Since it’s now April 2, the music technology April Foolishness has been revealed for what it is.

Composer/educator Steve Horelick provided a sneak glimpse of future functionality in an “unreleased” version of Apple’s Logic Pro:

Logic 303: Logic TNT

… although I wouldn’t be surprised to see Region Animation in a future version of FL “Fruity Loops” Studio.

Moog Music claimed to introduce a Moog guitar in a video teaser segment — that video appears to still be up. Personally, I thought this wasn’t as classic as the Moogerfooger MF-433’s “pure analog silence” — but some people did think it was real. (Hmmm… a guitar with built-in Moogerfooger effects, perhaps?) Don’t miss the MF-433 reviews, though.

Update: Okay, one slight correction on the Moog story. Did I say April Fool’s joke? That may be April Fool’s actual real product announcement. Then again, what’s real? Maybe Moog Music isn’t real, either. Ummm…

The best Moog gag of the day, though, was the Minimalmoog, as seen on Matrixsynth. I love “THE OSCILLATOR.” Ubercoolische, my friend.

Not to be outdone, Clavia introduced the Clavia Left Lead, for left-handed people.

Most amusing of all: Sweetwater’s faux vocalist plug-in, as released to CDM, was criticized for being too feasible. Yes, folks, technology has progressed to the point that readers fully expect to see a plug-in that replaces your vocalist. Well, or maybe that says something about the opinion you have of your vocalist. Point taken.

Updated: from comments, MusicRadar came up with the MusicMask, which reads facial expressions. Again, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone did something real along the same lines. (I was just fiddling with a new facial recognition library for Processing. Okay, I’ll stop…)

Thanks to Matrixsynth for being on top of all the 4/1 stuff. And yes, I will commit here and now: at some point during 2008, CDM will slip fake news into RSS on a day that isn’t April Fool’s, just to see who’s paying attention. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Updated again: This is my favorite yet: multi-sampled, multi-mic ReFill for Reason, “Reason Accordions.” Thanks to Wax in comments.

Introducing Reason Accordions - the hassle free, creativity sparking way of adding studio-grade accordion sounds to your mix. With Propellerhead Software’s ground breaking Hypersampling technique, we have captured these fine accordions in painstaking detail using state of the art equipment and instruments.

Too bad. Ernie Rideout would have been all over the Keyboard review, seriously. See, it used to be hard telling which 4/1 announcements were fake. Now it’s just hard keeping up. I think there were more product announcements yesterday (with a handful of real ones, for extra confusion) than on the first day of winter NAMM.

Then again, music tech announcements are often surreal as it is, so 4/1’s faux releases just seem like another average day.

Minimal techno pioneer, digital vinyl advocate, DJ superstar, and subject of a surrealist Internet parody and very popular joke t-shirt line Richie Hawtin is now evidently using Traktor and Traktor Scratch. So is Magda (of “make the tea” fame). So is Troy Pierce.

Gentle hint to NI’s DJ marketing: embrace it. Give us a special “Ubercoolische Edition” of Traktor Scratch. Heck, I’d buy one. I assume people in Berlin may also find it funny, given the influx of us Americans into their city. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read on.)

Internet memes aside, the real reason this is big news is that Hawtin was one of the DJs who threw his support behind digital vinyl with Stanton’s Final Scratch — the target market for NI with Traktor Scratch. (More recently, he used NI’s other rival — Serato Scratch Live. Thanks, Mateo.) Says Hawtin, “I find that Traktor is taking further steps forward while still remaining connected to the traditional DJ paradigm.” (Less connected to the traditional DJ paradigm, I think, are things like Ableton Live, which by its developers own admission was never originally conceived as a “DJ” program — for better or worse.) And jokes aside, I’m sure Hawtin can do some fun stuff with Traktor.

Richie Hawtin on Traktor, at Native Instruments

But I want to talk about something even more important: just as Hawtin’s label Minus Records is joining with NI for a world club tour for its 10th anniversary, the hilarious Ubercoolische site that parodies his minimalist lifestyle in Berlin is down. Happily, Google cache has preserved the white-wall apartment jokes for posterity (try a search). And you can still by the reflexive t-shirt. If anyone knows what happened to the site, let me know.

For old time’s sake, I’ve reproduced my favorite episode after the break, on Berthold Brecht. (Expletives left in for …effect.)

For the record, Magda thought it was funny, and apparently it was all in good fun because the authors of the site were fans (and actually booked the crew). You’ll know you’ve made it, too, when you’re the subject of a viral Internet parody.

Now that I’ve gotten this out of my system, next time I talk about Hawtin, Minus, or Traktor, I promise to be serious. But in the meantime:

The Keepon Robot — a bopping yellow bot — was easily the technological darling of 2007. It sent even the most skeptical, hardened technomage into spurts of giggles. So, we’re giving you more: take note, because you, too, could learn to dance to the electrical sounds in the club if this robot can. (Thanks, Mandy, for all the links!)

And yes, Carnegie Mellon is advertising how cool they are in these videos. In these days of geek chic — and with involvement on various projects just beginning with the Keepon — I can’t really argue. (I wasn’t paid to say that, really. They didn’t give me an honorary doctorate, or, uh, a week of free tuition or something.)

There’s a side narrative with recent grad Dr. Daniel Wilson on the battle of man vs. machine, which is reasonably amusing. Here’s the Keepon bit:

Yes, it’s the electronic music video you’ve been waiting for. Quotable:

Don’t listen to your body
’cause it only tells you lies

This could also be an IDM anthem. (Glitch remix, anyone? Stems, please, Olde English?) No wonder Michael Gondry started showing up at Olde English shows.

Via Adam Conover, editor and co-creator of the video. See also: Olde English’s blog.

… to go entirely off-topic for a moment. This has nothing to do with creating, or digital, though it is music. And it’s important: by parodying herself and the Black Eyed Peas’ “My Humps”, it seems as though Alanis Morisette has readjusted the balance of the musical space-time continuum itself. The universe may again be in harmony. What greater power can musical comedy have? Enjoy.

Thank you to my mate Mike of GarageSpin. Somehow, I believe Alanis may have saved the music industry forever. And she really was the best cast member on You Can’t Do That On Television.

Peter’s fantastic, historic and educational vintage tape looping and Dr Who posts made me think of the BBC and theremins (yes, I’m fully aware that there were no theremins used for the Dr Who theme, but the myth is too strong), and the person who best combines the BBC and theremins: Bill Bailey.

If you’re not familiar with Bill Bailey, have I got a treat for you! I’ve never encountered anyone who combines music and comedy to such great effect (If you know of someone else with these skills, please tell us in the comments). Fortunately there is a huge volume of his stuff available on Youtube, so I can share some of his genius with you.

Tribute to Kraftwerk

There’s a little bit of theremin in that video, unfortunately his best theremin/electronic music bits aren’t included in any of the short clips I could find, so I’ve added some choice cuts, and if you feel the need for more theremin you can spend some quality time on Youtube or buy his DVDs: Bewilderness or Part Troll.

The good folks at The Smoking Gun are infamous for breaking confidentiality rules and leaking the surreal world of major artist tour rider documents to the world. Hilarity ensues, such as when Christina Aguilera demands “Soy cheese and Oreos. Flintstones chewables and votive candles. Nesquick and dried cranberries.” and rival Britney Spears chows on Doritos and International Foods coffees (hopefully not at the same time). The world laughed. The world vomited.

Iggy Pop is different, taking each legal item as an opportunity to add jokes — all while subtly threatening all on the tour who would deny them a properly-working gig. Smart. The whole thing is worth a read, but this being CDM, we’ll skip straight to the gear stuff.

First, I proudly present CDM’s slogan / t-shirt moniker of the week:

1 x KORG 2000 DIGITAL RACK TUNER. Digital in the sense that it works via an electronically generated number system, not digital because it only works if someone holds it together with their fingers.

And then it goes on …

3 x MARSHALL VBA BASS AMPLIFIERS Make sure they’re good ones or we’ll all end up as wormlike web-based life forms in the bass player’s online literary diahorrea. Honestly. He’s like a sort of internet Pepys or Boswell, except without the gout and the syphilis. For all I know.

And on …

We need: one(1) monitor man who speaks good English and is not afraid of death.
… in Galicia in Northern Spain, they appear to think - if they just ignore riders like this, then supply a fat, beared hippy with a digital monitor desk (doh!) who doesn’t know shit about eq-ing, and monitor wedges that would be better suited to wedging doors open, and a load of stage managers and PA geezers and promoters reps who shout a lot - that this is the same as actually providing what a band needs in order to do a gig to the best of their ability. And that if they deny that their gear is no good, it will suddenly, mysteriously, become good. I’d just like to say that the next time the Stooges get booked for their festival, I’m going to turn up with some pickled eggs, a small blue vibrator with a jelly dolphin balanced on the shaft, a set of dog-eared encyclopedias with the volumes E-G missing, and a screwdriver that’s been accidentally dropped in a toilet.

… and on and on, and I expect you’ll be reading this thing all day and laughing and not getting any work done.

Iggy Pop’s concert rider funniest in rock history? [The Smoking Gun; thanks, Jaymis!]

Feel free to add your favorite bits in comments.