There aren’t many positive ways to spin this: if you’re a user of Digidesign and M-Audio products and looking to use current operating systems, very often you’re out of luck. In some cases, this isn’t so surprising — given issues with Leopard, I actually suggest running Mac OS X Tiger if you can until some issues are resolved. And while I have one machine here running Vista happily, suffice to say Windows XP remains the choice for many, as drivers from a variety of vendors mature.

Still, I think it’s bad to see drivers missing altogether this late in the game — especially in the case of Windows XP SP3, a minor update to a six year-old OS. Maybe some of this isn’t M-Audio’s fault — maybe OS driver development needs to be easier. But either way, when a major music hardware vendor is this far out of sync with the software shipping on new machines, it’s a problem. And while their loss may be good for their competitors in audio hardware, it’s not terribly good for the music tech industry in general.

(Okay, Digidesign/M-Audio — before you start throwing things at me, I’m not saying this to be mean or to single you out, I’m saying this because I hear this all the time from your customers. I think if there are problems on the Apple/Microsoft side, then that’s worth examining, too. But I do think this is a situation that could stand some improvement.)

Brad Linder is a blogger, freelance journalist, and producer for National Public Radio. If anyone loves mobile recorders, he sure does. He writes in with a great overview of what was happening in mobile recorders at the AES show here in New York, with plenty of detailed information on his blog.

Hardware is wonderful, but make no mistake about it: many musicians have put the same care and musical love into their software setup as once was limited to tangled guitar pedal rigs. We’ve been watching as intricate computer music studios appear in the CDM Flickr pool.

proem, the gifted electronic musician from Austin, Texas (see Wikipedia, proem’s own site) who regular shares haiku-like reflections in CDM comments, is the latest to post his setup:

• Dual Dell e207 LCD displays
• Windows PC
• FL Studio (aka Fruity Loops), with a custom dashboard for controlling all the hardware and a modded install
• Native Instruments Komplete
• Evolution MK249-c keyboard (Evolution was a UK-based keyboard maker later absorbed by M-Audio)
• M-Audio Trigger Finger
• Wacom Intuos3 6×8 (just picked up the same tablet myself and adore it — mouse, begone!)
• The now-discontinued (sadly) Fingerworks iGesture multi-touch controller. Apple iGuesture any time soon, perhaps? (I’ve heard rumors from a couple of sources that they bought the patents.)
• The not-discontinued Shuttle XPress
• Tablet2MIDI, which translates Wacom graphics tablets to MIDI data for use in performance

Using old controllers in new ways, using new controllers in old ways … when playing live, having some controller gear is a must. Gustavo Bravetti sends video of himself playing Ableton Live using various novel controllers, live from Colombia. (That’s Colombia, not Columbia.)

Yes, you can wow crowds playing with laptops — especially when you perform synth lines with drumsticks. (Pity some of us are worse drummers than keyboardists; this solution would definitely not work for me!)

As it happens, Gustavo’s email hits the night of a MIDI controller “brain dump” at the Warper Party here in New York City. That’s tonight, Monday, at 7pm. It’s basically just an informal hang, but we can hopefully demonstrate the cooling effect of thinking about MIDI on this blazingly hot day. The event has something extra to recommend it: namely, me wearing some kind of absurdly silly hat involving a circuit board. I’m not even sure what this means yet, but I’ll be sure there are pictures so we can embarrass me internationally and not just locally.

Alternative controllers aren’t the only way to go. There’s also taking the controllers you have now, and attaching more of them, then programming them into a monster, eight-keyboard rig of M-Audio Oxygen8s so that partygoers can try their hands controlling Ableton Live. That’s what my co-host tonight at Warper, Matt Moldover, does with his Octamasher. Here’s a video from Austin, Texas. It shows anyone can get their hands dirty playing with Live.

Moldover

Linux compatibility problems? Wally’s got his DJ gear working on Linux, and broken on Vista. And that makes him MAD. We’re celebrating random rant Friday, so let’s have at it until it gets fixed, ‘kay? He gripes because he loves, I’m sure. His opinions are his own, but I think it is important to be honest about the way users do tend to react when hardware support isn’t in sync with major OS updates — particularly when many of those new operating systems are preinstalled on machines, and licenses are pricey. -Ed.

UPDATED — by coincidence, see the end of the post: drivers just popped up for Vista.

As I’ve written on CDM before, I’m a big fan of the M-Audio Conectiv USB DJ audio interface. It’s a great bang-for-buck device that works really well with my existing collection of MsPinky vinyl.

Unfortunately though, I can’t use it (or Torq) with my new Vaio notebook running Vista (not easily anyway - I’m sure I could do some run-around by installing it as a generic USB audio device and using ASIO4ALL). Why not? Because M-Audio has yet to release drivers for it. Vista hasn’t changed for 7 months. Developers (including M-Audio, I’m sure) have had their hands on it for at least the last year. It’s been out officially for 5 months now.

However, I had no issues getting it up and running on my 8-year-old Linux box. I powered my ancient Dell running FC5 down, connected the USB cable, and booted back up. Sure enough, it was recognized as a USB audio device. A few modprobes and .asoundrc edits later, I’ve got it working with Alsa, Jack, etc.

Ah, the blame game. Users want their stuff to work, and they want it now. (Well, can you blame them?) When it doesn’t, as in the case of some hardware and software on Windows Vista, the blame often gets transferred to third-party developers and not the operating system developer (ahem, Microsoft). Sure, Microsoft gets blamed for other issues with Vista, but when a driver or app isn’t compatible, it must be the third party’s fault.

I’m not interested in assigning blame. And OS compatibility delays are par for the course, on any platform — especially with serious audio and music work, which demands glitch-free, real-time performance. I’m just curious to know what the real situation is on the ground.

Music hardware giant M-Audio has been one of the big obstacles to Vista compatibility for many users. (We certainly heard from many of you that you didn’t want to upgrade until M-Audio support was ready.) They’re announcing driver support today. Note that “announcing” doesn’t necessarily mean they’re available right this instant, but it does sound like most hardware should be available soon. Here’s how they put it:

M-Audio currently expects to release 32-bit Vista drivers for all of the following models during the second quarter of 2007: all FireWire products; all currently selling USB MIDI keyboards; Fast Track USB, Fast Track Pro, JamLab, MobilePre USB, Black Box and Transit USB interfaces; Conectiv and Xponent DJ interfaces; and the Revolution 5.1 PCI card.

So what’s available right now? So far, Session 1.5 software, the Fast Track USB, and the Micro are “fully qualified.” That sounds like other drivers may be upcoming but waiting on qualification. Your best bet is to keep checking the drivers page. Note that some of M-Audio’s USB devices are class-compliant and therefore don’t need drivers.

Cassette-tape DJ battles are just one of TradeMark G.’s retro, regressive, subversive musical creations. He also likes to put on glasses, a white lab coat, and interactive sewing thimble gloves, in order to produce illegal, copyright-crushing musical performances.

Many of the techno-gimmicks seen here on CDM are one-offs and prototypes. The Evolution Control Committee, by contrast, has been producing “illegal art”, often with the aid of technology, for some 20 years. They’ve been “culture jamming”, dropping Napster bombs (remember Napster?), infamously attracting the ire of CBS, and dressing up as giant pairs of trousers and cans of Parmesan cheese ever since. (I’m especially fond of the giant pants costumes.)

For the last few years, they’ve been perfecting the Thimbletron, a glove with sewing thimbles attached to a hacked M-Audio Oxygen8. (I always knew those Oxygen keyboards would be good for something.) The interface gives them newly-expanded powers of sample triggering. Happily, unlike Wired Magazine, they don’t overuse the term “mash-ups” to describe what they’re doing. Try, instead, “plagiarhythm” or “plunderphonics”: “In the world of The ECC’s music, Public Enemy duke it out with Herb Alpert while TV news anchor Dan Rather is the new frontman for AC/DC.”

Thimbletronic Energy Technology Page (video link at the top)

TradeMark will be performing with the Thimbletron at the Maker Faire, as well as running the cassette tape DJ battle we saw earlier:

Call for Cassette Jockeys @ Maker Faire, Cassette Tech Roundup

CDM (meaning me) will be at Maker Faire all week, sending as much coverage and causing as much havoc as possible. I’m hoping Dan Rather shows up.

More glove music controllers:

Controlling Music with DIY Interactive Gloves