araabMUZIK Live MPC Set Part 1 from Death by Electric Shock on Vimeo.

I have exactly zero interest in entertaining the tired hardware versus software argument that surfaced, inevitably, with the discussion of the upcoming Beat Thang drum machine. But behind that question is a very relevant question: why do people love drum machines? Why do they love particular hardware, like the MPC? What can you learn about digital performance and design from these devices and their master virtuosos?

Watching videos like this one, featuring araabMUZIK, gives me all the answers I need. This is one musician among others. I head to this one because it popped up this month on the wonderful Saturn Never Sleeps blog, written by Rucyl Mills, a site that has become a source of perpetual inspiration. Rucyl, I do take issue with the headline, “Some Hardware Can’t Be Replaced by Software.” That’s not to say there isn’t a usability gap between the MPC and a lot of software – there is. I just think this should be a challenge to anyone who designs software or controllers. Why shouldn’t you design a software-based drum machine you can switch on in a few seconds, or with computer screens in different form factors, or with displays that don’t require careful inspection? Why shouldn’t software — commercial or your own DIY creation — invite obsessive practice?

More to the point, though, I think this does reveal what a drum machine can be. To those of you who say it’s not a “real instrument,” you’re absolutely right. I couldn’t agree more. This isn’t a traditional instrument like a violin. It’s part of a direct lineage to the elaborate contraptions of the one-man band, the impossible sense that one person is controlling an entire ensemble. It’s a compositional machine that challenges push-button dexterity. It connects to the fast finger flashes of the arcade age and the intricate rhythmic reworkings of beat-juggling. (It’s no coincidence, then, that Donkey Kong and hip hop meet here in the sound and in the visuals: it’s no less “Music” with a capital M, but it is music created by the generation that grew up with the video game.)

Ironically, this is also what the monome helped resurrect: simple, single-function software, and grids that allow rhythmic control over music. That’s why I believe the monome proved itself as the “noughts’” (the last decade’s) MPC. But it can also serve as a reminder that many wonderful devices are yet to come, so long as you can be connected to the kind of passion here, whatever your own musical output may sound like or technological inclinations may be.

Just remember, the next time someone gets annoyed as you tap on a desk, or even if you need to take a break from your new album for an extended run of Xbox 360, just say what the drummers say: I’m practicing.

In addition to Halloween-themed music mixes to entertain you this weekend, sounds and images from experimental to trance are echoing through the Internets this week. We’ve got the details on Create Digital Motion.

For visualists and a range of out-there-leaning audiovisual and sonic acts, France and the rest of Europe have a festival streaming online:

Festival Stream: French and European Visualists at Cinesthesy 1.0 Today and Saturday

And 11:30p US Eastern is SWiY, with more gear than we have (as pictured above):
Halloween Stream Tonight: SWiY Live Trance and Gearlust

Scare your cat and your significant other and keep the sounds going all weekend, I say. That is, if you’re not roaming America scaring up votes (that’s important, too).

I’m thrilled to be here in Berlin this week, before heading to Ireland for Dublin’s DEAF Festival. (More on that shortly.) Tuesday night, I’m playing a set at Dense Record Shop, a wonderful record store that also does live sets and has its own bar.

It’s a cozy, informal venue so if you are in Berlin, drop by and say hi — it’s a chance for all of us to meet in person. 8p sharp – 10p all over.

Dense Shop

Location

You can also find the event on Facebook

Berliners, I can’t wait! Rest of the world: more on some of the music stuff soon.

If you could control your music with all of your digits, and get interactive feedback on a display, what would your setup look like? Expert Lemur user and software engineer Bryant Place has one such answer. It shows off just how much the Lemur’s software has evolved over a series of revisions, and reveals a bit of what can go into performing with Ableton Live.

Photos/screens: Bryant Place. Used by permission. (Click for larger versions.)

Side note: for a look at live touch interfaces with Native Instruments’ Reaktor, see our story for our NI minisite. To really understand how touch is impacting live playing, I think it’s helpful to see what’s going on with different software platforms.

Multi-touch, Lemur, and Going Live

Part of the appeal of Ableton Live is that it behaves as a hybrid between arrangement software and musical instrument. Early versions even carried the tagline “Sequencing Instrument,” but that sums up the problem: instruments generally aren’t sequencers, and visa versa. To “play” your sequencer live is challenging enough, but added to that is the fundamental mouse-pointer interface that’s been in the marketplace for over twenty years. To really control live, you need more direct access.

The Lemur multi-touch hardware promised just such control when unveiled. In an early review, I saw this as promising but cautioned that the custom software the Lemur runs was overly rigid. Since then, firmware updates have gradually added more custom features.

On a recent trip to Los Angeles, I got to watch as Bryant showed off a set of templates he’s been developing that exploit these features for deeper, more interactive control of Ableton Live. Bryant’s session was brief enough that you could blink and miss it, but an awed crowd of assembled Live gurus revealed that he’d showed something really special. It’s a dream multi-touch setup. He’s using the new v2 firmware for Lemur, which we see in a screenshot from Jazz Mutant has also been used in their own template for Live. Not all the features come from v2 firmware, but those tabs make a big difference, and I can imagine continuing to go hog-wild with envelopes and such.

The basic idea: set up effects for live performance and make them readily accessible from the futuristic-looking, multi-touch, colored Lemur control surface. With a few compact screens, and interface elements that respond dynamically to what’s happening in software, it’s possible to use touch gestures to control elaborate effects arrangements in ways that would be very different than the results you could get from conventional knobs and faders.