Pocket Piano from Critter and Guitari on Vimeo.

Apologies to the immense powers of lumbering studio gear, but a new lifestyle may be forming around unique, mobile, small, simple synths. The latest entry comes from none other than Critter and Gitari, some of our favorite electronics designers, based in Philadelphia. This time, they’re touting a pocket synth. No MIDI, no control voltage – just wooden keys, some knobs, an audio out jack, and a speaker. But the killer feature is, it runs on batteries. That allows you to take it anywhere, including – as evidenced by the video – on the Staten Island Ferry.

The sounds are decidedly lo-fi, but varied in synthesis methods:

• Vibrato Synth
• Harmonic Sweeper
• Two-Octave Arpeggiator
• Octave Cascade
• Mono FM Synth
• FM Arpeggiator

Twist the knobs to select mode and waveform, with a colored light to give you feedback. Then play on the wooden keys, though they require a bit of what the creators describe as “a refined touch.”

Lots of additional sound samples, including some that sound like they escaped from a vintage arcade cabinet (or a really cheap alien spacecraft):
Pocket Piano

Bonus: Here’s a wonderful recorder called the Kaleidoloop from the same builders, costing $299. They’ve been documenting its many powers over the past months. It’s insanely simple – to the point that somewhere, KAOSS Pad engineers are scratching their heads — but also insanely delicious.

The BOSS Pedal Sketch application, a free download today for iPhone and iPod touch, probably isn’t what you think it is – but it is a novel concept in mobile apps, and a sign of some of the new ideas to be explored.

If your first thought was that this is a handheld set of virtual stompboxes, as we’ve seen recently from the likes of IK Multimedia, you’d be wrong. (That’s okay, that’s what I thought at first glance, too.) Of course, as I’ve observed before, while these apps are cool for practice sessions, they’re no replacement for hardware – not until we have phones you can stomp on comfortably.

What BOSS Pedal Sketch actually is is a handheld, digital notebook for remembering your stomp setups. Find a routing and settings you like, and then record them on your mobile, down to where the knobs were. Use a mic (built-in on iPhone, or external on iPhone/iPod) to record audio and remember later what a rig sounds like. Take photos with the camera.

The result is – uh, how shall we say, this charitably – a bit specific. I can’t imagine a guitar player who exclusively owns BOSS pedals. Whoever you are – you, with BOSS sales posters you stole at NAMM pasted above your bed so you can stare at them – you’re welcome. Go enjoy. But I thought it was worth posting as a separate story because it is a unique idea. (I’m also assuming that’s why this wasn’t emphasized by Roland US in today’s announcements.)

That said, of course, I’d probably just make some quick notes in a mobile app like (my own personal favorite) Evernote. Many of those work on alternative platforms, too, in case you don’t have an iPhone. (Memo to mobile app developers: native is cool, but looking at the features here, this could also be a Web app.)

And it does raise some interesting questions, too, like the best way to provide handheld access to settings via MIDI or (ideally, for more futuristic devices) even wirelessly with Bluetooth. So, at least it’s free, and someone will use it, I’m sure, but I’m going to mostly take it as an indication of more useful things to come.

http://www.bosscorp.co.jp/en/sketch/
Via iTunes

Named for Curtis Roads, Curtis is an iPad and iPhone/iPod touch application that implements granular sound processing – a technique, imagined early on by the composer Xenakis, which divides sound into tiny granules, allowing more liquid modification of the audio. Roads brought this idea to digital synthesis, and the results can transform recorded samples in pitch and time.

Composer, producer, and sound designer Richard Devine has long made use of granular techniques in his own work, so it’s little surprise Richard is turning his sonic compositional efforts to the iPad app. The latest release includes a new sound set he designed, but he also writes CDM to point out a track he’s shared on SoundCloud, free to download and hear and for your remixing and re-compositional use.

The track is a composition of samples, and it shows just how much you can do with recorded audio:

This piece is a Acousmatic composition based on everyday found objects. I recorded various wine glasses, gears, metal, motors, Ratchets, chimes, croaking frog scraper, Indian bells, Tibetan Singing Bowls, Santoor, waterphone, piano, hematite magnets, processed voice, underwater ambiances, computer, and sprinkled bits of Buchla 200e/Doepfer Euro rack Modular.

All of the sounds originally captured at 24-bit 96khz with a Neumann RSM 191 A/S stereo shotgun mic, SMK4060 Stereo Matched 4060-BM Miniature Omnidirectional Microphones and Sound Devices 702 recorder.

Objects Of Granularity by RichardDevine

Having made their own DS-10 instrument, Korg and DS developer AQ Interactive yesterday presented something new for the handheld Nintendo. This time, they’re revisiting one of the all-time greatest hits of digital synthesis, the Korg M1 workstation.

Markus Schroeder tips us off that the M1 will be the next release for the DS. An iOS (iPhone/iPad) version may follow, as with Korg’s recent mobile rendition of the ElecTribe.

Markus is also kind enough to translate the Japanese contents of the presentation:

Features are (subject to change / error):

• 300 original M1 PCM Sounds
• 8x multi timbral
• 8 track 16 step sequencer 1 sequence max 64 pattern, max polyphonic sound 12
• master reverb, delay effect
• track overview, sound browser, sequence edit, mixer, keyboard. Simple and functional display
• notes/chords,/drum input mode by touch control
• data exchange by wireless transmit
• drag & drop transpose
• sustained notes

Release Date is set to 31st 12. 2010 over at amazon.co.jp.

(With past experience as a guide, delivery outside Japan may happen later – and it’s a shame this won’t happen by the holidays, huh?)

GearJunkies has a couple of screen shots.

None other than Nobuyoshi Sano does the demonstration, the veteran Namco Bandai composer who contributed to legendary scores for Ridge Racer and the Tekken series, and was the producer of the KORG DS-10 application.

And so it continues: whereas once, only analog synths could be classics or inspire nostalgia, the digital instrument has clearly arrived. The digital follow-up to KORG’s own Legacy Collection tried a similar revival of the M1, but there’s something about having it in a $150 handheld, let alone one that can also swap over to Zelda. Hey, maybe a lap of kart racing will wind up giving you a musical idea.

Check out Markus’ YouTube account for more.

Handmade Music is a community get-together, Science Fair, noise-making happening, and party for people making things that make music. We return to NYC on Sunday, August 29 at 7p. Our new Manhattan home is Culturefix, a new electronics boutique, gallery, and tapas bar on the Lower East Side.

This month, we welcome a classically-trained guitar duo using their instruments to play games, an original string-modeling instrument, a sonic dodecahedron sculpture (really), artists using game chips, and more. Last-minute creations are always welcome.

If you’re in New York, we definitely hope to see you Sunday night. And wherever you are, it’s my pleasure to introduce some of the artists we have involved.

Presented with our friends at Make Magazine, Etsy.com, and XLR8R.

THIS SUNDAY, August 29, 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM (come at the beginning, or miss stuff!)
In Manhattan, at 9 Clinton St
COMPLETELY FREE
(cash bar/food… and you might decide to buy some designer headphones, just be forewarned)

Facebook page

That’s right. “Look at this ****ing nerdster…”