Could a piece of software make you think differently about sound? Could it reflect ideas, the culture of listening?

The developers of the SUFI series of plug-ins seem to think so. In place of screencasts showing which knob to turn which way, they head with a video crew to Morocco. The “instruction” might be about the value of reflection or call to prayer, about living as much as how to use a tool. You can see the first two examples: a meditation on the idea of daily interruptions in the soundscape coming from God, and a collection of electronic drones set to a beautifully-shot backdrop. The interfaces are rendered in graphics and (for the vast majority of us) a foreign language, and instead of reverting to the conventions of plug-in design, they assimilate ideas from another culture about tonality and function.

The plug-ins will be released for Max for Live on the 8th of May, and VST plug-ins later on. (Some version of the Max for Live plug-ins are available now – links at bottom.) The collection includes:

• DEVOTION, lowering your volume five times a day at the time of call to prayer
• A drone machine (in the second video, sounding quite nice)
• Four soft synths tuned to Arabic maqam scales. (They describe these as “North African maqams,” but I believe the tuning should be consistent with the use of maqam elsewhere around the Mediterranean and Arabic world.
• One drum machine amidst the synths, Palmas, with a hand-clapping UI (see screenshot).

You have a week to practice learning to read neo-Tifinaght Amazigh script.

Updated: There are in fact no references in the videos here to Sufism, but the creators respond to questions about why they selected this name on their FAQ. As with the videos above, collaborations and friendship inspired their thinking. They write:

The title is an homage to several Moroccan Sufi musicians we’ve worked with over the years who influenced our thinking about musicianship & sound itself, as well as a way of foregrounding the complex but largely unremarked relationship between faith and technology. We’re fascinated with how software and digital environments encode cultural values and beliefs by conditioning choices and framing possibilities. For example, If Apple is a secular religion, selling contemporary magic, then should that change the way we feel about – and engage with – its operating system? The spirit of Sufi aphorisms, we hope, is manifest in these plug-ins. At a literal level, many of the roll-over infotexts come from Sufi verse.

Apart from being an interesting “cross-cultural” exercise, though, these plug-ins can serve as a reminder of two things. First, design choices are constrained only by your imagination. Aside from any perceived cultural values, you can really make software do, theoretically, anything – and make any sound. Convention can be a useful tool, but it can also become a prison. Second, the creators consider VST compatibility as a way to reach users in the Middle East and Africa. Whether this particular effort is successful or not, those are massive and growing audiences. (To anyone reading there, by the way, hello from way up at this end of the Northern Hemisphere!) Of course, these plug-ins will be just as foreign to nearly all of that audience as it is to, say, producers in Melbourne or London, but as we watch the videos from Morocco, it’s worth considering just how small our Internet-connected planet is – and how wonderfully-vast the spaces between us, and the possibility contained there, remains.

Software can serve for a medium for collaboration, as in this case, which ties together a variety of backgrounds from traditional producer to Amazigh musician. The Amazigh people, tying together modern Arabic culture and language with Phoenician roots (much like my own Lebanese ancestry), represent a rich practice of music. Just as the remote, historical world of J.S. Bach might direct a modern software plug-in, these can, too – and in living fashion.

The work is led by Jace Clayton (DJ Rupture), with programmer Bill Bowen, designer Rosten Woo, Amazigh musician Hassan Wargui , and videographers Maggie Schmitt and Juan Alcón Durán. The creators report that “a physical Sufi Plug Ins Forever Box is expected for late 2012, and Clayton is currently preparing an installation version of the Sufi Plug Ins.”

Mark your calendar for next Tuesday, or join the mailing list at the site. More information:

http://www.beyond-digital.org/sufiplugins/

Thanks, Jesse Engel!

As seen on maxforlive.com (thanks, David):

Devotion: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1140/devotion
Drone: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1139/drone
Palmas: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1138/palmas
Hijaz: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1137/hijaz
Bayati: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1136/bayati
Saba: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1134/saba
Khomasi: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1133/khomasi

Mouse on Mars’ Parastrophics for Monkeytown has been an early highlight of the year, a record packed with musical ideas in densely-configured arrays of sound. The duo is now taking that music on the road, in ambitious, improvisatory live performances.

Perhaps all of this can be summed up in one word: energy. Their studio and its arrangements of objects has an energy, an energy that’s present in the craft in the record. And talking to the artists, you get a sense of energy, of enthusiasm, crackling away like an amped-up oscillator.

It was therefore a pleasure to get to hear some of the thought and philosophy that produces all that musical energy. Jan Werner talks to CDM about how he and Mouse on Mars think about sound, melody, and the act of listening – and why he hopes people will find a way to listen to this record actively. I was glad to convince Jan to put this into written words, because they take on a dynamic of their own. I overuse the word poetic, but I find what he says poetic and provocative, in how I think of my music as well as his. And unlike a live interview, here those answers had some time to simmer.

It’s fitting to place those words amidst images of the workspace, their studio deep in Berlin’s Funkhaus facility. Against that backdrop, here’s what Jan has to say about music:

CDM: What does your studio setup, and all of this tactile, traditional hardware, mean in your music making? Obviously, sound is important, but apart from sound, what does it mean for you to be in that place and surrounded with those particular objects?

Jan: Our studio is very important to us, because it acts as a workspace as much as a hideout, an archive, and a rehearsal space. Still, we would pretend that we could make music anywhere and even without any electronic tools, if necessary. Maybe this gesture of personal freedom provides us with the artistic freedom to change things at any given
time, in any given direction, and be at ease with our complicated digital protheses.

We collected quite a bit of hardware over the years, too, without becoming collectors, and we are very keen on software applications, plug-ins, Max patches, etc. We like to use as many different sound sources as possible, and then go for the challenge of bringing all these elements together as one consistent idea of music.

You speak articulately about the idea of listening. What did listening mean in the making of the record? How would you like people to listen to the album – or how do you listen to music, when you wish to focus on it?

Listening can happen in any situation that allows your brain to adjust to acoustic sensations in a non-judgmental way. By non-judgmental, I mean taking the sounds for what they are, and not using them as vehicles for pre-set intentions. Also, active listening does not mean to identify and understand a sound’s origin, but to let the idea of what a sound can be in itself evolve to a possible maximum. This maximum of what a sound can become surely depends on your experience, attention, interest, ambition, fantasy, physical condition, etc.

We’re all limited and skilled at the same time, and that’s what makes a difference in how sound appears to us. You could say that ideal listening would be listening without prejudices and even without expectations. But here, a paradox kicks in, because without any preparation or expectation, you might not even be aware of listening to something. Music is a great tool to avoid this paradox, because it attracts a listener’s attention, draws the focus away from the purely physical origin of a sound, but opens up to a vast field of references and emotional and rational responses.

Music, as such, has no purpose, and does not make sense other than offering more or less appealing arrangements of frequencies. The problem is that this definition, which lies within the nature of music, can easily be covered by propagandistic intentions, coming in the form of lyrics, performances, visual stimulations, etc. Blindfolding is not the answer, because all our senses take part in making sense of listening.

I got to see your live performance at Berghain, though admittedly, being in the back of the space I could only listen and couldn’t always see. What I felt was a sense of fresh energy, that this was indeed something new and spontaneous. How are you adapting the studio album to live performance? What elements do you maintain live, versus those that must be prepared in advance? What did you find as you tried that in that first performance?

Each concert is different, and we usually pretend that we don’t care about an upcoming performance as much as we consider all of them to be our first ever performances.

Berghain went well, because the setting up during the day was relaxed, the crew was great, the sound was superb and the atmosphere in the room was concentrated. We also premiered our new visual show, which our long-time friend Karl Kliem had put together, and we were glad that it worked out well.

During a show, we play parts that we’ve rehearsed in the studio. We throw in samples and pre-recorded elements, but also sample on the spot, and use each other as sound sources. Most of the sounds are synthetic and use software to produce and manipulate sound. We play and modulate synthetic sequences a lot, use plug-ins to manipulate and shred sounds or song elements, and add new and unexpected elements on the fly. We also use the drum kit to trigger sounds, use microphones and analog effects and hardware samplers. All in all, it’s more than we can handle at once, which sometimes stresses us out or makes the sound more dense than it needs to be.

How do you approach melodic gesture in your music? There’s much discussion of rhythm in your music, but to me there’s also almost a sense of polyphony across textures, a sense of depth that requires listening on more than one level. How did you assemble this in the composition and production of the music?

There are always various timelines across one song or album. Some sounds appear only once, others repeat and get manipulated throughout the course of a song with every reappearance indicating a rhythmic idea. We try to avoid a strict hierarchy between melody and rhythm, and consider one being as important as the other. That means that a melody can have a strong rhythmic character as much as rhythm can have a predominantly atmospheric or harmonic (balancing?) quality.

Sometimes a melody might stretch over the course of a whole song, so only if you time-stretch the track, you would get the full melodic phrase. Maybe it’s the continuously-changing distance towards a song, like you would quickly twist the zoom of a camera, which makes fun for us. Or, maybe, it’s rather a discontinuously-changing focus, because we allow ourselves to slow down and even suddenly stop the movement as much as we cut elements so fast that they seem to skip. Music for us is a play on time and spacial tension. You can add layers along time as much as you can stack them in depth. And coming back to melody vs. rhythm: there is a blurred border, where one becomes the other, and we have great interest in strolling around this wasteland.

And more from inside and around the Funkhaus on a wintry, Prussian afternoon.

http://www.mouseonmars.com/

The center of the macular portion of your eye is called the fovea; it’s the portion of your retina that most nearly represents what you’re looking at directly. I adopted from my father the phrase “thinking off the fovea.” It means tackling a problem not by focusing directly on it, but what’s at the periphery. And in any creative question, that can be a great tool for harnessing different ways of thinking. In music production, it’s doubly true: by necessity, working on music production can take large amounts of time and effort, and the more effort you spend, the further you get from the ability to judge what you’re doing objectively or recall that initial creative spark was.

The question of how to approach tools in music technology comes up constantly. The “why are we all here and what are these things for?” question seems especially apt as I bunk in Frankfurt, Germany, a stone’s throw from cavernous halls full of gear for the annual Musikmesse trade show.

People talk about focusing on music instead of tools, as if the two can be neatly separated. These discussions can become circular, though, in groups of musicians.

So, instead, let’s ask chefs. Food and music are often connected, spiritually, socially, and metaphorically. (Music being the food of love and whatnot.) Both can be an aesthetic experience, but both also connect to some need in our being.

Can they connect philosophically? Practically?

Watch the video above and see if you nod along; I know I did not only personally but having interviewed artists across a great gamut of style and training. I won’t give away the content of the video, but I’m also curious:

What’s your knife?

Film by Cool Hunting, who do a wonderful series of shorts about design and inspiration, regularly relevant to music even when they’re about something else.

When we say “handmade music,” we really mean this sense of crafting something , of touching something – not so much the technique or the technology as the intention behind what you do. In a striking film portrait of Nick Zammuto for nakedmusicians.com, the craft of living is spotlighted as much as the craft of music making.

Nick, is known for his role in duo The Books (with Dutch-born Paul de Jong), and their distinctive, rhythmic, homebrewed-original sound. Here, he covers his manipulations of everything physical and temporal. Sound sampling is a tangible process, the poetry of things put together and assembled in surprising ways. So, too, is his life in music, as he talks about raising kids and literally building a home. They are all of these activities a way of stopping and shaping time, of composing yourself and your loved ones into the future. The resulting sounds and stories might just make you want to move around.

You can learn more about Nick on his site:

http://zammutosound.com/

Burlington, Vermont-based filmmaker Matt Day is responsible for this gem.

And if you’re in the Eastern USA, you can catch Nick live:
FEB 3: Mass Moca, North Adams, MA
FEB 4: 92YTribeca, New York, NY
FEB 6:Brighton Music Hall, Allston, MA

Sounds from his new EP, via SoundCloud:
Zammuto – Idiom Wind EP – Make Mine, London UK by zammuto

No further comment.

Via the wonderful Rucyl, artist and blogger of Saturn Never Sleeps. Both her Tumblr and the blogging she does for SNS are terrific spots to visit when you feel stuck for creative energies. That to me is the Web at its best: directed procrastination, like connecting jumper cables to the part of you that makes new things. Tech, used only for its own sake, can’t do that.

http://rucyl.com/
http://saturnneversleeps.com/blog/

And on that note, below, some music from our SNS friends:

Music celebrities have given CDM words to live by over the years — strange, yet strangely profound, reflections on the evils of modern technology. Sure, they’re trying to make some point about MP3 compression or the potential distractions of the Internet or … something. Yet, taken out of context, they form a kind of beat poetry for our time.

2006, Bob Dylan: “New records … have sound all over them.
… CDs are small. There’s no stature to it.”

2007, Elton John: “Hopefully the next movement in music will tear down the internet…
There’s too much technology available.”

Elton John’s words led us to create the verb “to Elton John,” meaning to disconnect from the Internet in order to get some actual music making done.

And now, in 2010, we have Prince.

“The Internet’s completely over.”

Source: The Mirror, Via MTV

Yeah, completely. Okay, he did have some … I don’t want to say “explanation,” which would usually denote “a set of statements constructed to describe a set of facts which clarifies the causes, context, and consequences of those facts.” He had what I will describe as “further words.”

“I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it.”

Edit: As noted by Chris Randall, he’s probably referring to the practice of paid advances for exclusivity at brick-and-mortar retailers. That doesn’t actually make this comment make any sense, though, coming from the man who once touted his own online store and who would presumably not have to give his music to anyone in order to be on “The Internet.”

Anyway, let’s not get stuck on these minor details. Elton John tearing down the Internet was much more interesting than the Internet being “over.”

“The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated.”

“Outdated,” you say? Something that was … big in the 80s? And now struggles to validate his its significance? Go on.

The true profundity of Prince comes in regards to digital devices:

“Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good.
They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.”

And just like that, Create Digital Music got its new motto.

Remember, look out. We’re using maths to destroy your brain.

Prince – world exclusive interview: Peter Willis goes inside the star’s secret world

Update: an interesting factoid for you. I see no evidence Prince couldn’t continue to offer fans direct purchasing of his album on “The Internet,” particularly if online stores aren’t paying him for exclusivity. It’s his earlier, evidently failed attempt to do so that’s pertinent here. Not only did Prince in 2004 say he would build his own music store online, but he offered, at the time, what was described as a “lifetime membership” to the store. Apparently that was Prince’s Website’s lifetime, not your lifetime, because the site itself — npgmusicclub.com — is gone. (Thanks to Darren Halm for pointing to the 2004 NYT story.) The site, for its part, was a huge success – at least in the unsubstantiated claims of the press release at the time, which described “hundreds of thousands” of members paying for the subscription model. That would mean hundreds of thousands of lifetime members who now have … nothing? (I’m trying to find out if that’s the case.)

Aside from the end of online subscriptions on his own site, Prince has removed himself from YouTube, and closed his own Website.

I guess the Internet really is over, at least in Prince’s secret world.

If you think there aren’t still exciting things happening in synthesizer design in the age of software, you haven’t met people like Stephan Schmitt. Schmitt, founder of Native Instruments and the “mastermind” of Reaktor, could be seen as a mad sonic scientist behind NI. When I met him for dinner in Berlin in October, he had brought along a stack of signal flow diagrams and Reaktor screen grabs in plastic sheet protectors. I knew something brilliant was coming.

Native Instruments calls Schmitt’s latest creation “Spark,” but I like to think of it as the Schmitt Box – like a mysterious, powerful invention from a designer who loves to experiment. Stephan has been evolving the instrument in Reaktor through some 160 iterations. He uses foot pedals to modulate the sound live, and rails against the evils of dull, repeating LFOs. Spark ships as a Kore soundpack, so for US$59 you can fire it up right away and start playing, even without knowing how it works. Even better, though, is if you have a copy of Reaktor 5, because you can use the full-blown UI seen here to design your own sounds or even dig into the plumbing of the patch beneath. (It’s still worth looking at the Kore sound presets, because they’re consistent with Stephan’s approach of designing the sound for live performance.)

Reaktor Spark [info, download]

I think it’s telling that, while Stephan’s emphasis is on playability, he brought those signal diagrams. It’s tough sometimes to put the nuances of synths into words. NI’s own description, that Spark “combines powerful subtractive synthesis with a sophisticated array of internal feedback loops and various other special sound shaping features” doesn’t quite cover it.

So, I instead asked if we could use Stephan’s own words to describe the new instrument. The following is an excerpt from the guide he wrote for sound designers working on presets for Spark. (Scroll to the end for full diagrams of the signal routing inside, fellow geeks!)

If you’re new to this stuff, this will give you some insight into why Spark sounds the way it does. And if you’re a synth designer yourself, I think you’ll really appreciate Stephan’s personality and approach. And it encourages me that, even with a lot of repetition of basic elements (subtractive synthesis, a feedback loop), there are still many possibilities for personal, idiosyncratic instruments to explore.

Here are Stephan’s thoughts:

In the beginning, the design was inspired by "Weedwacker", a Reaktor instrument created in
the year 2000 by Siegmar Kreie. The main concept behind the Weedwacker was the feedback
of the filtered signal to the pulse-width modulation input of a pulse oscillator. The result was a
surprisingly-complex behavior of the simple one-oscillator/one-filter structure. The rich and
organic sound was appreciated by many users. Another influence was the Evolver from Dave
Smith, a hybrid concept with some interesting feedback paths.

The structure of Spark reflects my personal preferences in regards of synthesizers. Instead of creating a full-blown mega/multi-purpose synth, I try to keep it as small as possible and with a
special character.

A main goal is to allow dramatic real-time influence on the sound source. The synth itself offers
only a few simple automatic movements (2 envelopes and 1 monophonic LFO). Like a natural
instrument, it needs to be played expressively and therefore stays a challenge for the player
and the sequencer programmer.

I deliberately do not make use of the following techniques:

• samples
• complex waveforms or wave-tables
• complex shaping curves
• noise or random (except a randomization for pitch at note-on)
• multiple and extensively routable LFOs (the LFO is intended to replace human control or an automation curve)
• multi-breakpoint envelopes or step-sequencers
• multi-oscillator structures (like an FM matrix or additive osc bank)
• pitch envelopes

The idea behind this is that the signals are generated and modified by a small number of very basic mathematical functions. Applied in a certain structure, they can create complex signals that might have their very own nature, behavior, and sound character. That is what fascinates me in synthesizers.

The two oscillators deliver two very basic waveforms which are contrasting and complementary: Pulse and Sine. The Pulse has a bright sound and a wide spectrum of overtones which can be filtered. The Sine has a very soft sound and a narrow spectrum that can be widened up by FM, amplitude modulation or wave-shaping. By using feedback loops which contain linear filters and non-linear functions, complex and quasi-chaotic waveforms become possible. This is why the sound spectrum includes more organic and aggressive timbres than a classical analogue synth.

In some settings, the structure behaves similar to a physical modeling synth. The Oscillator section becomes the exciter, while the feedback loop around the filter, shaper, and delay behaves like a resonator.

My favorite range of sounds is percussive – similar to pianos, mallets and plucked string instruments. Since I was always fascinated by electric guitars, you can get a lot of distorted and feedback sounds out of it.

By its sound and playability Spark might be suitable for:

• Rock and Blues
• Jazz, World Music
• Noise, Free, Experimental
• Industrial, Dark Wave, Gothic, Psychedelic
• IDM, Elektro and EBM
• Sound Tracks
• Sound-Design (where the output is sampled)

In my music projects, the instrument has replaced the DX7-II (+ external Effects). Spark gives me similar aggressive, non-harmonic spectra, the fast percussive response, and the very wide dynamic and spectral range controlled by velocity. But it also delivers dramatic and fat filter sounds that are hard to get from the old FM synths (not to mention the crazy feedback stuff).

The pedals allow much deeper sound modulation and the effect chain adds a lot of processing. Spark’s character is not always impressive, fat, brilliant and shiny. It can often sound cheap, ugly, and mean. I made no big efforts to minimize aliasing or to optimize the filter behaving in order to achieve the typically-favored analog "sound quality".

Sometimes the behavior is unpredictable and hard to tame. The feedback structure can cause surprising self oscillations and levels, where the limiter has to jump in. But that’s part of the
concept. It can feel a bit like beast in a cage…

How to play it

The velocity sensitivity of the two envelopes plays a great role in the real-time variation of the
sound. It can be used to create a very wide dynamic range of loudness and timbre.

The full expression potential becomes available by moving the three Macro Controllers. The set
of controls is designed to be a great environment for improvising musicians.

The Macro Controllers would be typically assigned to a Volume pedal, an Expression pedal and
the Mod Wheel. But they can also be easily controlled by sequencer automation curves.
Spark needs to be played in an expressive way. In the sequencer environment it takes the role
of the wave generator, that needs intense work with the "movements".

Recently I have added an LFO as an internal source of periodic movements. It can replace
automation or pedal movements (maybe only temporarily) and helps you to get the hands-free
for sound modifications.

Full Block Diagram

(click through for larger version)

Feedback Diagram

(click through for larger version)

This is a profound comment on so many levels. I’ll let it speak for itself:

Yes, you can contact with me. But, if you would want that I played on your party on cassettes, then I refuse. I do not play on cassettes any more. In general, I don’t want play in the club, because people come there to drink and to search partner for copulate. This is bad.

- Artjom, Russian DJ and alternative interface researcher, commenting on Homemade Cassette Tape DJ Mixers + Max/MSP PC

We feel you, Artjom. T-shirt designs will be accepted.

Editorial note: One of the problems with the Internet is that you can’t detect tone. So let me be clear, any would-be kill-joys: I like this quote because it, haiku-like, sums up the world of music. And it mentions cassettes. What’s not to love? Jeez.

Choice quotes:

On sampling: It’s a way of lying. “I’m wasn’t the girl screaming in the park. That wasn’t me … She did it. I took it.”
On copyright infringement: “I can’t help it. I’m receiving it.”
On musical evolution: “We’ve become everything I hated, which is a musician.”
On the art: “We’re some weird illness.”

And then he says the music will make you impotent. (There’s a good pitch.)

Strange; why do you never hear Bluegrass musicians talking like this?