I find it quite surprising then, that relatively few of the artists I know use any kind of hearing protection. Stereocilia damage in mammals is permanent, and tinnitus is no fun. Most people know that cheap foam earplugs can help prevent damage, but few seem aware that a slightly larger investment can make gigs considerably more enjoyable.

Etymotic ER-20 are affordable (around US$12), semi-professional, one-size-fits-most earplugs. Their biggest advantage over disposable, foam plugs is their reasonably flat attenuation. Foam and other disposable plugs tend to cut out more high frequencies, causing everything to sound muffled.

When I was learning to VJ, playing 6-hour sets alongside whichever DJs or live acts were in town on the weekend, I always kept a box of foam earplugs in my box-of-adapters-and-miscellaneous-cables. They stopped the tinnitus after a night of throwing photons around the place, but I was loath to use them at bands I’d paid to see. If I was exchanging money for music, I wanted to hear every nuance, even if it made my ears considerably less nuanced the following day.

Fortunately, I was introduced to nice earplugs by a mild-mannered musician who happens to make bionic ears when he’s not hanging upside down playing guitar. The ER-20 plugs aren’t quite as easy on the ear canal as the soft foam-rubber disposable ones, but the slight physical discomfort is definitely worth the increased listening comfort. Not only do they protect your hearing, but for particularly loud PA systems, I find that they allow me to hear the band much more clearly.

The first show I used them at was Mogwai, one of my favorite groups, who I hadn’t been able to see in 7 years. In the middle of the set I tried a couple of songs without the plugs, but found that replacing them allowed me to discern more detail in the wall of sound.

One caveat: I’d be careful using them in a boisterous crowd.  The plastic stems extend a bit beyond the outer ear, and I can imagine a physical blow to the side of the head could lodge them somewhere near your brain stem. To protect yourself from that fate, 20x the investment will give you some custom molded earplugs, and the molding can be used for in the future for an excitingly expensive in-ear monitor system.

For now, I’m happy with the ER-20.

(Available from Amazon.com: US$10)

iPad, wha? How about new music creation software for the Apple II platform?

8-bit weapon has a new instrument – delivered on 5.25″ floppy, natch – for the Apple //e, IIc, and IIc+. This isn’t just a novelty, though; they’ve built it to be battle-ready for onstage use. That means it works without a user interface, so you can use it without having a monitor plugged in. Here’s usability for you: “Just turn on your Apple II and when the drive light goes off. Then hit the space bar you’re ready to play live~!” Engadget gets the scoop:

Apple II Digital Music Synthesizer available now for 8-bit die-hards [Engadget]

Get over the novelty, and there’s something happening here: recycle old equipment otherwise destined to be toxic waste, make a computer instrument that’s dead-simple to use onstage and doesn’t require looking at the screen, make the most of extremely limited resources rather than burning through computing resources arbitrarily …these are principles that could be applied to any computer music project.

Up to 8 voices, preset sounds (Acoustic Piano, Vibraphone, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Bass, Trumpet, Clarinet, square wave, sawtooth wave, sine wave, Banjo), monophonic QWERTY performance. Now, admittedly, the Apple IIe isn’t much fun to take to a gig. Look for the Apple IIc, a svelte, slim design that was easily one of the best designs Apple has ever made, in any decade. When you do need video out, plug the analog jack directly into a TV, then stare into your soul (or your HDMI-connected, content-protected, latency-inducing TV) and ask yourself what progress means.

Okay, so maybe even at firesale prices (typically $10 or $20), you don’t want to bring an Apple II home. We also learn from our friends James Grahame that 8-bit Weapon has a new sample library:

8 Bit Weapon Chiptune Sound Library [Retro Thing]

There are also a couple of iPhone apps, but… that doesn’t have the same cred, somehow.

So, Let’s Talk Long-Term Investment

It’s a worthy question, though: can a computer last you as an instrument for some 25 or 30 years? I have to take issue again with Gino Robair, who repeats the lament that computers lack longevity. I couldn’t agree more, Gino, that computer’s lives are too short, reliability too low, and repairs to difficult, or that the onward march of software requiring replacement systems is absurd.

But I think Gino is missing cases like this, where folks are still playing on their Apple IIs. This isn’t just nostalgia: it’s actually practicality, conservation, and a certain sound. In short, to the musician, it’s an instrument, as beloved to them – and perhaps strange to everyone else – as a favorite bassoon. (If you can’t stand the sound of 8-bit, I forgive you – but if you love the sound of, say, a specific Reaktor patch, why not expect to use that in 2030?)

Gino also talks about “renting” software, but doesn’t address the existence of open source tools, and indeed, tools like Csound and SuperCollider have new longevity. We likewise watched Hans-Christoph Steiner rescue bins of old PDAs and iPods others thought were literally trash, in order to run Pd. Nor does commercial software have to be excepted from this, just because of its upgrade-cycle business model: just as hardware manufacturers now consider the impact of their goods as waste, software developers could thoughtfully end of life discontinued products, and use copy protection that has a statute of limitations instead of planned obsolescence.

Most importantly, though, Gino I believe incorrectly assumes that hardware will last people forever. On the contrary, on CDM, I regularly encounter people who are selling and trading in those beautiful boutique hardware synths, because they find they don’t need all of them. Likewise, you’ll find people working with DSP systems for many years, or even maintaining an old Be computer or mobile device. These are essentially software, used in a specific way because the user so chooses. Software itself is not to blame: planned obsolescence, inferior hardware, botched copy protection, greedy resource consumption, and overly complex software rigs could be.

Indeed, software’s flexibility, its ability to change, is one of its great strengths. It’s a different kind of longevity. How many users might say they’re still using “Cakewalk,” or “Cubase,” or “Performer,” or “Max,” or Notator (now simply called “Logic”)? Those are all applications conceived in the 80s. They’ve changed and grown because users wanted them to, and we’ve been musically enriched as a result. What I think Gino is talking about is quite different – when you expect something to last, and it dies, that’s the real problem. But it’s not an intractable problem for software; indeed, it may be easier for software to solve than hardware. (Ask someone who’s had to deal with servicing a vintage analog synth.)

That to me is the lesson of the 8-bit musician, which transcends just a fondness for old sounds. It’s just as much about doing more with less. That’s not a technological principle; it’s a creative one. It could be as simple as saying, you know, today I’m going to focus on this one tool and one option and not let myself get distracted by the others. Maybe it isn’t the computer that’s the limiting factor, after all. Maybe it’s us.

Longterm Investing [Robair Report]

A lot of the music tech industry involves incremental improvements and fairly routine hardware. Amidst the crowd, certain devices are special. They might not even appear so to a general audience, but they have a special place in someone’s music making.

For whatever reason, some Roland percussion controllers fit in that category. As electronic musicians ponder how to make live performance work, the handful with adept percussion skills can pick up one of these boxes and play hard.

So, while it was overlooked by most folks, I think one of the stars of the new gear announced this week at NAMM may well prove to be the Octapad SPD-30. It’s a long-awaited improvement on the SPD-20. (As it happens, I was just talking to an SPD-20 owner about how he wanted a new version.) Specs on the new model:

• Updated triggers, based on the current-gen V-Drums. These really are quite amazing, in the ballpark of the kind of response you get from high-end, custom hardware, but in a pretty affordable box.
• New phrase looping features that turn this into a real performance instrument. The previous Octapad worked as a controller and a sound source, but now it can be a self-contained performance tool, which could also nicely complement a laptop setup. And as you can see in the demo, it can loop effects changes as well as notes, getting you into Korg KAOSS category — only with a serious percussion instrument.
• USB for MIDI, backup connectivity. Standard on newer Roland hardware, but new to the Octapad.

I normally hate demos, but the Roland rep demoing the SPD-30 was great:

And this is in addition to layering features and drum trigger inputs familiar from the Octapad. It all makes me want to practice my percussion chops. Also, unlike the original Octapad – and updated from the most recent SPD-20 – you get a bunch of internal sounds on this instrument, too. Now, that said, I’m not a seasoned Octapad/SPD owner, so I’ll be curious to hear from SPD-20 (or earlier) models if this addresses what you wanted out of a newer year — or not. Be honest and tell us what you really thi– uh, okay, judging by recent comments, that shouldn’t be a problem.

It’s easy to complain about the iterative nature of gear shown at NAMM, but some hardware is worth revising over time.

Pricing: Already seeing US$699 from a couple of outlets.

SPD-30 Product Info [Roland]

Live maker Ableton and DJ and virtual vinyl developer Serato today announced the results of their partnership. First off, this isn’t what many of us originally speculated: it’s not a DJ deck inside Live. Instead, the collaboration seeks to bridge (ahem) the gap between the way DJs perform and the way Live users perform. The result focuses on the way a performance set is assembled in the two paradigms, an attempt to guide the flow of music between the two programs. Here’s how it works.

Bring Serato “mixtapes” into Ableton Live: Save a DJ mix – called a “mix tape” – in a Serato product, and export it to Live, and what you get is all of your edits in a form that can be further manipulated in Live. Waveforms and automation data from your DJ session, however they’re manipulated and transcribed by the Serato software, appear in Live.

Put the Ableton Live Session View “inside” Serato: Here’s where things get in interesting. Rather than put Serato inside Live, we’re getting Live inside Serato – after a fashion. Ableton Live runs in the background. Integrated into the Serato interface (as seen at the screenshot at top) are all your Session View clips from your Live Set. Serato’s control – via audio input from vinyl or CDJs, or an ITCH control surface – manipulates the entire transport of the Live set.

Unknown: Turntablists are probably wondering, can they scratch Live? How much are those Live clips able to do? Do they behave as they do in Live? (As far as I know, yes – Live is, after all, running in the background and appears to have its normal capabilities.) I’ll work on these questions with Ableton and have an update by tomorrow.

ITCH: Yes, you can use controllers that support Serato’s ITCH, not just vinyl or CDJs, in order to control the transport of your imported Live set.

Pricing: Free. Own Serato Live/ITCH and Ableton Live (full version or Suite)? The Bridge costs you nothing. (Yes, this seems to be a departure from the arrangement from Max for Live.)

Availability: “No release date has been set yet.”

Naturally, all of this begs the question: do you really want to do this? And I expect that question is about to get turned over and inside out all over comments here on CDM and around the Web. It’ll naturally depend a lot on who you are.

Taking Serato sets into Live is clearly great for Serato users. It means you can get a head start on assembling an arrangement just by DJing, or alternatively, that you have the ability to use Live as a way of editing your Serato set. (Now, again, this appears to be a proprietary format – but that raises an interesting point. Ableton now uses an open XML format, meaning you could also presumably deconstruct this new Serato export and enable it to be used somewhere else, whether intended or not. But I digress.)

It’s the more ambitious reverse direction that’s both the most interesting and the most potentially controversial. After all, if you’re using Session View inside of Serato, why not just use Session View? Will it be more useful to put Live inside the virtual vinyl environment than the virtual vinyl inside Live? (If it turns out you favor the latter, you have other options – not least the recent evolution of Max for Live patches for Ms. Pinky. More on that in coming days.)

Side note: check out the VIDEO-SL integration. That makes this all even more interesting as an a/v, virtual vinyl environment; see our ongoing coverage of VIDEO-SL and other vinyl visualism for Create Digital Motion.

I’m not a turntablist, though, so I think the real question is what their take on this is. And kudos to Serato and Ableton for taking the gutsy route here as far as combining these products. We’ll get a closer look soon, and I’m curious to hear the reactions – however impassioned they may be. (On your mark … set … comment. Oh, boy.)

http://www.ableton.com/thebridge
http://www.serato.com/thebridge

For a generation of musicians of nearly every genre, the laptop has become an instrument. It’s easy to take for granted, but the rise of the computer for music has been remarkable. Less than twenty years ago, real-time digital synthesis and audio processing was the domain of expensive, specialized workstations. Now, $700 per seat can buy you a full-blown musical rig, with the computer hardware, gestural input courtesy the Nintendo Wii controller, and even a DIY speaker made from IKEA salad bowls. The next challenge is to make this setup as flexible and reliable as possible. Enter Linux.

According with the laptop’s graduation to instrument status, laptops orchestras have spread worldwide, inspired especially by the innovative Princeton Laptop Orchestra (“PLOrk”) directed by Dan Trueman and Perry Cook. PLOrk’s alumnus Ge Wang has even gone on to greater fame making applications for the iPhone via ocarina and T-Pain app developer Smule. The sounds of these ensembles may sometimes be strange, but by pushing laptop performance, the groups are a great place to look for how to get the most out of computer music, whatever your tastes may be.

Virginia Tech’s L2Ork’s claim to faim is that it’s a laptop orchestra powered by Linux. Why does that matter? For one, it makes a big difference on cost. By using Linux-powered netbooks, they’ve slashed the per-student cost from that of the Mac laptops used in some other ensembles, on a machine that’s more compact. Far from making sacrifices to save money, the result is actually  greater reliability, flexibility, efficiency, and audio performance.

As with the PLOrk ensemble, L2Ork combines expressive input with open-ended digital sound making production, localizing the sound near the computer itself using hemispherical speakers. In this way, the laptop instrument can attempt to learn something from acoustic instruments, which are played with human gestures and have sound sources that are positioned physically where the instrument is.

L2Ork

You don’t have to enroll at Virginia Tech to apply these lessons to your own music making, however. You can apply the lessons of the L2Ork ensemble to put together your own Linux audio machine. They’ve even further-documented the process of making PLOrk’s signature “salad bowl” speakers. And you can do it all without breaking the bank.

I got the chance to speak with Dr. Ivica Ico Bukvic, director of the Linux Laptop Orchestra and the DSISIS Interactive Sound and Intermedia Studio at Virginia Tech.

CDM: What is your software rig for this ensemble?

Ivica: We basically use Ubuntu 9.04 (vanilla) with our own custom-built rt kernel, which apart from solid performance also offers full support of standby/hibernate/external monitor, webcam, wireless, bluetooth, etc. We also have various patches/scripts that deal with chronic UI bugs (e.g. order of panel icons in gnome getting trashed whenever a resolution is changed).

Basically, our configuration supports every single functionality of MSI Wind netbooks, which we use as the backbone of the orchestra.

FWIW, our setup offers pretty darn cool price point. The entire setup (MSI Wind, UA-1G soundcard, hemi speaker, [Nintendo] Wiimote/Nunchuk, all the cables/accessories, headset, and case) comes down to approximately $700/seat which arguably makes it as cheap as an iPhone setup, except you get to enjoy flexibility of using a laptop (ok, a netbook :-).

What music software are you using?

Our audio platform is currently exclusively [multimedia patching environment] Pd-extended 0.42.5 (running through [low-latency audio server] JACK) which we’ve also customized to allow advanced GUI setup (e.g. per-patcher configurable background, menu/ontop/resize/scrollbar toggles, what is IMHO better scrolling algorithm than what we currently have) as well as integrated several new objects whose source we are about to release (our multithreaded version of the Wiimote object for Linux has been already posted on the Pd-list a couple weeks ago, and it fully supports Wiimotes/Nunchuks without any interruptions to the Pd’s audio thread).

What do you do to get Ubuntu running properly?

Basically, it’s lightly-modded Ubuntu 9.04 that allows us to support all the hardware on the netbook, thus offering a quality desktop experience as well as RT audio performance. The kernel is custom-built 2.6.29-rc6-rt3. We have it available for download from a temporary folder off of my personal site
(http://ico.bukvic.net/Linux/). Once we clean everything up we will actually generate a full HD image and offer it for public download in hope to allow people to load that thing and thus allow them to have the best possible out-of-box experience (obviously as far as MSI Wind is concerned).

Is the hemispherical speaker something readers could build?

There are probably dozen videos on the VTDISIS Youtube channel that are designed to help potential L2Ork adopters build their own speakers, from cannibalizing/retrofitting the amps to improve their performance, to building cables and final assembly.

Videos

Rehearsal video shows how the L2Ork work out playing and soundmaking as an ensemble.

A quick look at how to make your own hemispherical speaker pod:

Local news coverage:

Virginia Tech students demo new laptop orchestra [WSLS10 NBC]

Laptop orchestra at Virginia Tech gives people an affordable alternative [WDBJ7]

More videos, and lots of how-to’s on the speakers (including the conclusion of the video above), are available on the VTDISIS channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/VTDISIS

Got more questions for the ensemble? Let us know.

I’d definitely like to offer, as well, some information on how to make Ubuntu work this well for you, and how to learn Ubuntu, Pd, JACK, and other free tools, in a way that’s beginner-friendly. That sounds like a decent New Years’ Resolution.

In the meantime, it’s worth mentioning that if you aren’t excited about the prospect of custom-configuring kernels yourself, the Indamixx Linux laptop we’ve featured previously is pre-configured in a similar way; the netbook I’m testing now even runs on the same MSI netbook. And that also, in turn, illustrates how research and volunteer efforts can go hand-in-hand with commercial solutions:

http://www.indamixx.com/

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.

edison – tonka truck from edison on Vimeo.

edison has become an underground sensation, a monome-playing virtuoso with soul. And now he’s just showing off. Sure, the monome lacks velocity sensitivity, but here, it remains an instrument, a 64-button sampler. It’s not so much the tool itself as the choice: edison has chosen to focus on this interface and build musical dexterity on its grid, to be a monome player. I caught the artist live at the monomeet, a get-together for the fans of the instrument, and can say he’s not just some online video wonder – if you can see him live, do it.

all one shot sounds…
no loops running….
64 buttons
64 noises….
shot on 2 HD cameras, 720p, 1 live take…..
with audio captured right to camera…..

this track is from my new album “all the information at hand”
available in january on kid without radio records…
myspace.com/kidwithoutradio

big thanks to e-level, adam patch, mr. mike landry, dalia burde, brandon loper, eric herron, kyle westbrook, mattie bills, nava and brian and kelli

It’s the perfect way to round out this set of monome news, because it’s really more about the music than the monome.

Laptop musicians are feeling out of sync — literally. But we can work together to help the situation.

Computer music making can be an isolating experience. But when users try to use their eminently-mobile tools to play together in the same room, they often find that the technology resists. MIDI, as a serial protocol, isn’t designed for networked environments. Software interfaces are designed to be visible to only one user. Sharing between users rarely figures into designs. Input points are made to be single-user only.

And most importantly, just getting a couple of computers to sync can be a Herculean task — one that seems to have gotten worse with advanced computer software rather than better. In short, for all the technology we have today, we’ve actually regressed from the state of interoperability 20 years ago.

I’ve been hearing more and more frustration over sync, as people begin to collaborate with multiple computers as they would with a small ensemble of instruments. Ableton Live is the most frequent example, but it’s only one case – and I suspect part of the fault is that people are more likely to try to sync multiple copies of Live. When I spoke to Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore in the spring for Keyboard, Martin complained that they had trouble syncing his Apple Logic sessions with other band members using Pro Tools and Ableton. This weekend in Los Angeles at the DubSpot sessions, Glitch Mob’s Justin Boreta talked about the issues that group has had with multiple copies of Live.

Synchronization is, by definition, a tough thing to do. But musical engineering is replete with challenges; it’s no longer acceptable to simply say “live with it” and walk away. It seems we need both better shared knowledge about what sync is how to make it work, and better engineering solutions on the software and protocols side to support the way users want to work. And yes, we need a new sync standard that goes beyond what’s presently available in MIDI alone.

Focusing this discussion, I just got an essay in my inbox that I think focuses the issue. I will try to speak to Ableton’s engineers about the matter, but this isn’t really about Ableton alone, so I’m posting it here first. We could use more data about how you’re working with various software and hardware, what techniques you’ve developed, and what frustrations you’ve had. We have a wide community here of users and developers (and a whole lot of you are both).

Mark Kunoff writes:

I’m writing to you today about an issue which I believe has been a sore spot for many Ableton Live users – *reliable* syncing of two or more computers – particularly for those of us who are attempting to sync for the purposes of *live performance*.

My musical partner Patrick Petro and I (together we perform as “Othership”) have been struggling with this issue for several years now. At present time, we have a decent solution using midi time code. Initially we attempted to use Midi “clock” but our friend Steve Duda (partner of Deadmau5 in BSOD) informed us, “using Midi clock is as reliable as syncing to a boat motor.” He informed us that in BSOD, he and Deamau5 have reliable sync between their 2 laptops using MTC, although the main drawback is the inability to fluctuate tempo – you must run at a consistent tempo the whole time. (You may be aware of this already, but Steve is the person responsible for ‘Molar’ the incredible step and loop sequencer for the Monome, was a programmer for Devine Machine and has worked for many renown artists in the music industry such as Trent Reznor. We are very fortunate to benefit from his consultation!)

Currently we are both using Macbooks and syncing via Ethernet with Audio File Engineering’s “Backline” app to generate MTC. This method has been about 95% reliable, but after reading an article on Ableton Tweets (http://abletontweets.com/post/126300941/why-midi-sync-over-ip-may-not-be-a-good-idea and our response – http://abletontweets.com/post/224247258/midi-sync-in-ableton-live-why-so-complicated) we are going to acquire a dedicated external device to generate MTC such as a Motu Timepiece.

I feel strongly that Ableton has not addressed these issues sufficiently and could do a better job of educating their user base as to the challenges that face performers in achieving reliable sync. I’m not expecting a walk in the park, but as of yet Ableton has not provided comprehensive documentation regarding these issues and places most of the responsibility on users to figure it out for themselves. We are (and have been) perfectly willing to educate ourselves but for the most part this issue remains elusive to the majority of Ableton Live users.

The Ableton Live forum posts regarding sync are fraught with dissension and are excruciating to read to say the least. I feel I’m empathetic to the complexities of programming audio applications, but in my estimation Ableton tech support’s explanations toward this issue have been mostly open ended. Many users report these issues only to report back that Ableton’s tech support doesn’t respond. I have experienced this as well. Certainly there are enough customers who want a better solution.

I feel it’s time to launch a concerted effort to organize users and demand that Ableton addresses this issue once and for all. Perhaps this solution wouldn’t even involve midi at all. Ideally this would be an open protocol such as OSC, but I wouldn’t be opposed to a proprietary solution – just as long as there is a reliable one.

The main purpose of this correspondence is seek your and CDM’s assistance in sponsoring an effort to encourage Ableton to address this issue once and for all. I feel CDM could be quite helpful in garnering leverage toward this effort (a simple blog post, or ideally a dedicated section) to organize users and to demand better sync ability between two (or even multiple) laptops running Live – even from unlike computer manufacturers. I’m sure you know artists with valuable expertise in this area.

Even if the issues regarding sync via midi are insurmountable, there have to be CDM readers who have developed reliable methods of two or more persons performing with Ableton Live and it would be great to have one centralized portal where discussions of working methods can be discovered.

Thank you for your time.

Again, my personal intention is not to single out Ableton — I’ve heard similar complaints about other scenarios, and moreover, I think the “open-ended” tech support response occurs when there isn’t an easy solution. Tech support alone often can’t deal with something as multi-faceted as sync, so it’s time to engage other users in this, as well.

I’ve also spoken to Owen Vallis and other folks about how sync could be executed more effectively over network protocols, and specifically how the time stamp feature in OpenSoundControl might be used in conjunction with MIDI clock messages.

To kick things off, let’s comment here, but I’m also setting up a special Noisepages group for users to share experiences and tips:

Sync or Swim Group [noisepages]

(Incidentally, CDM contributor Matt Ganucheau is joining me Saturday at a WordPress developer intensive here in New York, so we’ll be picking up development techniques to work on the Noisepages community, too.)

Jump in, say hello, and let’s talk about how we can make sync work in real-life musical situations.

I’ll also be talking to more artists and developers about their experiences and suggestions, and will pass along your feedback, so expect a report back. In the meantime:

1. Are you routinely trying to sync multiple musicians?
2. What software (and hardware) tools do you use?
3. What have been some frustrations?
4. What techniques have worked, or what have you learned you might want to pass along to other users at various skill levels?

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

I got to spend yesterday working with the Launchpad; see the video above which I think should help you get a sense of scale and what it looks like. (Also on YouTube) We have additional videos from other sources below.

It’s only been public for less than 24 hours, but as we did with the APC40, I think it’s time for a superguide answering questions about the Novation Launchpad controller.

The Launchpad and the way it works reveals a lot about how controllers work with Ableton Live. You may be surprised to learn a lot of this doesn’t require a special controller and doesn’t require Max for Live – it’s standard Ableton stuff that works with MIDI. (Remember MIDI?) And I think some of these answers could be worth a read if you have interest in hardware control hacking in general.

There have been a lot of questions from myself and readers, so I’ve done my best to get answers. Realize, a lot of this information is developing and is based on my limited understanding, so it’s all subject to change. I’ll update this guide over the next couple of days if I get any corrections.

Side note: What about interoperability? I intend to talk more about OSC and the Live API (and each separately) in coming weeks. I think it’s impossible to judge the full picture of how Live can interoperate with other tools, though, until there’s some more information, so stay tuned on that.

Basic Questions

Q. What do you get with Live 8 Launchpad Edition, the bundled software?

New to Ableton Live, and wondering if you can get anything done with the “lite” Launchpad Edition bundled with the hardware. The short answer is, yes you can. The included edition has restrictions, but it’s still a reasonably capable version if you’re new to Live and want to experiment.

Ableton Live 8 Launchpad Edition vs. Live 8

The Launchpad Edition even comes with 1 GB of Loopmasters loops to get you started.

Most importantly, ReWire support for Master and Slave (Host and Client) is included. That means if you have an existing host and just want to play with Live’s non-linear clip launching features, you can stick with that host, using Live alongside software like Reaper and Reason. You may want to consider upgrading, though, as some cool features like the use of Racks and the ability to slice instruments, plus the “Complex” warp mode, are missing.

Q. What the heck is going on in the crazy Novation video demo? How do I do that myself?

There isn’t any Max patch or other voodoo in the video demo from Novation. It’s all just a standard Ableton Live set, and the fact that the Launchpad responds to MIDI messages as well as sending them (something useful if you’re scripting the Launchpad in software other than Ableton, too).

Matt Derbyshire of Novation put together the video. Matt’s an interesting guy musically when not working for Novation, too – he’s part of a DJ Shadow cover band, for one. He shares with CDM how he went about this:

It’s actually a very simple session.

1) There are four clips only for drums in the drumrack channel

2) Each clip is pre-recorded but EMPTY at 1 bar length

3) These four clips are the first four clips in session mode but for convenience I also learned these to to User 1 mode bottom four left buttons.  Basically setting this up removes the need to rush back to session mode to drop out of record

4) Obviously quantize is on ‘cos my playing ain’t that great.

LED feedback

In User 1 mode the bottom left button turns on/off LED feedback.

The important thing I want from the video is to show that I personally do not think the lack of velocity sensitivity stops drums being played. In fact, to the contrary, I think in creative electronic music it helps to even out the playing.

The still-simpler explanation:

So long as you use the User Mode to play, enable LED feedback, and route MIDI from Live back to the Launchpad, you can get interactive light modes, as seen on the monome and Tenori-On.

Q. Okay, the Launchpad can assign control to continuous values. But it’s got buttons. How do you get eight buttons to replace a fader?

Actually, thanks to an Ableton feature that works with any MIDI controller (not just Novation or Akai), this is quite easy to do. You can assign any range on your controller by holding it down.

From Novation’s Matt Derbyshire:

Step 1: Choose the slider/knob you want (i.e. cross fader)

Step 2: Select USER 1 or 2 mode on launchpad

Step 3: Select MIDI learn mode in Ableton

Step 4: Select the thing you want to control (ie crossfader)

Step 5: Select the range of buttons on launchpad

Note that this also works for playing clips.

Now, obviously, if you control something like a volume fader with a set of buttons, you won’t get continuous values. And unfortunately neither Ableton nor Novation has designed any sort of interpolation between button values (though DIYers could find a way to do that). But I’m kind of finding the angular changes in buttons to be fun to play with. If I want a knob or fader, I’ll use a knob or fader.

Q. What can you do with these User Modes?

There are two User pages. User 1 sends basic note values – minus any velocity sensitivity, just on/off. User 2 sends control changes. User 1 by default will play any active MIDI inputs listening to channel 1. In Ableton Live, User 2 only sends control changes once you’ve mapped it using the MIDI Map, to avoid accidentally triggering notes when trying to control something else. (See also the special behavior with Max for Live below.) Of course, in software other than Live, you’ll set up whatever layout you want.

You can’t rearrange the organization of pitches on User 1 because there’s no real editor for the device; everything is hard-wired. On the other hand, you can always make this adjustment in software, as in a Rack in Live.

Advanced Live Use

Q. How will Max for Live integration work?

Max for Live will use the User 2 page. The good news here is, Max by default will listen only to User 2 while the other modes get routed to Live.

Q. Can you control Devices dynamically using the Launchpad?

No. Unfortunately, while there are pages for mixer settings and a generic way to transmit MIDI control changes, you can’t click a device and have a page on the Launchpad automatically make its eight columns control eight parameters / macros. That’s actually a feature enabled by the simple scripts available for the Korg nano series here on CDM (see my post explaining how this works, follow-up script from reader Raymond).

Of course, because this feature is supported by the Korg with our scripts and it’s very, very compact, the nanoKONTROL and Launchpad could make a great, cheap combo. And if you have Novation’s ReMOTE, Nocturn, and the like, you can alternatively use them – so, for instance, a keyboardist could stick the Launchpad atop a keyboard.

Q. Can you edit MIDI assignments? Is there a MIDI template editor, in other words?

No. All the MIDI assignments are hard-wired. The good news is, everything appears to send MIDI, though I still need to investigate how that works outside Live. The bad news is, as with the APC40, a lot of functionality is organized around Live.

That would be my one potential criticism, which is that we’re moving away from hardware that’s useful everywhere to hardware that’s useful only in one program. But I want more time to see how the Launchpad performs outside Live before I pass judgment on the Launchpad in particular, especially as I don’t even have the final software yet.

I still like editors, though, Novation, if you’re listening.

Q. What if you still have Live 7?

Update – official word: Ableton’s Baptiste Grange tells CDM:

On Nov 1 we’ll release two updates: Live 8.0.7 and Live 7.0.17. These will both support Launchpad.

So, Live 6 and earlier would need to upgrade, but not Live 7.

Hacking

Q. Will we get the full MIDI implementation and protocol for creating custom patches or custom setups with our own software? Will that be true outside of Live, too?

Novation confirms that they plan to release the full MIDI implementation and communication protocol for the Launchpad at launch. That’s something that was missing on the APC40, leaving us all to figure it out ourselves, so I’m looking forward to seeing that documentation. Part of the reason to use MIDI is to have a spec that everyone can read so power users can do what they want.

Q. Can you control the lights using MIDI?

Yep. This should be in the full documentation, too, but here’s a sneak peak. Bjorn from the awesome Covert Operators sent me the velocity assignments, which I’ll be using to hack my Launchpad setup:

Velocity 0 = Off
Velocity 1 = light red
Velocity 2 = medium red
Velocity 3 = full red
Velocity 16 = light green
Velocity 32 = medium green
Velocity 48 = full green
Velocity 17 = light amber
Velocity 34 = medium amber
Velocity 55 = full amber
Velocity 18 = light orange (Lighter > red / darker > amber)
Velocity 35 = medium orange (Lighter > red / darker > amber)
Velocity 31 = full orange (Lighter > red / darker > amber)

The Competition, and the monome

Q. How does this compare to the Akai APC40 / controller XX / the monome as far as Live integration?

The most important point here is that you can easily mix and match. You can even have multiple control surfaces active, operating dynamically, at the same time, as well as multiple MIDI inputs for instruments. Also, most of the features of the Launchpad are available to all controllers. Novation is emphasizing the mix-and-match functionality of the Launchpad. Basically, the feeling is, there is no one control scheme that works for everyone.

The Launchpad is quite similar to the APC40. The clip functions are nearly identical, if in a slightly different (8×8) layout – you get the red onscreen rectangle, the red/green/amber LED indicators, scene launching, the ability to page through clips, and so on.

Basically, the major difference with the APC40 is trading functionality for size and price. The APC40 has the ability to map to Devices automatically, as does Novation’s own ReMOTE series; the Launchpad does not. The APC40 also has encoders, faders, a crossfader, and a number of shortcuts. On the other hand, you can get a lot of the APC40’s functionality in other hardware, meaning the Launchpad can combine nicely with other gear you already have.

One significant edge the Launchpad has over the APC40, though, is that the Launchpad is set up to play drum racks.

The monome is also capable of nearly everything you see the Launchpad doing, with the exception of the clip selection rectangle (though I find that a bit hard to see, personally). In fact, the pages on the Launchpad are clearly inspired (directly or indirectly) by Pages, a GPL-licensed, fully-free, Java-based tool for monome which even appeared in action on David Letterman with Imogen Heap.

You certainly have other options that provide dynamic, automatic control mappings, including the M-Audio Axiom Pro series, the Korg kontrol and nano series, Novation’s ReMOTE line, the Faderfox series, and various others. You can see the built-in scripts available on the Control Surface menu, and anything that supports MIDI can be adapted for additional functionality.

I expect that with the release of Max for Live, scripting custom control for other controllers should be more powerful, even if you don’t have Max for Live installed. Stay tuned in the coming weeks as I’ll be trying to get more complete information on this.

The Live API improvements should be especially benefit the monome project. And remember, the monome isn’t standing still. Because it’s open, it’s conceivable clever users could hack new features.

Q. Can I run monome software on it? OSC?

Yes and – no.

The Launchpad uses MIDI, not OpenSoundControl (OSC). That means you have to translate incoming, sometimes arbitrary MIDI numbers to useful information, and that the Launchpad can’t natively interpret messages in the way the OSC-native monome can. However, as noted in our APC40 hacking superguide, it is possible to use an emulator to translate between MIDI and OSC. That should also be possible with the Launchpad. One challenge is the extra buttons around the grid. I’m going to have to write some Java MIDI code that can map to an arbitrary array of buttons, huh?

Q. Does the Launchpad violate monome’s license and design? How is the monome licensed? How “open” is the Launchpad?

I don’t want to – and cannot – speak for the monome project. However, while the Launchpad is unmistakably similar to the 8×8 grid of pads on the monome, it is not a “clone.” It’s only superficially similar to the monome. Cloning isn’t necessarily healthy for design, but a certain amount of copying can be. Without the spread of keyboard layouts, for instance, we wouldn’t have any of the keyboard instruments we have today – and, indeed, before the standardization on the fortepiano, a lot of keyboard instruments were strange copies of one another. In modern design, the monome is itself indebted to the pad layouts on early drum samplers.

I mention the word “clone” because the Arduinome is an clone of the monome which is distributed non-commercially as a result. It actually duplicates major portions of the design, PCB, and protocol, which is not remotely true of the Launchpad. Because their intention was cloning (for the purpose of ready availability of parts), the creators of the Arduinome consulted with the monome project.

For the record, the monome’s software is released under an open source license, and it uses fully-documented, open protocols, including OSC. The hardware is not technically open source, but it is open to the extent that specifications for the hardware, PCB, and firmware are provided for customization and modification, and the construction of custom housing. You are restricted from using the hardware design to make your own commercial hardware, which means the monome doesn’t fit some more restrictive definitions of what qualifies as open hardware. But it does offer some components that are truly open source, and it affords a great degree of real-world openness for its users.

None of the “openess” of the monome is true of the Launchpad, which operates under more traditional and proprietary models. You can’t easily physically open the Launchpad case (and I expect you’d void your warranty if you did). It uses MIDI, an open protocol, but has a proprietary mechanism for interacting with Ableton Live (at least so far as I can tell). It uses USB, but does not support class-compliant operation – you must install your own drivers, which means you can’t use it with some devices (like Linux netbooks). And the process and operation of the Launchpad are not available or documented. That’s not to discourage the Launchpad, and you still have plenty of power via its MIDI implementation to keep you busy. But that does differentiate it from open hardware like the monome and the newer Livid Ohm64, and it’s worth considering how this difference impacts the ways you want to use the hardware. That issue is much bigger than any one piece of gear, and it’s one I hope we can cover in more depth.

More Videos

MusicRadar did their own hands-on:

Actually, judging by the LEDs, I think they were also working from a prototype and not the final production run. But you will also notice they have an L-shaped USB cord, which I believe is what the final unit will have. (And, heck, that’d be a useful thing to have around here, I may have to pick up some.)

Novation TV also has their own set of videos:

http://www.youtube.com/user/NovationTV

And DJ Tech Tools got a hands-on, too.