Like a World’s Fair of all the invention in music technology, the big trade shows still gather many of the latest creations from around the globe. And while the NAMM show in California is big, Musikmesse is bigger: spanning some 11 halls (together with a live lighting and event show called Pro Light+Sound), it’s the biggest on Earth. Having covered NAMM for German publication DE:BUG, I’m thrilled to get to do the reverse and highlight the best of Messe for California-based Keyboard Magazine.

Musikmesse 2012 Gear Report [Keyboard Magazine]

Instead of trying to cover absolutely everything, this is the stuff I found especially significant – and I got the luxury of giving into my personal bias toward things with keys on them. Some of the highlights:

• RME getting 36 channels, 24-bit, 192 kHz audio … on a computer and on your iPad. (Also, thanks to RME for the delicious beer.)
• Mode Machines’ wonderful German x0xb0x, SID drum machine, and other treats.
• More accurate modeled pianos, including the epic ALPHA with its full-sized hammer action inside. (No, not what keyboard makers usually call hammer action – like, the whole hammer.)
• Roland’s clever mechanism for using your iPhone to record and jam along with their instruments, wirelessly. (See my hands-on video, below).

And, of course, there’s lots of gear to look at. It wasn’t new to Messe, but if my ethics circuitry were to short-circuit and I decided to hide something under a coat, I sure do love that Buchla modular and touch plate, for all its quirky strangeness. In fact, apologies to the folks at Moog, but I have to recount this story. Evidently a couple of Moog reps went over to the Buchla display to try out the new modular, and came back frustrated about the touchplate and the lack of a conventional keyboard. (Believe me, they’re not wrong: these can keep you from making useful sound if you don’t have a lot of time.) Now, I cut my teeth in analog on two modulars side by side, an original Buchla and Moog setup. I was charmed by the reenactment of the controversy over Buchla – its unconventional input, its creatively-worded labels, and its different approach to patching. I talked to others with the same split reaction, not just Moog. It’s all the more topical after my passing mention of a giant sphere triggered a minor flame war in comments. (And don’t get me wrong: as I said before, I love keyboards, and still favor them over other means of input.)

I always loved both the Buchla and Moog for their differences, and the fact that these philosophical difference survive decades later gives some hope for the longevity of what we do – sometimes even the longevity of our peculiarities.

Let me know what your favorite finds were from Messe, even if you were watching online. (In all honesty, your odds may be better than if you get lost on the giant show floors!)

Music trade shows are typically full of sensible and useful instruments. They may not always represent something revolutionary, but people find homes for them in their musical lives. Of course, the world’s fair futurist in us may want something really different.

It was a real treat to get my hands on the AlphaSphere, a UK-engineered alternative instrument that maps pitch across touch-sensitive surfaces arrayed in a sphere. It’s what a lot of people were talking about at Messe when people asked “what’s cool?”, as friends rounded up friends to march them over to the booth. (It’s Hall 5.1, stand C27 if you happen to be there this weekend.) The rubbery round sensors are actually really fun to play. I’m not quite ready to sign up for all-spherical playing, but it was a crowd-pleaser, and it’s great to experience a different way of playing.

I hope to catch up with these lads from Bristol either in the UK or back in Berlin, but in the meantime, check out Keyboard Magazine’s video of the demo. It’s not as slick as the promo video, but you get a sense of the co-inventor’s real enthusiasm. (I shot the video as I’m contributing to Keyboard‘s Messe coverage.)

More:
http://www.alphasphere.com/

Previously (not spheres, but a similar idea – minus the continuous pressure):
Dodecahedronists, Unite: An Audiovisual Controller, Gestures and Polyhedra, Open Hardware

Official video (I like the white):

For something with a row of keys, the piano can prove surprisingly hard to model perfectly. But computer software, blessed with lavish storage space for samples and now-ample processing power, has a decided edge. There are lots of good sampled pianos, but two products have really impressed me above the others: Synthogy’s Ivory and Pianoteq’s modeled instruments.

After years of waiting, Ivory II is now here, and my friend and colleague Steve Fortner, at the helm of Keyboard Magazine, reviews the new version. It’s a must-read for anyone interested in the digital piano:
Synthogy Ivory II Grands

Sympathetic resonance is a feature that to me really separates the experience of a real piano from a simulated one, and that’s what gets attention here. Steve writes:

Ivory II adds sympathetic resonance to the sustain resonance and soundboard choices of Ivory 1.x. What’s more compelling is how Synthogy does it. Not satisfied with mixing in samples of strings ringing out, they precisely modeled the physics of which vibrations cause which. So, you don’t hear merely the correct notes singing in sympathy, but the correct harmonics of those notes. The result is the most realistic and musical emulation we’ve ever heard of the complex acoustical world beneath the piano lid. Of course, you can adjust it to taste.

It’s no substitute for the physical sensation of being at a piano – its hammer apparatus, the way it responds, the sound emanating from the soundboard – but the sound result is tremendous. Listen to the samples on SoundCloud:

03-2011 Synthogy Ivory II by KeyboardMag

I’ll also put in a quick plug for Pianoteq again. Because I still love the real piano, I absolutely adore the fact that Pianoteq feels different, responds in ways that make the computer seem it’s alive. For sound design aficionados, Pianoteq also earns extra marks for its many unique add-ons – most recently, the Clavinet joined historic add-ons back through the centuries. They even have a Cimbalom. And Pianoteq is very, very easy on systems because of its use of modeling over sampling.

But for sound results, it’s going to be tough to top Ivory II. I would, honestly, choose both if I were serious about playing. And I’d have a hard time saying any hardware could really match these software instruments.

http://www.synthogy.com/products/ivorygrand.html

The Moog Minimoog has turned 40 years old. I got to write the cover story for this month’s Keyboard Magazine, following the history of the keyboard. I chronicled the details of the original Minimoog’s evolution largely through the accounts of Bill Hemsath, the man who built the first prototype of a synth imagined and developed by Hemsath, Bob Moog, Jim Scott, and Chad Hunt.

Whatever you make – music, hardware, software – the tale of the Minimoog’s birth through accident is especially compelling. Through Hemsath’s eyes, I revisited that genesis for Keyboard.

The future of the synth may have been determined by just which junked and cannibalized parts lay in storage. “There was a five-octave keyboard that [Bob] would steal key caps off of to replace chipped and broken ones,” Hemsath remembers. “Then there was an upper console case—it was four feet long but the end was broken out. So I got to work on the keyboard. The number of remaining keycaps determined its size, which turned out to be three octaves. So I hacksawed that down. There was a smashed keyboard case, and I cut it down to match. Originally, [Bob] had the portamento control on the left cheek. That was missing, so there was a little notch in the left cheek. And I needed something there. Well, how about a slider? That’d fit. So the forerunner of the wheel was that slide pot, just to fill that space.”

The result was the shell of what would become the Model A, the first Minimoog prototype. Hemsath bolted together modules from spare and rejected parts. “I’d sit down at my desk and take an apple out of one drawer and a module out of the other,” he says. By his count, just one model 901A oscillator was fresh stock; everything else was salvaged from Moog’s junk bin.

Actually, to me, it’s partly Hemsath story that badly needed telling – Bob Moog is a household name, but only the biggest synth history gurus know Hemsath. I’m deeply indebted to the Moog Foundation for allowing me to transcribe an interview with him they did just this summer; this is exactly the kind of work the foundation is doing to preserve the history of synthesis in general – Moog and beyond – and another reason why you should support their work.

Michelle Moog-Koussa, without whom I couldn’t have written this story, also has a must-read article from the same issue:
Bob Moog Lives

She details her father’s legacy, and the work the foundation does to reach out to students, their plans for a dream laboratory and museum, and more.

Of course, Moog isn’t just history, so for the we follow the parallel lines: Minimoog, Bob Moog, and the 70s, and then the ability of Dr. Moog to return to his vision with a reborn Moog Music company and the Voyager.

You can read the full story online:
The Minimoog at 40: From the Dawn of the Synth Age to New Voyages [Keyboard Magazine]

– but if you can get the newsstand copy, it’s well worth it for the nearly-pornographic foldout cover of the new Minimoog XL. Yes, we know your rational problems with the price or functionality of this instrument. No, it doesn’t change the visceral emotional reaction it inspires.

Thanks to Steve at Keyboard for the dream assignment, and to Emmy, Chris, and the crew at Moog Music, and Michelle at the Moog Foundation, for helping us put this together.

Depeche Mode’s latest album, “Sounds of the Universe,” is due April 20 internationally. I got the chance to cover the band for Keyboard Magazine, speaking with Martin Gore and Andrew Fletcher as well as returning producer Ben Hillier, who was a big part of the signature sound of 2005′s “Playing the Angel.” Martin developed eBay and KVR Audio addictions during the making of the album, so you can imagine just how much gear love was part of the process – with the talent of the musicians and Hillier’s vision as a producer managing to keep the resulting sound open and polished.

You’ll get to read the finished story in the May issue of Keyboard – meaning there’s still time to subscribe if (ahem) your subscription may have lapsed. But my editor at Keyboard got a great brainstorm. Ben Hillier and 140 dB sent us some spy photos from inside the studio, so Keyboard has posted those shots and challenge their readers to identify just what’s going on.

Depeche Mode Behind the Scenes – Part I
Part II (with contest)
Part III

I’m doing this for entirely selfish reasons. One, I’d find it hilarious if a CDM reader won the contest. Two, I’m quite curious about the gear that isn’t identified with numbers or labeled in the captions. Now, I know what some of it is, but consider it a bonus challenge to those who find the first five too easy. (Well, some are very blurry shots, so that should help keep the difficulty amped up…) For those extras, feel free to comment here. (Well, obviously not the contest entries, or you’ll spoil the contest.)

As a thank-you, the winner gets the new album and a free subscription to the magazine.

This is not the contest image at top – it’s Martin Gore with the very gifted recording engineer Ferg Peterkin (whose name I also find strangely comforting).

Good luck. I’ll keep my mouth shut. We’ll have more available online, including some words from Ben Hillier on the techniques used in production, when the issue ships – stay tuned.