other and share data which is a cool feature. I’ve uploaded a example patch detailing this at the monome wiki called ‘thisinstance’

http://docs.monome.org/doku.php?id=app:thisinstance

CDM: What if someone is interested in this download, but they don’t own a monome? Is there anything they can do with this pack without the hardware?

stretta: Not much. The only application that operates monomeless is obo. However, there may be enough about obo that is interesting to people to justify the download.

CDM: You should be able to adapt to other controllers, though, with some work – correct?

stretta: Sure, it really is simply a matter of tapping into the matrixctrl object and routing to whatever device. My stuff rarely makes use of monome-specific protocols like ledcol, but I’m doing more of that recently for performance reasons.

CDM: Have you seen other Max or monome work that has inspired or impressed you?

stretta: 7up [SevenUpLive 2.0] is an amazing piece of engineering, although it is mostly Java wrapped inside a layer of maxforlive. Buffer Shuffler was the first example that really blew my mind, and the cool part about this is you can open this stuff up and see how it ticks. When I opened up Buffer Shuffler, I was amazed at how little there really is to it, which says a lot about the level of sophistication of the max objects themselves. I still haven’t explored or opened all the devices that are included with maxforlive. It is a simple matter to lift small sections of max code and repurpose it. It is really early on in the life of maxforlive, so I anticipate the learning process to continue and expect to see more interesting creations as the ideas cross pollinate and everyone starts editing everyone else’s work.

Thanks to Matthew for these thoughtful answers. If you have follow-up questions, definitely let us know. And we’ll be interested to see how you work with these tools, or modify them in your own work.

For the latest, be sure to check out stretta’s blog, The Stretta Procedure:

http://stretta.blogspot.com/

maxforlive: monome integration from stretta on Vimeo.

maxforlive: obo from stretta on Vimeo.

I just spoke to Ty Liotta, the head of ThinkGeek’s custom product group. They’re responsible for the playable guitar/drum kit t-shirts, and a number of other fun geeky things.

The development team started working on a grid-button synth back in April, inspired by the Monome and the Tenori-on. Their goal was to make it as low-cost as possible while retaining a sense of fun and playability. Cost was a big factor in their design process; the Thinkgeek team is well aware of the exisiting devices in the marketplace and didn’t want to directly compete with the APC or the Launchpad’s price points.

The first prototype was inspired by the grid layout but had a set of 64 switches instead of membrane buttons and LEDs:

The switches were intended to be a cost-saving measure, but the engineers figured out that it was actually a little bit cheaper to use LEDs and the plastic buttons. The sounds come from a standard Casio-type FM synth chip, which is controlled by the onboard sequencer/logic chip. The Bliptronic can be chained together with other units to form longer sequences via the sync jack on the side, which operates via voltage pulses.

The team made sure that the operating BPMs (60 to 180 in 20BPM increments) are accurate, so you can play it side-by-side with another device until they drift apart (check out the end of the demo video with the Kaoss Pad).

The intended audience here is music/synth geeks firstly, but Ty hopes the device’s low cost and intuitive playability will appeal to kids and a more mainstream audience as well. If the Bliptronic does well, the team hopes to offer a slightly higher-priced version with MIDI (exactly how they’ll implement MIDI control is still being discussed). Ty’s first idea is that the Bliptronic could send MIDI notes as a visual step sequencer, but he talked about the possibility of external clock synching as well.

We also discussed possible hacks and modifications to the Bliptronic, and Ty offered a few suggestions and hints. Firstly, he suggested that anyone looking to build a Monome-type controller with visual feedback would find that the button-and-LED matrix can be easily repurposed. Since this is usually the most expensive/time-consuming step, people might find this a cost-effective part.

Another angle of attack may be to get at the tempo adjustment and sync controls, if you’re looking to hack in your own external MIDI clocking- I myself plan to pursue this angle as soon as the unit I ordered arrives.

Also, Ty mentioned that the synth chip is external to the logic controller, so I assume that one could circuit-bend that chip independently of the logic controls. There may also be some unimplemented sounds waiting on the chip, and it may be possible to modify the scales played. I’m fairly familiar with some of these chips used in the casio-clone keyboards found at thrift stores- makes me wonder if there are some drum sounds hiding in there as well.

I’ll keep everyone here updated on my modifications and discoveries once I get my hands on one of these little guys, but early indications are that the Bliptronic 5000 might be on par with the Gakken SX-150 in terms of both price and bendability.

You know the grid craze is in full steam once ThinkGeek offers a $50 clone. The Bliptronic 5000 is somewhere between the Tenori-On and monome. It certainly looks like the monome, with an 8-by-8 grid of light-up pads in a square form factor. But like the Tenori-On, it has built-in sounds and speaker, it’s made of aluminum, and it runs on batteries. The Bliptronic also simplifies its user interface. Its 8×8 pads are simply an eight-note octave with eight steps. There’s a play button, and knobs for tempo and tone selector. There’s also the ability to link up devices and play them together – bonus points for that, as aside from basic MIDI function, the Tenori-On as shipped by Yamaha failed to deliver some of the original collaborative features promised by designer Toshio Iwai’s original proposal.

The “old-skool” sounds are pretty lo-fi-sounding from what I can tell, but this unit does have a certain charm. If you’ve got a monome and a Tenori-On and a Launchpad in every room, you can amuse your friends by keeping one of these in the lavatory. And who knows, someone might pick this thing up and do something terrific with it. (I sure can’t argue with the price.)

Mostly what it reminds me is that it would be really fantastic to pair a synth chip directly with the monome, for a standalone monome synth, perhaps even an Arduino-programmable model (particularly since the monome already speaks serial).

Updated: Wait, hold the presses — this isn’t the work of some anonymous creator; Ty Liotta is doing the gadget design. That means this could be an eminently hackable little device, which is a good thing. Stay tuned.

Thanks to Louis Muloka and everyone else who sent this in.

The specs from ThinkGeek:

Unusual retro synthesizer is played with a grid of glowing buttons
Create looping patterns and change them dynamically while playing
Chain multiple units together and create more complex melodies
One octave range. 8 notes can be played simultaneously
8 different old-skool synth sounding instruments to choose from
Sounds created using FM waveform synthesis
Set the BPM (beats per minute) from 60 to 180 in 20 BPM increments
Built in speaker with headphone jack and line-out jack
Front panel is constructed from brushed aluminum
Includes, manual and 2 link cables for connecting additional Bliptronic units
Requires 4 x AA batteries (not included)

Bliptronic 5000 Instrument

Stay tuned here for news of the Bliptronic 10000.

The grid is in. While the monome remains the standards bearer for hardware with grids of buttons on it, arrays of buttons are suddenly everywhere, in the commercial Akai APC40 and Novation Launchpad, and, from Livid Instruments, the Ohm64 and now the Block. I think it’s a real compliment to the monome’s creators – and the community that has authored ingenious open software for the monome – that there is this excitement around the design.

The latest entry is Livid’s Block, a compact, aluminum-and-wood controller that’s easy to carry and which weighs less than 3 pounds. It’s not a monome – it eschews the monome’s stringent minimalist design aesthetic and adds knobs on top, faders on the side. That layout has made the M-Audio Trigger Finger a blockbuster hit, so I think it could attract people who want more than just buttons. (That’s why choice is generally a good thing.) But just as importantly, the Block takes cues from the monome beyond the skin-deep. As with the Ohm64, Livid is working to open-source both the guts of the hardware and the software on the computer. The instruments are made by hand using sustainable materials and finishes, manufactured in Texas in their own shop rather than the lowest bidder overseas. The hardware itself encourages hacks and customization. These are principles championed by the monome’s Brian Crabtree and Kelli Cain, and they’re badly in need of some company. Livid, like those monome creators, is a handful of individuals rather then a big company, but they give us new hardware that embodies sustainability, openness, and local production – and that makes the monome and its principles stronger. (Livid has been crafting performance hardware and Max patches for many years.) And while this bus-powered USB MIDI device doesn’t yet support (OSC) OpenSoundControl, that could come – without sacrificing conventional MIDI connections to outboard gear when you don’t have the computer connected. (Clarification: as with the Ohm64, OSC support is not yet available but should be possible. Stay tuned.)

Basic specs:

• 8×8 backlit keypad with corresponding knobs, function buttons, and faders
• Square layout that can be used at any rotation (so the USB port lies where you want it)
• Runs a suite of apps built in Max/MSP from Livid – including a sampler, synth, sequencer
• blockEditor for customizing layouts, lights
• US$399, available November 1

I’m interested in more open software, so I’m working on making an editor in Java and would love to hear what else people might want. (SuperCollider looper? Pd algorithmic grid controller? Processing library?) These I hope to make work both with the Livid hardware’s added faders and knobs, and the monome’s more minimal design. Of course, OSC will be terrific for computer applications if that comes to pass, but I love the idea of gear that can also talk to MIDI hardware.

I really like Novation’s Launchpad, but for a little more money, you get a beautiful case, additional controls, and added flexibility, all in gear handcrafted by the maker and with an open approach to hardware and software. Without getting into a debate over the merits one way or another, consider this: you can choose. We didn’t use to have these kinds of choices in music hardware. The fact that we do now – not only the ability to choose the nameplate, but the very philosophy behind the device’s manufacture – I think can benefit everyone, users and manufacturers alike. It opens up the entire music tech industry to new ideas and new variety.

http://www.lividinstruments.com/hardware_block.php

A monome-like grid controller built for Live, shipping in November for $199 – and I’ve got a first hands-on look with the hardware.

The feature that makes Ableton Live Ableton Live has always been its Session View, an array of Lego-like blocks of music triggering samples and patterns. In the grand tradition of the MPC, mapping hardware controls that make music non-linear has been a major theme of computer music, leading to the monome and the Tenori-On. Usually, consumer gear has only combined these with traditional drum pads, knobs, or faders.

Enter the Novation Launchpad. It’s $199. It’s a grid controller and nothing else, with a set of on/off buttons in an 8×8 array, plus additional shortcut buttons around the sides for switching modes. It’s set up out of the box to integrate with Ableton Live, but it also acts as a generic MIDI controller. It’s bus powered, really lightweight, and compact. Even following Akai’s earlier APC40 this year, there’s something special about the Launchpad: its radical simplicity, and the fact that it is this compact and cheap and plugs in via USB without power, makes this a potential no-brainer for any Live user with a laptop.

I’ve just gotten one of the first Launchpads to arrive (unit “#16″ on the back), so I’ve been playing around with it and can provide some initial impressions and details. I’ve also gotten input from Ableton’s Dave Hill as well as Novation, and I expect to fill in more soon.

monoming the sincerest form of flattery? Of course, one design more than any other championed the radical idea of a minimal grid of buttons — and nothing else. That design statement was the partially open-source, fully-homegrown monome. I’m sure as a result Novation will be accused of ripping off the monome design. I think the opposite: I think the availability of the Launchpad is a huge victory for monome, and an enormous compliment. More than any other design – including the APC40 – the Launchpad really says that an affordable, mass-market device can take on the monome’s radical form. It says grids could become ubiquitous. It’s an enormous validation of what the monome project has done. Furthermore, I think the monome community can continue to reinvent what to do with grids, with software and interaction. There are also many things the monome is – locally produced, sustainably produced, running with open source software, fully community-supported, available in kit form, working with OpenSoundControl, built in a premium form factor – that the Launchpad is not.

[edited for clarification] I think the Launchpad is unlikely to dissuade a person who wants a monome from getting a monome. But what’s significant here is that the design of musical instruments and controllers can adopt new forms. The monome was seen as radical when introduced. It seemed as though the music tech industry wouldn’t produce anything without slapping on some arbitrary knobs somewhere. The Launchpad really does follow the monome’s design cue, and maps control in Live in some new ways. That gives me hope that other designs could likewise tread in new direction, both from independent and larger designers.

Onto the details… The big picture aside, here’s a first look at how the operation of the Launchpad works. I’ll have a short video a little later on today.

Control Modes

The Launchpad has a series of modes that act allow the single 8×8 grid to perform multiple duties. Different modes and shortcuts bring up different visual feedback (by lighting up the buttons) and allow you to control different parameters.

Session mode

In Session mode, the Launchpad does exactly what Akai’s APC40 does. You can trigger clips and view clip state (playing, recording, ready, empty) by color (green, red, amber, and off). You can trigger scenes. You also get the red rectangle that highlights which bank of clips is active.

Unlike the APC40, though, the Launchpad is cheaper, smaller, thinner, lighter, and bus-powered. You can pick it up like a tablet, or squeeze it into a small club space. You can also easily chain multiple Launchpads together (or Launchpads and APC40s), so long as you have enough ports or a USB hub.

Multiple units can simultaneously access integrated control surface functions and clip triggering in Session View. So, for instance, you could have two Launchpads controlling clips, or one controlling the mixer and one controlling clips, or… you get the idea.

Mixer mode + parameter pages

Hit “mixer,” and you see an overview of all your tracks, eight at a time. (You can navigate through your set using the “page” buttons.)

Each row has a different function:

• Volume
• Pan
• Sends A + B
• Stop clips
• Track on
• Solo
• Arm

The “stop” row allows you to either stop an individual track or stop all clips by hitting the “stop” button itself on the right. Solo, arm, and track enable are self-explanatory.

Where things get a bit cooler is if you press the “snd A,” “snd B,” “pan,” and “vol” controls. These allow you to use each column to set parameters. So, for instance, if you want to adjust the send level on your second track, you’d hit “mixer,” then “snd A,” then use the second column to adjust the send up or down. You can fake a “fade” by dragging your finger up or down the column. Now, this doesn’t give you the continuous control a knob or fader would; there’s no interpolation between values. On the other hand, if you’re trying to create stepped, rhythmic changes, that could make the Launchpad (or any grid controller, including the monome) more interesting.

User mode

“User modes” provide open access to the pads for use as MIDI inputs. By default, “user 1″ sends MIDI note messages, and “user 2″ sends control change values.

In the video, you’ll see these modes used for some crazy things, like programming in a sequence and having it continue to light up as you add other layers. In my test – keeping in mind launch date is still over a month away – I couldn’t replicate any of these behaviors. Some of this interaction may require the upcoming Max for Live; I’m awaiting confirmation on details.

In the meantime, you can at least use the Launchpad as a MIDI input in Live or any other software.

Use with other software

Every single button on the Launchpad sends MIDI; I opened a MIDI Monitor session on my MacBook while testing it. There’s not a single menu key that doesn’t send a message. Also interesting: each sends both an on and an off value, which makes it more useful as a button.

It should also be possible, as with the APC40, to use MIDI to light up the Launchpad, complete with color and limited dim levels. I’m assuming the mappings may even be identical to the APC40. I don’t know yet how to do this, however.

Another big selling point for Novation, of course, is Automap support. Along the top, there are alternative labels for the buttons: learn, view, page, instrument, fx, user, and mixer. These will work with Automap and Automap Pro, in case you want to use another host or map to third-party instruments and effects. I didn’t get a chance to test this functionality yet, however.

Physical form factor

The Launchpad feels really good. It’s thin, it’s light, it’s easy to toss in a backpack (as I did today), and yet the plastic case feels very solid. The pads feel good, though I find the throw a little long, making them rock slightly if you don’t hit them dead-center. Angled pads indicate the center, and four pads around them have slight nubs on the surface for additional tactile feedback.

Rubber strips underneath the unit help grip surfaces.

One possibly unfortunate decision was to put the USB port on the side rather than the top, which means you can’t easily put two Launchpads side by side.

Software

The Launchpad ships with a copy of Ableton Live Launchpad edition (aka Live Lite), version 8.0.6. On both my Mac and Windows boxes, I simply installed that version and it automatically found my full Live license. I expect that the 8.0.6 build will get pushed to everyone else in time for launch.

You select the Launchpad as other control surfaces, by looking for “Launchpad” in the Control Surface menu. This presumably means that, like the APC40, a software handshake is used to enable the red clip selection box. I’d still like to see a universal solution from Ableton, one resizable to other controllers. Why not plug in a 4×4 drum pad and bank through clips in a 4×4 rectangle instead of an 8×8 one? The red rectangle is also limited in that it’s tough to see which tracks are selected. (It’s also kind of tough to see, period.) That’s really become an Ableton complaint, though. I’m sure we’ll be working on Max for Live and Live API solutions for heads-up displays that replace all of this soon.

Questions and Initial Impressions

I like the Launchpad a whole lot. Sure, it doesn’t have knobs or faders – but you could throw the Launchpad into your backpack alongside a KORG nanoKONTROL, using the Korg for your fader and knob tasks while the Launchpad launches clips, triggers drum pads, and gets used for live sequencing and playing instruments.

I am a little disappointed that there doesn’t seem to be a way to control Devices. I’d like to be able to take the User Mode and use my eight columns to control the eight macro knobs on any active Device. Sure, you only get 8 values of resolution, but you could set up a Device so that those eight values were musically interesting. I’m investigating whether this is possible; if not, I may look into hacking a solution.

I still think there’s a big place for open tools. The Launchpad is already touting forthcoming use with Max for Live, but that’s only because it sends MIDI messages – and anything else that can send MIDI (or OSC, via work from the Live community to use it) will do the same. I think those of us working on open interaction, though, can find ways of building stuff that works in open tools and closed tools (Java, Pd, and the like are open, Max is not), and open and closed hardware (monome, Livid’s Ohm on the open side, things like the cheap-and-light Launchpad on the proprietary side). Having lots of grids could be a good thing. If everyone has the same thing, the pressure is on to make your performance different from everyone else’s.

But the bottom line is, I think this is going to be a huge hit with the Live user base. And even more than the APC40, I think it’s cheap, an easy impulse-buy, extremely compact, and complements other hardware. It also looks like it’ll be a terrific live visual controller for people who moonlight between music and visual sets.

Since I do have this Launchpad here well over a month prior to launch, and some folks at Ableton and Novation ready to share, if you’ve got questions or concerns, please don’t be shy.