Peter Dines, known for his work with Reaktor (don’t miss his fantastic Reaktor Tutorial Project blog) got a first-hand look at the Yamaha Tenori-On’s first North American stop on its launch tour. He brings us some impressions of the launch, and introduces the phrase "switchboard acrobatics" to the lexicon, which I think will have to find a home in these discussions from now on.

I’ll be at the Brooklyn event tonight, so if you’re there, do say hi! We’ll have coverage of the artists and event soon. (Yeah, I cheated — these are London launch event photos.)

Here’s Peter — and yes, it’s interesting to know that those buttons aren’t necessarily immediately intuitive when you’re under the gun!

Since I am an extremely lazy person I had only a cursory knowledge of the Yamaha Tenori-On when I arrived at SAT for its gala Montreal launch. A number of the little blinking beauties were set up at kiosks separated from the loud music of Pheek by the flimsiest of curtains. I waited in line for my turn to have a poke at it, and when I got it I was baffled.

Yes, there were instructions. Step four required the user to hold down a function key while pressing an LED in row nine. Now I don’t know about you but I don’t immediately recognize groups of nine out of an array of sixteen by sixteen identical, evenly spaced das blinkenlights, especially when there’s a queue of impatient people behind me. There was also no obvious way to turn up the volume to a level that would be audible in the venue. Disheartened, I passed the headphones to the guy breathing down my neck, got a beer and settled in to watch musicians who evidently knew the ins and outs of the thing as they worked it on stage.

Our friends Chachi and Alan write in from San Francisco’s music tech haven, Robotspeak, to share a video giving the Moogerfooger FreqBox some hands-on time. Since the FreqBox needs some signal to do its magic, they turned to two great sources: Alan’s guitar, and Chachi’s Roland TB-303.

We hope to have some more on the FreqBox soon; let us know if you’ve gotten one yourself and how it’s working out for you.

Previously: NAMM: Moog Music moogerfooger FreqBox Meant to be Heard, Not Seen?

There are lots of fantastic music tools out there, but some of them just inspire love and envy, and the Moog Little Phatty certainly fits the bill. Via Matrixsynth, Melbourne Sydney-based composer / music maven Sofie Loizou has posted her unboxing ceremony and first impressions of the Moog synth. (At this point, I would normally post the various links to coverage at Keyboard Magazine, but the Good Ship Keyboard’s site seems to be down.)

Sofie writes:

This bundle of joy came this afternoon and I couldn’t help but take a few happy snaps to celebrate its arrival. My initial comments are “yay� and “woohoo.� It looks and feels solid, great key action (no skimping on key size depth), it has pink and blue buttons (extremely important) and rotary LED knobs. The layout is simple and easy to use, and its controls are chosen to emphasise its role as a chunky sounding monophonic synth. And above all it sounds like a moog. My thirst for tangible analogue aesthetic has been quenched. Every girl should have one. ;)

Eric Richmond is a “deep house DJ who was looking for a dedicated MIDI controller for ’standard’ 2 channel mixing.” Amidst all the buzz about M-Audio’s new X-Session Pro (XSP) DJ-style controller, even before it had been released, it’s been hard to get solid information on how the gear works in the real world. Eric took the plunge early and brings us some hands-on testing from the DJ booth.

The XSP is a new MIDI controller by M-Audio set to replace the older “X-Session” MIDI device, and attempts to replicate the standard 2-4 channel audio mixers with which most of us are familiar.

The best way to get 8-bit sounds is to employ a real NES system or Game Boy for fifteen bucks and go to town — nothing else sounds quite the same. But for the next best thing, and the ability to do evil things to those sounds within a serious host, this free plug-in from Japan that will do the job:

YCMK Magical 8bit Plug [ Official Site ]

Totally free, totally cross-platform (Windows VST, Mac AU). Via Adrian Anders and the CDM forums, where we’re trying to figure out why it’s crashing someone’s installation of Ableton Live. Not Universal: Note that this plug-in is not Intel-native (nor any of the other examples listed here, as far as I know), so you’ll need to go elsewhere for 8-bit sounds on an Intel Mac, ironically enough. Also, as several readers note over on TUAW, GarageBand has its own Atari Sings patch, though I don’t think it clips as realistically as this does for a true NES sound. (Makes sense that it doesn’t, since those patches are built with Logic’s synths.)

Anyway, here’s what it sounds like, emulating the compositional style of classical NES tunes of yore:

[audio:magical8bitPlugSample.mp3]

The authentic sound comes from the choice of 8-bit waveforms, limited to square, triangle, pulse, and noise waveforms, plus envelope shape. This version is simple, sounds just right, and does the job, and the price is certainly right. Here’s one beginner and one advanced example of how you might use this.

W. Brent Latta is a professional game composer and sound designer; here he brings us his pro opinion of how Microsoft’s next-gen game box shapes up. Hey, it’s a tough job, but someone has to do it, right? And as Tomonuba Itagaki, the creator of Ninja Gaiden, says, “Xbox 360 is the best. So we should wait with a great anticipation.” -PK

Much has already been written about Microsoft’s new console, the Xbox 360. We have a bevy of game reviews, accessories to buy, Live Arcade titles to play, and even future releases over which we drool. But not much has been written about the audio performance and capabilities of this first-of-the-next-generation contraptions. In this short review, I hope to give you a quick breakdown of the how the system has been working for me.

Ready to experiment with sensors for musical (or visual) control, but just want some simple MIDI control so you can use your existing software? An inexpensive, simple, solid option is the MIDIsense board created by Limor Fried (aka Lady Ada), which Limor announced publicly this weekend as a kit. (Some of you already know Limor from her wildly popular x0xb0x Roland TB-303 clone kit, which is also open source.)

I’ve been working with Limor’s board since March, when she tested out the board on a group of us at Eyebeam here in New York. It’s just the thing for building your own flex sensor glove or light sensor Theremin. Here’s a quick look at why it’s cool:

You can build your own board easily: Never touched a soldering iron? Here’s a perfect time to start. The group of mostly-artists at Eyebeam had little-to-no soldering experience, and we had a blast putting these together. None of the solder connections are particularly hard, and the whole project could be up and running in about an hour. It’s a perfect way to cut your teeth on building stuff, and there’s lots of helpful advice at Limor’s site.

MIDI is still really useful: Sure, you could get more resolution out of a board that sends higher-resolution data, but many sensors don’t need that accuracy. The payoff with MIDI is plug-and-play compatibility with an absurd amount of software and hardware. Even if you’re planning on some higher-res projects, it’s worth having a MIDI board around. Trust me on this.

US$1199 for a brilliant one-voice synth? Resident CDM hardware synth lover Lee reports. -Ed.

The Dave Smith Instruments booth at NAMM was a buzzing hub of activity with performances by Parliment/Funkadelic’s Bernie Worrell, BT, and even an impromptu appearance by Herbie Hancock. But I still managed to get some alone time with the new DSI Mono Evolver Keys.

The only thing that the original Prophet 5 (one of the first
programmable polyphonic synths) and the Prophet VS (the first to
feature digital wavetables) have in common is that both were designed
by synthesis pioneer Dave Smith. But while Dave’s new Mono Evolver
Keys was blowing Herbie Hancock’s mind at NAMM, Arturia was quietly
keeping Dave’s legacy alive in software.

Controlling soft synths with keyboards can be a pain, only because it often requires messing around with templates or MIDI learn to map hardware knobs and faders to onscreen controls. Propellerhead’s Remote is a fantastic two-way protocol that allows your keyboard to automatically control synths — but it only works in Reason. What about the rest of your software?

The folks at Novation have a brilliant new keyboard, the ReMOTE SL, that takes that idea to the rest of the soft synth world. Via their Automap technology, the keyboard can configure itself for whatever synth you’re using, displaying each parameter on a beautiful LCD display above its knobs and faders . . .