Windows is getting enough instrument and effect madness for free to make your head spin — a lot of it previously commercial software. Here’s the latest addition: Beatburner, a looping sampler combined with a wave shaper and enveloped filter. In short, Beatburner takes your loops and makes them into sonic insanity. I’ve been playing with it a bit this evening, and making things sound … well, scary. As the author describes it:

BeatBurner, using innovative wave shaping and filtration methods, turns innocent drum beats, loops or sounds into new, fresh and vibrant audio parts for you to incorporate into your musical arrangements. BeatBurner comes with a myriad of sample loops to get you started but it doesn’t stop there, you can mangle, whittle or process any sound you want! Full automation and preset morphing means there are literally no limits to the soundscapes you can create.

Beatburner is NOT made with Synthedit.

Beatburner blog, downloads, and donation link, via DigitalLoFi

The plug-in also includes a healthy selection of bass and drum loops to get you playing right away.

I like having some free software to add to the arsenal — you get to experiment with some unusual soundmakers without the pressure of, you know, having a financial investment on the line. And if you appreciate the developer’s work, send a donation. There are still quite a few tools worth paying for, but I’ve gotten some musical ideas jump-started with the free stuff, too.

This isn’t the only free plug-in from Fat-Ass (aka CodeAudio, and yes, that’s their real name — I’m not just being mean or something). There are a whole bunch of synth and effects plugs available for free, some quite nice.

Just keeping score: on Windows, you can grab the rich Acusticaudio Nebula Hispasonic edition, a faux Commodore 64, the unique and powerful Open Circuit sampler, many of the excellent xoxos plug-ins and the highly-controllable Mechaverb, and the now-open source discoDSP HighLife sampler from the late Argu, all for free. There are a zillion more great choices from Adrian Anders, as well.

We got an interesting discussion going on the last free round-up here. It almost became a boring platform war, but for the most part, it went more along the lines of asking, honestly, why is there so much more free stuff for Windows? (And 7oi showed up, whose music I really love, a sign that it wasn’t just another boring platform thread.)

The conclusion for Mac users:

1. Check out Studiotoolz to track down hundreds of free Mac tools. There’s still not the quantity or quality of what’s on Windows, but there’s easily enough to distract you from doing any real work — erm, I mean, round out your creative arsenal.

2. Look at the open source SonicBirth for making your own plug-ins, along the lines of SynthEdit and SynthMaker on Windows. If Mac developers start to embrace this tool, it should deepen the available options

By now you’ve all probably seen that excellent video of Kid Beyond illustrating his usage of Ableton Live. Pretty cool, right? If one had such a system, you could loop yourself playing guitar, beatboxing, etc., all perfectly in sync with programmed drum/MIDI tracks and other performers.

Here’s how to set up your own system in a similar hands-free operation style, for about US$10, without having to solder anything. It’ll take you about an hour once you gather the parts required, or less. No joke.

You will need:

• A QWERTY keyboard, preferably with a USB connector. Otherwise, you’ll have to buy an adapter to fit your laptop, which costs extra. You can get one for $7.50 at AllElectronics.com, but you can find them even cheaper at your local thrift store’s “technology pile.” I got mine for $2.
• A flathead screwdriver.
• Ableton Live. Ed.: Live is a perfect choice here, but you may find this useful with other music apps, as well — or even in a VJ set. -PK
• A free keyboard-mapping utility called Autohotkey (if you’re running Windows). If you’re running Mac, the program to use is calledIKey.

  That’s it. Here’s how to make it go:

  
  

  Above: Steps 1-2. Simple enough.
  

Apple’s GarageBand is a powerful tool for recording MIDI and audio and arranging loops. It can be puzzling to songwriters, though, because it doesn’t really understand chord changes. Sure, you can transpose MIDI loops or (more problematically) audio, but that process is a bit clunky and rarely sounds right. Many beginner-level GarageBand songs (especially by students) simply stay in one big, long I chord for an entire piece, which, by astounding coincidence, is what I sound like playing guitar. (Come on, I went to the trouble of getting my fingers on these frets — now you want me to move them? Where’s a piano? I’m through.)

Enter ChordStudio, an entirely Web-based tool that takes the opposite approach. Running entirely in a browser, the free Web app presents a blank score and lets you construct song structures with chords. Behind the scenes, 30,000 loops seamlessly render those chords into something that actually sounds like music. You can control the mix with common instruments, including electric guitars, bass, drums, piano, and electric piano.

The results are very simple, but I can see them being very useful. Aside from making it fun for a beginner with limited computer and/or music skills to put together basic song structures, it’s not hard to imagine someone using this as a quickie web tool on the road to get an idea down. It’s no GarageBand killer, of course — it’s just a simple Web interface — but if you like the loops, you can purchase them as a US$99 DVD and use them with GarageBand or your favorite looping app of choice.

ChordStudio.com

Web applications are unlikely ever to replace dedicated, standalone music and audio applications, because these applications by definition require an intimate relationship with your computer’s hardware. But that doesn’t mean the Web won’t be a place for some simple, useful ideas to complement standalone apps. Previously:

Tune Your Guitar Via the Web, with Free Tuner and Instructions

MOTU’s MachFive is an oft-overlooked software sampler option for both Mac and Windows. The sampler market is a crowded one, but MachFive does have some nice features, not least being a unique, one-screen interface. The sampler hasn’t quite kept pace with recent releases from Native Instruments, Cakewalk, and others, so this week’s release of version 2 is a welcome development.

New in this release:

• 32 GB of sounds: Four dual-layer DVDs for a total of 32GB of sounds, with sample rates up to 192kHz. There’s a 24-bit 96kHz 8GB sampled piano, and a MachFive adaptation of the very nice VSL Orchestra. But that’s not the killer feature. Killer feature is probably –
• Loop Lab: Edit and create loops in REX, ACID, GarageBand loops via drag and drop, with destructive and non-destructive editing down to the sample level.
• Multi-platform: Now fully supports Universal Binary, Vista, and even 64-bit Vista.
• More compatible: A huge array of sample formats load natively — no conversion required.
• Tons of effects: Distortion, convolution reverb, and dozens of others.
• Layers: “Layer rules” allow you to stack or organize sounds for performance/playing, and even import layers from GigaStudio.
• New sound features: New integrated sound design features include multi-point envelopes and streamlined editing.
• Integrated synthesis: This appears to translate to integrated synth sources, including basic waveforms and an additive organ emulator.

To me, Loop Lab could prove to be the feature that makes MachFive worth a look; we haven’t yet seen a sampler that makes a smooth transition between software looping capabilities and the looping and stretching features in the sampler itself. But if that’s not enough for you, MOTU is also positioning MachFive as the ideal sampler in terms of compatibility:

Specifications, including format compatibility

You can actually put a Kurzweil K2xxx or Roland S-700 disc into your computer and load samples from it, and MOTU is touting the level of compatibility with GigaStudio. That last point is especially interesting, because many film composers (a big part of the market for MOTU’s “cult hit” DAW Digital Performer) keep a Windows PC around just to access GigaStudio, and nothing else. (Composer Stewart Copeland springs to mind, though he’ll have to finish up his tour with The Police before he can take advantage of this.)

MOTU MachFive Product Page

Thanks to John Molloy for the tip!

Updated: Upgrades are actually free if you bought MachFive after January 20, 2005. (No, that’s not a misprint. They really are going back two and a half years.) US$195 otherwise.

For those not in the know, Steve Reich is one of the major so-called “minimalist” composers of the 20th Century; some of his early works of the 1960s focused on compositions made from tape loops falling out of sync or “out of phase” with one another. This includes the seminal works “It’s Gonna Rain” and “Come Out.” For those not in the know, Lieutenant Worf is the son of Mogh, and serves as Chief Security Officer on the Starship Enterprise NCC-1701-D.

Now we know what life would be like if Lt. Worf were also a member of the Reich ensemble. Get ready for some Trekker loop phasing:

For those with hard drives stuffed full with samples, soundware, audio clips, field recordings, and whatnot, the Mac-only AudioFinder has long been a gem. But Mac users are likely all addicted to the preview pane in Finder. What if an application could fully integrate audio extras with the file system?

Audio Ease showed off just such a solution at NAMM in the form of something called Soundabout. That was just a basic demo, though: no one but the developers got their hands on the builds. Now the reigning champion AudioFinder has added Finder integration into a new beta:

Beta 2 is here! [Iced Audio AudioFinder Forums]

I’m not sure how these two apps hit with essentially the same feature at once; I’ll leave that for the developers to say. But AudioFinder’s massive feature list could mean it’s the app to beat. AudioFinder’s various tricks are too numerous to list, but some quick items include:

Thursday rant time: It’s time to get over loops, stop generalizing about music technology, and find the record button.

Poor GarageBand. Loops can be a fantastic tool, a way of sketching out ideas, having virtual instrumentalists with which to practice your chops, or remixed into something truly original, and they’re useful to beginners and pros alike in those roles. They don’t replace live musicians, but that’s not the point; they’re useful for what they do well. They’re also the most misunderstood of modern music tech. Unfortunately, non-musician journalists like The New York Times’ Michael Walker keep trying to squeeze some deeper meaning about modern music-making out of loop-based software without understanding either music creation or technology. In Mr. Walker’s case, researching an article means piecing together random loops, failing to impress KCRW radio’s star DJ or the masses on MySpace, and then deciding the whole experience reveals something profound about digital music technology:

A computer had generated it. I had helped things along but was more of a spectator. Nevertheless, “Eventide” was something I had created, and like all creations was entitled to a measure of emotional exuberance from its creator.

Selling CDs? Not in 2006: now it’s about selling loops.

AudioBase.com, just acquired and rebranded from the former identity appleLoops.com, already has 1,500 loops for cross-platform use. The whole library costs just US$99 (or $19.50 for a single 200-loop library), and you get instant online access rather than waiting for a shipment. Indie artists, take note: they’re taking submissions. Artists like Steve Stoll (pictured) have found fame, so why not you?

There aren’t any particular limitations on genre, and I wonder if the current formats (AIFF/Apple Loops) will be expanded under the site’s newly cross-platform charter. Martin Sitter, the well-respected Logic Pro expert, is helming the project. It’ll be interesting to watch where it leads.

Digital guitar software/hardware combos? It’s on.

Just days after IK Multimedia shows its new version of AmpliTube with new effects and a new hardware stompbox / audio interface / DI box, rival Native Instruments unveils its own upgraded computer guitar rack with new effects and a new hardware stompbox / audio interface / DI box. Not only that, but both IK and NI are at the AES show, which, as the “Audio Engineering Society” moniker implies, is not usually where you’d expect to find new guitar kit.

Native Instruments Guitar Rig 2

So, anything different about NI’s announcement (aside from the notable absence of Swedish models — see IK’s babefest promos)? Well, the Rig Kontrol 2 from NI is much sexier looking (silver instead of IK’s Barney-esque purple and black), and has an expression pedal, which is absent from IK’s box. And Native has the Boss LoopStation-like Loop Machine for layering loops on-the-fly. Both have gorgeous interfaces and terrific-sounding amp emulations and effects that easily rival hardware. It’s a good time for computer-based guitarists.

Now I’m off to the IK and NI booths to see if I can make these work for vocals and keyboards. (Any other non-guitarists using this stuff?)

More soon . . .