In case you haven’t seen it, Nine Inch Nails has taken to the multi-touch Lemur control surface and More Buttons Than Thou top-end Monome. There’s a short video of an experiment combining the two with a real (MIDI-enabled) Yamaha piano. It’s just under a minute, but already evocative — I’m not entirely sure why Alessandro is manning the touchpad on his laptop given all this hardware around, but the cascading patterns on the Monome suggest both LED art and a digital take on a player piano.

More videos on the official NIN YouTube page, which has recently launched a visuals contest for interpreting music from the new album.

But lest you think you need all that pricey hardware to make use of an unusual tool, look no further than MilkyTracker. Platform wars end here: MT runs on Windows (95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP, 2003, and Vista), Mac OS X (PowerPC, Intel), Linux (x86, 64-bit x86, PowerPC), Linux game/mobile platforms (GP2X, ARM), UNIX (FreeBSD x86), and Windows CE. Wowsa. And it’s all yours for a donation, if you can spare one. Heck, there are even video tutorials on the site.

But geekdom aside, I love that MilkyTracker ninjas can make so much music out of so little. Without taking on the aesthetic style here, if that’s not your thing, it’s a reminder that economical choices with your tech can produce all kinds of different sounds. So, maybe rather than loading that preset, try to construct a drum kit out of basic waveforms.

Enjoy!

Video by extrabajs; for some reflections on MilkyTracking, see our friend thumbuki — who, speaking of doing more with less, is working with an OLPC. Economical hardware use is back in an age of power efficiency and computing beyond the deep-pocketed “first world” — and everything old is new again:

Milky Tracker @ thumbuki

What? MilkyTracker is fanning the flames of a platform war with the Atari ST? No worries: MaxYmizer is a newly updated (yep, you read that right) tracker tool for the Atari platform. Polyphonic MIDI input and MIDI clock output means it should easily integrate with your existing studio. See the Digital Tools blog for full details.

Imagine every single piece of gear you have on your wish list. Then imagine a baby grand piano, lacquered in white. Then imagine — you know, for the sake of practicality — you want to use the piano as a projection surface. And sound system. And then imagine you just mash all those ideas into one gear-packed baby grand piano, and you’ve got the beautifully freakish BabyGrandMaster:

Baby Grand Master

It’s not just a gimmicky DJ piano. It’s a “video instrument”, blending visuals and audio. The last time we saw something somewhat like this was the keyboard with PC Miko, though since that’s just a Windows PC packed in a keyboard, only the marketing concept in principle made it a “VJ/DJ” product versus, well, a PC in a keyboard. And, of course, the Baby Grand Master starts to make the Miko look oddly affordable and practical.

This isn’t just some random tinkerer, either. It’s the creation of a veteran of the Emergency Broadcast Network group, as seen on Create Digital Motion today, meaning if you want to add missiles, it’s probably possible.

The specs:

One last minute addition to CDM’s wildly unrealistic and holiday gift guide that’s late enough to qualify as the post-holiday guide (that’s its unofficial name):

Legendary Artist Peter Max Paints Baldwin Piano for Gibson Foundation

Granted, not a digital instrument, but I still love acoustic pianos. Add a Moog PianoBar or a full-featured MIDI retrofit, and this is basically my dream instrument (and I’ve always been partial to Baldwins). And Peter Max remains a terrific visual visionary.

You can help realize someone’s holiday wishes by giving to a charitable organization like the Gibson Foundation. They do some really good work, including helping musicians recover from Hurricane Katrina. What worthier cause than helping give music to the world?

Logic for Quads. Today’s treat from Software Update: Logic Pro 7.2.2 is a must-download if you’re lucky enough to have a new Mac Pro desktop. The update is optimized to take advantage of the Mac Pro’s quad-core architecture. Exactly what does that mean? I can’t say, because I’m perfectly happy blazing away on a dual-2.7GHz G5 (and had equally good experience when I had a MacBook Pro in for testing). But as we’ve observed before on CDM, multi-core optimization is the trend to watch.

10-foot Grands on 13-inch MacBooks. In other Mactel news, there’s a steady flow of Intel-native plug-ins — happily, too many to cover them all here on CDM. Synthogy has released their Universal Binary AU of their fantastic Ivory pianos plug-in; you can find it on their downloads page. Note that there isn’t an Intel-native VST. As with many of the Intel-native updates, this update to 1.5 is recommended for PowerPC users, too. The other good news is that Synthogy is working on an expansion back with a 10′ Italian instrument, recorded just upriver from here at SUNY Purchase (which happens to in fact be a great hall).

The gaping hole in Intel-native Mac plug-in land remains Native Instruments, but the timetable for release should remain this fall, with significant upgrades to boot. That’s when you should start to hear more people say, “wanna buy a G4 laptop?”

I got a chance to work with the inexpensive (US$99) but high-quality library of acoustic drum kits for Reason, Reason Drum Kits, in a brief review for Keyboard Magazine. You can read the full review online. What most impressed me was how cleverly the samples were integrated with Reason:

Via what Propellerhead calls “hyper-sampling,� you can assemble endless realistic combinations of sounds. Everything’s here: multiple dynamic levels, mics, playing techniques, and other variations of each sample. Thanks to Reason’s ReFill format and features like the Combinator, the variety is inspiring, not overwhelming. Multi-output drum kits automatically connect to Reason’s mixer so you can adjust the mix of different mics.

As I noted, these kits won’t be for everyone, but if you’re a Reason fan and want acoustic kits, they’re a sure bet. Now, Propellerheads is applying the same technique to acoustic pianos, announced earlier today:

Tuning pianos involves some heavy science and art. In other words, Reyburn Pocket RCT has absolutely no relation to that simple guitar tuner you’ve got in your gig bag. It’s a US$900 powerhouse of visual tuning:

Reyburn Cyber Tuner / Pocket RCT, for PocketPC (Windows Mobile)

This is probably old news if you’re a piano tuner (either this or the Mac/Windows laptop version), but I saw it this weekend while I was staying at my parents’ house and a tuner came over to adjust our Baldwin grand. The tuner was more than happy to show it to me. You can’t tell in this screenshot, but the UI pulses like some sort of alien eye as you near the pitch. The software was able to guess that the piano was a grand of more than six feet just by listening to the harmonic content of the sound (already impressed); it can compensate tuning for the size of the piano. The system uses aural tuning, meaning it looks not only at the fundamental but directly samples and matches partials, which is the way tuners are trained to work.

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

Now that the rest of our studio has gone digital, the approach to producing score for acoustic instruments has changed, too. Here’s a look at some of my favorite toys and tools for keeping music flowing.

You’d have to be a true Luddite to argue that word processors are bad for writing. Blogs, perhaps, sometimes inspire poor writing (ahem), but it’s more difficult to blame technology. The original argument that word processors would end the process of drafting and revision is absurd to anyone who’s spent long hours slaving over text in Microsoft Word. Our attitudes have changed as we’ve grown accustomed to the technology.

When it comes to music notation, though, there’s still an uncomfortable relationship between composers and computer scoring. That’s understandable: producing a score is a lot more involved than typing words, and even with modern software filled with keyboard shortcuts, scoring music is slow in any medium. But, even as some traditionalist composition teachers preach against the “evils” of computer notation (you know who you are), I think computers are becoming part of an elaborate digital creation process, even for composers working on entirely acoustic scores. Leaving out the tried-and-true methods of drinking tea/coffee, stopping for sandwich breaks, and outright procrastination, here are the tools I consider essential to my studio:

Stage piano. That usually means one thing: back-breaking pain. If you want 88 keys but don’t want a keyboard that weighs 50 or 65 pounds, your choices are generally limited.

This week, you have one more choice: M-Audio’s new ProKeys 88sx keyboard. It’s semi-weighted, since full hammer action would add weight, but it still feels quite nice to play based on a quick try at NAMM. (It feels a lot better, notably, than the cheaper feel of the previous 88ES — this is meant for more serious players.) And it’s got features usually only found on more expensive (and heavier) keyboards: dual headphone jacks, sustain and sostenuto pedal jacks, volume/expression jack, assignable controllers, and built-in keyboard sounds with audio out. And, of course, it’s an M-Audio board, so USB connection and software editing are standard.

Here’s the important part:

Price: US$450
Weight: 17 lbs. (yes, I can lift that)
Availability: Now

It’s great to see more options for keyboardists. M-Audio did a good job of filling a niche with its previous, fully-weighted ProKeys 88, and this could be another hit for them. There are higher-end options, but virtually nothing at this price point.

Updates to favorite keyboard soft synths — always a good thing. In addition to looking forward to Native Instruments’ sequel to their B4 organ synth, another modeled-instrument fave is getting a big upgrade soon:

Lounge Lizard EP-3

The current Lounge Lizard is already a joy to play: Applied Acoustics nails the feel and sound of the classic Wurlitzer and Rhodes keyboards. EP-3 upgrades the already-generous preset selection, adds improved and expanded models of different pickups, forks, and dampers, (in addition to those already in EP-2), and adds support for Scala microtuning files. (For those of you wanting to play your Rhodes in Javanese pelog tuning, your day has come!) Also nifty: an integrated audio recorder lets you capture ideas easily.

More realistic sounds are always welcome, but the biggest news here is that Lounge Lizard finally has additional built-in effects. Tremolo, wah, chorus, phaser, delay, reverb, and EQ are all included, as visible in the screen grab. That addresses the major shortfall of the previous version: effects have been expanded from the meager offerings of the previous outing.

The EP-3 should be out any day now. Check out Applied Acoustics’ site above for plenty of details on the meticulous modeling, and watch CDM for a review in December. Looks like this could be a major keyboard favorite.

Cost: US$49 upgrade; US$249 list
Compatibility: Windows VSTi, DX; Mac VST, AU, RTAS