Still evaluating Live 8 – or want to learn more about how to use it? You can now read my review of Ableton Live 8 free on Keyboard Magazine’s site:

Ableton Live 8 Review [Keyboard Magazine]
See also (via comments) Nick Rothwell’s review for Sound on Sound June [subscription or US$1.49 fee required]

Keyboard doesn’t yet have comments, so feel free to discuss – or disagree – here.

I wanted to back up a little bit and consider Live as if for the first time. Now, I had also personally heard at least Robert Henke complain at one point that reviews of Live were uncritical. That to me would be a flaw as a reviewer, because all software designs involve compromises, so no software can ever be perfect. Here, I still feel there’s legitimate room for improvement in terms of the way Live handles interactive clip triggering and how it assigns control. Of course, we’re not just passively complaining about it – there’s also a community of Live users working to hack in functionality they need using the Live API, both via Python and forthcoming Max for Live.

Also for the review, I shot some quick video demos of features that were easier to show than describe, namely the new instrument Collision and the Vocoder effect. These are basically mini-tutorials on these creations. See Collision at top, Vocoder after the break at bottom. Fixed! Now the top video is actually the Collision video. (Oops.)

I’m a huge fan of physical modeling and Applied Acoustics, and Collision is one of the best percussion models I’ve seen. It starts to approach some of what’s possible in Apple’s Sculpture in Logic, but in a much more focused context, and with some unparalleled resonators (which you can also use on their own in the form of Corpus). See the top video for a walkthrough of the interface.

We may need to revisit the vocoder issue as there’s a new vocoder in FL Studio (Vocodex in the current beta), plus the existing vocoder in Reason. Sounds like there’s an article here waiting to happen. I like Ableton’s vocoder, though; it’s a different implementation and coupled with their unique Frequency Shifter, you can get some really unusual sounds.

For more Live 8 learning (and a more in-depth discussion of different ways of approaching the Frequency Shifter):

Live 8 Videos: New Warping Explained, APC + ReMOTE SL Integration

Ableton Live 8 Misuse: Ping Pong Psuedo Scratching Effect Video Tutorial

Ableton Live 8 Creative Tutorial Videos: Using and Misusing Groove Extraction

Ableton Live 8 Creative Tutorial Videos: Misusing Frequency Shifter

As an addendum to the last story, Ivica Ico Bukvic sends along an example of the [myu] Max/MSP + Unity game engine combination in action. Here’s the surprise: Unity isn’t generating visuals. Instead, Unity simulates ripples created by movement in the space, and builds physical models that are sonified and spatialized by Max/MSP.

Speaking of work involving art museums and the combination of Max and Unity, VJ Anomolee notes in comments his own work with the pairing. Lightbent Synth is an in-progress piece with alternative controllers and sensors that produces sound with a novel visual representation (sound’s very quiet in this preview — more hopefully once it progresses):

Lightbent Synth from VJ Anomolee on Vimeo.

Ivica explains the top work:

This past fall [myu] had seen its first real-world implementation in an exhibit that was a part of the grand opening of the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, VA (http://www.taubmanmuseum.org/). The exhibit utilized [myu] as part of an interactive aural installation titled "elemental." An online tech
demo video of the installation, including written synopsis is available also via Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA-9BOgc1gk. Below is a brief synopsis of the installation:

"elemental" interactive communal soundscape premiered in November 2008 as part of the Revo:oveR collection commissioned for the grand opening of the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, VA. The Youtube video focuses primarily on the technical aspects of the installation. Using Max/MSP/Jitter, a homebrew IR webcam with fish eye lens and a LED-based IR spotlights, entire 24×36-foot exhibit space is converted into an aural sandbox giving visitors an opportunity to generate and shape the
ensuing soundscape. Positional data of up to 20 visitors is forwarded to Unity3d using [myu] Max-Unity interoperability toolkit developed at DISIS (http://disis.music.vt.edu). Unity is used for physical simulation of ensuing ripples and the resulting data is sent back to Max for spatialization across a 12-channel (4×3) ceiling-mounted speaker array. Driven by communal interaction, virtual ripples refract from each other spawning an algorithmically generated aural fireworks. The exhibit ran non-stop for approximately 5 months until March 2009.

Bonus video below: an early prototype that did include visuals. After days of looking at emulated knobs and faders, it certainly does speak to some of the possibilities for musical interface and expression.

It’s a tough time for the music tech industry like so many industries. But there are beautiful products coming from independent developers – indie, boutique shops crafting musical instruments in code. The folks at Devine Machine, makers of the likes of Guru and Lucifer, unloaded three big announcements overnight – enough to make you think there’s some obscure trade show going on at the end of March no one told you about.

Here’s the capsule view of why they matter:

OTR-88: A modeled electric piano

The beautiful thing about electric pianos like the Rhodes is that they’re really electromechanical instruments – amplified, yes, but entirely organic in the way they produce sound. OTR-88 is not the first attempt, as the developers imply, to use physical modeling techniques to try to reproduce those properties. Applied Acoustics’ Lounge Lizard, for instance, (available in Ableton Suite as Electric) follows similar lines. (Native Instruments’ Electric Piano and Digidesign’s Velvet have modeling approaches of their own, but also make use of samples.)

But OTR-88 does appear to go further. Tine movements are modeled in 3D. There are elaborate models of pickup interaction and velocity response. Herbie Hancock was consulted on the design. And you can adjust keys on a per-key basis. That should appeal to sound designers and electric piano aficionados alike. You can thank new physical modeling research by Efflam Le Bivic, one of Devine’s two developers.

I’m really eager to play this one.

OTR-88 Electric Piano

Krishna 1.5: Samples to Synthesis

The Krishna synth instantly earned respect for its “Frame Synthesis” approach, which makes it atypically easy to turn recorded samples into oscillators – a hybrid approach that threatens to end forever the synthesis versus sampling debate. 1.5 has a rebuilt engine, more LFO and ADSR routing destinations, and this tasty-sounding feature:

‘Snap to harmonics’ option for the filter : each note will instantiate a filter to resonate to its own harmonic.

Krishna Synth

One Shot Recorder

OSR is a terrific-looking little tool that’s designed to grab sounds while you play them. Set a threshold, record, and OSR spits out ready-to-use samples. That makes setting up a quick sampling or multisampling session — times when you may have a whole mess of samples to record — much easier. The new release now supports standalone and more pg-in formats, has a decay control, automatic sample reordering, and a pretty new UI.

One Shot Recorder (OSR) Sample Capture

OSR looks like the dream tool for a big multisample creation. Sometimes you may just want to grab some quick, beat-synced samples. Not new, but related, Live Sync Recorder is a tempo-synced VST. Turn it on, and it just rolls, slicing up your audio into one or two bar loops.

I actually can’t believe I didn’t know about this – I expect to put this to use very, very soon.

Live Sync Recorder Free

If you like that, there’s a fancier version, too.

The NAMM show brought a cluster of new soft synths from some beloved synth makers. The interfaces are noticeably conventional, but there are some tasty sonic features in store. Most of these are promised as “coming soon,” not available now, but here’s a quick look at what to expect.

By the way, if you’re one the people complaining that you’re sick of everyone talking about Ableton and want something else to be excited about, I have one word for you:

D.CAM.

Let me sum it up in one line first:

minimoog V 2.0: Rewired circuitry, automation recording vocal filtering, and weird 3D preset browsing mean if you like minimoog, you’ll like it more.

Brass 2.0: physically-modeled brass stuff you can play more easily with controllers, now with a sax model and fully spatialized and harmonized.

Trilian: Even more of the synth that gives you more bass than you need – and now your Intel Mac can run it in place of Trilogy, for free.

Largo: It’s a Waldorf synthesizer, but it’s software. You can’t afford a Blofeld, but you can afford this, and then use it in a coffee shop.

D.CAM: Synth wishes granted: thick parallel-waveform performance synth plus vintage-style string synth plus big, modern FM plus and environment to put them all together.

(added!) impOSCar 2: Features aren’t confirmed yet, but an early look at the OSCar emulation suggest a very big sequel indeed.

And you can add that to the coming Operator 2 and Collision in Ableton Live (either a la carte or the suite). In fairness, these are exactly the sort of synths that make people wonder why they should pay for Operator – but one look at the clean interface in Operator, and how much it can do in that compact interface, and I think it fits in just perfectly. Collision, meanwhile, gives us physically-modeled percussion, which I really want to see more of.

By the way, in comparison most of the hardware announcements (microKORG XL, new V-Synth OS) at this show were, to my mind, more incremental than the goodness that shows up in the software stuff. True, D.CAM is the one new entry here, but, well, technically it’s four entries on its own, and there’s quite a lot in the upgrades, some of which you get for free.

Certainly, what we have is a ton of sequels to some of the biggest soft synth hits (Arturia minimoog V, Trilogy, and impOSCar in particular).

Arturia minimoog V 2.0

It’s an odd version number – five two? Okay, that’s “two” as in the number, “V” as in virtual, not the Roman Numeral. But for fans of Arturia’s flagship Moog emulation synth, 2.0 brings some interesting new features. Sound MAP is an odd, graphical way of exploring presets, although it strikes me a bit like what would happen if you took a preset browser and dumped all the presets on the floor. (For me, this brings back flashbacks to Apple’s HotSauce, an experimental 3D interface for metadata on the Web. Thanks, Mattbot. Everyone else, don’t ask.)

All of this would be gimmicky and useless, except that you can use this strange, 3D interface to morph between preset ideas. If you could also use it to select interpolate between random parameters, I’d go nuts – I’ll leave that to someone else to implement.

The other features are more likely to please everyone:

• A vocal filter feature with an X/Y morphing interface with different formants (not new to synths, but certainly new to Minimoogs, real or emulated)
• Circuitry and modulation destination improvements
• Automation with real-time recording

Together, it looks like a worthy upgrade for fans, some of whom I know just live inside this synth.

Arturia minimoog V 2.0 [Product Page]

Elsewhere: The folks at Future Music were especially excited about the new features, particularly that browser and the way the Vocal Filter sounds. (I didn’t follow, though, was the uberfeature the Sound Map or the Vocal Filter? We really have seen these sorts of things before, which is not to take away from Arturia’s cool implementation here.)

And it’ll cost $299/EUR229 to upgrade from the current – wait? What’s that?

No, it’ll be completely free for existing users. Now there’s a reason for some customer loyalty.

Arturia Brass 2.0

Arturia also refreshed their physically-modeled brass synth, which now has a saxophone model – the tenor Buffet-Crampon. (Nice choice! And I’m partial to tenors, as I grew up with my father playing tenor in his college pep band.)

Also new: harmonization features, spatialization, MIDI integration features (ideal for, say, the newly-shipping Akai EWI USB wind controller). There are also pre-composed riffs by genre, if you’re feeling lazy, though I heartily recommend doing things the hard way.

The minimoog is slick, but I actually think Brass may be a bigger upgrade – and while you’ll find other moog-y sounds, Brass is a really unique sound source. IRCAM, Paris’ legendary sound research center, is responsible for the sounds inside, meaning you can imagine slightly unshaven, French students in white lab coats every time you use it, which has to be worth something. (I actually wear a lab coat when I’m designing sounds, I know that.)

Brass 2.0

Elsewhere: Sonic State grabbed a video demo of Brass 2.

And it’s also free to upgrade.

Spectrasonics’ All-Bass Trilian

How is it that some readers are more excited about Trilian than any other soft synths when all it does is bass sounds?

Well, perhaps because this is successor to Spectrasonics’ Trilogy is the uber-bass plug-in. Upright ? Check. 5-string? Yep. Roland 303? Why not?

Now, normally instruments based on lots of sampling leave me pretty cold, but the STEAM engine – used in Spectrasonics’ Omnisphere – gives you synth-like controls. And I think Trilian’s narrower focus on just basses might earn it more attention than Omnisphere got. (The latter was hyped like crazy on announcement, only to be oddly forgotten, relatively speaking, by the time it came out – maybe because it’s so huge, none of us can fit it on our hard drives.)

And by the way, talk about earning good will: if you own Trilogy and have an Intel Mac, Spectrasonics will give you Trilian for free (shipping only, in place of the usual US$99 upgrade price). So, sure, Apple burned you by switching CPUs, and Spectrasonics could profit – but they’re not.

This means even as I chide Novation, Spectrasonics earns the “Good Sense Wins Over Accounting” award.

Other specs:

• Big, new library of acoustic, electric, and synth basses
• Arpeggiator
• All the original patches, refreshed
• Gobs of articulations in the design, for live performance or scoring
• Modulation with FM, timbre shifting, and some unique modulation deliciousness
• 64-bit support
• A name that subtly references the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Too many other things to list, so just check out:

Trilian Announcement

Spectrasonics does some really incredible stuff. It’s mind-boggling overkill in some ways (ridiculous sampling plus ridiculous synth design), but there’s nothing wrong with that – especially when it serves nothing but bass. And there’s just so much control in there, it really is a sound design dream, not just a big pack of sample files.

US$299, due in May.

Waldorf Largo

It’s a Waldorf synthesizer, but it’s software.

I don’t really have to say much else, but suffice to say, it runs on Windows, it runs on Mac (VST and AU), and it’s all that lovely Waldorf-ness in a virtual rack. The software interface gives me deja vu relative to a number of Logic synths, among others, but then I think there’s just one guy who designs all UIs for all software. (Okay, maybe there are … two guys.)

• Voice architecture from the Q / Blofeld
• Three oscillators, two with sub-oscillators, modeling analog waveforms plus PPG, Waldorf Wave
• Ring mod
• Multi-mode Waldorf filter (“Taste the difference” seems to be Waldorf’s message, if you believe them)
• Modulation matrix, fast, syncable LFOs
• One arpeggiator per layer
• Effects

If you’re in synth overload, I’d say move along, but I know there are some folks who have been coveting Waldorf in software, and now you’ve got it.

Largo [Product Page]

I just wish they hadn’t given it a name that makes it sound like a notation product, but I guess that’s forgiveable. Pricing? Availability? No word yet.

Fxpansion D.CAM Synth Squad

D.CAM is a bunch of modeled-analog goodness. Now, the FXpansion boys want you to believe this is all about emulating the goodness of analog, but to me the real story is that you get loads of digital synthesis power that bring together some of the best old stuff with the best new stuff. The products read a bit like a wish list for synths, and then the Fusor product lets you put them all together in semi-modular fashion.

The marketing is a little muddled, and seems to feature evil dystopian overlords with giant red eyes. But who cares? The synths look fantastic. I, for one, welcome our new dystopian overlords.

Strobe is a “super-oscillator” performance synth with parallel waveforms, sub-oscillators, a filter with drive, voice stack/detune – think thick.

Amber is a vintage string synth, which takes classic divide-down string synths and adds new absurd modulation. Delicious!

Cypher has lots of knobs and lots of arrows! Okay, basically the idea here is audio-rate FM with lots of shaping and filtering and still more modulation. FM is back, for sure.

Fusor is an environment in which you can layer your D-CAM synths and modulate them. There’s an arpeggiator and step sequencer. This might seem like overkill given the number of environments out there that do this stuff, but in this case you get a consistent interface and semi-modular capabilities. It’s no Reaktor, but it’s a bit like what I’d imagine a set of one really brilliant person’s Reaktor ensembles might look like.

http://www.synthsquad.com/

Elsewhere: Gearwire has a nice write-up that sums this up with one line: “This trio combines the most sought after features in classic synthesizers with the synthesizers of tomorrow . . . today!”

In other news…

Zebra is now up to 2.3, which I believe is also NAMM news (or announced at the same time). “Point 3” in the crazy, synthtastic world of Urs Heckmann means things like a skinnable UI, sideband modules, MIDI program changes, Mac RTAS, a resizable editor, compressor modes, comb filter, and … okay, I can’t actually list it all. The sideband alone sounds fantastic. Whoever out there has time to program Zebra and reskin it, I salute you.

Other soft synth news I’ve missed? Let us know.

And what has you most psyched?

impOSCar 2

I missed this important preview, as it wasn’t really an official release at NAMM – the features shown aren’t even fully confirmed. But one of the best vintage emulations out there, impOSCar 2, is up for getting some improvements. Interestingly, some of the directions GForce’s Dave Spiers is taking (like more modulation routing, ring modulation, and more particular synth controls) parallels some of the other stuff we’re seeing added to modern soft synths. I do like the sound of chord mode, polyphonic aftertouch, and portamento spread – this could be a very playable synth.

My usual caveat on this sort of thing is, I tend to personally shy away from synths that focus primarily on emulation of a previous model, just because that sort of thing doesn’t hold as much appeal for me. But GForce – not unlike Way Out Ware’s emulations, also distributed by M-Audio – certainly manage to be the better in this category.

If you are interested in impOSCar 2, this is the one case in which the folks on the NAMM floor have the definite advantage. Check out SonicState’s video below, and further details from the gang at Computer Music (via MusicRadar):

Computer Music: GForce impOSCar 2! See it, hear it, pull funny faces!

SonicState with the instrument’s creator:

Thanks, michel / bliss! (I had wanted to cover this and … yep, forgot.)

2008 has been an amazing year for music technology. But I can’t bring myself to look back on it on this New Year’s Eve: not when there’s so much to look forward to in 2009. Case in point? An extraordinary, innovative new controller that in a matter of hours was already spreading among connected music technologists around the planet.

At the end of the day, it’s not hard to describe what you might want out of an expressive music controller. Most people would agree on that. The challenge is really an engineering problem. Solve the engineering problem in an artful way, and you can spend the rest of your time just practicing playing your invention. That’s what makes the above video so exciting.

Randall Jones has built a really elegant and wonderful multi-touch hardware controller, as reported by MAKE:blog (and picked up on Hack a Day). With $50 in parts and a lot of clever hardware design and software coding, Jones has built an interface that responds to both touch and pressure and, using some smart sonic mapping, can realistically reproduce instruments like the dumbek and guiro.

Intimate Control for Physical Modeling Synthesis [Project Page / Paper Abstract]

PDF, Randall Jones MSc Research Paper

Who needs a “top 10 technologies of 2008” post for CDM when this particular instrument could pretty easily top the whole list? Let’s just call it done, and uncork the champagne: major congrats, Randy! (This is a master’s thesis!)

Jones’ work does have some precedent, but just to review how much he’s accomplished here: he’s innovated in terms of the sensing, the form factor, the software interpolation, and the way in which the control data is mapped to a synthesis method. (Whew!) That has had a number of specific achievements:

• A clever form factor: The basic design here is elegant and could be adaptable to other form factors. Most importantly, the use of polypropylene and silicone rubber means the interface deforms nicely as you press it, giving you feedback. And that opens lots of other similar design possibilities. Translation: being squishy rocks.
• Multidimensional / force-sensitive input: “Multi-touch” usually only means something that can take multiple touch inputs at one time, as in, from multiple fingers. But as I’ve complained in the past, the problem is that most multi-touch interfaces, like the Lemur and iPhone, don’t respond to the amount of pressure or deform (providing tactile feedback) when you use them. That makes them feel a bit like an ATM screen that happens to take more than one finger at a time. Jones’ prototype responds to how hard you’re pressing or hitting it, and it’s more sensitive – more like a real-world instrument. Jones calls this “multidimensional,” but force-sensitive would be another way to look at it. Translation: it’s more organic than entering your ATM PIN code.
• Audio-rate resolution: By choosing to use audio signal for control rather than … well, anything else, Randy gets an extremely responsive control signal. The controller itself is passive, requiring no power. Everything is done by processing audio created by the sensors. That’s not a new idea, but by returning to it in this context, Randy makes a much more responsive controller than most touch and multi-touch controllers before it, and returns to some of the analog-style control of instruments like the Theremin and acoustic instruments. Translation: it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.
• Smart centroid processing: To make touch points accurate, Randy wrote a new object for Jitter that does centroid calculation. Translation: Randy worked through the details.
• Waveguide mesh modeling for deep sonic results: None of this would be meaningful without meaningful sounds coming out of it. Here, Randy builds on previous work in creating a physical model of a drum head (back to the dumbek), but both refines the model and works intelligently through how to match it with the controller. Translation: it makes good noises.

There are some other related touch devices, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, but rather than reinvent his work, I’d suggest reading through Randy’s own research paper. He does a great job talking about what’s great and not-as-great about other research and products, and makes a terrific argument for his design choices. (Basically, see also the Haken Continuum, the Korg WaveDrum, the Tactex MTC Express, the CNMAT multitouch controller, and the Audio-Input Radio Drum.)

Now, if this kind of development had come about a few years ago, the next thing we’d be talking about is how this might be commercialized. Part cost is cheap – that’s good news. I don’t know Randy’s plans for licensing and future development. But we can already compare how this might have gone had this been introduced, say, a few years ago.

The old model:

1. Spend a couple of years more refining the prototype on your own.

2. Show off the work at an academic conference in Italy. People can see it if they’re associated with an academic institution that’s also willing to pick up their airfare and let them leave for a week. (Anyone who’s had to wrestle with their department to get a couple hundred dollars for a thousand dollars in actual expenses knows what I’m talking about here.)

3. Publish in an academic journal a handful of people get, so they can try to figure out what it’s like from diagrams and grainy black-and-white photos (and no sound). Oh yeah – no one can actually comment on the story, either, so advanced researchers lack feedback and newcomers lack context and commentary.

4. Get the prototype ready for NAMM. Blow a bunch of cash on a hotel in Anaheim and a NAMM booth.

5. Work out a complex, expensive production and distribution scheme that in turn jacks up the price. Hope someone finds it and can afford it.

6. To justify the cost, make the product as finished as possible. Sell it as a “Digital Dumbek” to eccentric, loaded rock stars.

Now, I don’t want to sound grumpy or naive. The truth is, some really brilliant instruments have been down this road. But I’m not sure the description above really did a whole lot for their brilliance. I’m not necessarily saying there aren’t benefits to some of the above techniques, but clearly they won’t work for everyone.

The new model:

“Where’s my flying car?” That’s the question that often comes up when technology and a New Year coincide. With music, though, I think what we’ve really been waiting for is a convergence of new technology and new communities. Flip through the Computer Music Tutorial’s section on new instruments, and you’ll see some fantastic, exotic, and often familiar new interfaces. So what has 2009 got that the last few decades didn’t? Think cut-rate, faster tech, and a connected Web community to develop, evangelize, and use new technologies.

1. Get 20,000 Vimeo views the moment you post your first demo. No one has to fly anywhere.

2. Connect with people doing research and experiments worldwide and get instant feedback and ideas and potential collaboration – even if they’re not publishing research or flying to conferences or are even academics.

3. Instead of assuming you’ll build a finished, closed product (hello, “Digital Dumbek”), figure people will want to hack the result. (Randy has already posted parts lists, so it’s possible to build this thing right now if you’re so inclined. And he also says in Vimeo contents he’s thinking about doing a version that transmits OpenSoundControl data, so you could use it to control other instruments, music, or even visuals.)

You’ve already skipped a lot of the steps that were previously necessary just to find interested parties. And that network could in turn be used to figure out how to make the thing around the world at a lower cost and get it directly to people who might want to buy it. It also assumes those people might hack the tool for very different applications, instead of having to target one particular kind of person.

Nothing about this is a panacea for innovation: most of the hard engineering problems remain, and this doesn’t mean you can magically create new products. But there’s no question that even changing the hurdles means there’s new potential. If 2009 is about anything, I hope it’s about people finding new solutions to taking that potential and tapping into it. You can bet it’ll be a major focus of this site.

Congrats, Randy – we’ll be watching.

Happy New Year.

pmpd, free external for Pd

Johan Strandell writes:

It’s not physical modeling in the usual sense; pmpd simulates things like friction, acceleration/deacceleration etc.; i.e., more useful for control of parameters rather than synthesis in itself. Some of the examples are really intriguing, but I’ve only scratched the surface on it. An article about it would be great, to see what other people are doing with it.

Consider your challenge accepted. May take me a while, but I’m doing some other work modeling physics, so this could segue nicely. As you can see in the visual below, you can use this to model fluids, matter, particles, and other substances. That could be easily applied to sound synthesis (and they include a number examples) as a way of making control less mechanical and more dynamic and organic. Since environments like GEM run 3D visuals on your graphics card, there’s nothing stopping you from dedicating your graphics card GPU to visual feedback while the CPU plugs away on the sound.

To run this, you’ll need the free Pure Data (Pd) environment for visually programming sound and multimedia. There is a Max/MSP port for OS X, and since he’s included source code I’ll try to compile for Windows, but since Pd is free and the examples and illustrations are in Pd, you’re better off starting there and worrying about porting to Max later.

There’s also a library for SuperCollider; I know there are some SuperCollider-using readers out there so let us know how this works out for you. Visual below.

Yeah, I know, it’s summer vacation — so, music technology faculty, I fully expect you to give us some examples, since you’re out in your summer cabin with no students to bother you. (I had a teacher once who said the one that would make teaching a perfect profession is if there were no students.)

Thanks to the folks at macProVideo.com / Nonlinear Educating, I can offer a discount to CDM readers. Enter coupon code CDM001 for 15% off the Sculpture tutorial, as well as Steve’s Plug-Ins bundle, which explains the fundamentals of “sound and why it sounds that way,” plus the many other plug-ins in Logic. Use this quick; the coupon expires in two weeks.

Logic 205: Synthesis With Sculpture

Logic Plugins Bundle (Logic 103: Sound and Why It Sounds That Way, Logic 202: Logic’s Plug-ins)

If you’re not sold yet, though, here’s the full review. (And no, I’m not getting paid to say any of this — finding good tutorials always makes me excited.)

Approaching Sculpture

Plenty of soft synths claim to be unique, but Sculpture, the physical modeling plug-in included with Logic Pro, really is one one of the deepest and most powerful soft synths on the planet. By physically modeling the components of acoustic instruments, then feeding them through a downright insane chain of adjustments, modulation, keyboard scaling, morphing, and alien voodoo, Sculpture is capable of sounding different from anything else out there. That’s not easy to do.

Of course, the other side of Sculpture is that it’s incredibly daunting to learn. Parts are intuitive and fun to play with, like the ball in the Material panel in the center. But the modulation and morphing options at the bottom caused one good friend I won’t name, with years of professional preset design and synth programming, to exclaim, “Find me one person who understands how that bottom section works.”

Well, Steve Horelick is definitely that person. He really masters this instrument, and in the course of two hours, he shares all the secrets of how to use Sculpture in terms anyone can understand. You’ll actually have a good time, and by the end might even wonder why you found it so tricky in the first place.

A Video Master Class

First, though, I should confess something: I hate video training. They tend to move too quickly when you want them to move slowly, too slowly when you want them to move quickly, and provide too little information. The video trainings from macProVideo.com have actually changed my mind. Steve Horelick is a real master at pacing and presentation. When he moves through basic information, he always manages to reveal some insight and practical advice. When he gets to advanced information (and Sculpture requires plenty of it), he manages to make everything seem easy.

macProVideo’s training use a simple player format that lets you quickly move from section to section, with an embedded QuickTime player so you can pause and replay sections. That’s especially helpful with a soft synth, because you’ll immediately want to start playing with techniques in Sculpture once you see them explained. I’ve been using the instrument since it came out, and even I started coming up with sound design ideas after watching Steve.

The training is divided roughly according to the signal flow and structure of the instrument, starting with the basics of sound design and the way in which Sculpture models real physical acoustics, and moving on to cover modulation, envelopes, and morphing. Sculpture is an unusual plug-in in that an enormous number of parameters are packed on one screen. The documentation from Apple becomes an unordered laundry list of settings, which is part of why it’s hard to learn Sculpture from the manual. Instead of doing that, Steve works methodically through the steps required to actually create a sound.

There are many tutorials and books and videos and classes that cover technology rather than music. I’m sure I’ve been guilty of this on more than one occasion myself in my writing and teaching. Fortunately, this Sculpture tutorial is all about sound design. If so much as a knob gets tweaked, it’s always to produce some cool sound or timbral subtlety. Steve is a really gifted sound designer, which has two benefits: one, you can pick up a whole lot of practical tips just from watching him work, and two, the ease and comfort with which he manipulates the software is contagious.

Adding to the impact of the materials, this is a fully-produced educational work, not just the usual “turn on a camera while I move the mouse around and say um a lot.” Sounds play in the background during demonstrations. Highlights show elements of the screen and further illustrate concepts. (See the illustration above, which is worth printing out and tacking next to your Cinema Display.) Even having the mouse arrow blown up makes the whole lesson easier on the eyes.

Conclusions

Most importantly, will you finally understand how to make those baffling morphing and envelopes at the bottom of the screen work? The answer is definitely yes. Apple did put the controls where they did for a reason, and Steve makes those reasons entirely clear, helping you see the logic of the program (excuse the pun) and master the powerful sonic-shaping capabilities of the morph section.

I did notice one hitch, however. Part of what makes that bottom section so confusing is that it’s the least consistent in terms of how the interface works. The worst decision on Apple’s part, I think, is to hide the parameter that turns the morphing features on. You’d naturally expect it to be on the giant square labeled “MORPH.” Instead, it’s this tiny Mode switch shown below. Without it, the Morph pad doesn’t work the way either the manual or this tutorial describes. You can easily wind up sitting around, dragging the Morph pad and figuring out why you can’t make that ball appear or cause something to happen. Steve does cover this detail, but in the Morph Envelopes section, not the beginning of the “Morph Section Geography.” It’s the fault of the Apple designers, not this training, but in case that tripped you up as it once did me, now you know.

Most tutorials are something you work through once and throw away, but Steve’s Sculpture training is one you’ll want to work through in parts and return to over time. 135 minutes winds up being a full master class in this incredible software instrument. If you’ve ever wanted to get deep into a piece of software the way you would an acoustic instrument, this is it. It’s hard to do alone, but thanks to Steve, you don’t have to. Highly, highly recommended.

Now turn off your cell phone, lock your doors, and plan to spend a month turning into a hermit while playing with Sculpture. Oh, and beware, because Sculpture can do strange things to people. Somehow this fellow showed up in Steve’s video. I told you this is no ordinary software instrument. Be afraid.

ARGO [Mac/Windows freeware]
List of modules

With 100 modules for sound synthesis, this is a deep collection of sound objects for your Max patching pleasure. It includes granular objects, filters, FFTs, players and recorders, effects, and (my favorite part) an extensive set of oscillators and sound generators, including even some physical modeling elements. These are just the kinds of things I enjoy having in Reaktor but miss in Max/MSP. The set comes with full PDF documentation (bilingual, no less) and a series of example tutorials with practical examples. It even runs on Mac OS 9, so if you’ve got an older machine, you could turn it into an ARGO-based synthesis workstation. I may wind up using this with a class I’m teaching on Max/MSP at Brooklyn College in the fall, so stay tuned for more impressions.

Found via our forums; thanks to creator Gerard Paresys for creating this fantastic free tool and bringing it to our attention. Stop by the forums and say hi, if you’ve got anything like this, or have enjoyed using it.

There’s just not enough time (or money) for all the great plug-ins around. But one of my favorite instrumental plug-ins, one I can’t imagine living without, is the superb Lounge Lizard electric piano from Applied Acoustics. It’s physically modeled, not sampled, and as a result feels more organic than some of its competitors. EP-3 offered some welcome improvements, including a more fleshed-out effects section, more pickups and models, built-in audio recording, and micro-tuning; some users thought it wasn’t a significant upgrade when they first saw it, but upon closer inspection I think you’ll find it a must-upgrade.

I expect a lot of home musicians haven’t gotten to use Lounge Lizard, though, because it costs money — US$225 street for the full-blown program with gobs of presets and customization. That shouldn’t stop you if you play electric pianos all the time, but if you’re on a budget, you’ll appreciate the new US$99 Lounge Lizard Session. The reality is, this is all most users will need: the top four models are there, plus tremolo, drive, multi-effects, and reverb. If you change your mind later, you can upgrade to the full version. Native Instruments and Apple both have terrific electric pianos, and I use both, but Lounge Lizard remains my first stop. I hope Applied Acoustics applies the same model (erm, so to speak) to Ultra Analog and String Studio, because I’m sure that’d widen the audience for those, as well.

So concludes my rave; now go check it out for yourself:

Lounge Lizard Session

This is by far the most exciting free-plug release so far this year. It’s comparable to Reason’s Maelstrom, but allows one to import any .wav files (mono only) into the plug for manipulation.

Audio Demos:
Grain_Demo_1.mp3
Grain_Demo_2.mp3
Grain_Demo_3.mp3
Grain_Demo_4.mp3
Grain_Demo_5.mp3
Grain_Demo_6.mp3
Grain_Demo_7.mp3
Grain_Demo_8.mp3

Direct Downloads of plug + support files:
Grainz_0-1-0.zip
Granular.zip
SKGrains_manual_draft.pdf

Developed by Sknote

Ed: Some really fasinating ideas here: 1 pluck oscillator, physical modeled, plus 2 graintable oscillators, and interaction between the two, plus filters and multi-stage envelopes. Future versions plan an arpeggiator, control matrix, bow model, and other features. The developer has some other interesting plugs, though thanks to Adrian for sorting out the links — site is a bit disorganized. Now go enjoy! -PK