Laptop musicians are feeling out of sync — literally. But we can work together to help the situation.

Computer music making can be an isolating experience. But when users try to use their eminently-mobile tools to play together in the same room, they often find that the technology resists. MIDI, as a serial protocol, isn’t designed for networked environments. Software interfaces are designed to be visible to only one user. Sharing between users rarely figures into designs. Input points are made to be single-user only.

And most importantly, just getting a couple of computers to sync can be a Herculean task — one that seems to have gotten worse with advanced computer software rather than better. In short, for all the technology we have today, we’ve actually regressed from the state of interoperability 20 years ago.

I’ve been hearing more and more frustration over sync, as people begin to collaborate with multiple computers as they would with a small ensemble of instruments. Ableton Live is the most frequent example, but it’s only one case – and I suspect part of the fault is that people are more likely to try to sync multiple copies of Live. When I spoke to Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore in the spring for Keyboard, Martin complained that they had trouble syncing his Apple Logic sessions with other band members using Pro Tools and Ableton. This weekend in Los Angeles at the DubSpot sessions, Glitch Mob’s Justin Boreta talked about the issues that group has had with multiple copies of Live.

Synchronization is, by definition, a tough thing to do. But musical engineering is replete with challenges; it’s no longer acceptable to simply say “live with it” and walk away. It seems we need both better shared knowledge about what sync is how to make it work, and better engineering solutions on the software and protocols side to support the way users want to work. And yes, we need a new sync standard that goes beyond what’s presently available in MIDI alone.

Focusing this discussion, I just got an essay in my inbox that I think focuses the issue. I will try to speak to Ableton’s engineers about the matter, but this isn’t really about Ableton alone, so I’m posting it here first. We could use more data about how you’re working with various software and hardware, what techniques you’ve developed, and what frustrations you’ve had. We have a wide community here of users and developers (and a whole lot of you are both).

Mark Kunoff writes:

I’m writing to you today about an issue which I believe has been a sore spot for many Ableton Live users – *reliable* syncing of two or more computers – particularly for those of us who are attempting to sync for the purposes of *live performance*.

My musical partner Patrick Petro and I (together we perform as “Othership”) have been struggling with this issue for several years now. At present time, we have a decent solution using midi time code. Initially we attempted to use Midi “clock” but our friend Steve Duda (partner of Deadmau5 in BSOD) informed us, “using Midi clock is as reliable as syncing to a boat motor.” He informed us that in BSOD, he and Deamau5 have reliable sync between their 2 laptops using MTC, although the main drawback is the inability to fluctuate tempo – you must run at a consistent tempo the whole time. (You may be aware of this already, but Steve is the person responsible for ‘Molar’ the incredible step and loop sequencer for the Monome, was a programmer for Devine Machine and has worked for many renown artists in the music industry such as Trent Reznor. We are very fortunate to benefit from his consultation!)

Currently we are both using Macbooks and syncing via Ethernet with Audio File Engineering’s “Backline” app to generate MTC. This method has been about 95% reliable, but after reading an article on Ableton Tweets (http://abletontweets.com/post/126300941/why-midi-sync-over-ip-may-not-be-a-good-idea and our response – http://abletontweets.com/post/224247258/midi-sync-in-ableton-live-why-so-complicated) we are going to acquire a dedicated external device to generate MTC such as a Motu Timepiece.

I feel strongly that Ableton has not addressed these issues sufficiently and could do a better job of educating their user base as to the challenges that face performers in achieving reliable sync. I’m not expecting a walk in the park, but as of yet Ableton has not provided comprehensive documentation regarding these issues and places most of the responsibility on users to figure it out for themselves. We are (and have been) perfectly willing to educate ourselves but for the most part this issue remains elusive to the majority of Ableton Live users.

The Ableton Live forum posts regarding sync are fraught with dissension and are excruciating to read to say the least. I feel I’m empathetic to the complexities of programming audio applications, but in my estimation Ableton tech support’s explanations toward this issue have been mostly open ended. Many users report these issues only to report back that Ableton’s tech support doesn’t respond. I have experienced this as well. Certainly there are enough customers who want a better solution.

I feel it’s time to launch a concerted effort to organize users and demand that Ableton addresses this issue once and for all. Perhaps this solution wouldn’t even involve midi at all. Ideally this would be an open protocol such as OSC, but I wouldn’t be opposed to a proprietary solution – just as long as there is a reliable one.

The main purpose of this correspondence is seek your and CDM’s assistance in sponsoring an effort to encourage Ableton to address this issue once and for all. I feel CDM could be quite helpful in garnering leverage toward this effort (a simple blog post, or ideally a dedicated section) to organize users and to demand better sync ability between two (or even multiple) laptops running Live – even from unlike computer manufacturers. I’m sure you know artists with valuable expertise in this area.

Even if the issues regarding sync via midi are insurmountable, there have to be CDM readers who have developed reliable methods of two or more persons performing with Ableton Live and it would be great to have one centralized portal where discussions of working methods can be discovered.

Thank you for your time.

Again, my personal intention is not to single out Ableton — I’ve heard similar complaints about other scenarios, and moreover, I think the “open-ended” tech support response occurs when there isn’t an easy solution. Tech support alone often can’t deal with something as multi-faceted as sync, so it’s time to engage other users in this, as well.

I’ve also spoken to Owen Vallis and other folks about how sync could be executed more effectively over network protocols, and specifically how the time stamp feature in OpenSoundControl might be used in conjunction with MIDI clock messages.

To kick things off, let’s comment here, but I’m also setting up a special Noisepages group for users to share experiences and tips:

Sync or Swim Group [noisepages]

(Incidentally, CDM contributor Matt Ganucheau is joining me Saturday at a WordPress developer intensive here in New York, so we’ll be picking up development techniques to work on the Noisepages community, too.)

Jump in, say hello, and let’s talk about how we can make sync work in real-life musical situations.

I’ll also be talking to more artists and developers about their experiences and suggestions, and will pass along your feedback, so expect a report back. In the meantime:

1. Are you routinely trying to sync multiple musicians?
2. What software (and hardware) tools do you use?
3. What have been some frustrations?
4. What techniques have worked, or what have you learned you might want to pass along to other users at various skill levels?

Commencing in about 12 hours, Visionsonic 2009 showcases Audiovisual artists from around the world. The Thursday show is “for Young Audiences”, but I’ll definitely be watching The Odyssey of Rick the Cube.

L’Odyssée de Rick le cube (extraits du spectacle) from Jesse Lucas on Vimeo.

The festival program has 20 artists performing over Friday and Saturday, which you can view on the Visionsonic TV page, or load the WMV stream in your media player of choice (VLC works beautifully).

There are plenty of reasons to go to live performances, to be in the same physical location as the artists, and to experience them without any technology or production getting in the way. Of course, if the performance is happening on the other side of the planet, then streaming may be the only feasible way to get there. CDM has dabbled in internationally-streamed performance before with NetLag, which attempted to put together a “festival” featuring artists performing from various locations. This was great fun, but beset with various problems, as technical and especially bandwidth limitations are keeping us from the “everything streaming live in HD” world the mainstream media seems to think we inhabit. These limitations are falling away quickly though, so it just remains for us to figure out the most compelling ways to capture live performance for streaming.

For watching the stream? Well I’ve got a big stereo, a projector, a copy of VLC, and a weekend’s entertainment all planned out for me.

Imagine a nightmarish, dark-world, alternative-reality version of Wii Music, one that sends Miyomato-san screaming. That’s what you get from tokoloten, in a very un-Nintendo noise performance, as found on comments. The Wii is just one of his tools:

tokoloten uses a variety of objects such as magnet motors, infrared devices, game controllers… in order to hide his lack of conventional technic. Depending on the venue, the show might be ambient-like, experimental or electronica with weird cinematographic references. But it most often combines all of this.
tokoloten is based in Lausanne, Switzerland.

It’s proof that the controller – any controller – is in the hands of the creator, and what it sounds like is entirely undetermined.

Mapping a hardware input to a sound means making an abstract connection between one physical action and another sonic reaction. What that relationship is is entirely up to you. I was honestly a bit surprised by some of the impassioned critical reactions to yesterday’s brief mention of the use of the Wiimote as a studio recording. Of course, that proves the creed of the blogger – post first, ask questions later, and when in doubt, just post. Amidst some of the frustration, there are some good discussions, though I do dream of an Internet on which we criticize content without name-calling.

But the reality remains: controllers are always abstracted from the sound, by definition, and whether they’re satisfying to you depends on how you’ve mapped them. I don’t know what qualifies as innovative, but then, there have been times when I’ve very much enjoyed turning a knob, so “innovation” isn’t always what matters to me. I tend to fall back on Duke Ellington – “if it sounds good, it is good.” For controllers, that means “if it feels good, it is good.” You’re the one with the controller in your hands.

For an alternative example, musician/artist Kassen has an excellent session on improvising with custom software and game controllers. Below, you can catch some of his talk from Amsterdam’s famed STEIM research center, which has a long history of researching the controller-music connection. After all these years asking that question, what we have is …more questions. But that’s a beautiful thing.

Kassen (DJ, performer, ChucK programmer) from STEIM Amsterdam on Vimeo.

Part of the reason I’ve never liked “controllerism” as a term – sorry, Moldover – is that there is no clear technique, no clear sound, no particular discipline. That is, I understand the case for the term and I’m glad there’s a discussion. But it seems to me that part of why controllerism is interesting is that there is no such thing as controllerism. The beauty of digital music is that you do have wide-open, blank-page possibilities. You can create your own system. It is abstract, simulation, ungrounded in physical reality. But while that is at odds with millenia of acoustic instrument-making, it’s also in tune with centuries of compositional and notational tradition, which are abstract. For the first time, the systems of how we conceive music can themselves become physical.

That to me is an exciting thing.

So, here’s a question — let’s take the example of sensors that handle orientation. How would you want to deal with them in music software, if they could be standardized, if any accelerometer or tilt sensor could announce its orientation? How do you decide which is the x, y, and z axis, for instance? How would you want the data normalized?

It’s a strange and wonderful sampling instrument and live rig, capable of mangling and remixing live, synced to tempo. It’s proof that live computer performance doesn’t have to be in only one tool, or use one technique. It’s a ready-to-play, affordable instrument you can pick up and use. It’s a Reaktor patch gurus can pick apart and learn from, along with other resources from one of Reaktor’s masters. It’s a new blog and an opportunity to talk about live performance. It’s an EP release.

It’s actually all of these things – a tool, but more than a tool. The Finger, a US$79 / EUR 69 instrument, is a product, first and foremost, created by master live electronic performer and hacker Tim Exile. Tim is such a dedicated Reaktor user that he once managed to give himself a repetitive stress injury from connecting patch cords. (Not recommended.) You can run this thing out of the box using the free Kore Player, or get in deeper with a full version of Kore, or get into the patch itself with a copy of Reaktor 5 (also included in Komplete 5 and 6). It’s quite a product, too. I could try to explain it, but I couldn’t possibly do as good a job as Tim does in the video.

I’m not sure I agree with the marketing material’s claim that this is “a new type of live performance and remix effect.” In fact, Reaktor, Max/MSP, and other tools have led to all sorts of similar, original performance tools. Unlike going into a gig with just an Ableton Live set (something I’m doing in, literally, fifteen minutes), having a custom tool means focusing on performance techniques. And “new” hardly matters – Tim is a ninja at working with Reaktor’s deep sound DSP layer, Core (not to be confused with Kore). Whether it’s new or not, this is the ultimate patch from one of Reaktor’s masters. Along with Reaktor creator Stephan Schmitt’s Spark, it’s proof that sound packs from NI – or anyone else for that matter – don’t have to be limited to stock presets.

More than that, though, The Finger is connected to a music release by Tim, and is already triggering discussion of live performance and sound design – issues that go beyond any one tool. Tim has started a new blog to talk about his own take on live performance, starting with more info on his EP and some tracks you can hear:

http://thenowwave.blogspot.com/

Other folks I know have picked up The Finger and started to play with it, including the underlying Reaktor patch. Most notably, see Richard Devine transform The Finger from a Sound-Like-Tim-Exile machine into a Richard-Devine-Sonic-Insanity-Generator. (See, just because you use someone else’s tool doesn’t have to mean you need to sound like them.) With Max for Live coming, hackers getting smarter and slicker with open source tools like Processing, ChucK, SoundCollider, and Pd, and techno-literacy again on the rise – more connected than ever by these Interwebs – I think we could be in store for a really wonderful age of creativity, in which people make part of the craft of music making the craft of tool making, as well. Designing a tool, after all, is designing a system, in the same way that composition (in any medium) is about designing a system. Finally, instead of keeping that to ourselves, we can actually share the whole process.

In the meantime, let’s watch those videos, on Reaktor, The Finger, and more.

Richard Devine takes on The Finger:

Native Instruments The Finger vs Richard Devine from Richard Devine on Vimeo.

Tim Exile performing in Reaktor:

Tim shows his Reaktor-based setup – not just The Finger, but beyond:

Related tools:

Updated based on feedback in comments See also…

Sugar Bytes Artillery2, which focuses more on effects – and offers a whopping amount of effects variety, from step-sequenced buffer scratchers to vocoding. As with The Finger, the idea is to map effects to keys.

Rekkerd notes that Sugar Bytes has just discounted Artillery2 to 50% through October. Devoted loop manglers will buy both. I’m going to wait for a Richard Devine video in which he routes Artillery2, Lucifer, and The Finger together in one chain, then randomizes all the settings – your move, Richard.

The Lucifer plug-in is now discontinued, but Devine Machine offer a range of related looper/performance tools – from the practical tools to the manglers.

The basic ideas here I think are worth copying: making use of the keyboard to control things live rather than having modulation all running automatically, routing different effects together for mangled results, and loop recording and effects that are synced it time are all useful concepts to combine. I’d love to see people push those concepts in various directions, and the exact combination of ingredients you want is likely to be personal, so it’s well-suited to DIY concoctions, too.

Richie Hawtin has been the subject of adulation and sometimes seemingly-random scorn by readers of this site — blame the passions of the Internet. But amidst that noise has been a clear signal: bring back Plastikman.

Richie is a terrifically talented DJ, but for many of us it’s his work as a producer that we love. And for all m-nus has done over the years, the handful of work that comes from Richie’s Plastikman persona remains significant. He’s announced he’s bringing Plastikman back, and has a survey to match. Don’t worry – this isn’t something like “What’s your favorite bpm,” or “specify preferred filter cutoff frequencies.” It’s more along the lines of whether you’d see a show in Santiago or Perth. But there are indications of a new live show and re-releases. (I’m not clear whether the “new project” includes a new release, but I do hope so, and it does talk about “creative process.”)

When considering the various aspects of Richie Hawtin’s persona, it seems fans reserve a special place in their hearts for Plastikman. So it’s only right that as we prepare for a new Plastikman project next year, you should have some input and control over exactly what you see and hear.

http://www.plastikman.com/survey09/

Richie Hawtin and the also-excellent Ambivalent reflected on music making with technology at DubSpot here in New York over the summer. I think they had some really good things to say, even if your own music tends in other directions or genres, so now is the ideal time to share that. Both Richie and Kevin spoke about the need to incorporate physical gestures into digital music making, whether it was drawing on the performance (for Ambivalent) or locking oneself into the studio and getting physical with the gear (for Hawtin). That made something like Maschine important to Richie’s newer work, he said. DubSpot has video of this conversation (led by an audience Q&A of Ableton users), as well as a private conversation with Richie about his work.

Videos via the DubSpot blog.

Thoughts? Care to disagree, for that matter, with their take on performance and what matters? (I think there’s plenty to discuss here in an open conversation.)

dromama from Altitude Sickness on Vimeo.

Turning one knob and bouncing up and down may work for some, but virtuoso electronic performers want more live control out of music. Why? Because we have more fun. Raymond Weitekamp is a monome power user based at Princeton who has organized like-minded monomists. As with Edison’s performance work yesterday, Raymond is working to develop real performance technique.

He’s already got the monome doing more that button mashing, thanks to clever mapping of tilt controls. (Check out the custom housing, too.) But to provide additional timbral controls, Raymond makes use of the Korg nanoKONTROL and the humble MIDI Remote Scripts I made and documented here on CDM. The nano provides some compact, accessible controls for adjusting the active rack. Details below.

If you want to learn from this setup, Raymond is sharing everything he’s doing, so you can take this in a direction that works in your performance rig. Here’s the full setup:

Software:
-smack-a-duck: vimeo.com/4739761
-mlr_aes_mdb: princeton.edu/~rweiteka/mlr_raw_0.2.zip
-midi_bends: princeton.edu/~rweiteka/midi_bends_0.3G_RAW.zip
-midi_bends midi remote script: princeton.edu/~rweiteka/MIDI_Bends_LiveRemote.zip
-nanokontrol midi remote script: createdigitalmusic.com/media/files/korg/korgnano_live.zip
-ableton live

Discussion:
post.monome.org/comments.php?DiscussionID=5458

Samples:
Drums from the “droms” sample pack by ro: post.monome.org/comments.php?DiscussionID=5414
Beach Boys – Mama Says
Viktor Vaughn – Raedawn

Thanks:
ro, tehn, soundcyst, peter kirn

From that discussion thread (well worth checking the whole thing out), here’s the basics on how the bits fit together:

Since it may not be immediately obvious what’s going on, I’ll elaborate for the curious amongst you:

mlr_aes_mdb => soundflower => live
midi_bends => IAC midi bus + midi remote script => live
nanoKontrol => midi remote script => live
smack-a-duck => soundflower => live

I modified Peter Kirn’s midi remote script for the nanoKontrol, and wrote my own for midi_bends. The tilting of the monome on the left (Tuppernicus) is controlling the 8 encoders of whatever the active FX rack is. The knobs on the nanoKontrol control those same 8 encoders. This way, I can use either to control the same FX parameters. I like this a lot better than 1:1 midi mapping, because it allows multiple methods for controlling the same parameters. Tuppernicus also controls the FX toggles (4 FX x 6 channels), drum rack, and active channel/effect rack. The monome on the right (Tupperbot) is running my slightly tweaked (added rowfix) version of mlr_aes_mdb 0.4.

Ableton Live is just one choice, of course. I’m actually trying to get some similar tools together on the Linux side, where this sort of combination fits naturally with the JACK audio server. I hope to have something to share by mid-fall.

Native Instruments has updated its sampling engine, releasing beta versions 3.0.5 for its Battery drum sampler and 3.5.0 final for the flagship Kontakt sampler. Both are free upgrades. (For anyone who thought that somehow Maschine was replacing Battery, it isn’t: the former is a drum machine, whereas the latter is more like a high-end drum sampler.)

There are a number of significant enhancements, but perhaps the most interesting is the support for 64-bit memory addressing. On 64-bit Windows Vista (and upcoming 64-bit Windows 7), that gives you true 64-bit memory addressing for — well, more memory than you have. (The theoretical limit of Windows’ 64-bit architecture on Intel is 16 terabytes.) This allows native 64-bit memory addressing on Windows for both Battery and Kontakt.

The Mac isn’t quite capable of that just yet (at least no audio applications beyond Apple’s own developer tools support 64-bit memory addressing yet), but the Kontakt Memory Server gives you up to 32 GB on 10.4 and later. Clarification: The Kontakt Memory Server is available now only for Kontakt.

The other important development for both Battery and Kontakt is that compatibility with Pro Tools 8 under Mac OS 10.5 Leopard has been restored.

Getting Kontakt on 64-bit is a very big deal, because of the widespread popularity of the sampler. At the same time, the fact that it’s not alone is a good thing — it suggests 64-bit memory for samplers may be catching on. Steinberg’s HALion, Cakewalk’s Dimension Pro, Garritan’s ARIA, and the open source Linux Sampler Project are some of the more familiar samplers that have gone 64-bit recently. (Note that, despite its name, Linux Sampler can run 64-bit on both Linux and Windows.) Cakewalk did a lot to lead the way here on Windows by getting both its SONAR host and Dimension Pro (among other plug-ins) fully 64-bit early. Garritan is equally interesting, because their Plogue-based engine is getting licensed out to soundware makers and, architecturally, is built more as a cross-platform engine. Garritan ARIA is also targeting Linux, and Cakewalk and Garritan are also supporting the open SFZ format.

Okay, I should have put that in a table. Imagine a table in your mind. Wow, that looks beautiful.

What else is new in Kontakt

64-bit is the headline, but there are other enhancements, too, in the Kontakt engine:

• “Zero-memory” DFD means you use less memory when streaming from disk (and using less memory is usually the very reason you’re streaming from disk)!
• True multiprocessor/multi-core support for enhanced performance
• A virtual rack of all your installed libraries and third-party content, so it’s easier to find your sounds
• Direct MIDI learn (meaning everything is finally assignable), improved automapping, bypass for effects slots
• Pro Tools compatibility now works properly on Mac Leopard
• KSP aftertouch interpretation – so now you can do something with that aftertouch-transmitting keyboard of yours

Update: Note that these are Kontakt-specific features, and not relevant to Battery for reasons clarified below.

Battery vs. Kontakt

Updated: You will note that Native Instruments is updating Battery and Kontakt more or less at the same time, and they do share some core technologies that allow that to happen. They aren’t exactly the same under the hood, though, as NI explains to CDM:

The core engine technology is the same in Battery 3.0.5 and Kontakt 3.5, but Battery uses a “lighter” version because of its typical use case as a drum sampler.

It doesn’t include the Memory Server and the multiprocessor/multicore support because these features really only become necessary with multitimbral operation, high polyphony and a huge number of instrument samples (and heavy effects usage) like in Kontakt.

Let us know what you think if you’re a Kontakt/Battery user.

New features in Kontakt 3.5 versus 3.0 [Native Instruments]
Public beta of Battery 3.0.5 [at the NI public beta site]

Segue – Reset (Live at Big Day Out 2008 Two-up Edit) from Jaymis on Vimeo.

How do you make live performance documentation that doesn’t suck? You’ve been there: you’re trying to shoot footage, you’re trying to edit footage someone else shot, or you’re trying to tell someone shooting footage how to take material you can actually use. Jaymis from Create Digital Motion talks a bit about a recent experience working on footage of Segue – or skip to the end for some tips, either for you or to give that young, eager videographer you hope can make you look cool. Got more thoughts? We’d love to hear them. -Ed.

I’ve posted about this on CDMo, but the topic is applicable to musicians as much as visualists, so I think it’s worth repeating here.

I’m currently editing some video of a gig and interview, taken at an album launch party here in Brisbane. The promoter supplied me with a DVD containing about 10 minutes of interview, and about 45 minutes of “party” footage. If you’re in to documenting your work you’ve probably shot some just like it yourself: Crowd dancing. Shot of the artist. Over the shoulder of the artist tweaking his Lemur. Cute girls dancing. Repeat.

Of that 45 minutes of party action, I was able to extract only about 40 seconds of usable footage. It wasn’t badly shot, just homogenous. There was no shot variation, so it wasn’t interesting to watch, and there was no way to edit for continuity, to give an overall, consistent feel for what was going on.

The missing ingredient, which would allow me as an editor to glue it all together, was closeups.

Last year my collaborators Segue had a high profile gig at the Big Day Out. At the last minute the festival organizers said we couldn’t provide our own visuals, so I took my camera along instead, with a view to shooting footage which could be used for a live video. As there was just a single camera, I tried to cover as much ground as possible, shooting from the front and back of the stage, out in the audience, getting wide shots of the crowd and zooming up close on details of the rig and artists. I’m not a very good cameraman, but I knew that with enough details, enough cutaways, enough different shots, I’d be able to tie everything together at the end.

Getting the footage back to my studio, I took over 9 hours to edit that 45 minutes of footage into a single 7 minute live video. At the time the band were wondering why it was such an intensive job, so I exported a two-up edit of the video to show them how I was able to use closeups, crowd shots, and details to take that single-camera shoot and make it look like there had been a team of ninja cameramen swarming the stage.

The two-up edit shows the final mix on top, and the original continuous camera feed underneath.

This edit took so long because I was very careful with the continuity of shots. If I was cutting from a wide shot of an artist drinking, the following closeup should show him putting the bottle back down. If he had headphones on, then subsequent shots should have them as well. It didn’t matter if those clips were dragged in from 20 minutes earlier in the set, because close shots don’t show enough of the stage detail for the viewer’s brain to realise that things are happening out of order.

I’m sure many CDMu readers have been lumped with the task of capturing video of your own performances, or those of your peers. You may have edited the video yourself, or given it to a handy visualist to have a crack. Even if you have someone else shooting video of your show, it’s worth giving them some direction on what you’d like to to see. Hence:

Jaymis’ Tips for Great, Editor-Friendly Gig Shooting

Leave the camera(s) running constantly: Even if there’s only one, you won’t miss anything. If there’s more than one camera, continuous tape makes multi-camera editing exponentially easier.
Closeups are your friends: Close, detail shots allow you to tie disparate pieces of footage together and to cover camera moves. They also add variety, and show some intimate details of what’s happening on stage. Closeups of the crowd and venue are also great for adding context, without having the distraction of a full human body unrelated to the action.
Keep the camera moving: If you just want to document your set for posterity, having it up the back on a tripod is fine. But if you want to produce some thing visually interesting, then get that camera moving around the space. Remember to hold it still in between moves so you don’t get stabbed by your editor. Take your cues for the music. Move a couple of beats, hold focus for a phrase. Make your moves in between sections of music. Wide shots for builds, close shots in the middle of a section.
Don’t be scared of manual focus: Out of focus shots can be a great transition device. For fast, exciting music, hunting focus reinforces the frenetic nature of the action.

All of the other standard photography rules apply of course, so find someone to tell you about white balance, aperture, shutter speed, exposure etc. If you stuff those up though, there’s a lot which can be done in the edit, but we can’t make up interesting footage in post-production. That has to happen on the night.

Following on from our previous Game On Set. Sam will be kitted out with Serato’s Video-SL (review on CDMo), and I’ll be bringing a brace of live camera feeds with the Vixid VJX16-4 video mixer (minisite | on CDMo).

Last time it went down something like this:

Sampology at Game On – AV Turntablist Set (Part 1) and (Part 2) from Herovision on Vimeo.

Video-SL is fantastic fun, and as a visualist it’s somewhat humbling to discover what a turntable worrier can do when their spinning plastic discs suddenly have power over vision as well as sound. Tune in tomorrow to see.

To sweeten the deal, we’ll be preceeded on stage by Yahtzee (of Zero Punctuation) and Matt and Yug (of Australian Gamer), who will have a screening of their show Game Damage, and then talk about games rather a lot.

Using web production studio Mogulus, the stream will be viewable on the CDMedia channel, and there’s a countdown and embedded player at Herovision.

Sequencing – the collection of techniques that actually assemble events in our music – seems to get far less attention than it deserves. After all, there are fairly accepted ways of synthesizing sound, but as many ways of thinking about musical events as there are ways of thinking about composition. Among the big DAWs, you’ll often see pitches to upgrade based on new effects plug-ins or magical audio-processing abilities, but rarely MIDI sequencing improvements. (When there are, of course, I applaud.)

That makes this week’s pre-Christmas announcement of Numerology 2.0 all that more special. Numerology is a modular sequencer and that alone. It brings some of the modular capabilities usually found in synths to sequencing, with component sequencers and modulation for manipulating sequence evens the way you’d usually transform sound signal.

The upshot of all of this: you can play with musical patterns with the freedom usually reserved for synths. Features:

• Sequencing modules, including MonoNote (monophonic sequencer), polyphonic PolyNote (duh) and MatrixSeq, eight-track DrumSeq
• Component sequencers for modular-style sequencing, plus LFOs, envelopes, CV mixers, MIDI generators, MIDI processors
• Stacks: virtual equipment racks for easier composing / performance, and an integrated audio mixer
• Add software plug-ins (AU) or route to external hardware gear (yep, the computer is still awesome when it comes to sequencing outboard synths, even in 2008/9!)
• New, simple sound-generating modules for easy integration with the environment, including synthesis, polyphonic AudioSample and eight-part DrumKit
• MIDI remote control of parameters, plus custom CV, audio, and MIDI routing
• Timeline playlist arrangement
• Sync via MIDI clock, MTC, or ReWire
• Mac-only, 10.4.11 and later; US$99 until 1/4/09 (then $119)

System requirements are pretty tame (this is a sequencer, after all), so this could be a great application for an older Mac, provided it has a 1GHz or greater CPU. (PowerPCs included.)

How does it all work? Here are some videos to give you an idea. Hope to add this to my scary but delicious testing pile (New Years’ Resolution: more useful hands-on content).

A demo:

Getting started:

Any passionate Numerology users out there? We’d love to hear from you. What are your thoughts on the new version, and how do you use the tool in your music?