Novation’s Launchpad, its affordable (<$200) "grid" controller, may have a big Ableton logo on it. But underneath, it's just a MIDI controller. Bi-colored LEDs, containing a red and green element for red, green, and amber output (amber = red+green), can be triggered using simple MIDI note and control messages. That means, whether you're looking forward to Max for Live or you're sequencing in a tracker or writing Processing sketches, you can use the Launchpad just like any other MIDI controller.

One of the things I thought was a major demerit for Akai was the fact that they failed to ship a MIDI implementation for the Akai APC40. MIDI implementations are the charts of MIDI messages we've had since the very first MIDI devices came out in the 80s. They're usually printed in the back pages of the manual, and even the cheapest gear has often had one.

Score: Novation 1, Akai 0. Novation has done the MIDI documentation, and then some. Its MIDI “Programmers Reference” is out even before the official Launchpad ship date. And rather than just doing a MIDI chart and assuming people know how to read it, they’ve taken the care to fully explain the way MIDI messages work, how to calculate the right messages, and how to really use this. Experts will have all the information they need, but newcomers will also find they can spend a little time and learn how to do what they want.

Launchpad Support with Downloads (see Programmer’s Reference at the bottom)
Via: Novation released Launchpad Programming Guide, and Protocol [Nezoomie's Zen Wave Blog - great read]

It’s listed as “for Max/MSP programmers,” but anyone using MIDI will want to have a look; that’s obviously relevant to far more than just Max. (In fact, there’s not a single mention of anything specific to Max in the document.)

What might people do with stuff like this? Well, as of just four hours ago, Matt DiFonzo lets us know he’s written a simple monome emulator. It’s even got a clever name:

nonome – monome emulator for Novation Launchpad

There’s some bad news mixed with the good. Even with something as simple as a grid of buttons, MIDI isn’t as friendly as it could be. I still would like to have a MIDI editor for the Launchpad so you can reassign buttons if you like — that’s a feature, incidentally, available on rival Ohm and Block hardware from Livid Instruments. Also, the documentation reveals that Launchpad uses “a low-speed version of USB,” which runs at a maximum of 400 messages per second, thus taking 200 milliseconds to update a Launchpad’s LEDs. (There are some workarounds, but they’re … more work. Clarification: Once you double up messages, though, you can get this to a more acceptable gap, and that’s for updating all the LEDs, not the latency of input messages.)

Also, here’s a hint to Novation: use a Creative Commons license for that document. That way, your users will be free to document even more ingenious solutions and friendly guides. You win, and your users win. For instance, I have the illustration here, which I should be able to do for purposes of reporting on this story. But can I write my own how-to guide using your guide? Why not make it explicit to encourage me to do so? (They list the PDF as “proprietary,” though there’s no explicit license, and I think they just mean “proprietary” as in “what we’ve done on our hardware.”)

That’s a difference between open hardware and closed hardware, but I don’t even want to belabor the point — CC licenses are something a commercial company like Novation could easily use. In fact, if anyone at Novation or Ableton would like to talk to me about why I think it’s a good idea, I’d like to extend an open invitation. I’m no legal expert, but I can explain what it means to me as a user and developer, and connect you with some of the right people at Creative Commons and the CC-using community.

But those gripes aside, kudos to Novation for getting this documentation out here. I think it’s really good news for people experimenting with grid controllers. And we’ll be looking at how all of these tools, hardware and software, fit together, and how open source development can make them more powerful.

Patchers and coders and hackers: if you’re interested in working on interoperability between all this stuff, let us know.

Part of the beauty of the iPhone from its launch date was the notion of a Mac you could fit in the palm of your hand. That makes it ironic that, for so many developers, mobile platforms in general have turned into a way to fragment software, to make it run fewer places instead of more. There’s something to be said for designing to a specific mobile device, but on the other hand, how many developers would want to restrict where their creations run? And particularly in music, isn’t the appeal of mobile creation the ability to have your tools work in more places? Maybe targeting just one gadget is the right choice for a given tool, but it shouldn’t be the only choice.

On the iPhone, the application Thump has plenty in common with a range of mobile music making tools. It’s simple but fun, a groove box with sequencing, subtractive synths, drums, and a set of basic effects, plus the ability to load your own samples and export songs.

Thump also demonstrates how simplifying sonic capabilities can produce musically-beautiful results, by focusing on the essentials and creating something with personality. Here’s a track by its creator showing off its sounds:
thump soundreel by mazbox

Well worth checking out the app on your platform of choice:
http://www.mrkbrz.com/thump/

What might not be immediately apparent is that under the hood, Thump makes use of the open source environment openFrameworks. As a result, the same code runs on iPhone, Mac, and Windows, as well as Linux. (It’s not distributed for Linux, but it could be. Hint, hint.) Creator Marek Bereza gives back, too – he ported the openFrameworks audio library to the iPhone, where it’s available to anyone.

Updated Marek notes in comments just what this means. The video below is, essentially, the same app. In place of the iPod screen, he has used a massive lattice of physical controls. A separate installation at the same show used a large touchscreen and simplified interface. And this really demonstrates what cross-platform means. Guy Kawasaki in the 80s mocked “ports” as a cheap wine. The idea is not to simply dump your code on a different platform and hope for the best – in fact, in this case, the changes from one platform to another were radical. The key is maximizing what’s essential, what really is not specific to a single device.

Physical Sequencer from Marek Bereza on Vimeo.

Creative Applications has a detailed write-up of the installation with more documentation.

If you’re interested in creating your own projects, oF has an elegant syntax based on Processing, but adapted to C/C++ coding paradigms and libraries.

I would recommend trying desktop development first as you’re learning, but when you do want to go mobile, setup is absurdly easy:

Setup instructions for iPhone

Having this as a foundation means more freedom for users and developers alike, the ability to run where you want, and a shared community of artists helping one another out. It does not mean sacrificing revenue, either – which is important, because revenue is often what enables (and encourages) developers to make new things. Here, we see a commercial mobile tool and distribution via the iTunes store, with free-as-in-beer distribution of desktop apps. But even the Free Software Foundation actually encourages charging for distribution – and to many people, the FSF is the most extreme example.

The bottom line is, you’re free to create what you want, where you want – and it doesn’t even have to have a price of free.

The use of openFrameworks is possible because the iPhone allows the execution of native code. Apple does not allow the Java virtual machine, which locks out many useful platforms and tools — including Processing. Naturally, that should not be the case with forthcoming non-Apple platforms based on Linux; more on that soon.

Thanks to Memo Akten for the tip — and for his exceptional documentation of iPhone openFrameworks development.

GPU-tiful and Cross-Platform

Updated Another framework I left out is the lovely libnui. The tagline says it all: “C++ API, multiplatform (Mac OS X, iPhone, Win32, Win64, Linux), 3D hardware accelerated GUI and more…”

On the iPhone, Intua’s elaborate Beatmaker software and David Wallin’s bleep!box have both been made with libnui. I want to single out bleep!box because of its UI – note how UI elements are simplified and scaled to the size of your fingertip. That’s something that, speaking of multiple platforms, could be equally important with touch hardware coming to Mac, Windows, and Linux platforms (some of it here already). I saw a huge fan of Windows tablets loving Propellerhead Reason on a tablet. He probably would be less enthused running Reason or Record on a touch interface; the UI elements are way too small.

bleep!box is also worth a look for the same reason as Thump: elegant UI, simple functions, and a lot of fun.

Pd, too

Pure Data, the open source patching cousin of Max/MSP, can also run on mobile devices. It’s currently powering the application RjDj, but because Pd is free, that could be just the beginning. In May, I wrote about the work being done by Hans-Christoph Steiner, who has been porting Pd even to ancient PDAs and iPods – including those, notably, without native floating-point capabilities (the kind of number crunching usually associated with sound).

Well, now Hans-Christoph is looking toward other, current-generation devices, too, kicking off with a workshop on making interactive sound on the iPhone using Pure Data. Here’s a taste:

OK, kids, you won’t believe how easy this is. Once you have Pure Data installed on your your iPhone or iPod-Touch, creating and uploading your own sound-processing and sound-generating patches is as trivial as copying a text file to your device! You’ll still need an Apple Developer License, but because Pd patches are treated as media files, they don’t have to go thru Apple’s elaborate code review — so, you can just dive right in, turning your phone into a pocket synth within minutes. In this 3-hour hands-on workshop, interactive sound whiz and Pure Data developer Hans-Christoph Steiner will lead you through all the steps.

Hans-Christoph will be talking Pd on the iPhone at a conference next month at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. That will also include Memo Akten and Zach Gage talking about openFrameworks. And for nearly-entirely open source hardware, there’s a tantalizing-looking workshop combining Android with Arduino, too.

http://artandcode.ning.com/

There’s quite a lot more to say about this, but I hope this whets your appetite.

And, of course, riding the train to Pittsburgh or your nearest university or open source workshop, now you’ll have Thump which which to make some thumping tracks on your iPhone.

jumping beans & .tape. from la bisogno on Vimeo.

What might a jar full of Mexican jumping beans sound like if composing their own ambient music? Scott Worley points us to a musical experiment by his labelmate Daniel Romero aka .tape, on netlabel yo.yo.pang!.
.tape programmed a sound environment in the free multimedia patching environment Pd (Pure Data). Contact microphones listen for the beans to jump, then use Pd’s onset detection (an analysis for transients) to trigger the sounds. Daniel reports the technique is “easy, but wholly effective.”

I’ll say – the music winds up being quite lovely, and rather than having a boring software-based random event generator, there’s something mesmerizing about watching the beans. You can download a free MP3/OGG file of the track, as well (and it sounds as though more projects may be coming):

pet-o-matic [asociación cultural la bisogno]

Descripción original en Español:

empezamos esta serie con la picante unión entre el músico Daniel Romero (aka .tape. ) y Pancho, Emiliano y Marcos, tres frijoles saltarines mexicanos

Sonidos y programación por .tape. secuenciación en directo por los 3 frijoles saltarines mexicanos micrófono de contacto + un “onset detection” en pd para disparar los sonidos. fácil pero rotundamente efectivo.

In other Pd news, the creators of the RjDj interactive/generative iPhone music app, which employs Pd patches, will be holding another sprint. This one will be located in London October 2-4.

CrudBox by Steven Litt at ITP from Core77 on Vimeo.

How much performance power can you pack in a briefcase? What if you could have a magic box that did whatever you wanted?

That’s the question asked, in various different ways, by the artists we’re showcasing at this month’s Handmade Music NYC, Thursday evening 7/16 in Brooklyn. It’s a free event if you’re in the New York area, and we’ll be bringing as much of the work to you online around the world. Full event details:

Brooklyn, July 16: Suitcase Sequencers, Handmade Loopers, APC Hacking, Shake That Egg

Facebook event/RSVP

Join the global Handmade Music group on noisepages

The projects:

Sequence everything: CRUDBOX / STEVEN LITT
The CrudBox is an original hardware step sequencer in a briefcase, which plugs into and sequences everything from cassette decks to power tools and turns them into musical patterns.

Looping hardware: LOOOP-R / RUI PEREIRA
Looop-R is a musical, visual, hardware, software instrument.

Shake the beats: EGGBEATER / TED HAYES
This wireless, egg-shaped controller lets you mash loops, control filters, and play music using live gestures.

Ableton hacking: AKAI APC40, HACKED / MICHAEL HATSIS
Live laptop fans, take note: the commercially-available Akai APC40 Ableton Live controller warped to make new musical performances possible.

Handmade Music is FREE and, as always, made possible by our hosts at Brooklyn’s 3rd Ward creative space, plus our friends at XLR8R Magazine, MAKE Magazine, and DIY marketplace Etsy.com.

Handmade Music’s Brooklyn home:
http://www.3rdward.com/handmade-music/

Handmade Music in NYC and (soon) around the world, @ CDM’s Noisepages:
http://handmademusic.noisepages.com

The PowerMate from Griffin is an affordable, very compact USB knob with glowing blue LED feedback and push-and-turn functionality (so it’s a button, too). But using just one knob may not be all that useful for control. We’ve already seen Robert Hodgin VJing with four PowerMates, but our friends Bill Van Loo and Joshua Schnable have come up with a novel solution. Using Schnable’s custom software built in Pure Data (Pd), they’ve not only mapped the PowerMate to MIDI, but using switches and the push function allow you to control four or eight channels at once using just the one knob.

At the end of last week, they offered a first look at the solution, with a basic demo in Ableton Live (though any MIDI-capable software will work), and downloadable Pd patch and manual to get you started. The patch is open source-licensed.

announcing CTRL4 + CTRL8: MIDI Control for Griffin PowerMate + PureData

Of course, if you’d rather use OSC or create an instrument right in Pd, you can do that, too, with this as a template. But if you want to get up and running with your PowerMate – even if you’ve never used Pd – this should be quite accessible.

Check it out in action in the video below. More documentation is coming.

The manual itself is written from the Mac perspective, but with any MIDI loopback tool on Windows, it should work, too – and I believe some people are even using the PowerMate on Linux. If anyone wants to share how you’re using this on another platform or with another setup, that’d be great, in a noisepages post/blog or anywhere you like – just let us know. (Documentation, suffice to say, is a huge part of going open source.)

This might be worth trying with similar hardware like the (discontinued but still available) Logitech NuLOOQ Navigator, as well. (The NuLOOQ is more expensive list, but looks like prices are as low as $30, and it adds additional controls like a ring on the top.)

Griffin PowerMate

Logitech NuLOOQ Navigator

FIRST LOOK: Joshua Schnable’s CTRL8 Powermate/PD control software from chromedecay on Vimeo.

Editing drum patterns in RjDj/Pd from Frank Barknecht on Vimeo.

If making your own musical tools seems like a lot of work, you’re not wrong. The beauty of making your own stuff is all about making your own reusable modules that help you build musical solutions more quickly. Finding those useful modules can also help people new to programming or patching.

In Pure Data, the free and open source cousin of Max/MSP, one form of these reusable modules is called the “abstraction.” It’s an object that you can stick into your creations to help build what you need without a lot of fuss.

Translation: even if you’ve never patched before, you can start making fun drum pattern makers quickly using all-free software. The folks at RjDj, who have been creating mobile interactive toys for the iPhone and iPod touch (see our interview, recent story) have also been building a library of useful abstractions. Because that library is also free and open source and built for Pd, it works with your Mac, Windows, or Linux machine.

Here’s a great starter tutorial, useful for even newcomers:
Editing Drum Patterns in RjDj

For more Pd learning (see additional tips in comments):
Be a Music Geek Ninja with Electronic Music Programming in Pd: New Book

If you create stuff with this, be sure to share with us! And it’s brand new, but feel free to come join our Pd group on the in-alpha/beta Noisepages:
Pd Group

I wish I could be in London in July, but since I can’t, hopefully some readers of this site can make it to the upcoming Music Hackday, which features RjDj and lots of other online music projects (Soundcloud, Last.fm, the music API for The Echo Nest, 7digital, more):
http://musichackday.org/

Digital technology has the power to transmit information more efficiently, to make the invisible visible, and to express new things. It can also be pushed so far to the limits of actually transmitting information to be meaningless. It can push well beyond what we can even perceive in a useful way. What’s bizarre and wonderful about Johannes Kreidler’s work is that he’s not afraid of pushing toward that boundary. The results may have only a shred of remaining meaning, or be intentionally, comically meaningless. But he’s nothing if not inventive.

Compression Sound Art (2009) [“Comments on Music – Musical Zip-Files … Time is relative!”

The video above, politically speaking, is Not Safe For Anything – where else can you bring up Hitler and Britney Spears and condoms? But the only visually tantalizing information is the brief view of a condom speaker membrane and a chest with pasties.

The creations range from:

An oven pipe imported in 1972 from Alaska to New Zealand, vibrated at 574 cycles per second using a gasoline motor. Then, in 2003, this recording was manipulated and filtered on an old atari computer using hacked software.

…to:

Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason, played 22,000 times in one second (audible only to bats).

The controversial nods and humor aside, I think this really does say something about time and data. I could tell you, but I’d need a microsecond. Let’s just avoid any mention of datamosh.

Johannes Kreidler does know how to encode information in useful, accessible ways, too, however. He’s done just that with a terrific book on Pd (Pure Data), the open source, visual programming environment in which he created works like the one above. Can’t dance to it? You can do other things with Pd, too. You can dance to it? Then, by all means, go for it:

Be a Music Geek Ninja with Electronic Music Programming in Pd: New Book

Previous Kreidler sightings:

A song made from 70,2000 samples

The stock market declines, as a song

Trackmate :: 5 ways to get started from adam kumpf on Vimeo.

The folks reading this site comprise an incredible worldwide community of creative musicians and technologists. So it’s always fantastic when we get to connect. Here’s our first experiment in doing just that with a one-day project starter to share. The theme: tangible interfaces.

The knob/potentiometer – when you get enough of them, plugged into the right things, in the hands of the right people – has given us some wonderful music. (Heck, see also the string.) Simple inventions + lots of people + creativity + experimentation = brilliant output.

Computer interfaces that make use of physical objects for input are nothing new. But what is new is easier tools for making use of them, plus emerging communities of people who are new to the idea bringing fresh ideas. So, as opposed to our usual behind-the-computer isolation, we’re going to get folks together for the first in a series of experiments in virtual, shared hacking.

June 6 (and in the days around it), we’ll have a shared online event, plus an in-person event in NYC at the wonderful New Work City, working with projects based on the simple-and-cheap, open-source Trackmate hardware+software, a tangible interface you can build for as little as US$50 in parts, including the essential webcam.

What you need: some cheap parts, a webcam, a computer, some objects to track, and some inclination – the tracking software is even already built for you.

What you can do: Apply stickers to track the physical objects, and turn any tangible real-world stuff into a musical interface. (Some coding or patching experience is recommended for connecting your interface to tools like Max or Pd or SuperCollider to make sounds, or for translating to MIDI for other tools.)

For musicians, I could imagine some really interesting possibilities. You can compose a wide variety of music and synthesized sound using nothing but a mouse as input; add a physical input with multiple points, and you lierally open more dimensions.

How to get involved:

• Building it: Parts + resources
• Join in: RSVP for the online shared event
• NYC: Some space left at the in-person event in NYC – RSVP required – plus a party in the evening. Other in-person events may get organized in other cities; stay tuned.

On Create Digital Motion I’ve written a more detailed explanation of the event, why we’re doing it, and how to get involved:

Global Hackdays: Experimenting with Cheap Tangible Interfaces, June 6

…and I’ve been adding to a blog on this project and future hackdays, which will be updated with more resources, ideas, tests, and tutorials leading up to, during, and after our first-ever global hackday:

http://hackday.noisepages.com/

By the way, apologies for completely botching our livestream of Handmade Music this week. Lesson learned: you need a reliably fast network to avoid total failure. New Work City is set up as an online-connected office, and they have a plenty-fast network, and if you follow me on Twitter I’ll be testing it the week of June 1. Readers have watched CDM experiment and learn by trial-and-error, though, and I always appreciate your support.

Also, this is not to be confused with Hack-A-Day, one of my all-time favorite places on the Internet. But let’s make every day a hackday.

Online form:

Handmade Music hits Brooklyn again Thursday night with a terrific lineup:

• Robotic gamelan instruments with the Gamelatron, created by Zemi17 and the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR) – check the video above!
• Rescued PDAs and iPods making music, with the Linux-powered ReWare project (which even allows you to run Pd on an old iPod), by Hans-Christoph Steiner – expect a box full of handhelds making noise
• Gestural Android handheld music, as I demonstrate the possibilities of the Google Android platform and G1 phone for OSC
• The Arduino-based Hard/Soft synth, designed by Gijs Gieskes and built by MAKE’s Collin Cunningham

Full project details at:

http://handmademusic.noisepages.com/

How to participate:

Online! Wherever you are in the world, you can join our live video stream:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/cdm-tv

Apologies: while a test of the connection had worked for us last time, network performance was inexplicably poor. We’ll try to work on a better solution for the future. It’s the challenge of relying on a connection other than your own.

Schedule:

7:00p Online chat with the creators

7:30p Public event starts

8:00p Performances + demos

You can also ask questions to our creators by leaving them in comments here, or the day of / during the stream by sending a Twitter message with hashtag #cdmtv. (Follow CDM on Twitter) We’ll have clips of the show available by Friday

In NYC:

FREE, at Brooklyn’s 3rd Ward, 7:30p Thursday. rsvp@3rdward.com or on Facebook

Directions

3rd Ward

Thanks to Pabst Blue Ribbon for the free beer, plus our co-organizers at MAKE, Etsy, and XLR8R.

Last-minute NYC-area projects! If you have a project you want to bring, we will have a PA, amp, and projector. We welcome those last-minute projects that manage to come together. Just bring it by and find me at about 7p.

In Your Neighborhood:

We have folks interested in starting up Handmade Music around the US and internationally. Sign up via Google Docs if you have any interest in helping organize (no commitment) and expect information in the next couple of weeks.

David Zicarelli has announced that Cycling ‘74 is discontinuing Max/MSP Pluggo-based products, meaning the company will no longer develop Pluggo, Mode, Hipno, or UpMix. More significantly, this means an end to the use of Max/MSP as a way of developing plug-ins; David writes that there will be “no further development on … their supporting technology.” It’s the supporting technology that Max patchers have relied upon to make their own instruments and effects for VST/AU/RTAS Mac and Windows hosts, and its demise to me is the real news here for the Max community.

The article touts the upcoming availability of Max for Live as an alternative. Now, I think Max for Live is a very exciting technology – I’m finally editing some videos and discussion with Jeremy Bernstein, so we’ll have a preview next week. The flipside is:

• Less compatibility. Ableton Live is just one host. Pluggo support RTAS, VST, and AU on Mac and Windows, so you could use your Max patches as plug-ins in tools like Logic or FL Studio, too. (Ultimately, having to figure out how to support all those things was part of Pluggo’s demise, but the desire to do so still holds.)
• No free runtime. Cycling ‘74 has been clear in that Max for Live will be a paid product. So, whereas a developer could create a Pluggo plug-in with Max/MSP and deploy it for free use anywhere, now you have to assume that the person using your plug-in will buy both Live and (separately) Max for Live.

For an example of why the Pluggo technology has been important, see examples like Ms. Pinky’s Wrecked System (though I appreciate the irony of that screenshot being Ableton).

Max for Live is awesome, it just isn’t Pluggo exactly – for better and for worse. The good news is, some of the oddball Pluggo instruments and effects will be available for Max for Live when it comes out, and existing owners will get that at a discount. But you might want to keep an old Mac or PC around running Max 4 and some of the strange plug-ins in the Pluggo collection.

Pluggo Technology Moves to Max for Live

Thanks to Jonathan Bailey and Nick Inhofe for sending this in.

The upshot to me is that Max/MSP is no longer such a viable development environment for effects and instruments, if you want any kind of wider consumption of what you’re making. It can be, at the same time, an utterly brilliant environment for yourself and for other people working with Max and Live. But on the other hand, part of the reason this may not be earth-shaking news is that there are alternatives – see below.

That’s not to argue with the fact that the Max + Ableton Live combination will rock and be a big deal – no argument there.

So, I actually think it may be a good thing for Max to have this focus, especially because, if you do want to support other hosts, there’s no reason to limit yourself to Max.

Open Source and Commercial Flavors

What I think is happening – perhaps naturally so – is a differentiation between the proprietary and open paths. If you choose the commercial Max/MSP – Max for Live – Ableton Live route, you get a really unparalleled level of UI polish and usability, and extraordinary integration between your Max creations and the host (Live).

The open-source altnerative now increasingly offers greater compatibility and flexibility. We’ve seen Max’s open source cousin Pure Data (Pd) run as the back end to a commercial game (Spore), on Linux on PDAs and old iPods, and as the back end to commercial iPhone apps.This is enabled by the fact that Pd is open source and community-supported, just as the ability to interoperate more deeply with Ableton Live was enabled by a commercial development process. (ChucK has also shown up powering successful mobile apps, like Smule’s Ocarina.)

That’s not to say one route is better than the other. On the contrary, it’s important to look at these two choices side by side because they’re different, and differently suited to particular situations.

And focus can be a good thing. In the case of Cycling ‘74, the decision was that plug-in support was no longer practical:

…we have had to face the fact that it is simply not cost-effective to support three different plug-in specifications on two different platforms, particularly given the increasing absence of standardization of host platforms we have observed over the past several years. Supporting our Max/MSP-based plug-in technology involves trying to make the entire Max environment run inside another host application. This was never a simple matter to begin with, and it has only grown more challenging with time.

It may indeed not make sense for Cycling to continue to provide this support. But it could be possible for others to support that – and, I hope, for us to someday have a better cross-platform plug-in standard, though that’s another discussion.

Alternative Plug-in Development Tools

There are other tools that are focused on plug-in development, and depending on your needs, they could fill the void left by Pluggo.

Here are just a few:

pdvst, free + open source, Windows

You know how Cycling is talking about how they have to run Max inside the host? That’s what this does for Pd. It looks like binarines are only available for Windows, but I see no reason this couldn’t be ported to other OSes, too. (I also remember some sort of solution for making LADSPA plug-ins with Pd, but maybe I just dreamed that.) I gave it a shot, and it’s actually quite nice.

Plogue Bidule, US$75, Mac + Windows

Plogue may actually come out on top as a cross-platform, commercial tool for building VST and AU plug-ins – only Reaktor here does that, and Plogue is quite a lot cheaper. ReWire works, too. That means Bidule will work with any host you like – even Reason – instead of just Live. If you only use Live, that may not matter, but if you use anything else … well, you get the point.

See our previous story: Plogue Bidule Modular Music App: Get Started, Meet the Creators

SuperColliderAU, free + open source, Mac

For people using the elegant sound coding language SuperCollider, you can now turn your creations into Audio Units, with full OSC control retained. Again, it’s quite easy to do.

SynthMaker, US$133-255, Windows

SynthMaker is tightly focused on instrument and effect creation, more narrowly-so than Max but as a result very powerful for the task. Also, if the Max for Live / Ableton combination doesn’t do it for you, SynthMaker is now included with FL Studio. It’s Windows-only, but you can develop plug-ins not only for FL but any Windows host.

SynthEdit, US$50 (shareware trial available), Windows

The gold standard of DIY plug-in creation, SynthEdit is actually sometimes notorious for its popularity (as in, “crappy SynthEdit plug-in). But don’t let that dissuade you: this is a powerful environment for making your own VSTs, and some truly brilliant instruments and effects have been created in it. There’s also some extensive documentation.

SonicBirth, free + open source, Mac

Why SonicBirth isn’t being widely used is really beyond me – maybe the death of Pluggo will wake people up to its potential. It’s a graphical patching environment for MIDI, audio, and instrument creation, it’s quite elegant to use, and it’s utterly free. The only bad news is, the open source version or promised commercial successor seem not to have gotten much development love lately.

Reaktor, $399 street (academic discount), Mac/Windows

Reaktor has the same limitation Max for Live does in that there’s no free runtime. But a Reaktor patch can run – and be edited live – inside any Mac or Windows host.

csLADSPA, free + open source, cross-platform

Still can’t figure out what this new-fangled Max thing is about when your CSound is working just fine? csLADSPA lets you write your own instrument and effects plug-ins in CSound and run them on any LADSPA host (it even works on Windows). Geeky, yes, but as I think about it, that’s pretty cool.

This is not an attempt to be a complete round-up, so anything I’ve left out, do let us know. I’m particularly interested to know how, say, SuperCollider or Pd users could target Mac, Windows, and Linux hosts.

Not Using Plug-ins

There is one … other alternative. Plug-ins have their uses, but everything Cycling is saying about the challenge of using them is absolutely true.

Ultimately, it’s worth thinking about why you’re using a plug-in. Do you just need to route audio or control from one place to another? Do you just want your strange, DIY step sequencer to sync with a track?

ReWire is one alternative, and Max continues to support ReWire.

But you can also use technology like JACK to route audio and (on Linux) sync and MIDI from place to place. In fact, while there are tools for creating your own LADSPA plug-ins on Linux, I don’t know anyone using them for this very reason – the support for jacking audio, sync, and control from place to place is so good, you can simply start your different music tools and you may not care that they’re not plug-ins.

Your Thoughts?

Okay, that story wound up being quite a bit longer than I had expected, but that’s the point – you have lots of alternatives. I’m curious to what you DIYers and patchers out there are imagining you’ll be spending your time doing over the coming months, whether it’s all Csound or all Max for Live.