Deep thought: if this is what this young person’s baby toy looks like, what will his computer look like?

Father Matt Durant writes to share a surprisingly spacey, expressive solo by his 16-week-old baby son:

My baby son, Austin, touched an iPad for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I loaded up Moog’s new Animoog app and was blown away with what happened. Mom & I have never seen him so dexterous and thoughtful with any object before. Luckily I had my iPhone within reach so I was able to record his ‘performance’ in video.

I’ve sent it to Moog and they have posted it on their Facebook page, and I have received personal emails from Michael Adams (President CEO of Moog) and their head of Marketing with praise.

cheers, great site! I’ve enjoyed CDM for years now.

http://www.moogmusic.com/products/apps/animoog

Animoog, while otherwise a beautifully-designed app, now has two downsides to consider: its cost is up from a buck cut-rate intro price to US$29.99, and you’ll know, in the back of your mind, you’d darned well better find a way to play better than a 16-week-old infant. That’s right. Austin just p0wned you.

I was accused by one commenter recently of drawing topics into a “polemic” discussion of iPads and interface design. So, true to form, let’s draw a baby – albeit an older one – into polemics. Baby Baphomet prefers the more tactile feel of a conventional Moog. The performance here is definitely less sensitive and nuanced. Perhaps we can agree to disagree – Baphomet as your top choice for your more forceful punk act, Austin clearly as the more lyrical of the two on Animoog. Watch:

(Side note: what kind of people “dislike” a video of a baby on YouTube? Like … really? Fortunately, if either of these young’ns does get trolled, they won’t actually be able to read – and, honestly, whatever they’re doing with their time is a better use of their life than us reading those kinds of comments as adults.)

Thanks, Matt, for sharing this, and hopefully CDM will last into Austin’s later years so we can find out how his playing evolves. Keep on synthin’, kid!

Something I always appreciated about classical music training was learning to appreciate the particulars of each instrument, whether or not you played them yourself. A French Horn, for instance, is not an instrument without challenges: everything from tuning to balancing dynamic range to how you look when you add and remove muting can be demanding. And in technology – whether acoustic instrumental or digital – every design is about tradeoffs. You very often can’t get one thing without giving up something else. So I stand by the questions I asked about iPad synths in general last week, particularly as I had Moog’s own, brilliant analog synths and effects as a point of comparison. My aim was not to dismiss the iPad or Animoog – I was quite serious in my praise for Animoog and I think I’ve been reasonably committed to ongoing, often enthusiastic iPad coverage since its launch. Instead, I wanted to begin a conversation about how these tools are used as instruments that includes real critical discussion.

And that’s what I think we got. Readers responded en masse, and amidst some heated discussion (some of it having more to do with whether I’d lost my mind than the particular merits of Animoog), I thought there were some compelling points. I heard from developers, too, on and off the record, and I suspect this will continue to lead to experimentation in mobile software. I also really enjoyed Marc Doty’s impassioned response, which I thought raised some equally worthwhile questions about soft synths on computers. Incidentally, I also heard from a lot of people who went out and bought Animoog because they saw the story on CDM.

In the meantime, hordes of synth lovers have descended on Moog’s Animoog, making it very likely the most successful virtual iPad synth launch yet, at least in the traditional synthesizer mold.

Learning Animoog: The best of these videos is at top, a video tutorial as many readers had requested. Tip of the hat to Synthtopia here for following up on this issue. The video tutorial makes it really clear how to navigate Animoog’s deep and powerful synth interface. See also the official Moog tour at second from top for a speedier walkthrough.

Working out how to play it: Other videos investigate performance. One common theme with Animoog, and iOS apps in general, is whether you’ll focus primarily on the touch interface or external control hardware. Animoog applies a unique control solution to the touch UI, and one that many readers seem to feel is very effective. This gives you two principal advantages of the iPad as a tablet: you get the novel multi-touch controller, which allows gestures that something like a MIDI keyboard wouldn’t, and you retain the device’s superior mobility.

Mark Jenkins’ extensive video review really does the best job, I think, of examining the Animoog on its own terms, as a standalone iPad synth, using the multi-touch interface. I couldn’t possibly have topped the depth of this video review; kudos to Mark.

On the other hand, that won’t stop people from experimenting with adding an external interface. As our friend and MeeBlip co-creator James Grahame put it, the tactile experience of the iPad is the same as running your finger along a bathroom mirror. Instruments have frets and keys for a reason; tactile feedback allows you to play them without looking directly at them. So, I think it’s an advantage that iOS’ MIDI input hardware support at least gives you a choice. You still get a software instrument that runs on an instant-on tablet rather than buried in menus on a computer. And as readers point out, it’s affordable, though I’d say the cost of Animoog isn’t exactly “$1″ — you do have to buy that iPad and its dongles and keep it running, just as a computer requires care and feeding. Even if you only ever ran Animoog on your iPad, though, you’d be at the cost of a lot of low-end synths that are far less interesting in the hardware domain.

Geert Bevin has been talking to CDM behind the scenes – more on the Eigenharp soon — and I think has some real insights into comparing the iPad’s input and an external input. Like me, he has some good things to say about Animoog’s solution; he just suggests that you can have even more fun with an additional controller. A MIDI keyboard might well be disappointing, so enter the more-exotic Eigenharp. He also uses the Alesis iODock for better I/O capabilities; at least one reader via Twitter complained that the Animoog wasn’t “professional” because of the iPad’s poor built-in minijack. So, what you get in this rig is definitely not a “pure” iPad experience – you’re adding some weight and additional devices. But it might be one that you really enjoy, and that still gets you away from your MacBook for a bit.

This video gives a brief overview of the Animoog’s features and also shows how expressive it is when played with an Eigenharp Pico over MIDI using poly-pressure.

The Eigenharp and Animoog seems like a match made in heaven since the Eigenharp is able to send three independent detailed per-note performance data streams and the Animoog is able to react to this on a per-note level. Also, the visualization of the sound on the Animoog is marvelous, it gives a great representation of what your sound is doing.

The iPad is hooked up to my MacBook Pro using USB MIDI from the Alesis iODock, the Eigenharp Pico is also hooked up to the laptop and sends MIDI from the EigenD application to the ‘dock’ MIDI port. This uses a small MIDI-only Eigenharp Pico setup that loads very quickly and provides 16 MIDI playing keys with poly-pressure and three independent data streams for each key (pressure, left/right, up/down), as well as two 3D controller keys that are somewhat similar to little joysticks and are sending each three independent streams of MIDI CC data also.

The sound: A video compares audio fidelity of Animoog to the “real” thing — analog hardware. A number of commenters also noted that Animoog most likely uses sampled wavetables as its oscillator sources rather than modeling, but that approach can indeed yield good sounds. I’m not terribly surprised by the success of the Animoog in standing up to these other instruments; years of experience in soft synths suggests that you can get good results from virtual instruments. In fact, I remain more interested in what people actually do musically, and what about an instrument makes them happy more than splitting hairs about audio fidelity. If this video helps liberate you to go play with Animoog, have at it!

Synthesis, Still the Frontier: One closing thought: part of what interests me about synthesizers is that, even with a huge volume of music made with them and some generally-understood conventions, there are really no shared rules about how to play them. In acoustic instruments, there is at least a rough notion of certain folk traditions, or classical traditions, or “extended techniques” as something that stands apart from common practice. I think we’re still learning what the heck synths are.

Every aspect of the design of a synthesizer can therefore be fair game for consideration, including the spaghetti tangles of modular patch cords or the keyboard + mod wheel + pitch bend Minimoog-style arrangement. What synths are, how they might sound, and how we might play them and turn them into music remain open-ended. So, I hope that any criticism is not grounds for hand-wringing, as someone put it, but an added motivation to go and experiment and play. I know it is for me. Synth on.

Next up: we’re long overdue giving a look at the various iPad synths and how you might use them. Since Animoog isn’t the “first professional” synth, it’s time to line it up with some of its rivals. Unlike with a computer soft synth, though, you probably aren’t terribly concerned with outlay of cash; it may be a more “what are all of the synths you’d buy” question than comparing x, y, and z. If you have nominees you’d like to see explored, or ways in which you’d like to see us cover iOS (or anything else, for that matter), let us know. And remember, tell us what you really think — okay, I probably don’t have to say that. (ducks)

If you think Moog’s entry into iPad synthesizers is too new-fangled, something for the kids, and nothing compared to the authentic analogness of … uh … analog, you’ll like this, at the opposite end of the spectrum.

In the same week they unveiled their first iOS synth, Moog has their first 500 series module – and it’s a classic, derived from Dr. Moog’s legendary Ladder Filter design. Engineering audio isn’t quite like engineering bridges and airplanes: it’s actually the unique flaws in what might have otherwise been a forgettable filter design that led to a distinctive distortion, first heard in Moog modules but made famous by the Minimoog. That signature sound is what you get in this module.

I propose we celebrate Ladder Filter Day on October 28 – the 45h anniversary of Dr. Moog being granted the patent for the “Electronic High Pass and Low Pass Filters Employing the Base to Emitter Diode Resistance of Bipolar Transistors.” (I also propose that you greet everyone you see on that day with “Happy Electronic High Pass and Low Pass Filters Employing the Base to Emitter Diode Resistance of Bipolar Transistors Day!”)

Here’s some good reading on the original Ladder Filter:
The Classic Sound of the Moog Ladder Filter [Universal Audio Blog; check out their references at the bottom, too]
Analogue Systems has some good thoughts on what made the filter special, in the commentary for their own module, influenced by the same

But seriously – what’s in this module?

• Low pass and high pass analog filter modes with cutoff
• Attack and release parameters
• Amount (positive/negative), which you can drive hard enough to make compression-like sounds or even reverse filtering, claim Moog
• Resonance, which you can push into self-oscillation
• 2Pole/4Pole: (12db per octave/24db per octave)
• Relay bypass switch
• Modernized design, including XLR (Via 500 rack) balanced line level

Better trade in your 64GB iPad 2 now — US$769, available in December 2011. That our else you need a special relationship with Analog Santa Claus. (Can I actually please have a chat with Analog Father Christmas?)

One downside: it doesn’t play Angry Birds. But you could make a sound like a flock of angry birds – which, by astounding coincidence, is also how I’d describe CDM comment threads earlier this week. Have at it:

http://moogmusic.com/products/500-series/500-series-ladder-filter

Among a volume of reactions via Twitter, email, and comment, Marc Doty, who is featured in the brief teaser video for the Animoog, responds to today’s earlier article. Apart from taking issue with what I expressed about the iPad, it’s worth noting that he has some criticism for software synthesizers and MIDI controller keyboards, both of which are also regularly-featured topics on CDM (and yes, I’ll join him in some of those criticisms / limitations):

I’d just like to point out that I’m a musician with an extensive experience of synthesis, and especially analog synthesizers. I am a major proponent of using synthesizers as musical instruments where there is a physical interaction between the user and the device. I spent over a decade programming synths with sequencers and presets, and abandoned all of it so that I could physically interact with synthesizers and be expressive with them… make intentional choices which reflect the music I intend to portray. Software synths, thus far, have put a lot of barriers between the expressive physical musician and the device making the music, which is why I’ve basically had little time for them.
When you see me ::ahem:: “looking ridiculous” in the video, what you’re seeing is my honest and heartfelt response and excitement about the really startling expressive capabilities of the Animoog.
To be honest, I think your gripe is ridiculous. As a person who is absolutely BENT on expressive physical experience, let me just tell you that the “useless” iPad provides an insanely expressive and potentially creative interface. As an exclusively key-pressing guy, I am saying this.
While you go on and on about how stupid the interface is, you should know that these keys that you’re so willing to immediately replace with a shitty MIDI controller (and thereby totally ruin one of the best aspects of this app) are based on a design by Bob Moog himself… the MTS keyboard. He worked for years to build this extremely expressive keyed device for John Eaton. The result was something really special, but never marketed to the public. The physical interface of the iPad allows for the same intentional level of control that existed in the MTS, and it WORKS. In addition to being able to control a stunning variety of aspects of the sound with the keys alone, you also have access to the x/y wavetable, which has it’s own expressive capabilities. I am absolutely baffled as to how you could dismiss the iPad as a lame interface with all of these functional capabilities.
You will NEVER see me playing a soft synth with a stupid plastic shit MIDI keyboard or some TRULY ridiculous knob-twiddlers filter-sweep generating device, but you will definitely see me playing an Animoog next to a Minimoog in live settings, in videos, and more. Is it because they both say “MOOG” on them? Not remotely. Is it because they have really anything in common at all? No, not remotely. It’s because both of them are extremely expressive and great sounding musical instruments.

I don’t want to editorialize further in this response except to say that it was not my intention to imply that Mr. Doty’s reactions to the software were what I was criticizing, but the mode of interaction necessitated by the design of the iPad, as seen when the form factor is visible but the user interface is not. It’s worth noting that because the video I used as illustration was intended as a teaser, the camera angles intentionally hid that touch interface from view. These were certainly not a commentary on Marc Doty himself, whose work I respect.

You can read the rest of what I wrote:
Moog’s iPad Synth Arrives, Looks Great, But is iPad (and Moog) Hype Crossing a Line? [Editorial]

Naturally, we’ll continue this discussion, not just today, but on an ongoing basis.

(Update – for the record, I’m now in touch with Marc, and glad for it! I think we have a lot to talk about here, and I’ve loved his video series in the past. I’m hardly staking out an extreme position here; I like the app, like exploring the potential, and had some criticisms of the marketing and the constraints of the platform. I’m glad we got to hear Marc’s side of the story, too.)

Moog Music’s synth Animoog is out today. Synthtopia gets full credit for being first; James concludes with the question “time to buy an iPad?”:

Moog Animoog – The ‘First Professional Synth For The iPad’?

I’m looking forward to playing it and having some time to work with it, and fully expect to make some actual music with it, which is the whole point. I can already see that it has some interesting ideas, and it seems an eminently sensible approach to iPad synthesis. It builds on Moog’s software models of their filters, delays, and whatnot, but exploits the iPad’s touch design by assigning morph-able timbres and polyphonic pitch shift to the X/Y pad of the iPad. The results should be terrific fun to play with, and I don’t think I have to test it to assume it’ll be worth a dollar. In fact, given the pricing of computer soft synths, I expect it’ll be worth $30, too.

Significant points: unique synthesis, MIDI in/out support (even so-called “virtual MIDI” with other iOS apps reportedly works), and polyphonic operation, all at an absurdly low price.

http://www.moogmusic.com/products/apps/animoog

Moog video tour

This is already looking like absolutely the sort of synth you’d hope Moog would release. It has some characteristics in common with their hardware, it uses code that we’ve already heard producing great sounds in the Filtatron app, and it also remains different from their hardware, tailored to the iPad. Centering it around an X/Y plot for control is also fitting, as that was the central innovation around with the Minimoog Voyager was built as the modern-day successor to the original Minimoog.

Wired has a review (see video); Moog has posted sound samples, below.

Wired’s Michael Calore concludes:

WIRED A varied instrument capable of both subtle and wild sounds. Excellent sound quality. Plenty of presets to explore. Hours of fun, even if you’re not very musical. This is what the iPad was made for. On sale for $1 — which is a steal, people — for a limited time.

TIRED Advanced features are quite complex, and you’ll need to RTFM. Keys are tiny — you can make them bigger, but that reduces the range of notes. And you thought it was tough to wrestle the iPad away from the kids before.

Moog Debuts an iPad Synth From the Outer Limits

Animoog by moogmusicinc

Here’s where I start to lose the plot. It’s only my opinion, but I imagine I may be giving voice to some other folks who feel similar frustrations. My concerns are partly about Moog, but largely about the growing hype cloud around synths for the iPad.

I think it begins here: something about the video above sets my teeth on edge. It’s not entirely Moog’s fault, but it means it’s time for some reckoning with this whole, uh, iPad thing.

In short: the app is sonically terrific, but it’s past time to properly evaluate the usability of the iPad. And saying this is the first “professional” synth, or that you need a synth from Moog just to make music on an iPad, simply isn’t fair.

The iPad Shares Some PC Strengths – and Failings

The iPad clearly deserves credit for what it does beautifully. I spoke to a major music software pioneer last month in San Francisco who shall remain nameless, and I talked to him about why he was so excited about the iPad. He cut straight to the crux of the matter: by allowing you to touch the interface, you more directly interact with a software instrument. (I’m paraphrasing. I think he said it better.)

Here’s the thing: the iPad is then a better version of a software synth, but not a better version of a hardware instrument. It’s a different beast, but it is on some level an evolution of software. (I would argue this is why my ongoing criticism and praise for the iPad, whether or not you agree with it, has been consistent. I was initially concerned about software lock-down or consumption-focused applications because I was judging the thing as a computer – and likewise found things like MIDI input and output equally useful. That is, I’m certainly biased, but I try to be at least consistently biased.)

And as a result, something about the teaser video above looks horribly, terribly wrong. The modern Moog Music is the brand that, more than any other, more than any boutique modular vendor or blog or synth builder or eBay find, has stood for the beauty of hardware design. This is wrapped up with lots of mysticism among their fans about the sound of analog – some legitimate, some not, some misunderstanding the role of digital circuitry in making analog gear work, and some very real. But more than anything else, it’s about the value of designing hardware that integrates sound-making with physical control.

Having spent the better part of the summer having design discussions about what individual knobs should do, I can tell you first-hand that designing hardware is radically different from designing software. I enjoy each uniquely for this reason: software lets you do anything; hardware forces you to make choices.

If we had simply fetishized beautiful Moog gear with its wooden endcaps and such, then this criticism would be unfair. But I’m assuming it isn’t just nostalgia that makes us appreciate those designs.

Framed by that beautiful gear, artist Marc Doty looks frankly ridiculous tapping away at a screen you can’t see. It looks wrong for two reasons: one, because you know that the experience of the Moog hardware is so very different, and two, because the effect of playing the iPad is somehow incongruous, too.

Now, obviously, our friends at Moog I’m sure aren’t suggesting that we switch from their hardware to iPads. But it’s worth saying why I think the two things are so different, because in the celebration of the cheapness of software, and Moog’s own marketing blitz for their new app, it might otherwise get missed.

Tap, Tap, is This Thing On?

Of course, computers look ridiculous. We all know this. Seeing someone behind a computer is a problem precisely for the reason that watching someone play a video game is ridiculous: the human is involved in an essentially abstract activity in which physical motion only makes sense with visible feedback from a screen. People repeat this criticism to me when I see them the way that people repeat greetings like “Good Morning.”

Illustration:

“Mornin’!”
“Hey, you doing?”
“Pretty good, you?”
“Can’t complain.”
“Weather’s nice today.”
“Yeah, winter’s coming.”
“How’s your work going?”
“Busy.”
“You know the problem with computers? They lack the kinetic experience of connecting a physical gesture to a sound, because of the natural abstraction of software. The keyboard/mouse interface paradigm introduced in primarily with the 80s Macintosh and copied from the XEROX PARC GUI research was never intended for musical use. The convenience of the computer is unassailable, but we have this fundamental interaction model problem. Audiences are therefore un-engaged in laptop performances, because all they see is a person behind a glowing laptop screen with the Apple logo. They could be checking they’re email.”
“Yup. Laptop music sure is f***ing boring. Guess you’d better by a f***ing fader box for fifty bucks. So, see you tomorrow?”
“Ciao!”

The problem is, tablets (okay, iPads, since that’s all anyone at the moment is buying), while they look different than computers, can also look just as absurd. Somehow, they’ve escaped this criticism, perhaps because of their newness. Well, dear iPad, it ends now. The laptop has stood up to these complaints, and we know why we use them anyway. We make fun of them, and they’re tougher for it, and we still love them. Now it’s your turn. We may still use you, but you’re going to have to play with the grown-ups now and start to answer how wildly un-musical and un-usable your plain glass screen can be.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m fully aware of my own checkered past. I spend large amounts of my time looking silly. (This extends to a great many things in my life, but let’s focus for now on how stupid I look a lot of the time making computer music; lest this post become the size of Wikipedia.) I’ve spent years looking silly and strange using a laptop, since I first played with a computer in 1993. I did it enough that I knew, each time I heard someone reflexively complain about musicians “checking their email,” I was exactly the sort of person they meant. I have seen the enemy, and it is me.

But I have enough expertise in looking stupid to have a sinking suspicion that we must be very, very fast approaching the day where we start to (rightfully) make fun of the iPad, too.

This is not to say you should sell all your computers and trade them in for modular synths – though I do know some people reach that conclusion. I think software is a wonderful thing, in case that wasn’t blatantly and painfully obvious. It allows us greater flexibility of use, and the ability to create sounds you haven’t heard before.

The iPad is a terrific, new marketplace for such synths, because of a voracious consumer base and easy distribution. I doubt the Moog synth would single-handedly motivate an iPad purchase: you either want one or you don’t, and if you don’t, there are so many other ways of making sound I seriously doubt you’ll be genuinely missing out. If you do, you’ve probably already loaded up with other synths, and this one could provide extensive good times. And that is a good thing.

The danger is, in the understandable enthusiasm for embracing this market, we might lose sight of the fact that the iPad shares a lot of the same problems as the computer. To be fair, you can connect MIDI input and output to the Moog app, thus adding more tangible control. And X/Y touch works very well for continuous control, on the iPad as it did, once upon a time, on touch sensors on early Buchla synths.

But Moog, uniquely and more than any other iPad developer anywhere, had better start to think about how they will distinguish between the message about their iPad app and the rest of their hardware, especially since their hardware costs a lot more than 99 cents – and rightfully so.

I really wasn’t joking earlier today when I said I’d trade in my iPad to have a Moogerfooger ClusterFlux instead.

To be clear: the Animoog app benefits greatly from X/Y touch navigation, and you can replace the keyboard with MIDI input to make it far more playable. The issue is simply that what you wind up with is a different – if also powerful – experience from what you get from Moog hardware. And the actual programming outside of the X/Y pad can still be tricky on the iPad’s screen, which has been the ongoing issue with mice on computers.

Good Times Ahead

The big picture is brighter than the iPad alone. Musicians are finding ways of keeping their laptops onstage, but focusing on their performance – of instruments, of controllers, of vocals. Computers themselves can disappear, without losing their flexibility, as we saw with DJ sniff’s display-free Mac mini rig. And the same embedded technology that powers the iPad is finding its way into other tools that are more musician-friendly, even if they lack Apple’s magical, consumer-inspiring tech. Chris Randall’s Beepcat project proposes using the BeagleBoard embedded platform as open hardware for distributing all the power of software synths, without the clunky computer. (More on that soon.)

The iPad, too, can be a useful tool, so long as we appreciate and work around its limitations, as we’ve learned to do with the computer.

This is, of course, the beautiful thing. It’s not about whether you choose analog or digital, iPad app or Ableton Live on Mac or Pd patch running on Linux, hardware or software, knob or switch or touch ribbon or Theremin. We have a wide spectrum of possible choices. There’s great experimentation on the iPad, and the best way to appreciate that experimentation is to realize how many people are tackling it, in many different ways. The iPad synth developer is given a radically imperfect device with all sorts of problems; that’s what makes their solutions so interesting. Because the iPad looks so silly, it’s important to make it sound really, really good, just as the mouse and keyboard and office machine rig that is the modern computer has been transformed by software that can make you love the thing.

First ‘Professional’ Synth?

So, on that note, one final criticism. I’m disappointed that Moog marketing chose the phrase “First Professional Synth Designed for the iPad.”

Yes, this is the sort of thing marketing people do all the time. But it’s no less unfortunate. And I thought it was a bit funny to see in comments on Synthtopia’s excellent preview people saying that they were excited about it because it came from Moog.

Don’t assume that for a second. Assume the opposite: the Moog name means it better be damned good, or you should get your pitchforks. (That’s even truer given that the Moog brand was in the hands of some less-than-stellar owners once upon a time.) We love Moog the way we love the New York Yankees – we love their achievements, and we’ll spend the extra money, in order to celebrate those victories – and be equally savage if they don’t live up to their name. My sense from the people I’ve talked to at Moog is that they’re aware of these expectations, and the expectations, not the assumptions can be what’s motivating.

Independent developers have done some fantastic work in iPad synths, work that obviously influenced the creation of the Animoog. Implying their work was somehow not “professional,” when this synth is built on that work, is insulting.

I’m not holding a grudge here, because the people I know at Moog are uncommonly supportive of the work of other creators. It’s the Moog marketing department’s job to say their thing is the “only” or “first” pro tool. It’s my job to say it’s not, and to pay just as much attention to developers you’ve never heard of as the ones that have. And I know when people feel I’m not doing that job well – whether I think that criticism is fair or not – I hear about it. (Oh, do I.)

We love the Moog name, we put it on t-shirts and drink beer with it on the label and get tattoos and go to festivals named after it because we love the designers who built them, and the feeling of using their designs, and the sounds they make when we plug them in, and the music we produce together with and made for people we love.

Apple? Moog?

Just a brand.

And in the end, if we’re willing to pick up the thing and look really silly tapping away at a piece of glass, we’ll know that the software is very, very good, indeed.

Now, let me update my iTunes credit card information.

Since CDM doesn’t have an editorial board, and this is just me talking, we really do welcome your feedback. Am I pulling too many punches, and you want to go further? Do you disagree, and want to write up an op-ed? Fire away in comments, and if someone would like to write a response / rebuttal, we’ll publish that here or link to your own site. Also, if you think I look silly, you may feel free to call me names; I’ve only ever deleted really rude comments. -PK

There’s a new analog Moog effect in town. So who better to tell us about it and get us some hands-on time than Moog Music’s Chief Engineer?

Moog’s next Moogerfooger, the Cluster Flux or “MF-108M” if you want to sound more serious, promises to be a versatile analog effect processor. It’s a flanger / chorus / vibrato unit with loads of modulation, meaning you can either go the classic chorus/flange route or go further out with your sound sculpting. Mono in, stereo out, all-analog signal path, coming soon at US$599 list (street should be lower).

That’s the unit. But I often find it’s most interesting to talk to the people who actually design the gear. At our Handmade Music event, presented with Moog and curated by myself and Wilco’s lead keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen, we had gathered a bunch of makers of musical devices, from independent one-off production to, well, Moog. Getting to talk to each other was a real gift; makers confessed what attracted them to electronic music instrument making, and the trial and error necessary to make something. (Yes, there are even trials with experienced engineers at mighty Moog.) Videos of all of that will be appearing in the coming days.

Cyril Lance is Chief Engineer at Moog. He’s the guy who’s led a lot of the work behind the MF-108M and many other recent Moog Music inventions. When he talks about the Cluster Flux, it seems he can barely contain a certain glee at why he’s excited to produce it, and what he believes makes it special. And we had a blast with him, not only talking Moog but playing with everything else in our Handmade Music Lounge.

This isn’t a review; it’s a chance to listen to one of the makers of the box talk directly about why it makes him happy. I look forward to getting a Cluster Flux when it’s ready. Our impromptu sound is, not surprisingly, less-than stellar. So, I asked Moog Music to record for CDM some exclusive audio snippets of the Moogerfooger in action – totally dry, just a Moog guitar, the MF-108M, and an amp. Sounds included via the CDM SoundCloud account below:

Moogerfooger Cluster Flux MF-108 – Exclusive Demo Sounds by cdm

Otherwise, you’ll have to take my word for it: whether this box is for you or not, I have to say, it sounds really brilliant. I spent a big chunk of the afternoon with our MeeBlip open source synth hooked up to the Cluster Flux, and I could get used to the combination. (Glad we could share the MeeBlip with Moog, too!)

Coming soon: videos of some of the other folks we shot at Mass MOCA, conversations about making, and a broader chat with Cyril about what it’s like running engineering for Moog (and, incidentally, why he’s excited about the DIY movement, even if it might make things that compete with Moog’s own offerings).

More on the Moogerfooger:
Moogerfooger Cluster Flux: Flanger + Chorus + Vibrato + LFO; Pricing and Availability Details [CDM]

Coming Soon: The Moogerfooger MF-108M Cluster Flux [Moog Music News]

And some specs/features (most illustrated in the video above):

LFO waveforms: Sine, Triangle, Square, Saw, Ramp and Random

MIDI in, for control of Delay Time, Range, Feedback, Output Level, LFO Waveform, LFO Rate, LFO Amount and Mix

CV control of Delay Time, LFO Rate, Feedback, LFO Amount, Mix

LFO sync to MIDI Clock or Tap Tempo

Send/Return Insert for external processing of BBD feedback loop

Configurable Stereo Out

Spillover mode, for “drones and other feedback effects” (actually, didn’t get to play with this one, so we’ll have to do that in the review … I love me some drones.)

Delay Time, Mix, and Feedback configurable in Chorus

Wide-ranging LFO rate (yeah, this bit is a lot of fun)

Bi-polar feedback for flanging, even or odd harmonic emphasis (again, lots of fun, got to play a little but hope to play more)

Full details on the Moog site; more to come.

“Bi-polar feedback” sounds a little bit like Web comments, so it’s worth saying this: I heard the feedback loud and clear that you’d like to see a wider variety of coverage of this kind of gear. We’re on it. It takes some time, but I’d absolutely love to see this kind of coverage — looking in-depth at the gear and talking to the maker — of more devices. And whatever our name may or may not imply, that includes hardware as well as software, analog as well as digital. (Analog and digital circuitry coexist in most gear these days in some sense – certainly, you can find something digital in almost anything analog since the year I was born, so our name lets us do whatever we want.)

When musical traditions meet, handled by people with real mastery of their technique, wonderful things can happen. That can be true of master instrument builders, for one. I got a chance to hear the sounds of the Moog Lap Steel Guitar in June while meeting with the folks from Moog Music. It’s an incredibly-delicious instrument, both in terms of how it’s engineered as a guitar and in bringing the filter from the Moog synth, now itself a tradition.

And you thought bluegrass and synthesis had nothing to do with one another. Think again. -Ed.

The history of musical instruments and of music itself is a story of the search for ever-greater tools for expression, and of an ever-deepening well of ideas to express. Combining innovations by instrument makers from around the globe (and across decades and centuries) with musicians who take a similar approach to their art is bound to produce music that displays a welcome hybrid vigor.

A prime example of this is Billy Cardine and the Moog Lap Steel. A bluegrass virtuoso who has performed everywhere from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Ryman Auditorium and Bonnaroo, he also studied in India and will perform at the upcoming Bangalore International Music Fest with chitravina master Ravikiran. [Ed.: the chitravina is an ancient Indian instrument dating back at least two millennia. It's a fretless string instrument, and can itself be seen as a precursor to slide instruments in places like Hawaii - it's played in the same way, with a slide. Just dig those 21 strings. -PK

Billy was instrumental (pardon the pun) in the development of the Moog Lap Steel and played a prototype at its debut at Moogfest 2010 (see video, below). Combining the unique expressive qualities of the lap steel with the innovative string control abilities of the Moog Guitar – adding an onboard Moog filter – results in an instrument with incredible expressive potential.

And since there is a CV (control voltage) input for external control of the Moog filter, why not bring some modular synthesis into the mix? Against a backdrop of synth drones and arpeggiations, with a sweep of a pedal the MakeNoise René sequencer can be brought in to modulate the Lap Steel’s filter cutoff frequency. The René has two independent clock inputs. In this video (top), only one of them is synced to MIDI clock, resulting in some nice, subtle glitchyness.

Bring this to life with Billy’s unique style… the results… the expressive vigor of hybrids.

And More Sonic Experimentation – With a Fiddle

In another example of electronic expression in unexpected genres… Casey Driessen, violinist with Bela Fleck, the Sparrow Quartet and others visits the ExperimentalSynth Studio to check out some Moogerfooger effects processors.

Ed.: For a change of pace, I have to also embed here a preview Chris shot for the workshop he was teaching for the Moog Foundation. You get some computers here. And actually, I’m impressed by the sense that, in some sense, it doesn’t matter – this Mac laptop could easily jam with the violin, with the banjo, with the slide guitar… That’s important. Working solo in the dark hours of the night is terrific. But it means you can also play – really play, not just get lost in some chaotic soundscape – with friends from a range of musical traditions. -PK

More Experimental Synth:
http://www.experimentalsynth.com/

Moog Music has made official the launch of the Moogerfooger MF-108M Cluster Flux. Leaked specs went out yesterday. I was editing a book; hopefully you were doing something less work-like, such as sipping beers aside the beach with your iPhones completely powered down and stowed. But now that it’s official, we know full specifications on the hardware (below), and pricing and availability. The Cluster Flux will list for US$599; expect lower prices street. You’ll be able to get it third quarter of this year.

Why is the Cluster Flux worth leaking? Moog already has a lovely line of analog Moogerfooger effects units, but the Cluster Flux is a unique flanger / chorus / vibrato / modulated effect unit. It promises to do the usual sounds those features entail, but loaded up with hardware controls, it can do more, too, says Moog – like a “wider range of modulated delay line effects” more. And in usual Moogerfooger fashion, you get a full complement of CV and MIDI controls, too.

Two other observations: first, the design of this will look familiar to those of you who have used Moog’s iOS app. Second, Cluster Flux to me sounds more like a Metasonix product name than Moog. Actually — no, then it’d be just Clusterf***, and one of those knob labels would require you to shield youngsters’ eyes. And there would be a tube stolen from a rotting Soviet submarine, not what the Moog press release describes as “state-of-the-art all-analog circuitry.”

I’ve been waiting some time for a Moogerfooger to move from “nice to have” territory into “have to have.” And for those of us on a budget, who can’t fill up our studios with Moog hardware the way the company’s NAMM booth exhibits do, that means being choosy. This one could be the one, looking at the specs. I’ll reserve judgment until I get to play with it.

The specs (copying and pasting; I hear editor-sent attack dogs scratching at the door and actually need to run for it so they don’t savagely tear off my limbs — catch you later):

The MF-108M Cluster Flux is more powerful than traditional chorus/flange effects offering musicians the added modulation of multiple LFO waveforms: Sine, Triangle, Square, Saw, Ramp and Random, to create many kinds of new modulated BBD Delay effects. MIDI IN allows control of Delay Time, Range, Feedback, Output Level, LFO Waveform, LFO Rate, LFO Amount and Mix. Additional features include:

· The ability to sync LFO modulation effects to MIDI Clock or Tap Tempo
· The ability to control Delay Time w/ MIDI Notes for “tuned” flanger comb-filter effects.
· CV control of Delay Time, LFO Rate, Feedback, LFO Amount, Mix
· Send/Return Insert for external processing of BBD signals.
· A second output configurable via DIP switches for different types of stereo outputs
· A Spillover mode allows for creation of interesting drones and other feedback effects.
· Control of Delay Time, Mix and Feedback in Chorus setting for extreme chorus effects
· Bi-polar feedback design creates Flanging effects w/ even or odd harmonic emphasis.
· Wide-ranging LFO Rate for very slow to audio rate modulation
· Input/Output Level controls for use w/ wide range of devices.

Readers are already pointing to rival gear from maker Eventide. It’s an apples-to-oranges comparison in some ways — but, then, sometimes you want an apple, sometimes an orange. I hope we’ll get to cover more soon from both these vendors.

Moog made the scene, indeed. In this birthday week for Bob Moog, here’s a gallery looking back at the man and in advertisements, the Minimoog, the keyboard that shaped so much of synthesis to this day.

I could say more, but the images already say so much. Indeed, it seems we’re long overdue for a resurrection of this kind of romance with synthesis and electronic music technology. As I’m also editing remembrances of Max Mathews – a digital counterpart to Moog’s analog breakthroughs – I’d love to have someone do an image like the one on top for Max.

These images are also a reminder of how important the Bob Moog Foundation Archives are. Aside from being the source of these images, BMFA are working hard to get an accurate historical record of Moog and his circle. Moog’s legacy can easily be a catalyst for better understanding all early electronic music history, particularly in the US. Their work is essential and deserves our support:

The Bob Moog Foundation

The Foundation this week unearths an essay from 1951, as Moog writes – for college admission purposes – about what had already impacted his interest in science and learning, at age 17. Thank the Bronx High School of Science, for one.

I’ll let the rest of the images speak for themselves:

http://www.moogfoundation.org/
Supporting the Foundation

All photos courtesy the Bob Moog Foundation Archives, without whom so much of this history would simply be lost.

For more birthday wishes:

Synthtopia asks what you would tell Bob Moog if he were still alive.

Moog Music, via engineer Steve Dunnington, plays happy birthday for him on the instruments of his creation:

And here’s the history of the Minimoog I wrote for Keyboard Magazine last year, in which I sung one unsung hero at R.A. Moog, engineer Bill Hemsath.

Keyboard: The Minimoog at 40, and How A Legend Emerged from Spare Parts Bins

It’s hard to assemble an April Fool’s Joke involving technology these days, because actual inventions keep proving stranger than fiction. When Google created a prank involving gestures for controlling email, it was only a matter of time before someone whipped up a prototype that actually did the job.

The Moog Music company, therefore, may be asking for trouble. Their highly-entertaining polyphonic Theremin is spot-on parody, down to the “Stairway to Heaven” solo. And part of the geekier joke for Theremin players is the knowledge that the technology behind this instrument makes what they’re describing safely impossible.

But what’s impossible with conventional Theremin technology could be very possible with computer vision – even the goofy gestures in Moog’s faked video. Artist, inventor, and musician Tim Thompson has been at the bleeding edge of new music instruments for some time. It wouldn’t be overstatement to say Tim was using multi-touch before multi-touch was cool. When I shared a booth with him at Maker Faire a few years ago, he had with him FingerWorks hardware, a now-discontinued tactile, multi-touch pad, and was using it to play visuals live. In a pattern too often repeated in technology, the independent niche tool was snapped up by a larger player. In this case, that larger player was Apple – and, apparently backed at least in part by FingerWorks’ know-how and patents, Apple made history.

In a new project filmed by the superb Modulate This!, Tim works instead with touch-less control, using the Kinect to track multiple areas of expression. (Tim is using the free environment Cinder, which joins tools like Processing and OpenFrameworks as well-liked options for Kinect hackers. In this case, the Kinect support itself comes from libfreenect, the open-source drivers for Mac, Windows, and Linux.)

What he’s built, in other words, is a true polyphonic Theremin – able to play more than one line and employ more than a monophonic gesture, all without touch. The joke may be on Moog.

Read the full story on Modulate This, Mark Mosher’s all-original repository for great writing on music making.
An Exclusive First Look at Tim Thompson’s Kinect-Based Instrument: MultiMultiTouchTouch
(Thanks to Tim and Roger Linn for sending this my way!)

Part of the value of trying extreme ideas is to demonstrate not only advantages, but disadvantages. And I still find some reason to express healthy skepticism. The similarity to the Theremin isn’t accidental in the Kinect experiments. These projects also inherit the Theremin’s weaknesses. A lack of tactile feedback means it’s difficult to orient pitch or achieve precise control, without the resistance a physical object provides. Reliance on gestural control also opens the opportunity for accidental input and calibration challenges. (The Kinect fares better than the Theremin, but it’s not immune to similar problems, if for different reasons.) Taking a page from the Theremin, Tim’s physical frame makes a big difference – while it doesn’t provide tactile resistance, it at least creates a point of reference in physical space.

The Kinect also adds a new problem the Theremin didn’t face: latency. All of this means if you still like knobs, keys, strings, or even physical multi-touch (which can in certain variations provide excellent tactile feedback via deformable meshes), you needn’t worry. Your revolution may not be Kinect-ified.

But if there were one perfect design for musical instruments, we’d all play just one instrument. Instead, the history of instrument design across the world is an evolutionary explosion of different tradeoffs, different playing styles, and resulting different musical idioms. Any joke can become an instrument, just as any instrument – to someone – can seem like a joke. And that means if you’re looking for something new, you might just celebrate every day as if it’s April Fool’s Day. No kidding.

Updated: Tim offers some comments. He says what other musicians experimenting with Kinect have told me – that while it has certain restrictions as a solo instrumental controller, there’s tremendous potential for multi-user scenarios like installations. And that is itself significant (back to the question of choosing tradeoffs in order to accomplish goals). Tim writes:

Folks whose goal is to replace conventional instruments are sure to be disappointed, as you describe. You could add more detail on other goals:

Goal: using it for art installations at events like Burning Man, creating new and “casual” instruments which are unusual yet inviting and easy to play. Matt Bell ran an experiment related to that goal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQiyKFDvzkU

Goal: creating controllers which have a much larger visual appeal to an audience, who deserve performers more interesting to look at than someone hunched over buttons and sliders. That’s the reason why musicians like Mark Mosher are interested, in the same way he’s interested in the Percussa Audiocubes, for their visual appeal in performances.

Goal: provide an instrument that dancers can use in performances. I’ll be exploring this in the fall, with a choreographer friend.

Good food for thought; feel free to discuss more in comments.