A few decades is a short time in the history of instruments. But something magical is happening: the electronic instrument, the computer, is finally easily shifting into performance scenarios, into improvisation, and into bands. (The performance features Livid’s Ohm64 and Ableton Live, with sax, guitar, and drums, at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge. See a note on the rig at Livid’s blog.)

Look no further than Nicolas Jaar. In an insightful performance and conversation for MTV Hive, he reveals how he thinks about music – and puts his chops where his mouth is. Excerpt:

“I think honesty and electronic music weren’t really tied together for a while … it was more about forgetting and partying. And now everything is coming together.”

That notion of “honesty” appears to cover finding his voice, finding a performance technique, and finding musical ideas.

In my dream world, this is what MTV looks like when you turn on your television, before reality killed the video star.

We’ve had some reports of difficulty playing the video. We will hopefully get to do our own interview with Mr. Jaar soon, which we’ll make available to all.

And yes, while I enjoy watching the video, I’m very unclear what Nico means by “honesty.” It seems to be a personal take on what he’s doing in his own work, and I’d like to know more, as to me, it’s unclear. Some reader comments, rather than wanting to know more or questioning what he’s saying, instead decide to say that so much as posting this video on CDM takes away from the site’s integrity or suggest that he’s a bad person or that I don’t know that people have used sequencers in live bands before 2011. So, yes, that’s a … perspective. Carry on. I’ll continue trying to do actual research. Nico’s on tour; we’re waiting for him to get back to the US to do a proper interview, for those with more open-minded attitudes.

Renoise, the tracker-style music production host, has gotten a massive injection of customizability, scriptability, and hackability. If all you want to do is plug in some controller hardware and have more tangible control of music making, that scriptability can be nicely hidden away. But if you are ready to hack on your music app, this is some enormous news.

For that reason, Renoise 2.6 is being called even by its makers the “Renoise Geek Edition.” But if this hackability catches on, it could mean a music tool that’s more fun to use for everyone – not just scripting geeks.

2.6 has been released into a private beta for registered users, with the full release anticipated soon.

The video at top sums up why the open API is potentially a big deal for everyone. Right now, you can use a pre-built script for two-way integration of hardware like Novation’s Launchpad. As other folks get into the tools used here, though, that could (if hackers get so inspired) lead to lots of other hardware support and musical ideas.

The other big news, at the opposite end of the spectrum, is that longer samples now “autoseek.” That’s best seen in the video below, although I can put it this way – this means if your music isn’t all microsamples, you can now more easily produce and perform in Renoise.

Here’s my personal take on the 2.6 changes. Keep in mind, I’m just wrapping my head around this stuff, too, so take this with a grain of salt. But I can at least express why I’m excited about digging into this release, having followed these developments for some time:

Script everything – using a truly open API. Firefox has extensions. Renoise has Lua scripts. You can customize the user interface, manipulate musical elements in your song, control MIDI, audio, and OpenSoundControl, or actually dive in and create features Renoise doesn’t have yet. Those ready to code can use the elegant scripting language Lua, which means that – while you’ll definitely need some basic coding chops – the results are surprisingly simple and readable.

http://code.google.com/p/xrnx/

You don’t need a separate add-on product, and the API is fully documented, free, with a whole bundle of scripts and snippets under an open source MIT license. Renoise itself remains proprietary, but that means the scripts themselves are free to remix, and coders are free to distribute their work to all Renoise users.

That approach contrasts with the solution devised by Cycling ’74 and Ableton for Ableton Live. Live is not directly scriptable; the so-called “Live API” used by hackers was a set of private APIs. Max for Live provides some, but not all of this functionality, and it’s a paid add-on, so you can’t distribute your work to all Live users. On the other hand, the Lua scripting engine is just a scripting engine – it’s not the synth, sequencer, effect, and multimedia-processing platform that Max is. For some, that may actually make the simpler, more direct Lua interface more appealing; they’re just not directly comparable.

Two-way control of everything.

Using these scripting features, it’s possible to get much richer, two-way communication between control hardware and Renoise software.

That means one of two things:

You don’t care about code. No problem — grab control templates from a community of people who do care enough to hack things together. If you’ve got a Behringer BCF/BCR, Novation ReMOTE, Nocturn SL, or Launchpad, or Livid Ohm 64, you can get started right away. For everything else, watch for the community to fill in the gaps. (monome?)

You’re a coder. Dive in and make things work the way you want. What’s ground-breaking about what Renoise have done is that everything is built atop an open, extensible API for the software itself – rather than kludging together various protocols and tools, which has been the traditional industry solution (if you’re lucky, and there’s any customization at all). Renoise’s Duplex uses an object-oriented system for describing hardware and software and communicating events bi-directionally between them. It’s all built in the API, so it’s all customizable. There’s even an onscreen tool so you can mock-up interactions with hardware you don’t yet own (or haven’t yet built).

Everyone can share their work at a centralized site:

http://tools.renoise.com

OSC Support

Renoise joins MOTU Digital Performer, the open source DAW Ardour, and a host of visual apps that support full, native OSC. That means support for networked, transparent control from anywhere to anything. You can even send Lua scripts as OSC commands, so this new API is really controllable from anything.

Better Linux Support

Linux now adds DSSI plug-in support, bringing a full complement of Linux plug-in compatibility, as well as 64-bit Linux support.

More Support, Tweaks

Mac, Linux performance enhancements (especially on 64-bit Linux), and better support for hardware-based plugins (which I’m assuming means latency compensation) round out this update.

Needless to say, this is all something we’ll be covering more. Stay tuned here.

Thanks to Johann Baron Lanteigne and everyone who sent this in.

From the source:
http://www.renoise.com/about/what-s-new-2-6/

The grid is in. While the monome remains the standards bearer for hardware with grids of buttons on it, arrays of buttons are suddenly everywhere, in the commercial Akai APC40 and Novation Launchpad, and, from Livid Instruments, the Ohm64 and now the Block. I think it’s a real compliment to the monome’s creators – and the community that has authored ingenious open software for the monome – that there is this excitement around the design.

The latest entry is Livid’s Block, a compact, aluminum-and-wood controller that’s easy to carry and which weighs less than 3 pounds. It’s not a monome – it eschews the monome’s stringent minimalist design aesthetic and adds knobs on top, faders on the side. That layout has made the M-Audio Trigger Finger a blockbuster hit, so I think it could attract people who want more than just buttons. (That’s why choice is generally a good thing.) But just as importantly, the Block takes cues from the monome beyond the skin-deep. As with the Ohm64, Livid is working to open-source both the guts of the hardware and the software on the computer. The instruments are made by hand using sustainable materials and finishes, manufactured in Texas in their own shop rather than the lowest bidder overseas. The hardware itself encourages hacks and customization. These are principles championed by the monome’s Brian Crabtree and Kelli Cain, and they’re badly in need of some company. Livid, like those monome creators, is a handful of individuals rather then a big company, but they give us new hardware that embodies sustainability, openness, and local production – and that makes the monome and its principles stronger. (Livid has been crafting performance hardware and Max patches for many years.) And while this bus-powered USB MIDI device doesn’t yet support (OSC) OpenSoundControl, that could come – without sacrificing conventional MIDI connections to outboard gear when you don’t have the computer connected. (Clarification: as with the Ohm64, OSC support is not yet available but should be possible. Stay tuned.)

Basic specs:

• 8×8 backlit keypad with corresponding knobs, function buttons, and faders
• Square layout that can be used at any rotation (so the USB port lies where you want it)
• Runs a suite of apps built in Max/MSP from Livid – including a sampler, synth, sequencer
• blockEditor for customizing layouts, lights
• US$399, available November 1

I’m interested in more open software, so I’m working on making an editor in Java and would love to hear what else people might want. (SuperCollider looper? Pd algorithmic grid controller? Processing library?) These I hope to make work both with the Livid hardware’s added faders and knobs, and the monome’s more minimal design. Of course, OSC will be terrific for computer applications if that comes to pass, but I love the idea of gear that can also talk to MIDI hardware.

I really like Novation’s Launchpad, but for a little more money, you get a beautiful case, additional controls, and added flexibility, all in gear handcrafted by the maker and with an open approach to hardware and software. Without getting into a debate over the merits one way or another, consider this: you can choose. We didn’t use to have these kinds of choices in music hardware. The fact that we do now – not only the ability to choose the nameplate, but the very philosophy behind the device’s manufacture – I think can benefit everyone, users and manufacturers alike. It opens up the entire music tech industry to new ideas and new variety.

http://www.lividinstruments.com/hardware_block.php

So, you’ve been looking at that Akai APC40. And it’s appealing. It’s got lots of lights and a huge array of buttons for triggering samples or video or what have you, and plenty of knobs and faders.

Now the APC40 has some serious “indie” competition, though, in the form of Livid’s Ohm64. Let’s compare:

APC40:

• Proprietary connection to Ableton Live
• A proprietary handshake that ensures only a real APC is being used with Live
• Fixed MIDI assignments – no MIDI assignment editor
• MIDI only
• No MIDI out jacks, so you can’t use it with outboard gear
• No bus power
• 40 buttons
• Made in some factory somewhere we’ve never seen

Livid Ohm64:

• Open source editor, partially open source firmware, open source patches to connect to whatever you want
• Custom MIDI assignments, for use with whatever you want
• MIDI for now, but the chipset supports open source solutions for OpenSoundControl (OSC) in the near future – and even DMX (for lighting) is a possibility
• USB and standard MIDI jacks so you can sequence outboard gear
• Bus power
• 64 trigger buttons in a more logical 8×8 array
• “Made in the USA by humans” – with a beautifully-crafted body
• Free Cell DNA video software included

Both the APC and Ohm are class-compliant, so at least neither needs drivers to work over USB for MIDI on Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Sure, the APC is plug-and-play with Live. But just as lots of non-programmers use open source browsers like Firefox, the whole point is that the Ohm could wind up being more plug and play with more tools thanks to its more open approach.

Most important is the programmability of the Ohm64. You can make your own custom light interactions – or, if you’re not into that sort of programming, count on what may be a growing community of open source musicians and visualists doing it for you.

In fact, Livid is so committed to customization that in addition to the natural, blue, and red finishes, you can order it unfinished and stain or paint it whatever color you like.

The Ohm64 is also priced at just US$599, meaning it doesn’t cost much more than the APC40. And with future OSC support, hardware MIDI support, bus power so you don’t have to carry a dongle, fully programmable visual feedback and assignments, and open source editing software, the APC has some real explaining to do about what its long-term payoff may be.

The editor is currently built in Max/MSP with some interesting possibilities coming up in Max for Live, but I’m also interested in working on some editing and performance tools in fully open source environments. Stay tuned.

Now, mind, this isn’t a review – I’ll get my hands on the Ohm64 next week here in New York, and I’ve only had a brief encounter with the APC. But if I were a betting man, I have to say, the contest here isn’t looking like it’s in the APC’s favor.

Available now.

Livid Ohm64

http://www.lividindustry.com/culture/ blog with more videos

Updated: I should note, one issue is definitely that, in order to maintain bus power, there are some compromises. You don’t get quite as much interaction from the lights as you do on the Akai APC – I do like the APC’s lovely LED rings around its encoders. You can interactively dim the lights on the knobs on the Ohm, though, which would work nearly as well. More once I get my hands on the Ohm, and theoretically, I should have an APC for testing at some point, too, assuming I didn’t just make Akai angry. (Uh…. competition is good. Blogs are all about opinions. Don’t hurt me.)

By the way, if you aren’t convinced and think you can do better, Livid is also distributing the brains of this device – the MIDIDIY – so you can build your own creations. Other such solutions exist, but the MIDIDIY is distinguished in its ability to support a lot more contacts for doing this sort of more complex device.

http://www.lividinstruments.com/hardware_mididiy.php

Not a whole lot to see in this very first video, but it does give you a feel for what the hardware itself is like.  Update: AKAI requested that the first video in this story be removed by its author on Vimeo, so we no longer have a video to embed.

The integration between software and hardware we should see revealed more over the coming weeks. I’m hoping to get my hands on one myself in the near future; I haven’t yet.

Of course, the APC isn’t alone. I’m still eagerly awaiting the Ohm64 from Livid, a beautiful controller with a wooden body, made with care in the US. Unlike the APC, the Ohm has a customizable MIDI response — the way the hardware itself responds is programmable. And, of course, there’s still the classic monome (site | cdm tag), open source hardware with an elegant minimalist design. Custom Max control patches have made the monome a favorite, especially for those with the chops to not only use the community-made patches, but build their own – by coincidence, the monome folks just posted a link to a library of Max monome objects. For both the Ohm and monome, it’ll be easier and more powerful to integrate Max objects with Live when Max for Live ships later this year. Even the APC will get its own custom patches. And, as Hédi points out, there’s also the elegant, compact, solidly-built Faderfox, which could also get a new lease on life with Max patching.

The upshot of all of this: even if people are using the same controller, they won’t necessarily use it the same way, which is how it should be. Stay tuned.

Update: this just in – a second video of the APC, this one sent to us by our friend Stephan Vankov (tetmusic.com). We’ve seen Stephan before, tearing up a wild audiovisual remix of The Karate Kid with the crew at the CDM NAMM party last year. It’s nice to see the APC out of the trade show floors, naturally.

Look out, Akai APC40. There’s another contender in the emerging Controller With Lots of Buttons And Also Faders and Knobs and Crossfader product category. Livid’s Ohm64 combines the light-up button grid with faders, knobs, trigger buttons, and most importantly, unique customization options and a lovely wooden case. What’s unique about this one:

• High-end materials: anodized aluminum faceplate, “immersion gold-platted circuit boards” (guess that’s circuit bling), an optional wooden body (aluminum is available, as well, but wood is more fun).
• Not mass-market: hand-assembled, small-production Austin creation.
• Fully class-compliant, no drivers (also true of the APC as far as I know, but nice – and ideal for Linux, too, in case you want to run this with a netbook or a Pd-running souped-up *nix laptop)
• Open-source, customizable MIDI talkback: when you’re ready to customize just how those LEDs light up, there are included open source tools and fully programmable MIDI mapping

Bonus: it comes with a powerful, full-featured VJ app in the box, Cell DNA, though of course you can use it with anything you like.

The real story to me is the customization. Whereas the APC40 is entirely proprietary in design, has evidently limited MIDI mappings, and a mysterious mechanism for programming two-way communication, the Ohm64 is open, open source, and software-agnostic. If the open source thing catches on, that could mean a community of friendly folk thinking of smart ways to reprogram this thing for different apps. Ironically, that means that in the long run, the Ohm64 could wind up with better Ableton Live integration than the hardware Ableton chose to back – though all bets are off until we get these devices in our hands.

I would say the APC is probably more direct competition for the Ohm64 than the Monome, despite the 8×8 light-up buttons. The Monome is much lighter and slimmer, it takes a minimalist approach (no big knobs or faders), and uses OpenSoundControl in place of MIDI. The Ohm64 seems likely to appeal to those who weren’t Monome fans, and visa versa. And some lucky bastards are naturally going to own both.

But the important thing is that the Ohm64 joins the Monome in its crusade for open-source customization of a commercial product. Whatever the Ohm64 is when it ships, it’s that question of what people can do with it that may determine its real value. I have no doubt people will be reverse engineering the APC40, too — starting with figuring out how to fake the hardware “handshake” it uses so other devices can emulate it in Live. But it’ll be interesting to see how these different philosophies pan out, so to speak.

I hope to sit down with the Ohm64 as soon as they ship to Hoboken, New Jersey, across the river from me in Livid’s NYC-area offices. Stay tuned.

No pricing yet; the existing Ohm with fewer buttons is priced at US$599-699 on sale.

Ohm64 Product Page