You’re now approved to DJ with your iPhone. Or at least the app is. I’m not sure if I can take credit for getting Apple’s attention, but Apple has approved the TouchDJ application from Amidio. That’s big news, partly because developer Amidio has consistently been at the forefront of musical development on the platform, including their Noise.io synth and wild hexagonal JR Hexatone Pro.

This also is a big blog to the theory that Apple is intentionally blocking DJ apps — and a big boon to the theory that the App Store is just plain clogged, even if it may be disproportionately affecting more sophisticated applications.

Features in the release:

• “Visual mixing,” with a clever interface that uses overlays atop side-by-side waveform views
• Pre-listening using a special left/right adapter
• Faux vinyl and spin effects
• Real-time scratching, looping, positioning, EQ, effects, re-pitching
• Onboard sampler with 3 WAV sample slots, recording from the mic
• Uses a separate MP3 library with companion apps, since it isn’t possible to DJ from the library you sync from iTunes

Now, to me, that last point is a fairly significant one. You have to load tracks you wish to DJ separately, in MP3/M4A format. And I’m sure that this will start various debates about whether you’d want to DJ on your iPhone in the first place. But don’t look at me — I just work here. I’d be remiss if I started out the week talking about apps stuck in iPhone limbo, only to ignore them immediately becoming available. And I will say, Amidio is one of the smartest mobile music developers out there, so it’s worth checking out the range of what they’re doing.

Whether petitions and news stories did help this app to get to the top of the queue or not, I have no idea. I think maybe I’ll start running screaming headlines with things I want in them, if only for good luck.

Tomorrow on CDM: “You Know What Annoys Me? The Fact That We Don’t Have Unicorns. Magic Unicorns. Who Speak OSC.”

It’s drumming, the multi-player game. The Drummer is an open-source application for the Nintendo DS handheld, developed by Andrea Bianchi and Woon Seung Yeo and presented alongside a paper earlier this year at the NIME Conference (The International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression). As with any Nintendo homebrew software, you’ll need a special DS cartridge capable of loading software from flash memory – though if this app were developed more, it could make a terrific DSi app.

The idea is this: while making a handheld game system into an instrument, why not take advantage of its networking features? Grab a friend (or friends) with the Nintendo DS, whip up a drum kit that’s to your liking, then play along.

Oddly, while we live in a networked, Internet age, the client-server model rarely gets applied to music. One of the things I try to explain about the protocol OSC (OpenSoundControl), aside from the fact that it doesn’t have to be about sound, is that it’s really a collection of best practices in open networking communication. It’s not simply about connecting devices to one another in serial fashion, as with MIDI, but forming a network – an idea familiar to anyone who uses instant messaging online. True, latency considerations and other complications can add another dimension of challenge. But I think there’s plenty to explore when it comes to networking devices, and it promises to make computer music a less solitary experience. The Drummer is a good step in that direction.

The Drummer project page + NIME paper
Google Code page

Thanks to Andrea for sending this our way!

The novelty of the iPhone or [your favorite device here] may fade. But part of what matters in mobile design is thinking about how to create interfaces and uses that can scale to the size of your palm. That can mean embracing radical simplicity, and reducing an interactive, digital musical object down to its essential noise-making functions. In acoustic instrument design, that means economizing sound production in a form. In the digital world, it means finding the interactive role you’d want to bring with you onstage, in the length roughly equivalent your fingertips to your wrist.

I’m a few weeks overdue actually writing about it, but one design I really admire is Star6, developed by Jason Forrest and Agile Partners. There are no awkward, gimmicky emulations of hardware interfaces here; it’s clear this was an interface that was illustrated in two-dimensions. It has funky nerdster chic color combos, with neon pink atop wood grain. It demonstrates that, in the space of a grid, you can fit triangles. It makes use of computer wifi capability to easily load samples without mucking around with over-designed clients – or record right on the iPhone. And it’s – surprisingly – one of the few apps to make heavy use of the accelerometer, which means rather than looking like you’re trying to text message someone, you can move it around. There’s a “grain” mode so that you can randomize sounds and not have everything synced all the time. I also enjoy the “reset” button. These are all design decisions that could make sense in more commercial software – and our own home-brewed Max/Pd patches and such, too.

Apparently Agile Partners were also influenced by the brightly-colored, handheld fun of the Buddha Machine, too; see their interview with the creator.

Star6
A lovely lineup of free samples, including the Buddha Machine

It’s not a perfect app (no mobile app really can be – that’s the fun of it), and it doesn’t do everything, but I find Star6’s personality rather irresistible. The real test of all of this is whether you can use it in real music-making. And, while my inbox is full of cheezy bands trying to ride the iPhone wave, I love the offbeat Star6 music launch party from Berlin, as documented in the video below. It ranges from Jason’s own work to Warp Records artist Jackson and ex-Chicks on Speed Kiki Moorse. And there’s a crazy iPhone + banjo + accordion cover of Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl.” There are even some genuinely experimental sounds – not the sort of thing you’d expect at a launch event, sadly. (I wish we could have more of that.)

An Evening With Star6 – Berlin (Compilation) from Star6 on Vimeo.

More on the artists, and some of Star6 creator Jason Forrest’s own unique work:

Jason’s own artistic aesthetic, as seen in this video for “War Photographer,” does have this quirky efficiency to it, the sense of cut-out animation (in both visuals and music, I’d argue), and saturated, rich, retro colors.

The eclectic Berlin launch.

Jackson (Warp, FR)
Kiki Moorse (ex-Chicks On Speed,DE)
Song Band (US)
Jason Forrest (CRD, US)
Guido Mobius (Karaoke Kalk, DE)
Ben Butler & Mousepad (SCT/DE)
DJ’s: Finkobot & Marius Reisser

Jacki Terrasse / Joseph (@ Maria)
An Der Schilling Brücke
10243 Berlin

For more on the artists:
myspace.com/moorse
myspace.com/jacksonand
myspace.com/benbutlerandmousepad
myspace.com/guidomoebius
myspace.com/jason_forrest
myspace.com/songbandmyspace
myspace.com/finckobot
myspace.com/mariusreisser

Video shot by Martin Sulzer
Photos by Marco Macrobi

Complete sets:
Ben Butler and Mousepad
Guido Mobius
Kiki Moorse
Jason Forrest

As you may know, the creators of games like Grand Theft Auto have collaborated with Timbaland to bring a mobile music studio to Sony’s PSP (and later, the iPhone), based on an ambitious free Flash experiment on their Website. Now, it’s my impassioned belief that you shouldn’t need lots of canned loops or celebrity endorsements to make music fun, so normally I might actually run the opposite direction of any story starting with that line. But here’s the surprise: underneath, the app is more powerful than I expected.

I’ve gotten an early preview of the title in person at Rockstar’s offices here in New York, and was also able to grill their developers on geeky details of how the sound engine is put together. A test copy isn’t yet available so I can’t properly review the app, but I am at least able to talk about some of what lies beneath the PSP screens and marketing.

For some time, a select few have known that the Sony PSP’s secret is that it’s a powerful handheld computer, ideal for mobile music. Brilliant-but-underground apps like PSPSEQ and PSP Rhythm capitalized on this potential, but required you hack your PSP in order to run them, because Sony restricts launching non-authorized applications from memory.

Beaterator is the first full-featured app that can be run directly on the PSP. Some people may not look past the fact that it comes from a game company, past its (admittedly) thick layer of marketing glitz and celebrity endorsement. But based on a first look, I believe Beaterator is the most powerful music app ever released through game channels, surpassing in functionality even the recent cult hit Korg DS-10 for the Nintendo DS.

In the interest of disclosure, I have a confession: I didn’t expect to have any interest in Beaterator at all. I was concerned that the musical experience would be watered down (though more on what I actually discovered below). The fact that this game had one artist – Timbaland – literally dancing around the screen talking about how it’s his game I thought would be a deal killer. And, of course, it’ll be impossible to talk about this game without the shadow of the “Acidjazzed Evening” controversy, which aleges Timbaland plagiarized music by Finnish composer Janne Suni – made worse by a lawsuit and a glib interview in which the artist responded, “It’s from a video game, idiot.” Timbaland is by no means the first artist to get into trouble with an uncleared sample, but the fact that it was a much lesser-known artist and that the situation was handled less than gracefully certainly created a credibility issue in the enthusiast community.

I bring those issues up front, because I know readers will bring them up. But what intrigues me about Beaterator is that it has an essentially split personality. At one moment, Beaterator is an animated Timbaland talking to you while you trigger canned loops with game buttons, neither game nor, really, a music creation app. At another moment, though, it’s a full-blown music sequencer you can carry around on your PSP, with some retro design and sound features that might actually make it appealing. And I think it’d be unfair to cover one side without the other.

The marketing for Beaterator focuses on the thousands of loops assembled by Timbaland and Rockstar. But Beaterator isn’t limited to those loops. What you likely won’t see emphasized in the gaming press:

• Sampling: You can make your own samples using the mic (or, if you can find it, you can add a PSP microphone)
• Audio import: You can import WAV files from a computer, as easily as dropping them onto a MemoryStick.
• Audio export: You can save your work as an audio file. Rockstar will have its own site for exchanging your music with other users, but that will be limited to the built-in effects (I’m guessing so they don’t have to police piracy). But that won’t stop you from exporting audio on your MemoryStick and using it however you like.
• MIDI import and export: While even many serious iPhone games lack this functionality, you can use Beaterator as a mobile MIDI editing workstation.
• Grown-up interface and effects: Beaterator has real audio effects, with real labels. The Compressor has labels like Gain and Ratio, instead of, you know, “Phatness” or “AMPMEUP.” It’s a clue that this really is a tool and not a game.
• It’s-a-me … not! Game cartoon character heads never appear in the interface – though I do have to admit, those Mario Paint Mario noteheads were cute. (For the PSP, might I suggest semidemiquavers with the face of Kratos?)

I love my desktop sequencers, but having these kinds of features in a comfortable-to-hold mobile device you take anywhere, being able to fly through settings with the PSP buttons, and lots of little details added by the Rockstar developers like confining pattern editing to scales and keys make Beaterator look like something that’ll be fun to use. After a couple of minutes, I was ready to charge up my PSP and fire up Beaterator alongside PSPSEQ.

Inside Beaterator’s Engine

Beaterator began several years ago on Rockstar’s website. Before making full-blown music production tools with Flash was popular, before the idea of “cloud editing” had become a buzzword, a side project at Rockstar yielded a free Flash game, which you can still play. The interface is loop-based and reminiscent of tools like ACID, GarageBand, and Fruity Loops. But it’s surprisingly minimal, capable of full-blown pattern and loop editing, includes real-time effects, and comes with a selection of loops from some of my all-time favorite producers – A.VEE & 3D, Juan Atkins, King Britt, Matthew Dear, and Steinski. Side note: please, Rockstar, can we have a custom version of Beaterator with those producers?

http://beaterator.rockstargames.com/beaterator.html

Having talked to mobile developers both big and indie, I was curious about the technical details of Beaterator’s implementation – especially after being impressed in a short demo by capabilities that went beyond what I had expected. Rockstar replied with some very particular details from the developers. I think the answers say a lot about what’s possible on the PSP – even with that iPhone version in the works – and how a handheld sequencer on mobile hardware can be put together.

PK: So, I see eight tracks, some effects – what are the capabilities of the underlying audio engine in Beaterator?

Rockstar: Our engine runs at 16-bit stereo, 22.05kHz throughout. As you say, there are 8 tracks, each of which each can have up to two insert effects* summed into a stereo mix. Each track also has a stereo pre-fader Send to a dedicated reverb buss which runs a global reverb unit which is also added into the output. The channel level, pans, aux send and all effects parameters can be automated to 1-bar resolution, as can the final mix output level, pan, and the global reverb parameters. At any given time, each of the 8 tracks can be playing either a sample-based Melody/Drum loop (with 8 channel polyphony), a monophonic synth melody loop, or a mono/stereo timestretched audio loop.

Our sequencer also supports 8 channels, at 4ppqn. The maximum song length is 240 bars, and we are fixed to 4/4 time. BPM ranges from 60-300, and there is a simple 16th-note swing control as well.

The insert effects we support are: Compressor, Chorus, Delay, Distortion, 3-band EQ, Multimode Resonant Filter, Flanger, Noise Gate, Phaser & Tremolo.

A lot of the editing (aside from vocals, really) appears to be in MIDI pattern editing. Is this always triggering a sampled instrument, or is there live synthesis / DSP going on under the hood at all? (I know the PSP is capable of such things.) Do you have any control over the timbre of the instruments, or just the musical patterns?

We trigger either our pitched sample playback code or our own DSP synthesiser on a channel. The sample playback code is a fairly simple 8-voice (which means a theoretical maximum polyphony of 64 if you are playing 8 samples on each of the 8 channels) pitchshifter (no multisampling), with no real control of timbre (no filters). But it does support velocity sensitivity (although this has to be sequenced as the PSP buttons aren’t velocity sensitive) and a full ADSR amplitude envelope.

The inbuilt synth is monophonic (but you can run one per channel, so up to 8 in theory). It’s a simple 3-oscillator Virtual Analog design. Each oscillator has a smoothly-morphable waveshape from Sine, through Triangle, Sawtooth, Square and finally to 10% Pulse) and has independent +/-2 octave pitch and +/-1 semitone detune controls. There is also a separate white-noise generator. The synth also has its own multimode resonant filter (24dB/octave Low Pass, 12dB/octave Low Pass, 12dB/octave Band Pass, 12dB/octave High Pass and 24dB/octave Low Pass modes) with controllable keyboard tracking. There are two ADSR envelope generators, one locked to amplitude controls, and the other freely assignable to the modulation matrix. There are also two LFOs with multiple shapes and speeds. These three modulation sources can be freely assigned to any of the 14 modulation destinations, which amounts to 42 modulation slots. Unfortunately, none of the parameters of the synth can be automated.

Pattern editing in Beaterator does not use MIDI internally – The game is locked to 4ppqn on a five-octave keyboard, and the melody notes use a unique pitch bend/portamento technique which doesn’t map directly onto MIDI pitch bend events. However, we can import and export MIDI files with a reasonable degree of accuracy, which is a feature we think will be particularly useful.

I’m already impressed by some of the editing capabilities – I was surprised to see a brief glimpse of envelope rubber-banding. Any other specifics you want to talk about in terms of editing possibilities?

As explained above, we have ADSR envelope control throughout, and we are particularly proud of our Synthesizer. Our sound waveform editor supports most of the normal editing tools you would expect (trim, insert silence, normalisation), and also allows you to set up sustain regions for the sample playback engine, timestretch and slice the waveform.

Okay, so let’s imagine I’ve got a bunch of audio loops on my drive and want to do, effectively, what Timbaland did with his loops. Do you have as much control over authoring loops for Beaterator as Rockstar? Are there limitations on this feature?

You can freely import and edit any 44.1kHz or 22.05kHz mono or stereo uncompressed 16-bit WAV into Beaterator (we have 9MB of sample memory available in any one song). You can edit these however you like (indeed we use these tools ourselves to generate content).

Do you need to prepare your loops at a fixed bpm? If I bring in a 120 bpm loop and change the tempo to 144, does my loop stretch? (If it’s doing stretching, the audio warping engine sounds really fantastic!)

We do timestretch loops to match the songs tempo (but this can be disabled if desired). You can also over-stretch sounds for that early-90s “granular timestretch” effect. Thanks for the compliments on our warping engine too!

I’ve got a soft spot for 90s digital, I think. What was the emphasis of the Rockstar team in terms of their samples and musical genres?

The focus was on loops that could work well with most genres. We like to think you can create songs from Rock to Rap with the selection we present.

Is it (You) Live, or is it Timbaland?

Beaterator gets at the heart of what’s happening with the way music creation is packaged in a digital age. Rockstar contrasted their title with things that are “games,” like the Rock Band/Guitar Hero mold that was refined by Harmonix. Rockstar emphasizes creative music creation and deemphasizes gaming. At the same time, they pack the title with pre-made loops and are concerned about whether what you do will easily sound good, or whether you’ll be overwhelmed by the genuinely powerful tools underneath. Beaterator, unlike Rock Band, is not about playing along with your favorite artists – but clearly Rockstar is betting that Timbaland is a favorite artist of prospective buyers, and that you will try to sound like him and use his loops. Rock Band makes no such attempt to be creative. The Beatles, coming out next week, is about playing along with the Beatles. (I recall singing along with my sister when we were kids, and I was someone who grew up taking weekly piano lessons.) Yet the “game” in this case does just the opposite – instead of trying to be easier, the whole selling point is a ramped difficulty curve. Maybe the reason studies are showing people graduating from Rock Band to real instruments is that, eventually, if you seek out difficulty, you need to go beyond the game. (Actual instruments: they’re the ultimate expansion pack.)

It’s a paradox, but it’s not a paradox restricted to gaming. You can take the conflict above and apply it to the way all music technology is marketed. On one hand, you have software that’s almost comically complex – sometimes offering so many options that it’s hard even for people with doctoral-level training in digital signal processing to make actual music. On the other, from many of the same vendors, you have pre-built loop libraries and presets with push-button simplicity, requiring less musical coordination or rhythm than, well, Rock Band on Easy mode.

All of us, like our technology, have a split personality when we use digital tech. But maybe the ultimate question is a simple one: can you make something?

I’ll reserve that question in regards to Beaterator until I get a final version. I was set to take a development build home with me, but I do have to wait until the final release. I do think these are interesting questions, though.

Oh, and say what you will about Timbaland, but animated Timbaland has some sort of nuclear control panel that he uses to DJ from. I want a real one. Surplus shopping, anyone?

Stay tuned for a look at the finished product. If fans of mobile game music were willing to use Mario Paint to get an extremely basic song editor, I think Beaterator could be a revelation. And in addition to looking at music production in Beaterator well beyond what might qualify as “Rock” or “Rap,” I think it’s long overdue for a guide to the other independent apps for the PSP. (In fact, I just got a new one in my inbox), so watch for that, too, in a separate story.

Videos from Rockstar (all images and videos are of the PSP version, not the iPhone)…

Now, I talk too much. The best way to make my argument? Listen to the kids. Their favorite feature: recording their own voice.

I rest my case.

Fans of the Nintendo DS may have been immune to the siren song of Nintendo’s tweaked DSi model. Unfortunately, I have a feeling a bunch of you are about to upgrade your handheld game system. Why? Because the folks at AQ Interactive are doing an upgraded version of the DS-10 software synth for the game platform, now on the DSi. Palm Sounds gets the scoop.

New in this version:

• Twice the analog synths (4 of them, instead of 2)
• Twice the drum machines (8 instead of 4)
• Twice the tracks (12 instead of 6)
• Expanded song mode: programmable track mute, realtime editing (that is, edit parameters inside the song mode

They’re also announcing distribution through retailers. The new features appear to be platform-specific — that is, all this doubling business appears to be thanks to the greater horsepower of the DSi. My guess – though this is unconfirmed – is that if you can get this for the pre-DSi DS, you won’t be able to switch to the “Dual Mode.” The other slight disappointment is that it doesn’t sound as though online features or collaborative features have been enhanced. On the other hand, AQ is promising that they’ll be in brick-and-mortar retailers, not the online-only distribution they had on the original. I’m hopeful that may also mean distribution outside the US — either for an online DSi purchase, perhaps, or for the cartridge. (The DSi still supports physical carts – hence the mention of retailers.)

The best part of all of this, though, is watching Nobuyoshi Sano – the composer/arranger behind Namco games like Ridge Racer and Tekken – do a Steve Jobs keynote impression.

Via Brandon at the best-game-blog Offworld, who notes that in US dollars this represents a $10 discount.

It’s easy enough to dismiss mobile music devices as toys, and I’d add, there’s really nothing wrong with toys. But the test – a personal one – is whether or not you can develop your musical ideas with them. Some of the deepest, most consistently satisfying tools for mobile devices are the ones that shrink down real production capabilities to a handheld size. Look closely at these apps, and you’ll see software that could easily have passed for “advanced” sequencers on computers fifteen years ago. (Indeed, I think arguably we’ve lost some usability with the complexity we’ve added since.)

While the iPhone phenomenon continues to grow, don’t write off Windows Mobile for music. Tony Stone sends a video showing off the piano roll-style sequencer in an app called AudioBox. It goes beautifully with the stylus – precision input that isn’t possible with your finger on the iPhone.

AudioBox Micro Composer is available at various online software stores. Here’s where Tony says he picked it up:

AudioBox Micro Composer @ ClickApps

AudioBox Product Page @ 4pockets [developer]

AudioBox has come up many times on Palm Sounds; see the interview with the developer

US$44.95, but for that you get the sequencer, an analog synth, a string pad synth, a samples, a drum machine, 16 channels of mixing, effects, editing capabilities, and “device automation” (not sure what that last one means). Part of the reason this is all possible is that developing for Windows Mobile is very much like developing for Windows – and unlike Google’s Android, you can write the apps in C/C++. If you’re not a developer, what that means it that you’re basically getting desktop-like apps.

Tony is worth checking out, too. He’s a Christian hip-hop artist, beatmaker and producer, and youth minister, and he’s promised some very interesting DIY projects coming soon. See his blog and MySpace page. We actually have a whole lot of readers making music in communities of faith, demonstrating that there’s a lot more diversity of musicians working with technology. It’s not at all limited to the view people have of the club or DJ scenes.

Side note: Microsoft should never have gotten rid of the Pocket PC moniker.

CellDS, from the creator of the popular, glitchy sample-playing homebrew DS apps glitchDS and repeaterDS, is a new DS sequencer. Out of the box, it’s already very usable. Six sequence lines play back either one of the 175 included sounds or sounds you convert for use on the DS. You can customize the scale to whatever pitch and tuning you like. A 1.2 update announced yesterday added some bug fixes and volune sliders for each of the six “engines.” WiFi MIDI support isn’t available yet, but it’s coming.

If you’re willing to write a few lines of script, each one of those sequencers can be modified to your own purposes. If “scripting” sends you running for the hills, don’t fear. Lua is a dead-simple language, so writing a few lines of script can actually be far easier than deciphering a UI. (Hey, there’s a reason we all communicate using, you know, language.)

Here’s a really simple example from the developer documentation (for would-be Lua scripters):

Line #1: function stylus_newpress()
Line #2: set_pan(X)
Line #3: play_note(17-Y,16)
Line #4: end

In other words, if you press the stylus, you get a sound, setting pan with X on your stylus and pitch with Y. Pretty easy, right?

I’m quite eager to give this some quality time. If it could sync up via MIDI, of course, it’d become far more useful as part of a bigger setup. The Tenori-On is wonderful, but customization (as also found on Monome) is often better, especially as you can think of sequencers as a kind of score.

http://www.glitchds.com/about/cellsds/

cellDS 1.2 update

Trinity, the folks who have been pushing the notion of a Linux-based handheld audio studio for some time now, have launched a full product today. It’s called the Indamixx Mobile DAW, and it’s a full software studio running on Samsung’s Q1 Ultra (formerly known as an Ultra Mobile PC). In fact, it might more accurate to say that it’s multiple DAWs, as you have various, full-blown software choices you can use pre-optimized on a handheld computer.

For anyone unimpressed by people tapping on iPhones and such, this is the real thing. Software includes, among other things:

• Just-added special version of EnergyXT, the increasingly-popular music production tool (as pictured here)
• Ardour, the powerful, open-source DAW software
• Hydrogen drum machine, Seq24 sequencer, Ardour audio editor
• Powerful Linux tools: LADSPA and VST effects support, synth and sound tools, and utilities

You also get tools like Skype and Pidgin, plus the usual Linux Internet apps, so I could imagine this would be a really powerful tool to have with you in world travels. Find wifi, call whomever you like.

It’s all about form factor. Some people will, naturally, be perfectly happy with a no-compromises laptop. But for people who prefer a handheld machine that could fit easily atop a keyboard or music stand, this finally gives you some real power – and a full-blown Linux OS. (The addition of EnergyXT to me is really the killer app.)

The hardware features:

• 7”, 1024×600 screen and VGA output
• 802.11g wifi and Ethernet
• 40 GB hard drive (not sure about real-world track count on that; I’ll try to find out)
• 2 USB 2.0 ports, so you could use this with a MIDI or audio interface
• Touch screen and physical keys, plus an 8-way joystick
• 1G RAM expandable to 2GB, reasonably speedy (very much so for a mobile device) Intel processor

Cost: US$999 as a special intro offer through 8/31 or until supplies are gone.

Availability: Now.

Whether or not you’re running out to buy one of these, I think the message to developers is clear. You can no longer assume the traditional computer and mouse is the target platform. With touch capabilities in Windows 7 and likely on Mac OS, with killer apps on everything from the iPhone to the DS, the growth of Linux laptops like the Eee, and touch and mobile interfaces everywhere, the potential diversity of computing is finally being realized. That means UI design will increasingly have to accommodate alternative modes of control (like touch), scale to different screen sizes (including higher resolutions as well as lower ones), and think about mobile. And Linux – already capable of emulating Windows well enough to run many music apps, and ready to host VSTs – could have a new window of opportunity. The change may not happen immediately, but smart developers will be prepared for whatever direction their customers may take.

Indamixx Portable Studio Site

NitroTracker 0.4 (Now)

First up, on the uber-popular Nintendo DS, NitroTracker 0.4 adds some big features. Creator Tobias Weyand writes:

I wanted to tell you that I just released NitroTracker v0.4 with lots of new features and improvements, the coolest ones being sample looping and stylus-drawable volume envelopes. You can basically just record a sound, make it loop, draw an envelope, and there you have your instant instrument.

Sample looping is interesting, too – you can loop forward or, as in many video samplers, ping-pong style (back and forth). The envelopes are a nice fit for the stylus, as well.

Other features: multi-samples for instruments, and channel mute/solo.

Why you want it: Intuitive, tracker-style sequencing with a stylus, live sampling, MIDI integration, now with real sampling and envelope features

Site: NitroTracker

PSPSeq 3 (Soon)

I also got an advance look at the next version of PSPSeq when creator Ethan Bordeaux stopped by the CDM/Make/Etsy Handmade Music night I put together. I’ve got video from that event I’ll be editing and posting soon. But before I get into features, I should say this: Ethan wants PSPSeq to be so good, you’ll buy a PSP to get it. Why a PSP? Because the extra CPU power Sony built into the device makes it a formidable handheld synth. And because it’s different. And because it runs PSPSeq.

Ethan’s in bug-stomping mode, so you can’t have PSPSeq just yet. But the upcoming build includes new randomization and interpolation features, more powerful copy and paste, shortcuts, and workflow improvements. (It’s funny – it sounds like we’re talking about a DAW.) I was particularly impressed by the randomization stuff in person. It really turns PSPSeq into a powerful composition environment. Ethan, whose day job is DSP programming, has also included some unusual features like “rotational synthesis” – I’ll let him explain it in the video, once I get that up.

So, CDM readers, would you be interested enough to get a CDM group buy of PSPs, pre-installed with homebrew-ready firmware?

Come on. Humans have two hands. One hand can be on the DS while the other is on the PSP.

Why you want it: Powerful arrangement features, real synthesis that sounds great, all-in-one power

Site: dspmusic.org/psp

New featured spotted via Palm Sounds. See more PSP coverage on Palm Sounds, too.

PSP Rhythm 8.0 (Now)

From comments, I actually missed another big announcement. (Too much going on! Thanks, Louie!)

The popular PSP drum machine/sequencer PSP Rhythm got a new optimized audio engine, yet another interface upgrade (there seems to be one in each version), and an ADSR synth mode. For some reason, I’m not particularly drawn to PSP Rhythm musically – it lacks some of the exotic charm of PSPSeq – but it’s still very much worthy of your attention if you’ve got a PSP, and proof that the DS doesn’t have a monopoly on mobile music.

It’s even got a pro-style music trailer.

PSP Rhythm Site