Adding hardware to tablets, as it has with decades of computing technology, can open up new worlds for software and music. It can animate a conventional piano, or provide new physical interfaces for touching music. But let’s not wait for it to happen; let’s get hacking.

Following on today’s line of thinking about hardware-augmented touch, I’d like to look a bit at the recently-transformed landscape on Android. iOS users can connect to external hardware via the Core MIDI protocol or, via official channels, through the Apple Dock Connector. That’s not a perfect situation, however. Hardware developers have to be approved through the Made for iPod program in order to make accessories, there’s no standard class support apart from MIDI, and while Bluetooth can connect you to other iPads, you can’t connect arbitrarily with hardware via Bluetooth. (At least, that’s what I’ve found speaking with iOS developers, though some Bluetooth gamepads appear to work, possibly because they simply act as keyboards). WiFi wireless connection is also a possibility, one I expect will continue to be exploited.

But Android does have some interesting options here – a reminder of why getting familiar with more than one platform can be enlightening. A lot of those possibilities could open up new ideas in music hardware, ideas that could work not only on Android but in some cases (as with standard USB support) with desktop and tablet Mac, Windows, and Linux machines, too.

Case in point: check out a Motorola XOOM controlling a piano above, for a kind of hacker’s Disklavier. (Apologies to Yamaha.) Yes, it’s a great deal messier than existing USB MIDI devices (more on that in a moment), but it’s a visual reminder of why we do this in the first place – and it doesn’t have to be quite this hacky on Android, either.

Simplified, your options are:

Android Open Accessory

Currently the best wired common denominator, the Open Accessory program allows you to use a third-party accessory as the USB host, even on devices that lack USB host support. You just need a device with Android 3.1, 2.3.4, or greater. In a much-ballyhooed feature, there are prototyping possibilities with the open Arduino platform. Google’s own hardware is obscenely pricey, though, at around $400. Instead, DIYers will want to use a standard Arduino. Two early examples:
Android ADK with a standard Arduino Uno and USB Host Shield
Google’s open accessory development kit on standard Arduino hardware

These prototypes could, in turn, be converted into simple kits or even standard off-the-shelf accessories, without asking anyone’s permission.

See a video at top for one of the Arduino Uno examples in action.

Also, for the actual code, look at:
UsbAccessory

More on DIY implementations that don’t require $400 hardware kits (more like … $40, tops):
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/usb/adk.html

Microchip also promises an open PIC24 library with a driver for ADK

That said, because Google’s implementation is specific to Android, those accessories aren’t useful anywhere else. That’s why it’s worth considering USB host mode.

USB Host Mode

Tablets are the Android devices about which I’m most excited at the moment, because as with the iPad, the tablet devices wind up being more flexible and capable than their phone handset cousins.

One key feature: Honeycomb tablets support actual USB host mode. That means you can connect standard USB HID devices like joysticks. It also means you should be able to make a MIDI interface that isn’t kludged together from a bunch of proto boards and $400 Google Android kits and that works with Android but not your computer, as above.

In fact, the existence of this option made me a bit puzzled when I read Phil Torrone’s* editorial in Make. (See postlog, though, on why listening to Phil is still a good idea.) Phil focuses there on Arduino, and doesn’t mention standard USB host.

Why Google Choosing Arduino Matters and is This the End of “Made for iPod” (TM)?

Now, Phil’s correct that the Arduino is currently the easiest platform for hacking with this stuff. But I actually think even that could change. There are already a number of AVR-based platforms for doing USB host implementations. Like Arduino, you can develop for them with free, open tools and a wide community. Unlike a standard Arduino I/O board, though, it’s easy to create something smaller, cheaper, and more flexible – and to plug your creation into any device that supports standard USB hardware. Now, actually implementing some of these things is nowhere near as simple as Arduino at the moment, but that to me is a testing and documentation problem more than anything else. I’m bullish on the possibilities here; it’s part of the reason we chose a standard AVR platform for our MeeBlip synth and not Arduino. I’ve started messing with its firmware, finally; more on that soon – it’ll also be relevant to playing with DIY hardware for Android.

The Arduino stuff is absolutely cool, don’t get me wrong. I just think you could substitute “open hardware” more generally in that article for “Arduino,” specifically. (The article’s nonetheless well worth a read for some stimulating ideas.)

Executive summary: I betcha we can come up with a really simple DIY MIDI interface, via both wireless and wired connections, for Android that doesn’t touch the Arduino side of things and will work with your computer, too.

See:
android.hardware.usb in the Android documentation

IOIO – a Chat with the Developer

Following CDM’s coverage of the Google announcement of the ADK in the first place, a number of commenters pondered the inexpensive, DIY IOIO board marketed by Sparkfun (pictured).

Developer Ytai Ben-Tsvi shares some thoughts about how IOIO relates to the ADK:

First, you can see some of my (and others’) thoughts on this thread:
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/ioio-users/3JDn6XZJ9aE/discussion

Aside from what’s written there, I have immediate plans for implementing IOIO on top of ADK. This means that when IOIO is connected to an Android device, it will first try to establish and ADK (accessory-mode) connection with it and if that fails, will seamlessly attempt to fallback to ADB. ADB will still be used for firmware upgrades, as I believe this is the most secure way of making sure the user is involved in the decision to update the firmware (via enforcement of a single signed application that IOIO agrees to talk to).

In the (hopefully near) future, a similar behavior will be achieved by connecting a Bluetooth dongle to IOIO instead of an Android device, enabling a remote connection between Android (or even the Android emulator!) and IOIO, on expense of reduced bandwidth and increased latency.

Some points to emphasize:

• IOIO is targeted at the hobbyist/educational community. I believe ADK is primarily targeted at serious hardware developers. As a result, in terms of support, design considerations, feature prioritization, ease of use etc., IOIO is more likely to stay loyal to the hobbyist community in the future.
• At the time of writing, IOIO seems to be the cheapest solution for communicating with an Android.
• IOIO currently provides a high-level Java API which hides underneath it a rich protocol for controlling many of the board’s features from Java. “Mainstream” users will never have to touch embedded programming when working with IOIO. My hope is that this API will eventually become a standard, and that people will implement it on top of other boards as well. If that happens, application developers will be able to easily port their applications to different hardwares.

IOIO is available now for US$49.95. Honestly, if you’ve got a phone that it works with, it’s a fantastic choice.

IOIO @ Sparkfun

Bottom line:

At first it seemed like there is conflict here, but now it appears to me like there really isn’t! IOIO is an end-to-end solution for physical computing (a-la Arduino) from your Android device, ADK is a protocol for enabling you to connect peripherals to an Android device, and this is Google’s motivation in this game. The boards that came with ADK are just reference implementations, and to me they seem in no competition with IOIO at present. So IOIO and ADK will probably be good friend in the future, when ADK provides the underlying connectivity and IOIO provides the high-level platform for the hobbyists.

Updated: There’s already good news.

Since he wrote the comments above, Ytai got everything working with IOIO and ADK:
IOIO over OpenAccessory (ADK) Available [Ytai's "Microcontrollers, Electronics & Robotics" Blog]

He makes a strong argument for why IOIO may be your best solution. In fact, for my money, IOIO plus USB host development is just about perfect.

Bluetooth

Enough about all these wires: you do lose some of the beauty of these mobile devices when you attach a lot of spaghetti to them. Enter Bluetooth. It’s reasonably cheap, light on power consumption and well-suited to embedded hardware (key differences with wifi). It’s also gotten steadily more robust. For wireless MIDI and wireless control, it really can work.

On Android, it’s possible to interface directly with hardware over Bluetooth. That opens up the chance to do, for instance, MIDI over Bluetooth without a wire in sight. For lots of thoughts on this, the best reading is Peter Brinkmann’s blog. (Peter is also the primary author of libpd.)

I hope we’ll get to talk more about this soon. Ahem.

http://nettoyeur.noisepages.com/

I’ll admit: I’m actually kind of a sucker for wires. So I’m glad to have Peter around to encourage me not to create giant, ugly tangles of crap.

Postlog – Phil Torrone and Mobile

I just want to add one background note on Phil Torrone.

Phil deserves loads of credit for seeing this stuff coming long before it was popularized. Here’s what he had to say in 2002:

A simple hiking stick was way too low-tech for Macromedia Flash expert Phillip Torrone.
So Torrone equipped his stick with GPS and Flash applications that let him identify trails and track information on local flora and fauna — and leave messages for other hikers.
He’ll show off the hiking stick and more of his quirky creations, such as a digital belt buckle made from an old Palm V, when he discusses wireless fashion at a Flash conference here Friday.
His inventions are sure to delight his geeky audience of developers and designers at FlashForward. But his audience will start taking notes when he brings out mass-market, Flash-enabled devices such as a Microsoft Pocket PC Phone Edition and an O2 XDA, two Pocket PCs that are also phones.
Flash developers believe mobile devices like these are the wave of the future, Torrone said. “Last year, wireless phones outsold PCs for the first time,” he said.

Lots of Flash, Even More Sizzle [Wired, July 2002]

In music, we have the opportunity to test these same ideas not only for a quick geeky hack, but as a real means of self-expression, in deeply emotional, intimate ways.

And just remember, for anyone caught up on platform debates, at some point even words like “iPad” or “Galaxy Tab” will seem as distant as “Palm” and “Pocket PC.” But the ideas behind actual work for those platforms will remain. (Oh, and… I guess we still have Flash, huh?)

Now … who wants to do some hacking this summer for music? (And science!)

Speaking of goodies for Ableton Live, NYC-based electronic artist and songwriter AfroDJMac has been creating some unusual, nicely quirky Device Racks for Ableton Live. Unlike a Max for Live patch, these are accessible to anyone with a copy of Ableton Live – and may be easier to edit for those of you not comfortable tinkering around with Max patches.

Each creation begins with a sample, then twists it into playable instruments in virtual device racks. AfroDjMac has been releasing these racks on a weekly basis; weeks two and three are already looking good. At top, a 1960s Gibson acoustic guitar meets an Ebow for some lovely string timbres.

The Ebow itself is a pretty terrific invention:
http://www.ebow.com/home.php
Battery-powered and handheld-sized, it’s a shortcut to ethereal sounds.

Another example, seen below, is a reversed piano. That sounds not terribly interesting, but he’s loaded it up with clever delays and programming and created something pretty deep. The piano itself is worth mentioning, too – a 1913 Kranich and Bach upright piano.

All you need is a recent copy of Live, and you can open the sets directly. In fact, this is a reminder that sets and racks remain the best way to distribute simple creations for Ableton Live, even if Max for Live is a good choice for much fancier tricks. It still makes me wonder what the best way to distribute samples may be, with various competing formats; I’m open to ideas beyond the obvious “big ‘ol folder full of files” technique.

Read up more on the artist’s blog:
Free Weekly Ableton Live Rack #2 – “AfroDjMac Gibson Ebow Pad” and Live Video Performance from Brooklyn
Free Weekly Ableton Live Rack #3 – “AfroDjMac Reversed Piano”

Below, you can see what AfroDjMac’s live set is like – and yes, apparently rock clubs do allow laptops these days, if you bring a mic:

Roland dropped a slew of news announcements today, from new keyboards to software. There’s a new JUNO-Gi, which takes Roland’s economical synth workstation and adds multitrack recording and BOSS effects. The virtual piano lineup has all been remade in the image of the V-Piano, with more realistic sampling tech. And there’s a set of offerings as broad as what we’re accustomed to seeing at trade shows, including one nice-looking harmonic stompbox.

Here are the highlights, focusing on what you need to know.

The JUNO that Records

A keyboard workstation, multitrack recording, and BOSS effects, mobile at just over a grand

The JUNO-Gi is the biggest headline here. Built on the JUNO-G, already a slimmed-down rendition of the Fantom in a much cheaper, more compact package, the Gi is a mobile, multi-function workstation at the recession-friendly price of US$1199. It’s a pretty complete all-in-one offering that manages to be cheap and mobile while still cramming in a lot of functionality:

• Battery-powered option.
• Built-in 8-track digital recorder (64 virtual tracks.
• Dedicated mix faders, rhythm machine track, and recording onto a standard SD card (up to 32 GB cards.
• Built-in USB audio and MIDI interface when you’re connected to a computer; SONAR LE bundled.
• Rear-panel XLR mic (thank you, Roland!), guitar, and line inputs.
• Built-in BOSS-GT guitar effects, vocal processing.

To me, the JUNO-Gi looks like a big winner for those who want an all-in-one keyboard workstation rather than a computer when they’re on the go, especially with the addition of real ports, faders, and guitar and vocal effects. And there’s definitely something to be said for that kind of distraction-free workflow.

For background, you can read my 2007 review of the JUNO-Gi’s “-G” predecessor for Keyboard Magazine; I lamented the fact that the “JUNO” name doesn’t really apply in terms of the sound generation, but otherwise found an affordable, balanced keyboard with a friendly front panel. In fact, I really prefer these designs to some of the bigger flagships; to me, it’s like driving a sporty hatchback instead of a lumbering SUV.
Roland Juno-G [Keyboard]

I said at the time – really doubly true now with the addition of BOSS effects and multitrack interface and recording capability:

Despite its price and retro styling, the Juno-G really is a “Fantom-Xpress.” It’s got the processor and sound engine from the pricier Fantom-X line, minus some of the extra bells and whistles. You still get Fantom-class sounds, a multisampled grand piano, compatibility with Roland’s SRX expansion boards, onboard audio and MIDI recording and editing, lots of effects, and a powerful arpeggiator. That makes the Juno-G an unusually feature-packed workstation relative to other budget keyboards.

See also our CDM Q&A on the 2.0 update to the JUNO-G

Digital Pianos Go SuperNATURAL

The other story Roland is pushing is the switch of its digital pianos to a new set of sampling technologies it calls SuperNATURAL. It appears to be a big leap forward for Roland’s pianos, and given the success of the V-Piano, for digital pianos in general.

Roland boils down the technology to three techniques:

1. It’s 88 keys of stereo multi-sampling – no zones.
2. Via tech borrowed from Roland’s V-Piano, it promises smoother transitions between dynamic levels.
3. The decaying tone isn’t looped.

You can watch a video explaining the techniques. (Does anyone else find Roland’s promo videos seem like they fell through a time warp from the 80s? No matter – it’s how the piano plays that counts.)

Now, some of the comparisons Roland makes relative to software piano instruments aren’t quite as fair – a couple of instruments, through clever sampling and/or modeling, do get this right in software. But it is more unique in hardware.

There are four new digital piano products with SuperNATURAL sounds in them. Two of them you probably don’t care about; they’re geared for the home/education market and have notation views built into the music stand:
HPi-6F
HPi-7F

– I’m guessing CDM readers would rather get a keyboard they like and then prop an iPad on the music stand. (Or use this magical technology called paper.)

There’s also the FP series, with built-in speakers:
FP-7f couples the new sound tech with a redesigned keybed. It also adds looping and mic input and harmony effects as new features. US$2190, unless you want it in white, in which case it’s US$2299. Don’t ask.

The keyboard with the new tech most likely to appeal to readers of this site is this:
RD-700NX, the upgrade to Roland’s previous flagship stage piano. As with the FP, this model adds a looper, a vocal mic input with harmony effects, and a new “PHA III Ivory Feel-S Keyboard with Escapement” keybed. There’s also a new, larger LCD screen. US$2999.

The RD-700NX works nicely as a MIDI control keyboard as well as a standalone stage keyboard, so it could be one to watch. I’ll be honest: the Roland action on these keyboards, while solid, was never my favorite. I’m curious to see how the new action feels. And you really have to play simulated pianos to know if they’ve gotten the sampling tech right.

GAIA Editing Software

Part of the whole appeal of the GAIA SH-01 synth is that you work on the front panel and not in software. But I like what Roland is doing with the GAIA Synth Sound Designer – if, for no other reason, because it has an oscilloscope view so you can see the waveform. You can record and play back sound creations in Action Lists, a clever new way of working. And you can use it as an editor/librarian app for backing, organization, and storage – a category that made hardware synths more useful and has been sorely lacking.

d news: instead of providing the app for free, the software, released in October, will list for US$99 (in-store street should be lower). Given the GAIA’s mission of reaching out to new synth lovers, I’d rather see this bundled in box. (Note that this is hardly unprecedented — Moog charges US$79 for their Minimoog Voyager Editor, and a Minimoog owner has shelled out a heck of a lot more cash than a GAIA customer.)

I’m finishing off an SH-01 review, complete with sound design tips, soon, so if you have any last-minute questions, fire away.

A new, multi-effect BOSS pitch stompbox

The BOSS PS-6 “Harmonist” pedal looks delicious. Effects include three-voice harmony, plus four pitch shift modes:

• Harmony
• Pitch Shifter
• Detune
• “Super Bend,” a brand-new mode with “shift,” “rise time,” and “fall time” (so, in other words, it’s a time-based pitch shifter)

US$241.50 in September.

More New Products

In other Roland news:
The AX-Synth is available in black, though at US$1449 list, you’d have to consider the more affordable Lucina AX-09 if you really need a shoulder keyboard. I’m finishing a review of the latter now.

The C-380 is a luxurious-looking, 2-manual modeled pipe organ. I want one, and an underground lair to go with it. (Yeah, sure, it’s the cliche, but I’ve always appreciated the lifestyle choice.)

Roland also has new CUBE-XL guitar amps, though I’ll try to examine those next to a similar announcement from Vox – it’s a good time to be in the market for inexpensive, busk-ready amps.

The Octa-Capture is a new high-res, USB 2.0 10-in, 10-out computer audio interface. Roland is going toward calling these “Roland” interfaces, instead of “Edirol,” and appears to be pushing the quality of these devices. US$699. Unfortunately, this illustrates that we need an updated USB class spec to support interfaces like this without drivers, at least from what I know; you do need the drivers to run this box, so no driver-free operation and no Linux support initially.

The BOSS ST-2 “Power Stack” is a compact pedal that simulates stack-style tube amps. US$162.

If any of this stuff strikes your fancy, let us know, and we can get questions answered for you.

http://www.rolandconnect.com/

Pianoteq is an effort to model, rather than sample, acoustic pianos and other instruments on the computer. Now in its third major release, its interface and sound generation have each matured. Using mathematical models in place of recorded sounds, an entire grand piano fits in just a few megs of space, rather than requiring several DVDs, and the software maker claims the results can be more natural and playable.

Pianoteq, which runs as do its rivals on Mac and Windows, is also unusual in providing support for the Linux operating system – something some developers have claimed isn’t practical with commercial music software. And a new “Player” addition, announced this month, makes it more affordable. In addition to software development, the team has even launched an extensive piano restoration effort:
http://www.pianoteq.com/kivir

I’ve been impressed with my time playing with Pianoteq’s software. That’s especially meaningful to me, as my background in music has been on acoustic pianos, back to when I was literally old enough to reach the keys for the first time. But I also wanted to know more about how this software developed. Its rigorous approach to modeling has attracted a lot of attention in the virtual instrument world, and the fact that it targets Linux alongside Mac and Windows challenges notions that commercial software can’t make it on the free operating system.

Pianoteq sent along some extensive answers, which I’m pleased to be able to share. Naturally, they’re proud of their software, so there is a bit of expected boasting here. (I’ll discuss more of the experience of using the tool, and the new Player version, shortly). But they also have some fascinating commentary on sound design, modeling, and the development process. In the “geeky as we want to be” spirit of this site, here’s the full scoop.

CDM: Can you talk about the background of the company? How does one make a shift from dealing with the physical instruments and tuning to thinking about mathematical models, let alone translate that into actual software?

Philippe: the Pianoteq history is strongly connected to my first job as a piano tuner. Then at the age of 31, I started a new life with basic studies in mathematics at the University of Toulouse, France. After what I prepared my PhD thesis on the parametrization of vibrating phenomena, without imagining that it would be the basis of my third life with Pianoteq. Thanks to these two skills and to an exceptional scientific environment in Toulouse, I succeeded in identifying important phenomena responsible for the generation of the piano sound and proposed a model which describes the whole interaction of the soundboard, strings, bridge and air.

Julien: I was working as an engineer at Institute of Mathematics of Toulouse, with Philippe (who was also my teacher when I was a student). My focus was on an open-source finite element package ( http://home.gna.org/getfem ) when Philippe told me about his project of piano sound synthesis. I took charge of the development of the real-time engine, and we quickly decided that we wanted to turn this research project into a commercial product. Thanks to the French law on innovation and research (1999), the support of INSA Toulouse, and the Institute of Mathematics, the start-up MODARTT was created in 2006 to sell Pianoteq, which was at that time the first fully modeled piano instrument.

Niclas: I represented many of Pianoteq’s customers of today, being a part time piano composer with a love for the piano instrument. I was updating an extensive article on digital piano technology in 2004 when someone advised me to have a look at Philippe’s research. I immediately understood its potential, which is why I suggested Philippe to assist in marketing and product development. Since then, I have participated in the product development and testing and am also in charge of sales and customer service.

Modeling the Piano with Math

I remember trying previous attempts at piano modeling and finding them interesting but ultimately unsatisfying. I think people who pick up Pianoteq have, immediately, a different experience. What’s different about this modeling approach than those that have come before – and, for that matter, why did it take until now?

Philippe: The idea of modeling musical instruments is very old and has always faced great difficulties: the complexity of physical phenomena, the sensitivity of the human ear to the slightest imperfection, and the difficulty of running a complex model in real-time. The latency needs to be so small that it gives to the musician the impression of playing a real acoustic instrument. Until now, attempts have only confirmed that the task was not easy. The state of the art of digital pianos is based on sampling technology. Each note is a recording of how it sounded at a specific moment, without taking into account the complexity of the instrument. The huge data generated by sampling can reach 40 Gbytes for a single piano. The flow rate of data transmitted from the hard drive to the sound device is too high for the current hardware capacity and it can happen that one hears crackles. [Ed.: I would say fast hard drives, optimized software streaming, and other intelligent configuration can certainly avoid crackles, but the fact that, say, a low-end hard drive might choke means that Philippe's point about data intensity here is nonetheless well taken. -PK]

Moreover, the reproduced sound lacks vividness. Hence, creating a piano model which takes into account the interaction between hammer and strings, the interaction between strings and soundboard via the bridge and the interaction of the soundboard with the air is of great interest. Based on mathematical models, Pianoteq allows parameters to be stretched as long as the model permits, resulting not only in new performance styles but also in new piano sounds. Pianoteq is thus also an innovating tool for music creation and can be useful not only to musicians but also to piano manufacturers and piano tuners for simulation and training purposes. Pianoteq makes excellence in piano available to all. Among Pianoteq users, composers and professionals in music creation are certainly the most excited with our innovation. Pianoteq offers what acoustic and sampled pianos cannot offer: new opportunities for music creation and a pure piano sound that is not altered by its environment (reverberation) or by recording devices.

Can you talk more about the model itself? I can see the components that are modeled, but – realizing we have fairly technical people among our audience – what are the basic modeling techniques?

Philippe: the modeling technique is based on various standard techniques issued from mechanics theory including modal analysis (calculation of vibration frequencies and the corresponding modes) and parametrization techniques that we developed at the university, as well as from a precise knowledge issued from my previous job as piano tuner/restorer of what is going on in a piano and what is important.

How did that approach to modeling evolve? Obviously, there’s this strong mathematical research background. But what’s the process like of translating that theory into something that’s usable? Were there mistakes or adjustments along the way?

Philippe: I don’t think there were mistakes along our model evolution, but more a constant improvement in the details taken into account by the model, looking closer to the physics of the piano and finding suddenly some simplification in the algorithms that allow to take include more details for the same computational cost or being more precise in the simulation.

Developing for Linux

How did you make the decision to support Linux in addition to Windows and Mac?

Julien: The initial prototypes for pianoteq were developed on Linux, using [audio system] JACK, with no GUI. Later, when we added a graphical interface and turned it into a VST plugin, we used VSTGUI for its interface, which is not available on Linux. However we had quite a few requests from Linux users, and we did make sure that pianoteq was running fine in WINE [an open-source implementation of Windows' APIs, allowing Windows programs to run in Linux]. During the development of Pianoteq 3, we switched to the JUCE toolkit, which is a great piece of cross-platform software. Thanks to JUCE, the Linux port was really easy to do, so we decided to give it a try and see what happens.

One complaint I hear from developers about Linux is that it’s “impossible” to do commercial development, because you “can’t” distribute binaries. Obviously, that didn’t stop you. I’ve tried Pianoteq on Fedora and Ubuntu, though, under both the real-time and default kernels, and had immediate success. Now, I imagine there’s a good bit of work that goes into making that happen. What was your experience like as a developer? Do you feel that the result is successful, that it is a usable solution for users?

Julien: This was in fact something that we also feared, that the Linux port would turn into a support nightmare. However a good example of a successful application that is distributed in binary form is Renoise. That showed us that it was possible to do. In fact Renoise also uses JUCE, but I was not aware of that fact at that time. What helps here for binary portability is that we have very few dependencies. JUCE is statically linked, so pianoteq depends on very few dynamic libraries: ALSA, X11, libc (even old versions), and basically that’s all. We had to hack some sort of weak linking for JACK in order to allow pianoteq to run even when libjack.so is not available. Of course, if you want better integration in the desktop, things get much more complicated.

What’s your own Linux testing setup like? (distro? kernel?)

Julien: Pianoteq is built on a Debian Sarge box, otherwise we generally use Ubuntu for the desktop, with the default kernel. [Ed.: The distribution Ubuntu is itself built on packages from Debian; 10.04 LTS uses Debian Testing.]

I’ve likewise been impressed with the vanilla kernel (as opposed to the “real-time” branch), which can save some setup time and configuration work. (My audio interface is a Native Instruments Audio Kontrol 1). Any thoughts on what setups may be most advisable? (You document some of this in the readme.)

Julien: I’ve never been lucky with the kernels labelled “rt” , and I really hate when the computer randomly hangs so I prefer to stick with default kernels. We don’t have issues with them, as long as your user account has been granted real-time priviledges. I believe that for now, the most overlooked setting for realtime audio is the CPU frequency throttling, which is a real audio performance killer, especially on the less powerful machines such as netbooks. You really need to have your cpu running at full speed 100% of the time, especially with a software like Pianoteq which needs quite a bit of CPU power.

Ed.: Before we give the realtime kernel a bad name, some of those “random hangs” were not necessarily the kernel’s fault – a bug in Ubuntu’s implementation caused the system to crash when combining the RT kernel with proprietary NVIDIA drivers, for instance. But if this sort of thing scares you, the vanilla kernel remains a strong option – it’s the default for a reason. The larger discussion is best saved for another article, but suffic,e to say, if latency-sensitive piano instrument developers are okay with the vanilla kernel, you shouldn’t feel you have to install a realtime kernel just to make music. If you want to test it, projects like Fedora’s Planet CCRMA can make it easier to use.

Are you finding that there is some positive response to the Linux version?

Julien: Yes, very positive response. In fact, a bit more than what we expected at the beginning. Approximately 4% of our customers are using the Linux version.

I could even imagine it working on netbooks. Based on load, it appears perfectly workable, which means a really cheap ultra-portable piano you can take anywhere.

We spent some time to make sure that the latest versions could run on netbooks, altough with very high CPU load (80% or more). However I’d recommend to use a more powerful laptop in order to have more room for the cpu. Ed.: Given the range of Atom netbooks out there now, I may have to test some of the newer models on this.]

There’s not currently a Linux plug-in version, correct? I’ve been just as happy using JACK [a standard for routing audio between applications], but what went into that decision?

Julien: Right, no plug-in version on Linux for now. The problem is that “plug-in” may mean any combination of VST, DSSI, and LV2. VST would be the easiest for us, but very few hosts support it ( basically only proprietary hosts such as renoise and energyxt, and also jost). DSSI is said to be obsolete, while being not to hard to support (except the GUI has to run in a separate process..). LV2 is said to be the future, but
it seems to be quite complicated to fit a “vst-like” plugin into an lv2 plug-in. We have not yet taken a decision. It is already enough of a pain to support the numerous plug-in formats on Mac and Windows. We will probably add support for JACK sessions quite soon.

In Use

Initially, having so much power over sound could be overwhelming – looking at the number of parameters you can adjust in the real-time mathematical model. Aside from the presets (which themselves sound pretty terrific), how would you suggest someone go about beginning to explore the options? Is there a workflow that makes sense for approaching adjusting the sound?

Answer from Pianoteq:
http://www.pianoteq.com/faq?category=pianoteq_working

Ed.: So I should have read the *** manual! Here’s their advice:

If you need to adapt the piano sound you could for example try adjusting the hammer hardness (2) to achieve a different brightness of the hammer strokes. Increasing unison width (3) makes it a bit out of tune (resembling certain acoustic pianos). The new powerful sound recording feature (4) lets you place up to 5 virtual microphones anywhere around the piano to achieve ultimate ambience and tone colour. The dynamics and velocity curve (5) will most likely need to be adjusted to the keyboard used in a MIDI file performance.

Indeed, this commentary makes sense. Hammer hardness is something that could be adjusted in the maintenance of an actual piano. Since you listen to a software piano model as though it is amplified, adjusting mic placement (as on a number of piano software emulations) is a no-brainer. And dynamics and velocity curve are essential not only for MIDI files, but if your keyboard controller lacks these controls onboard.

As my friend Jim Aikin noted in his review of Pianoteq – why would you adjust the speed of sound? (I suppose you could account for different altitudes; I could replicate the Aspen Music Festival!)

Julien: Well, why not ! Being in a virtual world gives you access to some parameters that cannot be easily modified in the real world, if they give interesting variations of the sound, then they are worth being adjusted!

One small note – it seems the metronome is not connected to the playback and recording, which means that MIDI sequences won’t export to SMF correctly? (Or is this a Linux bug?)

Julien: Yes, it’s not a bug, the MIDI recording and playback abilities of the standalone application are very minimalistic. It is best to use a real sequencer for serious work.

Where can people read more about the featured historical instruments?

http://www.pianoteq.com/cimbalom
http://www.pianoteq.com/grimaldi
http://www.pianoteq.com/blanchet
http://www.pianoteq.com/schmidt
http://www.pianoteq.com/graf
http://www.pianoteq.com/cp-80

There are some fascinating add-ons that aren’t pianos. Is it possible at some point that other sound designers might be able to use the sound engine to design their own instruments?

Julien: We believe that Pianoteq PRO is already a first step in that direction, with its ability to edit each parameter note by note.

How are users using this onstage and in the studio? What sorts of users have you found using the product?

Niclas: There are many composers and keyboardists that use Pianoteq, from amateurs to professionals, on stage as well as in the recording studios. We have presented a few reference users here: http://www.pianoteq.com/references

Thanks to the Pianoteq guys for being thorough in the answers. I know not everyone responds in the same way in regards to the perceived quality of the model, but my own feeling is that the effort makes the instrument terrifically playable and responsive. The best way to see for yourself is to give the demo a go, and listen to the results. I’ll follow up more on this instrument, and how it’s become a central part of my Linux music workstation, soon. Let us know if you have questions for the developers I missed.

Kotaku notes that Rock Band 3‘s icons tease something we’ve been awaiting a long time — keys.

It’s ironic that in order to make guitars playable in games, they were effectively made into keyboards, yet it’s taken this long to actually get keyboards. Oh, wait — yeah, there is that whole problem of having as many as 88 keys, two hands, and no convenient way to fit the staff notation into the descending gems view. Not entirely sure how that’ll work out; see also a controller concept, below.

Of course, this also means that, while electronic music is still largely off-limits, synthpop, prog, and synth bands are all now fair game. That’s fantastic news for the Rock Band Network I’ve covered here on CDM, which lets anyone with a copy of Reaper adapt music for the platform.

So, I got one wish… though I do have to say it again, on behalf of the richer gameplay and the chance for VJ backgrounds and electronic tracks. Xbox Network. Frequency. Amplitude. (Or, heck, Google TV/Android. Anything.) Long-time Harmonix watchers know what I’m talking about.

Oh, side note to Kotaku: am I going to have to send Stevie Wonder and J.S. Bach to kick your ass, or will you stop making fun of the keyboard? Yeah, it’s had its embarrassing moments, like any other instrument. It’s no soprano sax, though.

Austrian Composer Peter Ablinger has transformed a child speaking so that it can be played as MIDI events on a mechanically-controlled piano, making the piano a kind of speech speaker. Via Matrixsynth, the readers at Hack a Day get fairly involved with how this may be working.

It seems not quite accurate to describe this as vocoding in the strictest sense, so much as a simple transformation to a (much) lower frequency resolution – that is, the 88 keys of the piano. Ablinger, for his part, describes the events as “pixels.” It’s pretty extraordinary that without a bandpass filter, you get something approximating the noisy sibilance of the speech, but this seems to be the result of having lots of events (that is, lots of resolution in terms of time). Edit: Listening again, the short answer to how you can hear so much of the voice through the piano seems to be, you can’t; the original is almost certainly mixed in. It’s nonetheless an interesting effect, and I’d like to hear the piano on its own. In other words, the basic process is, 1) convert the sound spectrum of the recorded voice to a series of MIDI events, and 2) play back the translated MIDI file. You can see that the MIDI playback is accomplished with Pd (Pure Data) running on a Windows Linux/KDE netbook, though it’s not clear what was used to do the original conversion. (The screen shot with side-by-side audio and MIDI appears as though it may be for demonstration purposes, only.)

Correction: The work is absolutely done in custom software developed by the composer in Pd (Pure Data). It’s an ideal tool for the job, and free and open source. I wouldn’t dare try to replicate the results here, but this is fantastic inspiration for playing with sound in Pd.

One Windows tool that’s capable of the job is TS Audiotomidi, as observed by Hack a Day spacecoyote. Whether or not that’s what’s at work here – and it may well be – that utility is itself interesting. Edit: Yeah, far more likely the whole thing was done in Pd. And Pd should be up to the task.

TS-AudioToMIDI

Of course, this is to say nothing of the lovely work done on the mechanical piano. It’s a beautiful piece. Here’s hoping some government bureaucrats got the message of the declaration. Now, we just need a chorus of something really loud – say a thousand trumpets – shouting out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

KORG has other new product announcements, and I think both are going to be big hits for them.

The SV-1 stage piano falls well into the category of “why didn’t anyone else do this first?” First, it looks beautiful – finally, a keyboard designed for the stage that actually looks good onstage. (I don’t know, maybe manufacturers assume us keyboardists are ugly?) Second, it combines all the sounds many gigging keyboardists need, instead of an odd assortment that covers some bases but not all, or overkill workstation keyboards that do too much and get too complex. Third, it’s finally a hardware keyboard that learns some recent lessons from software – you need to model the characteristics of the real thing, and people expect good amp models, and the like. Fourth, it’s… okay, it’s just really, really pretty, which I expect will change how everyone feels about the whole package.

Updated: Yes, in fairness, Nord has potent competition waiting for the KORG, and available first. I think either the Nord Stage or Nord Combo win handily if organ sounds are important, and both are designed to double as external controllers if you do like software. The Nord also has more bells and whistles for editing and sound control. On the other hand, the KORG will clearly appeal to people who are in it mainly for the electric piano side of the coin. And pretty as the Nord is – as much as they’re both shades of red – I think the KORG is still pretty darned sexy-looking.

In addition to all the specs and such, KORG has the manual online, so you can get into the details.

SV1 Support

Oh, yeah, just one gripe – I always think it’s silly when you put a window in front of the tube. But I won’t knock it; I expect it helps on the sales floor. At least the side that faces the audience looks like a racecar.

Now, I have just one request for the whole industry: some of us really do like our computers. Can we please, please have one top-flight software keyboard controller that’s worth spending extra dollars on and looks like it means business? Unfortunately, the industry has decided the “pros” want nice hardware keyboards, and anyone using software is probably a basement producer – which is why you see the pros, when they want a software controller, using hardware like the Yamaha Motif for the job even when there’s no actual sound coming out of it.

The other announcement is a redesigned WAVEDRUM. For those of you who haven’t discovered the Cult of Wavedrum (and the rival Roland Handsonic), this may be a bigger deal than you think. As it happens, the electronic music world often wants stuff that doesn’t fall in a predictable category. Digital virtual bongo head? Why, yes, people want that – to play virtual conga or tabla, or just as a controller for other sounds. The new Wavedrum is built with more sounds, more effects, and more sensors for a wider sonic palette, including newer features like physically-modeled sounds and the ability to apply different effects to different parts of the surface. I’m guessing it’s still no match for boutique controllers, but it could give the Handsonic a serious run for its money – not least because it looks a heck of a lot better. (Hey, it matters.)

WAVEDRUM Product Page

Let us know if either of these items strike your fancy and I can dig up more from my Long Island neighbors at KORG.