The evolution of what we now call “DJing” is inseparable from the turntables and mixer. So, what happens when you enter the digital domain and you really don’t need to refer to either device? Many digital DJ controllers have simply mimicked those previous inventions, with virtual tables and a mixer-style layout. To some extent, they must, not only for familiarity but to even make it possible to perform the kind of tasks DJs expect.

Then again, the computer, endless shapeshifter that it is, can do whatever you like. And so we’re beginning to see mass-market controllers marketed at DJs – not just the laptop performer, but DJs and DJ software – that goes in new directions.

Novation Twitch is one such effort. New Yorker Abe Duque takes up the Road Test series for Dubspot. I rather enjoy the lo-fi video as he flies New York to Munich; I could almost imagine the entire video being shot that way. (There you go, CDMers: I now have no excuse not to shoot some video tests for y’all on my smartphone.) And, uh, yeah, been there. Maybe the most ringing endorsement for the Twitch is how snugly it fits into the carry-on bag. I’m pretty sure that’s one of the superb UDG Gear line carrying both his laptop and Twitch.

Getting down to the actual review, Abe Duque – whatever impatient YouTubers may say in comments – does a fine job of coherently covering all of the features fairly and in detail.

Highlights:

• The Twitch is clearly set up to integrate with Serato, though there’s also a Traktor overlay. I’ll be eager to see how it works with Ableton Live, though, as the layout would seem to apply nicely to that.
• Having faders double as effects wet/dry controls is a clever twist, and reveals the intention of the Twitch to focus a DJ performance on mucking around with individual songs and not just queuing, beat matching, and mixing.
• The highlight is probably the slicing control, which uniquely couples the touch strip with pads.

You begin to see how a Twitch performance would come together, with two-deck slicing and dicing and effects controls. Of course, that could be accomplished with other means, but the Twitch embodies a lot of what we’ve seen in the DIY scene and homebrewed controllers, assembling a layout that conceptually reflects all of this track-mangling in the hardware’s physical form. In fact, it’s hard not to think that that scene influenced the Twitch.

This kind of track manipulation was common both with the Akai MPC and Ableton Live. Curiously, the design of the Akai APC40 for Live really doesn’t make that sort of performance very easy, focusing instead on clip launching and mixing.

In practice, Twitch looks promising. It does face a lot of competition. For Serato alone, there are various controller options, and Serato loyalists can expect this and other control surfaces to cater to their needs. The big entry we know is on the horizon is Native Instruments’ upcoming controller and software – something the company has already revealed in some detail prior to its official release. In fact, it’ll be tough to judge Twitch without having seen in person whatever NI has cooked up, as it appears their offering could focus even more closely on the sample triggering / looping notion, again within a DJ paradigm (Traktor).

DIYers, many carrying the banner of “controllerist,” have been pushing DJing in this direction for some time, and back to its original roots, DJing has embraced more inventive ways of really transforming tracks and not just playing them. Now, as those ideas seep into the mainstream, we’ll see if the line between DJing in the sense of playing tracks – and live performance, more as you’d expect in the instrumental vein – continues to blur.
Dubspot Lab Report: Novation TWITCH DJ Controller – Road Test w/ Abe Duque

Oh, yeah, and for something completely different DJ controller-wise, see Dubspot’s take on the compact Allen & Heath Xone: K2.

FL Studio, beloved to its users by its original name “Fruity Loops,” has long had a Playlist mode that could be used to assemble simple live performances by jumping to sections of your music.

But a new alpha mode takes this mode far further. It’s still based on the Playlist, but can add clips dynamically – including Audio, Automation, and Pattern. While still in early testing, developer Image-Line has released some information about how triggering works, as well as the video above. And oddly enough, just like the video we saw earlier this week in Renoise, it employs a Novation Launchpad controller. (The impact of the monome on the market is really hard to overstate.)

More details from the developers:

Controllers

Keyboards – There are 12 Clips assignable to each Playlist Track (one octave of a MIDI controller per track)

Launchpad & Mouse – Unlimited Clips assignable to each Playlist track.

Other Pad based Controllers – Limited only by the number of MIDI note assignable pads

At the moment there is basic scripting to define extra pages on the launchpad, you’re able to define actions for buttons, among transport ones, notes & controls.

The CPU load is similar to the project as it would play normally.

Performance Mode [Image Line forums]

It’s not quite an Ableton killer – not yet, anyway, especially as it lacks Ableton’s unique Session View paradigm for working in this way. It’s even a bit short of some of the hacks we’ve seen for Renoise. On the other hand, if you’re an FL fan you should be able to make your performance plenty sophisticated – and since just trigger clips isn’t everything, you might also want to play along with an instrument or sing. And I could see this catching on. It’d be great to see something other than Ableton in live laptop performances. Variety is the spice of life.

Rating: very, very promising.

Previously (this week, no less): More Renoise Step Sequence Goodness: Launchpad + Lauflicht (Other Controllers, Too)

Thanks to Dario Lupo for the tip!

There’s a beautiful immediacy and tactile quality to hardware step sequencers. And there’s all the flexibility, convenience, and power of software.

Solution: combine them.

We’ve been following various custom creations for the music production tool Renoise – the latest being a lovely performance grid, and back in 2009, the beginnings of Launchpad grid sequencing.

You can thank Renoise’s powerful API, which allows its users to modify the way the app works with surprising ease (at least for the hack-inclined), all for free.

The latest is Lauflicht, an 8-, 16-, or 32-step step sequencer for the Novation Launchpad controller (or, alternatively, other controllers like the monome) and Renoise. What’s nice about it is, you can add as many tracks as you want, with whatever samples and instruments you want, but then trigger those steps from hardware. Now, this will appeal of course to those who want these kind of regular rhythms – I’m already anticipating some frustrated responses from our fans of non-duple rhythms and polyrhythms in comments. But if that is what you want, this looks fantastic.

The creator sells the tool for EUR24. How much that means to you is dependent, of course, on the stability of the Greek government. (Sigh.)

Side note: rockin’ domain name.
http://www.stepsequencer.net/

Via BrenMcGuire on CDM comments – thanks!

Lots more videos; check the site for the artist’s own techno tracks:

If you’ve got a whole bunch of colored lights, it seems only right to do something with them. Cacheflow sends a fun little hack with a Novation Launchpad. Of course, turning a Launchpad into a live EQ display means you can’t simultaneously use its lights to, like, play the Launchpad, but provided you have another controller, this could be a fun way to liven up your stage setup.

We looked at a free e-book on Processing last week; if you’re playing with Processing, you can now use a handy, free library to integrate this simple and elegant coding tool with your Launchpad.

The ingredients:

Music: unreleased Yo Soy Sauce tune.
plasticsoundsupply.com/​release/​yo_soy_sauce_-_juke_box/​

Built with the following components:
processing.org
tree-axis.com/​Ess/​
rngtng.github.com/​launchpad/

By the way, I’ve noticed a lot of great GitHub use for music projects. Music Hack Day Montreal even did their event planning on it. I wonder, is there a way – using GitHub itself or a hack with the GitHub API – for us all to build a little CDM community there? Git gurus, I’d love to hear from you about what you might like.

Novation has unveiled their newest product, a line of USB MIDI keyboards called Impulse. Shipping in September, they’ll run street/dealer prices of US$249.99 for the 25-key, $349.99 for 49 keys, and $399.99 for 61 keys.

This pits Novation squarely against some similar MIDI keyboards, including the M-Audio Axiom to which I gave the nod in a Keyboard Magazine round-up I wrote. (It even has a similar control surface layout.) The Novation picks up on some of the issues I noted, and adds some unique features:

• Aftertouch. Keybed quality is paramount for obvious reasons. What’s typically missing, for those who like it, is aftertouch support, available here.
• Full DAW control. Available on the Axiom but previously missing on Novation’s offering, you get 8 knobs, 9 faders and buttons, and an LCD for controlling your DAW. (Only one fader on the 25-key model, since all of that wouldn’t fit.
• Automap. It wouldn’t be a Novation keyboard without the company’s Automap feature. Whether that’s good or not depends on whether you like the functionality; I’ve tended to find it a bit fiddly at times, though the implementation with Propellerheads’ Reason is fantastic. (Hosts are a big part of the variable here.)
• Pads that do more. This one’s rather interesting: you get drum pads set up to do arpeggios, rolls, and Ableton Live clip launching. You could do that with any pads, but neat to see it on the keyboard, and I’m curious to learn more about the specific implementation.

My only regrets? The basic keyboard still fits into more or less the same category as what we’ve seen – possibly a worthy choice if you’re new, but probably not if you already have a controller keyboard. That may be what sells and what people want, so I don’t begrudge these companies making keyboards like this, and the cost is pretty incredible. I just long for some variety – which may mean looking to higher-end custom jobs rather than mass keyboards.

And I can’t really say I’m in love with the styling, either, to say the least. I’ll have to see it in person, and your taste may absolutely vary (you don’t need me to tell you what you like); I just would love to see something that’s both conservative and modern, not either bland or tending to be garish. (This just looks sporty in the way those gaming PCs do to me.) Again, custom keyboards may be the only route; watch for some coverage of that soon. (But seriously, Novation — a lot of folks I know really liked your previous styling.)

The product:
http://www.novationmusic.com/products/midi_controllers/impulse/

Video and more pics:

dj sniff, aka Takuro Mizuta Lippit, has been a leading figure in experimental turntablism and experimental music in general. Following studies in New York and Tokyo, he’s been a key artist and curator in the scene, as well as a top practitioner of turntable technique that pushes the envelope of what the record player can do. I got to spend some time with him in the basement of STEIM, the cutting-edge “electro-instrumental” research center in Amsterdam, as he jammed on his rig.

Combining a computer running Max/MSP with interactive physical control and conventional scratching and mixing, Taku’s rig is a kind of hybrid meta-instrument, a one-man ensemble of sound. In our video, he first gives us an extended improvisation. It was literally just him messing around when I happened to flip on the camera; this flows out of him both as a soloist and with other musicians (including acoustic instrumentalists). Then, he walks us through that gear.

Some of what you’ll see, apart from the obvious turntables and a one-of-a-kind custom device of sniff’s own creation:
Mac mini
Cycling ’74 Max/MSP (you can’t see it, but via his custom patches, it’s doing the sampling)
Stanton SCS.3m Controller
Novation Dicer DJ Controller (the little, triangular device propped on the edge of the turntable)
Foot pad

The “Crossfader Trigger Sampler” is the heart of the rig, what Taku says he had to learn to play. It’s powered by a PIC18F microcontroller, though these days you might well choose a different option. (The device was designed in the pre-Arduino days.)

Take a look:

I’m listening now to dj sniff’s album, titled simply ep. It’s actually nearly a full hour of music, perhaps best described as experimental turntable jazz. I love Taku’s inscription on the back, from the liner notes, as it says a lot to me about the relationship of performance and recording media:

“With every scratch, our memory of a past is suspended and we hear and here the now.”

dj sniff is curating and playing STEIM’s PATTERNS + PLEASURE festival next month. We’ll be in Amsterdam, and will be doing a Handmade Music call; more on that shortly. I just hope I can fight through jetlag and make some music down in STEIM’s bowels.

More:
http://www.steim.org/
http://www.djsniff.com/

More dj sniff:

At STEIM in Tokyo, 2008:

Lovers of the grid for music control now get to reenact the scene in MGM’s The Wizard of Oz, stepping out of the world of black and white into one of color. The OhmRGB, the latest controller from Austin, Texas-based controller and custom hardware shop Livid Instruments, adds multicolor LEDs behind its array of controls.

We’ve already seen red, green, and yellow add color feedback on Novation’s Launchpad (and of course the APC line from Akai). The Livid piece bests Novation’s three colors with seven possibilities. For those who prefer their grids to come with knobs, faders, and crossfader, the OhmRGB has the same generous complement of controls that its (monochromatic) Ohm64 sibling does. It also has expansion ports for additional flexibility, plugs into USB connectivity and power without the need for drivers, and has extensive options for remapping lights, controls, and interaction, so it works dynamically not only with Ableton Live but any tool you like. Livid also does their woodwork and assembly in Austin, Texas – keeping the shop on-site was a wise business move, believe me.

In the top video, you can see artist Pailo do a quick demo; obviously, you could perform with this however you want. In the video below, the Livid gang explain a bit about how they’ve made the Ohm64 RGB work with Ableton Live:

This video is presented by Pailo and shows how you can use it with OhmModes, a sophisticated remote script for Ableton Live

Jay Smith from Livid has some other comments – and even those seven colors aren’t necessarily the limit:

Currently it supports 7 colors, we plan on adding more with a firmware update in the future. It has the same expansion jacks the Block [controller] has, we plan on making side cars for it later this year. Also we’ve added banking so you can save multiple mappings to the internal memory of the controller.

And here’s a video that shows why the expansion ports are cool:

Want one? Check it out at Livid Instruments:
http://lividinstruments.com/hardware_ohmrgb.php

US$699, available now direct or via your dealer.

More RGB Action!

While Livid doesn’t make hardware that can be technically qualified as open source, they have built a strong relationship with the DIY community. Their software patches, built in Max/MSP, are available under an open source license, and their hardware is well-suited to hacking and modification. And beyond the finished products themselves, they’ve got a full-blown DIY platform called Builder and have generally built a good relationship with DIYers through their shop and interaction with the community.

All of that is to say, there’s a lot happening with exploring what grid controllers can be as hardware hackers and musicians take matters into their own hands. Unlike the OhmRGB, you can’t easily go out and buy one of these at the moment, but it’s fantastic to see the rainbow (ahem) of control experimentation out there.

Thanks in particular to Mutis Mayfield, aka Mudo de Nacimiento, who helped remind us of some of the major RGB grid efforts to date. Mudo himself is working a project, seen in the image below.

Clarification/correction: Mudo adds some notes on that project:

I had to say that the project in the picture wasn’t mine, to be exact I’m part of the project as a free-lancer taking the task of community management and concept designer for the software implementation with third party softwares.

This project started as a revision for the Octinct from Jonathan, Owen and Jordan whit the aim to give a Octinct unit to some artist at Hangar.org over workshop over the Sonar(matica) 2009 (these workshops were free admitance) but it was evolving into a new project (with new design for the boards) which is the one from the picture.

We expect more information on that project soon.

I have to start out with the insanely-awesome Polynome 5000. It’s about the dreamiest color controller I can imagine, a one-off monome by capricorn one, aka Los Angeles-based monome musician and inventor Colin Mann. Colin describes it thusly:

After more hours than I’d like to admit, even if I actually knew how many, I’m done. I started this, believe it or not, before the APC40 was even announced, and at the time there weren’t many products out there like it. Now, obviously it would make more sense to just buy one of those products, nevertheless, where are you gonna get an RGB monome with a nixie tube display that takes OSC commands? Exactly.

FEATURES
RGB monome (64 buttons, 64 colors)
6 slide faders
1 infrared sensor
1 touch strip sensor
4 arcade buttons (internally lit)
1 toggle switch
4 digit nixie tube display
12 button keypad
xlr microphone pass through
6 port usb hub (powered)
4 external power jacks
1 12VDC power output source

Don’t miss Colin’s huge post on the topic; see also video below.

http://www.capricorn1.net/avr/polynome-5000/

Next up, another DIY project — from artist and hacker BIM0X, the Rainbow:

Presentation of my new MIDI controller : the Rainbow.
Soft touch buttons Monome like, each one has a RGB Led inside.
64 buttons, 7 colours available. Based on midibox (www.ucapps.de)

Powered by PIC18F452. Completley independent, it doesn’t need a computer to work.
Midi and output via MIDI messages

Open source RGB grids?

Owen Vallis and Jordan Hochenbaum, aka FlipMu, have been working on their own open source project. It’s not just RGB – it’s also pressure-sensitive, a feature generally missing from these sorts of grid controllers, adding a whole new dimension of possible expression.

Owen shares some other comments, and walks us through yet more RGB and even pressure-sensitive projects:

The Livid stuff is always awesome I think. I’m all for more DIY or any open source projects. There have been a lot of RGB style button grids over the last several years, starting with the Octinct from Johnaton Guberman and Brad Hill ( <-- the original Arduinome Shield designer). The Octinct was finally made open source last year and is now being worked on by the guys at Hanger.org. There was also the RGB mini Monome by Grumpy Mike at the arduino forums (vimeo video), and also the Lumi from stanford which combined pressure and a touch screen using the spark fun RGB pads in a 4×8.

The Chronome is different (and has been taking so long) because it not only uses a Mega (hopefully allowing for expansion later), but also adds 64 independent pressure and RGB buttons. Trying to solve for noise on the ADC while lighting all 64 RGB leds was super hard to solve ….but it works now woop woop. The other major thing is that the Chronome works natively with SerialOSC from monome, and still works the exact same as a regular monome. The only difference is the Chronome also accepts an RGB message, and send an additional pressure message. This means the Chronome should work with all existing monome apps.

The Chronome, based on the open-source Arduinome project also from FlipMu, is progressing nicely. You can track its progress – and even try your hand at building it yourself – on the FlipMu site and blog (hosted by createdigitalmusic):

http://flipmu.noisepages.com/blog/
http://flipmu.noisepages.com/work/chronome/ [beta, but with loads of files for your use if you're brave]

Here are some of the projects Owen mentions:

The best resource I could find on the now-open-source Octinct project is on the monome forums:
Official Octinct Package Thread

It points at where to find the newly-released documentation, code, PCBs, and whatnot.

Also, there’s one further device that may be available commercially, though, for now, it remains mysterious. The Electrix Tweaker has specs similar to the OhmRGB, but we’re still waiting for it to ship, and have only the grainy image seen here.

So, there you have it – color is coming to grids in a big way. We’ll be watching the development of the OhmRGB, in particular, and it remains the full-color controller you can have right now. And we’ll watch these more experimental projects, too. It’s like a rainbow…

http://lividinstruments.com/hardware_ohmrgb.php

It’s easy to forget that some of the simple joys of electronic music are foreign to many lay people. Odds are, if you read this site, you’re an intelligent and well-informed digital musician. (I don’t mean to stroke my own ego, either; because so many of you are intelligent and well-informed digital musicians, you send a whole lot of the information my way that makes this site even possible.) But for all the extensive discussion, a lot of what digital musicians seek to do in their performance is simple: they want to make their work expressive and performative, and convey some part of that gesture to audiences to include them in the action.

And so it is that a video of a live mashup is impressing general audiences as much as it is enthusiasts. It’s not a complex work, but it’s brilliantly performed, and in incorporating some 39 songs into one epic mash-up of Ableton-synced clips, it presents plenty of touchstones for audience members. The ingredients: FL Studio, Ableton Live, a Novation Launchpad, and a Novation ReMOTE Zero SL MKII.

It also helps being really good, as this person is: the “mash-up” is never awkward or overwhelming, and rather than boring bar-long sync, is played live with 16th-note clips. It isn’t so out of the ordinary compared to other virtuosic MPC videos, but that’s the joy of the Web: the best players do actually get their stuff in front of lots of eyeballs.

What’s also interesting is that, because it incorporates pop songs and you can see visually what he’s doing (in a design first seen on the software for the open-source monome platform), general audiences are picking it up. A few examples:
“Pop Culture” mega-mash-up: 39 songs in three minutes [Bailey Johnson for CBS News]

The video viral “video chart” at The Guardian, UK’s daily paper

College Humor’s Biggest Thing

No less than Kylie Minogue tweeted about it. Thanks to Novation’s Chris Mayes-Wright for keeping track of this video’s meteoric rise in the past four days. Artist Relations once meant mainly keeping celebs happy; now, it includes catering to YouTube stars, which I think is a nice development!

That popularity may encourage some trolling and jealousy, but I have to say, I’ve seen just as many hard-core Ableton and monome users and whatnot also drool over this video. (Thanks to everyone who sent this in – a lot of you sure did and I’m only now getting around to it! Blame constrained time and poor Internets here on the road in England.)

If you aren’t necessarily into pop samples, though, I think this shows that even some simple performance elements can appeal. Sure, we love far-out interfaces and big visual impact around these parts, but you can also simply turn off that bar-long quantization or whip out your instrument of choice – keys, strings, voice, pads, or whatever it is – and actually play. Most people really get and appreciate that, and it’s fun for the player, to boot.

And on that profound bombshell, I wish you a very happy weekend indeed.

The question of how to build controls to fly today’s live laptop music sets – whether “DJ,” “live PA,” or something else – remains open. We’ve got an inside look at the newest entry, the most recent device to explore just what should be mapped and tactile, and what should be left behind. Amidst various look-alike mixer-and-deck controllers, it fits in with those pushing to make computer control a hybrid of traditional DJ metaphors and new computer ones.

Meet the Twitch. The result of a collaboration between New Zealand DJ software developer Serato and UK hardware maker Novation, Twitch deviates from a number of norms.

First, while made with Serato, it’s explicitly designed to support Ableton Live and rival NI Traktor via upcoming updates. That’s something we’ve seen among general-purpose controllers, but usually the main selling point of DJ-specific gear is some sort of tight integration. (That said, you will see in the specs that they promise ITCH support for Serato will be “one-to-one.”)

Second, the developers tell us they’re heavily influenced by the monome and controller hacking communities.

What you get is a do-everything controller and audio interface, all in one box. There are beat slicing features, mixing and effects, a replaceable crossfader, and touchstrips that can be used for various purposes, which promises to be flexible enough to suit a range of applications. And unlike some rivals, the inclusion of an audio interface and USB bus power could make this more practical in the typical plug-and-play gig situation. More on how the applications work in the video:

The resulting tool even carries the “controllerist” moniker promoted in the past by artist/technologists Moldover and Ean Golden.

The Twitch has touchstrips, faders, knobs, and buttons, a strange hybrid of a lot of different ideas. I’m still wrapping my head around it – and whether this will feel like a genius cockpit for music or a Frankenstein combo of other controllers. But the Twitch at the very least looks less like the result of a product planning meeting and more like exactly the sort of thing digital musicians, DJs, and readers of this site might design for their own purposes.

It also promises to be more compact. (Akai’s APC made one misstep there – unfortunately, DJ booths are too often measured in handfuls of square inches, and even those atop the flimsy plastic cases that cover the turntables.) Straight from the source:
Weight – 1.8kg (just under 4 pounds)
Dimensions – 350mm W x 275mm D x 65mm height (13.8″ x 10.8″ x 2.6″)
– not bad.

Product Manager Dylan Wood of Serato writes us from Auckland to explain how the design came about, and how it came to fruition. It’s a great glimpse both of their design thinking and how you translate a product like this to the market. Dylan says:

The collaborative design process kicked off a couple of years ago when we first started to talk to Novation. We didn’t have to have too many conversations before we realized we had quite similar ideas about where live performance and controller technology was heading. The very first time we exchanged concept drawings at a Messe show they turned out to be really similar in terms of form factor and control set, which is always a good sign. On my way back to New Zealand after the show I visited the Novation HQ in the UK and spent time with Lars and Matt from the their team to progress the idea of a new style of DJ controller forward. We had this common idea to combine the realtime live feel of Serato DJ software with the Controllerist elements that Novation are known for.

A tip of the hat has to be given to MLR and the Monome community at this point. We’d all be using community apps on the lemur (I was going through a Monome obsession at the time and was mid Arduinome 128 build). After watching endless youtube videos of performers doing amazing things with buttons we came up with the concept of the Slicer. The Slicer is like a rolling window of cue points that moves through a song in time with the music. It does MLR style loop chopping and mashing but over a whole track instead of just short loops. It gives a DJ or performer a way to cut up and re-perform their music without having to edit or sample it manually and was something that no other software is doing in the DJ context. After we’d struck on this as being a core feature for the product, we exchanged a few updated concept drawings and I headed back to New Zealand.

Being at literally opposite ends of the world made for an interesting challenge. As Lars and I worked further on the concept, someone always had to stay up to the middle of the night so we could talk on the phone and keep developing the ideas. We got Lars down to New Zealand and spent a week or so locked in an office around a table listening to tunes and bashing the design into shape.

With the software and hardware engineering talent that we’ve got at both ends we were able to dig deep into some of the new features we were adding, like the Touchstrip, ensuring that we were implementing a solid method of control. The firmware and software interaction our engineers have come up with makes the strips feel really responsive in all the different modes.

Several rounds of hardware prototypes and lots of testing with our in house DJ’s means we’ve ended up with something that feels great, even to someone used to more traditional control like turntables or CDJs. The most arduous of the real world tests devised during this process was to ensure that the Touchstrips would work really well in sweaty, live club conditions. It involved a bare touch strip PCB with a live USB connection, and a jar full of marmalade. A thoroughly English test for the robustness of the product!

The beta process has been a passionate one – as there are a lot of keen musicians and DJs at both companies there have been some fairly epic conversations around exactly how a feature should or shouldn’t work. As well as in house DJ’s we’ve also got a crack team of external beta testers that work with us on various different projects. We heavily utilize private areas of our forum for beta communication and it makes working on projects a little more community based in a lot of ways, as it’s all about conversations with real people that are actually using our products. This kind of iterative user lead feature development process can sometimes take a long time, especially when you’re working on something that is a bit adventurous feature wise, but the results are worth it as you end up with something that feels really good to use, which has been thoroughly sanity checked by real end users.

So lots of software development and plenty of hardware prototypes later, here we are. We’re really excited for Twitch to see the light of day. I for one can’t wait to see the kind of crazy button smashing videos that users are going to post up on youtube of themselves using this thing. It’ll have come full circle at that point.

Thanks, Dylan.

Dylan also sends CDM exclusive video of a stress test of the touch strip … combined with marmalade.

Full specs:

Availability: Early July 2011
Pricing: US$599.99 MSRP / $499.99 street (UK GBP 399.99 including VAT est. street)

Bundled Serato Professional – so not a limited version of the software
Tactile multi-function touch strip
“Slicer mode” for chopping up beats
Compact and portable (they do claim it’ll fit in your bag and the DJ booth – we’ll test that!)
“One-to-one” ITCH control for Serato
Aluminum top plate
2-in, 4-out audio interface
“High-quality” replaceable cross-fader
Software effect control
USB bus-powered
Mic/aux input
Switchable booth outputs (master + cue feeds)
MIDI compatible

Full details: Novation Twitch

Owing to a tradition that goes back to the first samplers and hip-hop pioneers, sampling and digital performance have become a kind of instrumental technique. You might play well, you might play poorly, but even working with samples, you can actually play.

You can look at the simple design of the monome as the hardware embodiment of digital, a reflection of an array of pixels. You can see it as an extension of Roger Linn’s MPC and other drum machine concepts. It’s probably both those things. But since the monome itself makes no sound, it’s been software that has made that design musically relevant. While the original vision of the monome was as a blank canvas that could perform any function, ultimately a community of musicians focused their efforts on expanding a single patch, creator Brian Crabtree’s original mlr. Talk to these monome players, and they’ll very likely tell you about some little modification they made last night to use in a set they’re playing tonight, because they wanted some feature or another, or a little subpatcher they borrowed from a friend to solve a problem. Add up all those little hacks, and you get evolution.

Now, descendant mlrv has evolved into a live music-making environment of its own, and not just for the monome. Version 2.0, released this week, supports monome-like controllers such as the Novation Launchpad, Akai APC, and Livid Ohm/Block, but also conventional MPC-style grids like the Akai MPD.

The word the creators use to describe the playing technique: “hypersampling.”

mlrv is built in Max/MSP, so if you have a Mac or Windows and version 5 of the software (or Ableton’s Max for Live), you can edit the patch. Otherwise, you can download a free runtime and use the patch itself for free. Pay US$18, and you get your name on the startup screen and special email news and downloads. Pay US$80, and you get limited edition vinyl from artists galapagoose and ‘%’.

The project is the work of Trent Gill, Michael Felix, and parallelogram; check out developer galapagoose playing with it live in the video at top. (I will say, though, even as I am writing on a Website, you get more out of being in the same room with a live performance.) All the details:
http://parallelogram.cc/mlrv/

The software will be available February 1, with a release party that evening for the software and music. Also, while we’ll have details tomorrow, Handmade Music will host performances by galapagoose, %, and other monome artists (alongside chip music, MeeBlippery, and laptopism) on Saturday February 5. Both events happen in New York City at Culturefix.

On February 5 with CDM, you can come at 3pm and check out an open lab to get your hands on mlrv and talk to its developers. Then stay for the party Saturday night – US$20 buys you admission, supports the artists, and nets you a two hour open bar of beer and wine recently celebrated by the NY Times’ drink critic, Frank Bruni. Full details coming in a separate post, or in the meantime, RSVP on Facebook.

Tuesday night launch party details, NYC
http://bit.ly/hmfeb5 = Handmade Music party Saturday night, complete with hands-on during the day, more live performances at night!

Finally, here’s the obligatory, somewhat amusing, preview vid: