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	<title>Create Digital Music &#187; Mac</title>
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	<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com</link>
	<description>The latest gear, software, and techniques for electronic music production and performance</description>
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		<title>Hacking Ableton Live: Unofficial OSC, Scripting for More Control</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/03/19/hacking-ableton-live-unofficial-osc-scripting-for-more-control/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/03/19/hacking-ableton-live-unofficial-osc-scripting-for-more-control/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:51:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ableton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ableton-Live]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=9890</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Can you hack it? Yes. Yes, you can. Screenshot (CC-BY) Hens Zimmerman / 37Hz.
Even before Max for Live was available, hackers had found a way of interacting with &#8220;secret&#8221; APIs inside Live for custom control, allowing them to customize Live&#8217;s behavior and make it work more seamlessly with hardware. That included providing something Ableton themselves [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/37hz/2646064416/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3036/2646064416_da1e69c55a.jpg"></a></p>
<div class="imgcaption">Can you hack it? Yes. Yes, you can. Screenshot (<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">CC-BY</a>) <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/37hz/">Hens Zimmerman / 37Hz</a>.</div>
<p>Even before Max for Live was available, hackers had found a way of interacting with &#8220;secret&#8221; APIs inside Live for custom control, allowing them to customize Live&#8217;s behavior and make it work more seamlessly with hardware. That included providing something Ableton themselves had not: real, native control of Live via OSC, for more control than MIDI alone can provide. I was assured such hacks would continue to work, and sure enough, they have. Here&#8217;s how to get started.</p>
<p>You may wonder, of course, why even bother now that Max for Live is available? Max for Live is a powerful environment for creating instruments, effects, sequencers, and other devices within Ableton Live, and via its access to the Live API, it can even be a tool for customizing how Live works. But it adds an additional layer of abstraction, it is somewhat limited in how much it can manipulate interaction with hardware, and anyone wanting to use your creations will need to own Max for Live and not just Ableton Live. And not only that, but some people will simply prefer scripting in a language like Python to working with visual patching. (There&#8217;s still reason to consider M4L, too; see the full link to its &#8220;API&#8221; for Live, below. But we do have multiple options)</p>
<p>So, with that out of the way, here are the current solutions:<span id="more-9890"></span></p>
<p><strong>Make your own MIDI remote scripts.</strong></p>
<p>Hanz Petrov has written an intensive introduction to creating your own MIDI remote scripts in Python, using the new Framework classes:</p>
<p><a href="http://remotescripts.blogspot.com/2010/03/introduction-to-framework-classes.html">Introduction to the Framework Classes</a><br />
<a href="http://remotescripts.blogspot.com/">http://remotescripts.blogspot.com/</a><br />
<img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2010/03/controlprefs.jpg" alt="" title="controlprefs" width="506" height="616" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-9899" /></p>
<p><strong>Use OSC, via the Live OSC API Hack (or MIDI)</strong></p>
<p>Ableton doesn&#8217;t have native support for OSC &#8212; unfortunate, given that&#8217;s now a feature of major visual applications (Resolume, VDMX, GrandVJ, Modul8, and others). But while we keep bugging Ableton for OSC to be on equal footing with MIDI, you <em>can</em> make use of a special Python hack that provides an OSC API to Live.</p>
<p>If the above scripting seems intimidating &#8211; and I can certainly see why it might be &#8211; the LiveOSC API is refreshingly simple. Because you can simply send OSC messages directly, controlling Live with tools like iPhone apps or Processing sketches or even hardware could become comparatively simple &#8211; and yes, simpler than working in Max for Live. If you only have MIDI, there&#8217;s even a MIDI API, too. Here&#8217;s where to start:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/live-api">Complete documentation of the LiveAPI project</a> [assembla]</p>
<p><a href="http://monome.q3f.org/wiki/LiveOSC">http://monome.q3f.org/wiki/LiveOSC</a></p>
<p>Why it&#8217;s nice: you can send something as simple as /live/play/clip (track, clip) and trigger a clip. That&#8217;s even more direct than the usual MIDI interface.</p>
<p>Most importantly, this <strong>now works with Live 8.1</strong>. See the video below for an example of this in action:</p>
<p><object width="579" height="362"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6015542&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=1&amp;color=CC0000&amp;fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6015542&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=1&amp;color=CC0000&amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="579" height="362"></embed></object>
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/6015542">mlrV4live tutorial (&#038;casio madness)</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1648652">StevieRaySean</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
<p>Check out his <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38481879@N02/sets/72157618314985952/">Arduinome build documentation</a>, too. (Arduinome is an authorized clone of the monome using readily-available parts.)</p>
<p><strong>The Max for Live way: Live Object Model</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://cycling74.com/docs/max5/refpages/m4l-ref/m4l_live_object_model.html">Complete LOM documentation at Cycling &#8216;74</a></p>
<p>And yes, it makes my head spin a little, too. (Or perhaps the word is &#8220;oscillate.&#8221;)</p>
<p>Max4Live.info (Michael Chenetz) has done a great job of making this a bit more manageable. In the video below, he explains how to use the interaction between Max for Live and Live; there&#8217;s also a tutorial on <a href="http://max4live.info/content/max4liveinfo-tutorial-control-launchpad-edition-sending-values">sending messages to a control surface like the Launchpad</a>. But note that some of this can actually more complex, and more hardware-specific (APC/Launchpad-only) than the hacks above. It&#8217;s a case in which the hacked version actually works a little better than (cough) the official version.</p>
<p><object width="579" height="326"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6800100&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=1&amp;color=CC0000&amp;fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6800100&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=1&amp;color=CC0000&amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="579" height="326"></embed></object>
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/6800100">Max For Live Paths, Objects, and Observers</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/max4live">Michael Chenetz</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
<p>My own challenge for myself: just make the Launchpad intelligently control device parameters, something it currently doesn&#8217;t do. I&#8217;ll let you know how it goes.</p>
<p>Thoughts on the merits of these different approaches? Projects you&#8217;ve made using one or another? We&#8217;d love to see them.</p>
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		<title>Jim Reekes, The Man Behind Mac Sound</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/03/18/jim-reekes-the-man-behind-mac-sound/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/03/18/jim-reekes-the-man-behind-mac-sound/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Mar 2010 04:28:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=9864</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[OMT in San Francisco #3: &#8216;Let it beep&#8217; from One More Thing on Vimeo.
The legend of the early sounds of the Mac remains, apparently, an alluring one. Here, Jim Reekes talks to a Dutch documentary crew (though in English) about his thought process in designing sounds for the Mac, including the famous Mac startup sound.
If [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><object width="579" height="326"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9370716&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=0&amp;show_byline=0&amp;show_portrait=1&amp;color=4f5875&amp;fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9370716&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=0&amp;show_byline=0&amp;show_portrait=1&amp;color=4f5875&amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="579" height="326"></embed></object>
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/9370716">OMT in San Francisco #3: &#8216;Let it beep&#8217;</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/onemorething">One More Thing</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
<p>The legend of the early sounds of the Mac remains, apparently, an alluring one. Here, Jim Reekes talks to a Dutch documentary crew (though in English) about his thought process in designing sounds for the Mac, including the famous Mac startup sound.</p>
<p>If you haven&#8217;t heard the story, it&#8217;s a great tale. But there&#8217;s more to why Jim Reekes matters. For one, his insight into how sound design impacts the way people feel about a product is telling. Years later, following an onslaught of still more microcontroller-packed gear and hideous cellphone ringtones, that lesson seems ignored by designers. I know countless phone users who find the traditional phone ring sound. They do so not out of habit (like those people I know who are too young to even remember pre-digital phones), but because it&#8217;s the least offensive choice. With all of the growth in sound, you might imagine we&#8217;d be finding smart, new interactions, not struggling to cover the basics.</p>
<p>No surprise, then, that Keith Lang at <a href="http://www.uiandus.com/blog/2010/2/12/creator-of-the-mac-startup-sound.html">UI&#038;us</a>, a blog centered on user experience, picks this up &#8211; it&#8217;s as interesting a question of design as it is Mac nostalgia. (I agree with the commenter there &#8211; tritone? The original sound doesn&#8217;t sound like a tritone to me.)</p>
<p>More importantly, though, Jim Reekes is worth revisiting because of the amount he contributed to sound on the Mac platform. That should be a reminder of how important it is to value the contributions of people who build intelligent sound into platforms, especially at a time when new platforms (iPhone, Android, Chrome) are emerging. Jim is credited (by his site and Wikipedia) for key engineering in QuickTime, he single-handedly created the Mac&#8217;s original Sound Manager, build early standalone radio appliances, helped support software on which the Mac multimedia revolution relied (from SoundEdit to Vision to HyperCard to Final Cut to Myst), and even built a jog wheel and hierarchical menu before the iPod.<span id="more-9864"></span></p>
<p>I like to believe that forward progress is still possible in computing and sound, not only in sexy apps and hardware, but in the decidedly un-sexy plumbing that lies inside our computing platforms. It often comes down to individual men and women who make it happen. And lest you think challenges are insurmountable or the process is glamorous and magical, here&#8217;s a good quote from Jim:</p>
<blockquote><p>The people on the outside think that, you know, it’s like this wonderful world of Oz or Disney going on and all of us are just all these brilliant amazing happy people and like ‘it’s not’ it’s like a sausage factory, I mean, you really don’t want to know how this stuff happens.  A lot of it is just bad arguments and politics and working around the rules and, and and not doing the right thing and apologizing for it later and getting fired a few times, I mean, that’s how things got done.  It’s definitely like “Don’t pay attention to the man behind the curtain.”  Jim Reekes.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.profcast.com/blog/?p=31">Source: ProfCast blog</a> (ProfCast, incidentally, a great little tool for making enhanced podcasts and lectures on Mac and Windows)</p>
<p>And that&#8217;s to say nothing of the days during which Apple Corps was going after Apple Computer for making products that could make music. (Jim to Boing Boing: &#8220;I was getting really tired of this whole thing when the laywers told me I had to change an API from the &#8220;noteCmd&#8221; to &#8220;frequencyCmd.&#8221; Good thing they didn&#8217;t make 440Hz off-limits.) Now, all that is history, and The Beatles are in a video game.</p>
<p>With that in mind, here&#8217;s more on the creation of Mac sound &#8211; and its signature sounds.</p>
<p><a href="http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2005/05/tiny-music-makers-pt-4-mac-startup.html">TINY MUSIC MAKERS: Pt 4: The Mac Startup Sound</a> [Music thing - we miss you, you great blog - 2005]</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Reekes">Jim Reekes at Wikipedia</a> (a degree in composition and theory? What use could that ever possibl&#8212; oh.)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2005/03/24/early-apple-sound-de.html">Early Apple sound designer Jim Reekes corrects Sosumi myth</a> [Boing Boing, 2005]</p>
<p><a href="http://www.reekes.net/reekes/Jim_Reekes.html">Jim Reekes homepage</a></p>
<p><object width="580" height="352"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/k4J8AF25PjA&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/k4J8AF25PjA&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="352"></embed></object></p>
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		<title>Reason and Record Patching and Guitar, New Propellerhead Testing?</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/03/16/reason-and-record-patching-and-guitar-new-propellerhead-testing/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/03/16/reason-and-record-patching-and-guitar-new-propellerhead-testing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:07:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=9833</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[52 Reason and Record Tips Week 4 &#8211; Unlocking the Secrets of CV and Gate. from James Bernard on Vimeo.
Reason and Record may lack plug-in support, but what they do have &#8211; open-ended patching between the available modules, in the tradition of analog synthesizers &#8211; opens up plenty of creative possibilities. The only sad news [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><object width="579" height="326"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=10089876&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=1&amp;color=CC0000&amp;fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=10089876&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=1&amp;color=CC0000&amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="579" height="326"></embed></object>
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/10089876">52 Reason and Record Tips Week 4 &#8211; Unlocking the Secrets of CV and Gate.</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user3205543">James Bernard</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
<p>Reason and Record may lack plug-in support, but what they do have &#8211; open-ended patching between the available modules, in the tradition of analog synthesizers &#8211; opens up plenty of creative possibilities. The only sad news is that many Reason uses don&#8217;t take full advantage of that depth.</p>
<p>Here are three tutorials to get you started, if you&#8217;re not familiar with how to do this (or if you need a video to send your friends to get them patching). At top, James Bernard continues his 52 tips in 52 weeks series with a general look at how the CV and gate connections work. From Propellerhead&#8217;s Matt Piper, we have two videos with guitar, one routing through Malström and the other through the Thor synth. Matt tells me that in the Malström vid, &#8220;once the patch creation portion starts (at 0:36), there are no edits thereafter&#8211; it is a &#8216;live performance&#8217; that I hope is somewhat musical.&#8221;<span id="more-9833"></span></p>
<p>It&#8217;s all good stuff, and of course it&#8217;s terrific to be able to combine Reason and Record in order to get audio routing through the modular system &#8211; &#8220;&#8217;bout time&#8221; I believe is the phrase I&#8217;m looking for. At the same time, I&#8217;m sure that doesn&#8217;t ease the frustration of Reason users who don&#8217;t like the idea of having to buy Record just to get audio. I can understand the perception there, though at least there are some crossgrade offers. It&#8217;s a tricky question: the Props could have added basic audio functionality to Reason, but then, once you do have audio, you might start asking for all the other stuff that&#8217;s in Record. (The mixer, more audio effects, audio track management and editing &#8211; work through that wish list, and you can see why they have another product.) To me, the interesting question now will be who will upgrade and who won&#8217;t.</p>
<p>Speaking of Propellerhead news, a number of readers have noted this announcement on the Propellerhead site:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;Do you want to help us test the music software of the future? Are you a Reason/Record power user? Can you keep a secret? If your answer is yes to all three questions, maybe you would like to join the Propellerhead Test Pilots?&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>I don&#8217;t actually know whether this is Reason 5 or something else. I expect I will find out, at which point I&#8217;ll be sworn to secrecy. In the meantime, for anyone else who doesn&#8217;t know, feel free to commence the rampant speculation. And if you&#8217;re a current user, you can <a href="http://www.propellerheads.se/test-pilot/index.cfm">try signing up for the limited testing pool</a>.</p>
<p><object width="580" height="469"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ewdt7yPZSpE&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ewdt7yPZSpE&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="469"></embed></object></p>
<p>And here&#8217;s part two of using guitar and synth in Reason/Record, which also includes a downloadable Combinator patch.</p>
<p><object width="580" height="469"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sX8Wlt734TQ&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sX8Wlt734TQ&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="469"></embed></object></p>
<p><a href="http://line6.com/community/community/line_6_blog/blog/2010/03/12/propellerhead-record-reason-playing-guitar-through-the-reason-synths-part-two">Propellerhead Record + Reason: Playing Guitar Through the Reason Synths (Part Two)</a></p>
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		<title>Robotic Twitter Songwriter Generates Tweet Poetry</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/03/15/robotic-twitter-songwriter-generates-tweet-poetry/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/03/15/robotic-twitter-songwriter-generates-tweet-poetry/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:12:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Marvim Gainsbug: the Twitter based Song Composer from jeraman on Vimeo.
It should come as no surprise, but Twitter can compose existential nihilistic poetry.
Just ask the creepy, detached voice of Marvim Gainsbug. The robotic, generative songwriter will produce a &#8220;song&#8221; from Tweet keywords of your choice. And be prepared for some finger snaps at the end [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><object width="579" height="326"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=10076006&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=1&amp;color=CC0000&amp;fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=10076006&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=1&amp;color=CC0000&amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="579" height="326"></embed></object>
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/10076006">Marvim Gainsbug: the Twitter based Song Composer</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user2346118">jeraman</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
<p>It should come as no surprise, but Twitter can compose existential nihilistic poetry.</p>
<p>Just ask the creepy, detached voice of Marvim Gainsbug. The robotic, generative songwriter will produce a &#8220;song&#8221; from Tweet keywords of your choice. And be prepared for some finger snaps at the end of his beat-poetic recitation.</p>
<p>The evil genius of this work is the product of a duo from Recife, Brazil. Details:</p>
<blockquote><p>Marvim Gainsbug is a musician, singer and composer, created in 2009. </p>
<p>His main influences are Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Dylan, the Brazilian Northeastern Musician, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Alan Turing, Deep Blue, HAL, Wintermute and Marvin, the paranoid android. </p>
<p>Marvim Gainsbug is a software that acts based on Twitter, implemented to compose and to play songs, with music and lyrics, in real time. </p>
<p>The tweets are transformed in verses which are interpreted by Marvim with his singular voice. The melody, the harmony and the rhythm are directly linked with the words of the verses.</p>
<p>Developed in Processing, using Sphinx4, FreeTTS and Twitter4j libraries, by Jeraman and Filipe Calegario. For further informations, visit <a href="myspace.com/marvimgainsbug">myspace.com/marvimgainsbug</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Even the harmonies, melody, and rhythm are generated algorithmically from the tweets themselves.</p>
<p>Thanks to co-creator Jerman for sending this our way; see:<br />
<a href="http://jeraman.info">http://jeraman.info</a></p>
<p>More photos:<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeraman/sets/72157623475884795/">Marvim Gainsbug @ Flickr</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeraman/4424565031/in/set-72157623475884795/"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2778/4424565031_6bce59e8b0.jpg"></a></p>
<div class="imgcaption">Photo courtesy <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeraman/">Jeraman</a>.</div>
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		<title>Renoise 2.5 is Here, Making Your Mac, Windows, or Linux Box an Instrument</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/03/05/renoise-2-5-is-here-making-your-mac-windows-or-linux-box-an-instrument/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/03/05/renoise-2-5-is-here-making-your-mac-windows-or-linux-box-an-instrument/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:18:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cheap]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[production]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[renoise-2.5]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=9753</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;It looks alien at first, it looks scary &#8230; [but] it&#8217;s like, here&#8217;s your paper; be creative.&#8221; &#8220;A tracker basically turns your computer an instrument.&#8221; -Dac Chartrand, Renoise, trying to explain Renoise to those who haven&#8217;t yet gotten religion
Renoise 2.5 is here, for real &#8211; not a beta, a nice, golden, final release. The modern [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><object width="580" height="469"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/cnjUuu0_zFQ&#038;color1=0xb1b1b1&#038;color2=0xcfcfcf&#038;hl=en_US&#038;feature=player_embedded&#038;fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/cnjUuu0_zFQ&#038;color1=0xb1b1b1&#038;color2=0xcfcfcf&#038;hl=en_US&#038;feature=player_embedded&#038;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="580" height="469"></embed></object></p>
<p>&#8220;It looks alien at first, it looks scary &#8230; [but] it&#8217;s like, here&#8217;s your paper; be creative.&#8221; &#8220;A tracker basically turns your computer an instrument.&#8221; <em>-Dac Chartrand, Renoise, trying to explain Renoise to those who haven&#8217;t yet gotten religion</em></p>
<p>Renoise 2.5 is here, for real &#8211; not a beta, a nice, golden, final release. The modern take on a tracker now introduces a set of features that takes it to a new level of usability:</p>
<ul>
<li>The <strong>Pattern Matrix</strong> finally combines the inside-out precision of tracker arrangement with a big, birds-eye view of your music &#8211; and some people are already hacking it into a live performance instrument.</li>
<li><strong>Smarter signal routing</strong> across tracks and through &#8220;meta devices,&#8221; along with clever inventions like the &#8220;Signal Follower,&#8221; give you sidechaining and more.</li>
<li><strong>Render Plug-ins</strong> to instruments, samples &#8211; the resource-saving advantages of freezing tracks, but without sacrificing any playability.</li>
<li><strong>Enhanced MIDI mapping, internal effects, more</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<p>None of these additions is like to make Renoise a mainstream hit, but then, that&#8217;s not the point. What it could do is expand Renoise&#8217;s already passionately-loyal user base to a new crowd, and encourage users to find expressive new ways of producing music with computers at a time when some of those processes have become stale. Thanks to its recent support for ReWire (plus JACK on Linux), it also doesn&#8217;t mean you have to sacrifice what you love about your host of choice; it can be part of your existing workflow. </p>
<p><a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2010/03/renoise25.jpg"><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2010/03/renoise25.jpg" alt="" title="renoise25" width="580" height="581" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-9758" /></a></p>
<div class="imgcaption">Renoise&#8217;s new Pattern Matrix, a different take on how to view music, alongside the more traditional tracker view. The enhanced meta-instruments appear at bottom.</div>
<p>For more on what&#8217;s new, check out Neil Bufkin&#8217;s terrific video interview for CDM with Renoise&#8217;s Dac <a href="http://namm.noisepages.com/2010/01/dac-from-resoise-gives-us-the-scoop-namm-2010/">from NAMM</a>, seen at top. That interview was popular enough to become an &#8220;electric acid jungle test&#8221; demo by Hitori Tori, below, sampling Dac&#8217;s initial quote before ripping into controlling Renoise with a clever mapping for the Livid Ohm 64. (Check out <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/hitoritori">more Renoise-on-Ohm action on Hitori&#8217;s channel</a>.)<span id="more-9753"></span></p>
<p><object width="580" height="469"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/n39sCWHnG6M&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/n39sCWHnG6M&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="469"></embed></object></p>
<p>Full feature list:<br />
<a href="http://www.renoise.com/about/what-s-new-2-5/">http://www.renoise.com/about/what-s-new-2-5/</a></p>
<p>Ready to dive in this weekend and start learning Renoise 2.5, for instance, making use of its fully-functioning demo? There&#8217;s a full set of revised beginners&#8217; tutorials for 2.5, and they don&#8217;t assume any previous knowledge of trackers. (Hey, it&#8217;s okay &#8212; I sure didn&#8217;t own an Amiga.)</p>
<p><a href="http://tutorials.renoise.com/wiki/Main_Page">http://tutorials.renoise.com/wiki/Main_Page</a></p>
<p>This isn&#8217;t the end of the story with Renoise, however. Dac confirms to CDM that they are working on support for OSC and easy extension of Renoise&#8217;s capabilities through Lua scripting &#8212; even without any official promises, that&#8217;s exciting news. It could make Renoise easier and more powerful for control and customization. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.renoise.com/">http://www.renoise.com/</a></p>
<p>Previously: <a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/12/16/renoise-2-5-a-matrix-for-everything-modulate-everything-full-scripting-osc-coming/">Renoise 2.5: A Matrix for Everything, Modulate Everything; Full Scripting, OSC Coming</a></p>
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		<slash:comments>31</slash:comments>
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		<title>Record and Reason: Tips, Tutorials, Goodies, and Reviews</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/02/19/record-and-reason-tips-tutorials-goodies-and-reviews/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/02/19/record-and-reason-tips-tutorials-goodies-and-reviews/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:07:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[recording]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=9545</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[52 Reason and Record Tips by James Bernard Week 1 from James Bernard on Vimeo.
I&#8217;m writing this from the wintry wonderland that is Stockholm, Sweden. How geeky is this country? Geeky enough to use their entire nation&#8217;s terrain to construct the world&#8217;s largest scale model of the solar system. And they&#8217;re the home of music [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><object width="579" height="362"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9558969&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=1&amp;color=CC0000&amp;fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9558969&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=1&amp;color=CC0000&amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="579" height="362"></embed></object>
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/9558969">52 Reason and Record Tips by James Bernard Week 1</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user3205543">James Bernard</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m writing this from the wintry wonderland that is Stockholm, Sweden. How geeky is this country? Geeky enough to use their entire nation&#8217;s terrain to construct the <a href="http://ttt.astro.su.se/swesolsyst/englishsum.html">world&#8217;s largest scale model of the solar system</a>. And they&#8217;re the home of music software developer Propellerhead, with whom I&#8217;m talking a stroll in just a few minutes. In the Props&#8217; honor, here&#8217;s a round-up of some handy stuff for Reason and Record users, plus a link to my most recent reviews.</p>
<p>The timing couldn&#8217;t be better. Propellerhead product specialist James Bernard has already begun a terrific blog full of tips and tricks for Reason and Record, and just yesterday, he kicked off a 52-episode series of video tutorials. The first installment has a look at how to construct a rhythmic gate using the dynamics section of Record. Of course, you could very easily apply this to another tool (even Props&#8217; own Reason, with a little work), so it&#8217;s potentially worth a glimpse even if you&#8217;re not a Record user. </p>
<p>James also has a nice <a href="http://www.propellerheads.se/substance/product-specialist/index.cfm?fuseaction=dsp_plan_cmt&#038;PID=15&#038;ID=25&#038;PlanCmtID=1715">example on using iPhone TouchOSC control with Reason</a> on the Mac. I expect the musical style of James&#8217; work may not appeal to everyone, but this is worth a look: he definitely knows his stuff, and it&#8217;s great to see him sharing.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.propellerheads.se/substance/product-specialist/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_main">Propellerheads Substance: Product Specialist</a></p>
<p>Propellerhead in general have done a much better job in recent months of getting more how-to content on their site. The whole <a href="http://www.propellerheads.se/substance/">Substance site</a> has a round-up of materials from learning the basics of recording technique to artist profiles. There is, naturally, a bit of a commercial bent, but I wound up reviewing some of the tutorials while learning Record myself. It&#8217;s funny: we spend so much of our time and energy on reviews, but I find users generally use what they like. The area that really has endless potential is talking about how to actually use stuff.</p>
<p>For more video tutorials, check out the PropellerheadSW YouTube account, including micro-tutorials on Record, like the sidechain compression example here.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/PropellerheadSW">PropellerheadSW @ YouTube</a></p>
<p><object width="580" height="352"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NQ23aZdPmyQ&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NQ23aZdPmyQ&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="352"></embed></object></p>
<p>For a non-Props-produced tutorial, Audiotuts has an in-depth look in one of the most interesting new features in Reason and Record, a grove tool that uses a mixer as the interface metephor:</p>
<p><a href="http://audio.tutsplus.com/tutorials/production/an-introduction-to-propellerheads-groove-engine/">An Introduction to Propellerhead’s Groove Engine</a> [Audiotuts.com]</p>
<p>It starts with the absolute basics if you&#8217;re just starting out, it covers a tool that may not be immediately intuitive in its potential, and it&#8217;s (cough) better than the included documentation. </p>
<p>Reason&#8217;s user community keeps on plugging; you can find a new free or cheap ReFill of sound content nearly each week, it seems. The best I&#8217;ve seen recently is a terrific free ReFill of retro, chip-based drums:<br />
<a href="http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2010/01/27/free-refill-features-filthy-nasty-chip-drums/">Free ReFill Features “Filthy &#038; Nasty” Chip Drums</a> [Synthtopia]</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sirsedricmusic.com/2010/01/25/sir-sedrics-chipdrums-reason-refill-wav-pack-filthy-chip-drum-delight/#more-178">Sir Sedric’s ChipDrums Reason ReFill/ WAV Pack – Filthy Chip Drum Delight</a></p>
<p>There&#8217;s some creative sound design in there. I&#8217;m definitely taking it as inspiration, as I&#8217;ve just begun working on some new drums with the deep <a href="http://www.plogue.com/?page_id=43">Plogue Chipsounds</a> collection, trying to produce some sets that push the chip sounds in unexpected directions.</p>
<p><object height="79" width="100%"><param name="movie" value="http://a1.soundcloud.com/player.swf?g=wi&#038;url=http%3A//soundcloud.com/sirsedric/chipdrums-demo-track&#038;player_type=waveform"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed allowscriptaccess="always" height="79" width="100%" src="http://a1.soundcloud.com/player.swf?g=wi&#038;url=http%3A//soundcloud.com/sirsedric/chipdrums-demo-track&#038;player_type=waveform" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"></embed></object><span><a href="http://soundcloud.com/sirsedric/chipdrums-demo-track/">Chipdrums Demo Track</a> by <a href="http://soundcloud.com/sirsedric">SirSedric</a></span></p>
<p>Finally, Macworld recently published my reviews of Record and Reason. They&#8217;re equally relevant whether you&#8217;re a Mac or Windows user (having finished those reviews, I&#8217;m currently using both primarily on my PC).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.macworld.com/article/145414/2010/01/prorecord.html">Record 1.0: Turn your Mac into a fully equipped virtual recording studio</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.macworld.com/article/145748/2010/01/reason4.html">Reason 4.0: Virtual rack of music toys sports new modules, a Nordic God synthesizer, and a grown-up sequencer</a></p>
<p>The magazine took some flak in comments for running a Reason 4.0 review late, but I think it&#8217;s actually more appropriate to consider Reason 4 now in the context of the release of Record. Writing reviews is always a funny thing: I believe you have to judge a tool on its own terms and merits. You may discover a product is really fantastic, and still decide it&#8217;s not actually for you in your workflow. But I&#8217;m finding myself toying with Reason and Record, returning to Reason a bit in my own work after a long time away. They are marvelous pieces of engineering, and whether it&#8217;s common knowledge or not, I know a lot of producers and developers alike who have respect for the tools.</p>
<p>In fact, my biggest complaint about Record remains that it&#8217;s not a ReWire host; loading Ableton Live (among other tools) into Record as a mastering/mixing tool, for instance, seems like a no-brainer. If you agree, leave comments, and maybe we&#8217;ll see this feature in a future version.</p>
<p>I know one &#8220;review&#8221; CDM has gotten is not running enough tips and production tutorials, so I&#8217;m on it. There are a lot of tools out there, so let us know which are more important to you. (Pro Tools? Csound?) I&#8217;ll rest up here in Sweden and come back refreshed and ready to tackle that next week. Enjoy!</p>
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		<title>Read Traktor-Timecoded Vinyl in Max, Max for Live, (Soon) Pd</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/02/15/read-traktor-timecoded-vinyl-in-max-max-for-live-soon-pd/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/02/15/read-traktor-timecoded-vinyl-in-max-max-for-live-soon-pd/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:22:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=9528</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This freaky-looking screen image: yours free. It looks like you&#8217;re navigating some microscopic rover on another planet. Awesome.
More software is speaking timecode, opening up control of digital sound to real, physical vinyl on turntables. The latest addition: Time TunnelXL is a pair of externals that decodes Native Instruments&#8217; Traktor Scratch vinyl and scratches not only [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.createdigitalmusic.com/images/2010/02/timetunnel.jpg"><img src="http://www.createdigitalmusic.com/images/2010/02/timetunnel.jpg" alt="" title="timetunnel" width="400" height="321" class="alignright size-full wp-image-9530" /></a></p>
<div class="imgcaption">This freaky-looking screen image: yours free. It looks like you&#8217;re navigating some microscopic rover on another planet. Awesome.</div>
<p>More software is speaking timecode, opening up control of digital sound to real, physical vinyl on turntables. The latest addition: Time TunnelXL is a pair of externals that decodes Native Instruments&#8217; Traktor Scratch vinyl and scratches not only sound, but visuals or anything you can make in the open development environment Max.</p>
<p>Right now, it supports Max/MSP (and thus Max for Live) on the Mac, but support for Linux and Windows and the open-source Pure Data as well as Max are planned.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m actually hopeful a lot of these efforts can support Pd, too. Pd does some things more effectively than Max, just as Max does some things more effectively than Pd, and by supporting Linux, you can have a flexible computer rig running on an OS you can optimize and tune. It brings virtual vinyl full circle, too: the first commercial product ran on BeOS and Linux before Windows or Mac.</p>
<p>Of course, Max support and Max for Live can help DJs and turntablists invent their own live performance rigs in the Ableton environment, too. </p>
<p>Project site:<br />
<a href="http://www.komika.org/komika/overview/time_tunnelxl/50950;jsessionid=oko2x289mtev">Time Tunnel XL @ komika.org</a></p>
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		<title>Back to the Future: Save an Old Laptop, Make it a Music Workstation</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/02/15/back-to-the-future-save-an-old-laptop-make-it-a-music-workstation/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/02/15/back-to-the-future-save-an-old-laptop-make-it-a-music-workstation/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:39:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=9516</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Computers can have longevity as musical instruments, but it takes a little extra effort. (CC-BY-NC-SA) Bill Van Loo.
Computers and computer software can have as much or even more longevity than traditional music hardware &#8211; that is, if elements like copy protection don&#8217;t intervene first. As a postscript to the discussion last week, prompted by a [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chromedecay/4312275135/" title="5/52: Bill Van Loo at the iBook instrument station by chromedecay, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4012/4312275135_a9cfd174bf.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="5/52: Bill Van Loo at the iBook instrument station" /></a></p>
<div class="imgcaption">Computers can have longevity as musical instruments, but it takes a little extra effort. (<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en">CC-BY-NC-SA</a>) <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/chromedecay/">Bill Van Loo</a>.</div>
<p>Computers and computer software can have as much or even more longevity than traditional music hardware &#8211; that is, if elements like copy protection don&#8217;t intervene first. As a postscript to the <a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/02/12/new-soft-synth-for-the-apple-ii-and-a-plea-for-longevity-and-economy/">discussion last week</a>, prompted by a new software release for the Apple II, here&#8217;s a report from our friend Bill Van Loo. He was able to make a productive little workstation out of an old iBook (500Mhz), with access to Reaktor Session instruments and an Apple electric piano now gone. </p>
<p>Bill has been doing a project a week all year, working towards the goal of 52 projects at the end of 2010, so consider this an excuse to peek into his studio and get some inspiration and ideas for projects:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.chromedecay.org/">http://www.chromedecay.org/</a></p>
<p>What&#8217;s interesting to me is how productive the results were. But that means there&#8217;s a real failure caused by arcane copy protection. And much as we complain about dongles, the dongle worked &#8211; it was software/online challenge-response that was the failure point. (Before dongle advocates at developers rejoice, uh, guys, if you add online activation to your dongle as some of you have recently done, you&#8217;ve just killed your advantage.)</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s realistic for developers to always provide 100% backwards compatibility. But it&#8217;s clear that developers aren&#8217;t doing a great job of gracefully bringing products to the end of their life cycle. If a product is to be discontinued, why not do what Propellerhead did with their popular ReBirth instrument and provide it free? Open source licensing isn&#8217;t always the answer, as it adds additional legal work and presumes that someone wants all this old source code, which very often, they don&#8217;t. But at least by providing a free download, perhaps a very specific license that makes it free to trade the binary file, people don&#8217;t lose access to software they use in their music.</p>
<p>Bill&#8217;s comments, plus a link to the full story &#8211; well worth reading if you&#8217;re considering doing something similar yourself:<span id="more-9516"></span></p>
<blockquote><p>As it happens, I went through my own version of this (resurrecting old technology to get usable instruments back) and documented it on my blog, as part of my ongoing &#8220;52 things&#8221; (a &#8220;project-a-week&#8221; series).</p>
<p>A few years ago, I replaced my trusty titanium PowerBook with a shiny new Intel MacBook. That brought lots of increased power, but it also meant losing some things I really liked as a result of moving from the PowerPC-based PowerBook to the Intel-based MacBook. My favorite Rhodes electric piano sound came from Logic’s EVP73 plugin, which didn’t run on Intel Macs. One of my other favorite sound sources was Reaktor Session, which I loved for its Vierring ensemble, among others.</p>
<p>What it came down to, for me, is that it was worth getting back those capabilities. I learned, along the way, that the dongle-based copy protection schemes (much as I disliked them at the time) of Logic and Max/MSP allowed me to get them up and running extremely quickly.</p>
<p>In contrast to dongle-based copy protection, the challenge/response authorization system of Native Instruments actually made it much more difficult (relatively speaking) to get Reaktor Session installed &amp; going. NI&#8217;s customer support got me set up quickly, but having to rely on that to get software working makes it more fragile in terms of dependencies.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.chromedecay.org/2010/01/29/552-ibook-instrument-station/">5/52: iBook instrument station</a></p>
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		<title>Touch: Argos Builds Interfaces for Windows, Mac, and Soon iPhone, iPad, Beyond</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/02/12/touch-argos-builds-interfaces-for-windows-mac-and-soon-iphone-ipad-beyond/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/02/12/touch-argos-builds-interfaces-for-windows-mac-and-soon-iphone-ipad-beyond/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Feb 2010 06:05:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[argos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[code]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[control]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[control-surface]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[free]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[free-software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iPad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iphone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ipod-touch]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Linux]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[multi-touch]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[open-source]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[openframeworks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[OpenSoundControl]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[OSC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[touch]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Windows]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=9504</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Argos Interface Builder, v0.20 from Dimitri Diakopoulos on Vimeo.
You know the game: you decide you want exactly 8 knobs and 10 faders. But your hardware interface has 8 knobs and 8 faders. And then you realize you could use 4 more knobs.
The appeal of touch interfaces is clear: you get controls that grow and change. [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><object width="580" height="326"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9175177&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=0&amp;show_byline=0&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=01AAEA&amp;fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9175177&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=0&amp;show_byline=0&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=01AAEA&amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="580" height="326"></embed></object>
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/9175177">Argos Interface Builder, v0.20</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user2172776">Dimitri Diakopoulos</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
<p>You know the game: you decide you want exactly 8 knobs and 10 faders. But your hardware interface has 8 knobs and 8 faders. And then you realize you could use 4 more knobs.</p>
<p>The appeal of touch interfaces is clear: you get controls that grow and change. So now, a generation of mobile apps is working on giving you that flexibility on touch devices. The iPhone is just the start: now the iPad, with greater real estate, will go head to head with 5&#8243;, 8&#8243;, and laptop-sized screens running Android, Linux, and Windows. </p>
<p>Argos is an early-stages (but usable), free and open-source tool that could help you be ready. Built in openFrameworks, the C++-based cousin to Processing, the app lets you drag in basic widgets like buttons, sliders, toggles, and x-y pads, and assign them to OSC. That opens up control to various music and visual apps. (The OSC assignment tool does bear some similarity to that on the Lemur, though it&#8217;s simpler.) The openFrameworks roots should make this easier to port to multiple platforms. </p>
<p><a href="http://argos.dimitridiakopoulos.com/">http://argos.dimitridiakopoulos.com/</a><span id="more-9504"></span></p>
<p>Developer Dimitri Diakopoulos, a BFA student at CalArts, is looking for developers and actively working on making this work on the iPad and its additional screen real estate &#8211; with other platforms possible, too. (If some of the PC &#8220;slate&#8221;s simply run Windows 7, you might be able to just switch the thing on, no port required &#8212; and run the app you&#8217;re controlling on the same machine if you so choose. We&#8217;ll have to wait to see what ships.) Stay tuned for more news on this, but this is well worth a look now. (<a href="http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2010/02/11/new-google-project-argos-will-let-you-create-free-multi-touch-musical-instruments-for-the-ipad/">Synthtopia was on top of the story earlier today</a>.)</p>
<p>I&#8217;m personally interested to see if the protocol established by open iPhone app mrmr could allow over-the-air template sharing, and whether all these apps can interoperate with TUIO, the touch protocol developed for the reacTable. I said it earlier today, but there is some real potential in convergence, so I invite anyone who wishes to join that conversation. The trick is, you want to initially let people do their own thing, but then take all those &#8220;my own thing&#8221; solutions and put them together into an actual standard. If you try to impose the standard first, it might not actually work in the real world, but if you fail to standardize, you lose the advantage of interoperability. On the other hand, I think this very quandary is best solved by small groups of passionate developers, not overly-formalized process.</p>
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		<title>Touch: Bridge iPhone and Max/MSP Control</title>
		<link>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/02/11/touch-bridge-iphone-and-maxmsp-control/</link>
		<comments>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/02/11/touch-bridge-iphone-and-maxmsp-control/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:08:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Kirn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[control]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[control-surface]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DIY]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iphone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ipod-touch]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[max]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Max/MSP]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[multi-touch]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[networked]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[patching]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[touch]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=9477</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What happens when an interface is no longer locked to the screen? What about making control simply work from your hand, on a different screen, with awareness of the world around it? Simple as the early implementations may be, that&#8217;s really the vision behind mobile control applications for music and visuals.
c74 is a lovely iPhone-based [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src="http://createdigitalmusic.com/images/2010/02/c74iphone.jpg" alt="c74iphone" title="c74iphone" width="580" height="289" class="alignright size-full wp-image-9482" /></p>
<p>What happens when an interface is no longer locked to the screen? What about making control simply work from your hand, on a different screen, with awareness of the world around it? Simple as the early implementations may be, that&#8217;s really the vision behind mobile control applications for music and visuals.</p>
<p>c74 is a lovely iPhone-based app that uses a Max/MSP patch to generate interfaces from a patch that run on your handheld. It isn&#8217;t just a control surface, though; access to native APIs on the phone also provide other features.</p>
<ul>
<li>GPS for specific location. (How you use that is up to you; I recommend the ability to switch between &#8220;West Coast&#8221; and &#8220;East Coast&#8221; beats.)</li>
<li>Accelerometer data, and specific &#8220;shake&#8221; gestures.</li>
<li>Compass orientation.</li>
<li>Proximity. (That means your proximity to the device, though it&#8217;d also be fun with mobile to use Bluetooth to tell when different devices are nearby.)</li>
</ul>
<p>The external is free. It&#8217;s currently Mac OS X-only. (If people respond well, perhaps we can see about a Windows build.) The app itself is paid, but see below &#8212; <strong>Mac and Max/MSP users, I&#8217;ve got some codes to give away</strong>.<span id="more-9477"></span></p>
<p>The app is called c74, but it&#8217;s entirely unofficial, the work of Dutch developer Leo van der Veen. (The site even has the cheeky name nr74.org; Cycling &#8216;74, I&#8217;d say you have a fan. And, um, I&#8217;m glad you&#8217;re a small company rather than a litigious big one &#8211; that&#8217;s better for everyone.)</p>
<p>This isn&#8217;t the only app to attempt something like this. The iPhone app Mrmr attempts to produce an entire interface protocol for exchanging templates; I&#8217;m collaborating now with the developer of that app on &#8230; something. I won&#8217;t jinx it by saying more for now; stay tuned. (It&#8217;s nothing earth-shaking; I just want to finish it!) The idea of Mrmr is that a performer could beam a control template to a friend, or you could walk up to an art installation and grab the template on your own mobile; eventually, it could even work on different devices (not just Apple ones).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gonzalobaeza/4032781619/in/set-72157622511450089/"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2623/4032781619_19f16d8c73.jpg"></a></p>
<div class="imgcaption">iPhone on the beach. Now, just get Leo to add over-mobile-network control for the app, and you can literally phone in your performance. Photo (<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">CC-BY</a>) <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/gonzalobaeza/">Gonzalo Baeza Hernández</a>.</div>
<p>c74 is distinct from that effort in a couple of ways. It&#8217;s very specific to the iPhone APIs. It&#8217;s really specific to Max, and focuses on generating those templates from a Max patch in a flexible manner. It doesn&#8217;t actually even use OpenSoundControl, though the principle is the same &#8211; it opens a network socket and communicates wirelessly. (In fact, just as you can represent MIDI messages without using a 5-pin MIDI DIN cable, you can use OSC-formatted messages without needing the whole protocol. And underneath OSC is really just a bunch of standard networking protocols &#8211; that&#8217;s part of the point. So we almost need another name for general-purpose, open &#8220;networking.&#8221; Actually, maybe the word &#8220;networking&#8221; works.)</p>
<p>Right now, there isn&#8217;t a whole lot of interoperability between different development environments, different mobile devices (there is a big world beyond iPhone), and different template apps (which are growing in number by the day). But I&#8217;m not overly concerned about that. Right now, I think it&#8217;s just as well that people try a lot of different experiments.</p>
<p>As that evolves, the next step could really be finding ways of communicating template information in standard ways, based on the real-world experience of how these apps work. <a href="http://www.tuio.org/">TUIO</a> has already caught on as a way of describing multitouch input, as seen first on the ReacTable.  What that protocol does is actually fairly cool: it just takes a set of practices used by real artists, and builds the standard protocol around those practices, rather than the other way around. I think it should be possible to continue to expand on these kinds of descriptions. </p>
<p><strong>Want a copy of c74 for your iPhone / iPod touch and your Max 5-running Mac?</strong> I have just ten copies to give away. So tell us in comments what Max patch project you&#8217;d like to run with this, and convince me that you&#8217;ll send us a short video of the results. I&#8217;ll take the first ten compelling comments and email you a code. (That means you DO need to leave an email in the comment form; only the site admins and I can see it.)</p>
<p>I&#8217;m in touch with Leo, as well, so we&#8217;ll certainly keep this discussion going about control in general.</p>
<p>Project site:<br />
<a href="http://www.nr74.org/c74.html">http://www.nr74.org/c74.html</a></p>
<p><strong>Update &#8211; important &#8211; US ONLY</strong> for codes.</p>
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