I’m saddened to learn of the death of Richard Lainhart, the New York-based composer and artist who has been inseparable from the experimental electronic scene for many years. I knew Richard to be a gentle and imaginative soul, an inventive technologist, someone capable of dreaming up endless soundscapes and auditory worlds. He was also a great contributor to the CDM community, including playing one of the early installments of Handmade Music at Etsy Labs in Brooklyn. (Photo above; full video at bottom.)

I think it’s fitting to illustrate Richard with a terrific self-portrait on Polaroid, one that illustrates his sense of humor and artistic adventurousness:

Richard’s wife Caroline posted a note with the news, which most of us found via Facebook:

Richard Lainhart February 14, 1953 – December 30, 2011

Dear friends of Richard,
It is with a heavy heart that I that I must tell you Richard Lainhart, composer, musician, technologist, filmmaker, and digital artisan died Friday, December 30, 2011.

On December 17, Richard complained of pains in his side and was admitted to the hospital for tests which showed an intestinal cancer. He was operated on on December 21. After the surgery (which showed the cancer had not spread), there were infectious complications which took his life on December 30.

He struggled valiantly to overcome his infection, but it was not to be. We are all in shock and cannot grasp the idea of his not making music, talking music, teaching, posting and playing.

Caroline Meyers
Richard Lainhart’s wife

Richard leaves behind a massive body of work and digital footprints; I’ve selected some of those below, including music, a wonderful set of images working with digital manipulation and Polaroids via Flickr, and his series on creative sound design tutorials.

Playing Messiaen:

Audiovisual work:

Richard’s most recent album, via Bandcamp:

Most recent SoundCloud contributions, including the winds after Tropical Storm Irene (that sound certainly is part of my sonic memory of 2011)

Sounds of my World – Post-Irene Winds 8-28-11 by rlainhart

200e-Continuum Percussive Study 2 by rlainhart

Sounds of my world – Rainforest V, New York Electronic Art Festival, 7-30-11 by rlainhart

I adore his photographic work:

A bio:

Richard Lainhart is an award-winning composer, author, and filmmaker – a digital artisan who works with sonic and visual data. Since childhood, he’s been interested in natural processes such as waves, flames and clouds, in harmonics and harmony, and in creative interactions with machines, using them as compositional methods to present sounds and images that are as beautiful as he can make them.

Lainhart studied composition and electronic music with Joel Chadabe at the State University of New York at Albany. He has composed music for film, television, CD-ROMs, interactive applications, and the Web. His compositions have been performed in the US, England, Sweden, Germany, Australia, and Japan. Recordings of his music have appeared on the Periodic Music, Vacant Lot, XI Records, Airglow Music, Tobira Records, and ExOvo labels. As an active performer, Lainhart has appeared in public approximately 2000 times. Besides performing his own work, he has worked and performed with John Cage, David Tudor, Steve Reich, Phill Niblock, David Berhman, and Jordan Rudess, among many others. He has composed over 100 electronic and acoustic works. In 2008, he was commissioned by the Electronic Music Foundation to contribute a work to New York Soundscape.

Lainhart’s animations and short films have been shown at festivals in the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, and Korea, and online at ResFest, The New Venue, The Bitscreen, and Streaming Cinema 2.0. His film “A Haiku Setting” won awards in several categories at the 2002 International Festival of Cinema and Technology in Toronto. In 2009, he was awarded a Film & Media grant by the New York State Council on the Arts for “No Other Time”, full-length intermedia performance designed for a large reverberant space, combining live analog electronics with four-channel playback, and high-definition computer-animated film projection.

quotes

“Lainhart crafts sounds in a tonal, musical fashion – sustained tones, drones, melodic fragments – and electronically manipulates them into beautiful tapestries of sound.” (Waterfront Week)

[His] “music reflects the spirit of possibility that once defined electronic music, bringing with it a sense of past, present and future that transcends time, technology and cultural assumptions. The spell- binding music seemed to evoke feelings that can’t quite be named, and suggest music I might rather imagine for myself in silence than trust most composers to compose.” (The Village Voice).

“He’s evolved a singular vision as a composer, performer and engineer of darkly seductive minimalism.” (Peter Marsh, BBC)

And here is Richard’s performance for us at Handmade Music on the Buchla 200e synth and Continuum Fingerboard, from 2007:

http://www.otownmedia.com
http://www.vimeo.com/rlainhart
http://www.youtube.com/rlainhart
http://richardlainhart.bandcamp.com/
http://soundcloud.com/rlainhart
http://twitter.com/rlainhart
http://www.facebook.com/rlainhart
http://www.downloadplatform.com/richard_lainhart

2011 has seen sweeping changes in technology and music, alongside the loss of titans Max Mathews and Tsutomu Katoh, two pioneers of our world. Some of these stories passed quietly; some with great fanfare. Here, we reveal those stories that attracted the greatest number of Internet eyeballs, a metric not necessarily of importance but certainly of what reached the widest audience on this site. And there are definite trends: a hunger for mobile, both the explosive growth of iOS and tablets, but also a resurgent interest in MIDI (not to give away the end) and a desire by owners of devices powered by Apple’s rival Android to find tools themselves. Traditional tools, too, make a strong showing – people still care about DAWs, about production. And affordable, do-everything tools fare well.

Hidden from this list are many other stories significant to me, though remembering just which occurred between January the first of last year and now strains my brain. (CDM is external memory.) If you recall a story that was significant to you on this site – or even one we missed – let us know.

In the meantime, here’s what the eyes of the Internet watched – ranked by page views in our analytics tool:

30.

The Handheld Studio Evolves: Beatmaker 2 Developers Explain their iPhone Workflow

29.

Touchable Music: At Last, Lemur’s Interactive Touch Controls Make it to iPad (Videos)

28.

Music Patchwork: Ableton Makes Max for Live Cheaper, Showcases Creations by Henke, Hawtin, More

27.

Spectral Layers Audio Editor Focuses on Editing Sound Visually, a la Photoshop

26.

Mixing and Audio Interface, in the $450 MOTU Audio Express

25.

Euclidean Rhythms in Ableton MIDI Clips for Polyrhythmic Good Times; Microtonal Operator

24.

Tsutomu Katoh, Korg Founder and Chairman, Has Passed Away

23.

Rumors Mounting for Imminent Logic Pro X, a la Final Cut Pro X; No-Brainer Speculation

Yup, those no-brainer predictions were … no-brainer predictions. Spoiler alert: Logic 9 and Updated MainStage on App Store, at Cut-Rate Prices

22.

Mobile Korg Fun: Monotribe Adds Patterns and Sync, Wavedrum Mini is On-the-go Drum; Impressions

21.

FL Studio Mobile, Now Available on iPhone, iPad; Sampling, Android Support to Come

20.

Modeling Analog in a Digital Age: A Conversation with Universal Audio’s Chief Scientist; Gallery

19.

Playing the City: An Eindhoven Pianola Makes Urban Landscape into Music

18.

Expanding Touch and MIDI, Mobile iOS Control Gets More Mature in New and Updated Apps; Round-Up

17.

Akai Turns an iPad Into a Full-Sized Music Keyboard: Akai SynthStation49

16.

FL Studio “Fruity Loops” 10 Adds 64-bit Savvy, Smarter Editing, New Pitch, Time, and Harmony Add-ons

15.

Apple Gets Into iPad Music with $5 GarageBand

14.

Cubase 6: Amidst Familiar Leapfrog Features, A New Approach to Note-by-note Expression Editing

13.

KORG monotron DUO, monotron DELAY Bring Fun Back, via Mono/Poly, MS Circuits and Pocket Size

12.

Tempest, Roger Linn + Dave Smith Analog Drum Machine, is Official

11.

Virtual DJ Controllers: New Hardware for Serato, Traktor from Pioneer, Numark

10.

Useful Music Tools for Your Android Phone, and a New Sketchpad Joins Groovebox

9.

Making Music with Free and Open Source Software: Top Picks from Red Hat, Dave Phillips

8.

Learn Mastering Technique in Free Videos: Limiting, M/S, Dubstep Bass

7.

Reason 6 Combines Record Features, Adds Effects; New Bundles and First Props Hardware Interface

6.

First Look at Roland Jupiter-80, Images, and Reflections on the Jupiter Legacy

5.

Native Instruments’ Razor Synth: Dubstep to Ambience, Free Tutorial and Loops

4.

Android Adds USB Host + Audio, Open Hardware ADK with Arduino; Good News for Mobile Music

3.

A Flute Made on a 3D Printer, and the Possibilities to Come

2.

A Few Good TouchOSC Layouts, from Waldorf to Traktor to Ableton, and a Brief Rant

1.

How to Use MIDI to Make an iPad More Musically Connected, Productive: Video, Resources

The man who gave harmonicas a boldly futuristic vision is lost to us. We’ve learned that Walter Müller, inventor of the MIDI wind controller Millioniser, died this month. Rock Erickson of Millioniser writes with the news, and updates us on plans to carry on with the Millioniser as well as to honor Müller’s memory. (See the groovy video from 1983 promoting this creation.)

I am sad to announce that Walt Miller (Walter Müller) Inventor of Millioniser (midi wind controller) has died in Switzerland on 10.13.2011. Millioniser introduces HIP™ Technology (Harmonica In Principal) which enables the user to sound notes via mouth position
rather than finger position.

(new site) http://www.millioniser.com

Walter’s family and friends visited him often and I will miss my dear friend. Walter was a famous harmonica player who entertained in
films, grand performances such as the likes of the Queen of England, and was also an inventor. Walter originated The Millioniser. Please feel free to leave your thoughts and condolences on the live site comment page –
http://www.millioniser.com/#!live-site-comments

– for Walt’s family and
friends. We miss you already, dear friend. You can learn more about Walt Miller by clicking the links with his name attached on the site.
It is being constantly updated so please feel free to contribute. Walter’s family, Ronald Schlimme Millioniser Engineer, and myself
will keep you posted of the new developments of Millioniser.

Walt Miller July 17
1927 – October 13 2011 RIP Dear Friend

My condolences to family, friends, and colleagues. And if there are any Millioniser players out there amongst the CDM readers, we’d love to hear from you.

Via comments from last month, more on the Millioniser (with videos):

Provided by Ronald Schlemme -Millioniser Engineer
The history of the Millioniser
The Millioniser is a harmonica wind synthesizer, invented by Walt Miller (Walter Müller).
From the idea to the Millioniser
The Milloniser was developed in a period of 5 years before it hit the market as the “Millioniser 2000”.
In 1979, Walter Miller together with Harald Blobel and Urs-Peter Studer developed a prototype which could control a Roland Promars analogue synthesizer. The first control unit was still quite bulky, but its functions were working exactly as expected. With this unit, the two records “Xmas and you” and “Perfidia” were produced.
In succession, a new control unit was developed by Urs-Peter Studer. This control unit was beautiful and elegant. It was intended for the use as a controller for a Promar Synthesizer. Unfortunately, the production was very expensive and complex. Because of this, Walter Miller was looking for a funding partner, which makes a redesign with its own synthesizer possible. At the same time he was looking for an engineer with experience in musical electronics.
In 1982, Ronald Schlimme of SM Elektronik AG joined the team. The first job was to implement a standardized interface to normal synthesizers. Further, different aspects of modulating the sound had to be explored. A Roland Modular System 100M, a Moog Prodigy and different additional devices like equalizer, exiter, hall, chorus and phaser were used for this. The results were truly striking. A violinist was baffled about the authenticity while listening to Walter Miller playing on the Millioniser prototype. Similarly amazed was a trumpet player who was working as an instrument maker for brass instruments. The Millioniser can control 8 octaves or in other words, from a tuba up to a piccolo trumpet.
In 1982/83, a polyphonic controller was developed, which could control a Roland Jupiter 4 synthesizer. The results were impressive.
Finally in September of 1983, the long awaited funding of the Millioniser company in London became a reality.
The development of the Millioniser
In October 1983, the development of the new Millioniser 2000 started and everything was redesigned. The team: Alex Bärtschi, Peter Benz, Walter Müller, Wolfi Peccoraio, Marcel Rothen, Ronald Schlimme, Urs-Peter Studer, Felix Thommen
Design, casing construction for the control unit and synthesizer, electronics, software, test software, manual, presets (sounds), prototype and production documents.
The design phase started in October of 1983 and in April 1984, four working Millionisers were presented in the Sheraton in Zurich and Hilton in Basel. From the idea to the finished product in only 5 months. Housing plastic design and zinc injection die casting were not an easy task for Urs-Peter Studer and Injecta AG.
Enclosure design by Walt Miller and Conran from London. The brilliant idea was to bevel the edge of the control unit, which gave it a slimmer appearance.
The very first single chip microcontroller from Motorola with analogue inputs were used for the control unit. Motorola advertised these chips with the slogan: “We produce the processor; you play the music on it”. We then sent a letter to Motorola Europe in Geneva with the note “We would like to play music on the chip, but unfortunately, they are not available”. We then got plenty of support by Motorola in the form of sample chips and the head of the department for single chip processors and one of the developers showed their interest and support by visiting The Millioniser Team in Basel.
Alex Bärtschi was the developer of the control unit electronics and software. Alex couldn’t understand why his calculations for the optocouplers didn’t match the results he observed. Then we found out that they have a memory effect. We then inverted the logic and all of a sudden it worked like a charm. The application engineer of Telefunken (the supplier of the optocouplers) was baffled when we explained that inverting the logic works better when sampled at 3000 times a second.
Rock Erickson is the original Millioniser tester from USA and played the first control unit which was white in color.
Ronald Schlimme was project leader and responsible for the Millioniser software and synthesizer design and implementation. The test software was written by Peter Benz and Ronald Schlimme. Everything was written in Assembler because the timing was critical. The engineering was finished in March 1984. Early in April, two presentations in the Sheraton (in front of the Sheraton in Zurich) and in the Hilton in Basel were held.
We sent 800 invitations and expected around 100 visitors. To our surprise, over 400 came!
The hall was very crowded and everyone was eager to see that which they had never seen before.
In April, the manufacturing documents and a prototype were sent to the producer in Cardiff, Wales.
In Closing: This whole development of Millioniser 2000 which is more complex than the modern PC of today took only 6 months from paper to production. Note, the engineering was without CAD software support. It was before the invention of the IBM-PC and the first CAD system had just been released.
I welcome any questions, comments, collaborations. -Rock

The generation of people who defined modern computing seems to be passing this year. Following Max Mathews, another Bell Labs titan is lost to us: Dennis Ritchie is the man who created the original C programming language (again at Bell Labs) as well as co-developed the UNIX operating system. President Obama commented that many people learned of Steve Jobs’ death on a device “he invented.” For all Jobs’ contributions, it is as untrue to say that as it is true to say the same of Ritchie: you are quite literally reading this story as served by software derived from his creations on UNIX, using tools written primarily in the language he, with others, devised.

For music, C endures in some form as the basis of the vast majority of tools we use for musical computation – that is, his creation is at the heart of the software with which we all make music. And just as Mathews made the computer sing for the first time, C is a lingua franca on which musical expression is based, the kernel of the vast array of sounds computers today make.

But C is important not simply because, in some form, it remains at the heart of much of the computer code written today. It also introduced in a material sense the idea of portability and cross-platform code, allowing in turn music tools like Csound and others to appear on new computers rather than pass away. It formalized coding concepts that, even in radically-different, more “modern” languages survive. That means that for people expressing musical ideas in code – and anyone using the software that results – software is not tied to specific hardware, lost as new generations of gear cause the old to pass away. The ideas behind C allow computer music to pass from one generation to another – to outlive us.

Ritchie would probably at this point hasten to add that he didn’t work alone, that his work was based on others, that he had colleagues like Ken Thompson who worked with him on C and UNIX. Such is the nature of invention, and unlike the titanic egos of the past (yes, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, we’re looking at you), some of today’s creations were built by people whose impact was no smaller, but who have been far humbler and lesser-known.

So, get to know Dennis and the many colleagues who survive him. Marvel that the “machine” is not some alien robot at all, but that in your hands, you hold the contributions of creative human beings, the thoughts of complete strangers encapsulated in front of you, and that at the end of the day, you can make it all sing a song.

Via TechCrunch

You’ve seen a musician or two, no doubt, jamming away on a Moog synthesizer. But German band KARAT’s keyboardist Thomas Kurzhals really tears into it. Chris Stack, formerly of Moog and now producing the Experimental Synth series we cover with some regularity, shot this video interview / performance set, and tells us:

I don’t think it shows in the video, but at one point I looked down from filming and saw that he was playing so hard he was bleeding on the keys of the Voyager Old School.

With the fall of the Iron Curtain – and the accessibility of the Internet – a generation of artists can become better known to a wider audience. Chris was inspired by the reflections of Czech inventor Standa Filip to send this in. The tip is timely — today here in Berlin, it’s Tag der Deutschen Einheit, the celebration of German reunification. (I’m literally typing this from a balcony overlooking Frankfurter Tor and the gleaming disco ball-on-a-smokestack that is the Fernsehturm, in the former East Berlin.)

At Frankfurt’s Musikmesse, Kurzhals talked to Moog about what it was like being synthesist in the former GDR – including smuggling a Minimoog keyboard through Hungary in pieces, and hiding the synth from the intelligence service when loading into gigs.

To me, though, it’s just watching the guy play that’s really humbling – and a reminder of how gifted we are with the accelerating exchange of musicians around the world. That growing access to culture may make you feel less good about your own chops, but it’ll make you feel really good about music.

Also, I’m glad synths – hardware and software alike – are now cheap. And clearly, a Minimoog is cooler than a Trabant.

The very word “robot” comes from a Czech author, Karel Čapek and his 1920 sci fi theater work R.U.R.. In terms that resonate today, class, economics, and freedom play into that narrative, as Čapek introduced not only a word but the modern concept of android.

So, it’s fitting that the Czech Republic would be the scene for an artist carrying on the author’s legacy. Inventor Stanley Povoda doesn’t just imagine robots; he builds them and makes them into a musical band. Repurposing refuse, the robotic creations have eyes for knobs, and play percussion and other instruments. These are liberated robots, making music, not the oppressed, soon-to-revolt robots in R.U.R.

And yes, speaking of the Czech Republic, this is another case in which the once-unknown technological innovation and exploits are making themselves heard (literally) outside the nation’s borders. See, previously, the story that inspired this tip:

Meet the Little-Known DIY Music Pioneer of the Czech Republic, Standa Filip

Thanks to sout-side for the heads-up!

More importantly: dancers. On stilts. Shooting sparks and flame. This guy is a hell of an inventor. (See video, top.) Watch the interview below, then read lots more on his work in this article:

Stanely Povoda & His Robot Band [vivelesrobots-education.dk; site also in Czech]

And while I wish there were more documentation (time to hop Easyjet, perhaps), there are some short clips from his Prague kitchen:

Also, some links to his tube theremin:

http://www.midi.cz
http://midi.cz/Comment.aspx?id=89045
http://midi.cz/Comment.aspx?id=90456
http://midi.cz/Comment.aspx?id=90472

From behind the long-gone, so-called “iron curtain,” nearly-lost musical innovation is beginning to become available. But perhaps more than any geo-political change, the power of an Internet-based community hungry to share knowledge is making national borders that once isolated information melt away.

Earlier this week, I shared reflections I wrote up for Amsterdam’s STEIM on the significant of DIY Music. But one group of artists, the Standuino team from Brno, Czech Republic, really exemplified that spirit. First off, their hardware is utterly brilliant and eminently practical, an Arduino-based platform on which they’ve made it easy to create and modify designs, and share useful tools like the sampler they demonstrated for us in Amsterdam. Secondly, they’re international – the performance brought together a Brazilian, Czech, and Dutch artist in their presentation. Third, they took “DIY” straight to the transportation, hitchhiking all the way from Brno to Amsterdam to be part of our performance, for which we’re all incredibly grateful!

The Standuino crew emphasize that they also wish to make the innovation of the Czech people more visible to the rest of the world. You know Bob Moog or Morton Subotnick, for instance, but do you know the name Standa Filip?

You should. The maker of extensive DIY instruments, interactive work, robotic installations, and new media, Standa (hence Standuino) is inspiring a new generation of artists – first in the Czech Republic, eventually in the world. Those artists, led by Standuino, are recreating some of his work, as well as making new work that carries on his spirit.

Check out the videos here to see him talk about his history and play his instruments, then learn more – and find the Arduino-based hardware designs, which I’ll cover more next week – at the Standuino site:

http://www.standuino.eu/

But there you go – from Rio to Singapore, once I hit publish, just about anybody can learn what it was like to be a lone DIYer in Communist Czechoslovakia – then go find open source ideas with which they can make music from the new generation of creators in the Czech Republic, in a matter of seconds.

Yeah, we overhype the Internet. But that’s pretty damned awesome. I’m going out in the sunshine now for a bit, because that’s awesome, too, but I’m pretty happy that I get to make this my day job. And thanks to you for making that possible, because with you as a reader, none of this would be true.

Journalist, techno organizer, lecturer, and creative director Dan Sicko has sadly passed away this weekend, the victim of the rare but devastating condition of ocular melanoma. Sicko is best known to electronic music fans as the author of the terrific Techno Rebels: The Renegades of Electronic Funk (Billboard: 1999). A uniquely techno-focused story, that book is a particularly good tome on the underground roots of the techno genre.

But Sicko contributed more than just that book, as a music writer (Rolling Stone, Wired, Urb), and a lecturer on Detroit music culture, as well as a fixture on the techno music scene and a key figure in the appreciation of its music. He had worked as a Creative Director with the Detroit office of Organic, Inc.

He also launched Reverb, one of the first digital music magazines – distributed on floppy disks and FTP sites, even this site owes something to its legacy. (I can relate: I ran an early e-publishing effort on CompuServe at around the same time. If anyone can find copies of Reverb…)

As reader Klaas-Jan Jongsma notes, in passing us the news:

Besides being a friend of mine, he was always willing to help people who visited Detroit (I stayed at his place a couple of times when we visited Detroit) he was a major influence on scene. He wrote with so much passion about music for several magazines, blogs and newspaper. He was also one of the driving forces between the 313 mailinglist (an essential mailinglist, especially in the 90s about Detroit techno). He was one of those unknown forces behind detroit techno, a true techno rebel.

Mr. Sicko has left behind many digital footprints, right up through this month; if you didn’t know his work, retracing them can introduce you to some great music. A few examples:

Moodmat contributions, Metromode

The [313] mailing list

Personal website

Twitter feed

Most importantly, though, you should pick up a copy of his book if you haven’t. There are still more thoughts on that site, including a response to the May NPR roundup of Detroit music picks with his own suggested gems. He leaves behind an extraordinary set of resources for those wanting to learn more about this music, and records to spin in his honor. Sincere condolences to friends and family.

http://techno-rebels.com/

Latest on gofundme.com on arrangements.

Steve Jobs’ abrupt resignation from Apple is of course plastered all over the news and social network feeds, so let’s consider instead the legacy Jobs has left over the decades for creative technology. The highlights for artists and musicians begin far before the iPhone. Jobs’ sometimes-obsessive dedication to design, to uncompromising capabilities particularly in regards to multimedia, and to stewarding the creative teams that built these computers has shaped the development of computing for music and visuals. Now, what happens next – including the important role computers continue to have in creation – could be no less compelling. Here are just a few landmark contributions:

The Apple II, product of the company Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded, was for many of us our first experience in computing. Jobs was an impresario and ambassador to the Apple II as it aggressively took on education and widespread popular computing. With those roots, the makers of electronic music and electronic music software to come found fertile soil.

The Lisa and Macintosh brought what were once experimental ideas in computing interaction to the masses. Jobs was not a perfect manager in his early years by any stretch – with Apple II and Mac divisions turned against one another and difficulties with Jobs’ sometimes-hostile management style, there were reasons behind the ouster of Jobs from the company he founded. But he also, as he was to do later at Pixar, managed to protect a team of innovators in design unlike any that’s been assembled since, the group of people who defined computing interaction and the expressive computer for us today. And the Macintosh, while best known popularly as becoming the engine of the desktop publishing revolution, was also a platform for changing musical performance and creation. Laurie Spiegel’s Music Mouse on the Mac would be one of the first software synths and audiovisual instruments (perhaps the first, depending on the definition). The Mac also would come to lead the way with technologies like MIDI and sequencers like Performer and Vision, taking a key role in shaping music to come. Moreover, the design and philosophy Jobs had helped guide, even to the very notion of the computer as a “bicycle for the mind,” was what convinced so many in our community that computing had a place in music and art.

And then there’s Pixar. Jobs literally saved the company from a near-certain demise, and with it a group of artists and engineers who defined both the potential of computer animation as a feature medium and the techniques used to make it look visually appealing. By all accounts, it was Jobs’ ability to protect this group of creative people and allow them to do what they did best that allowed them to remake animation. It’s a sign of the times that Pixar executives effectively took over the Disney animation department and not the other way around. Today’s real-time, 2D and 3D visuals, visual media as performance, visual media interactively responding to music, are all possible because of the technologies and modes of expression pioneered by the team at Pixar.

The NeXT, while a business failure, had a vital role in music and creative technology. Aside from producing the basic operating system that would become Mac OS X, the NeXT machine, with its unusually-powerful DSP capabilities, was the box on which real-time Max audio processing and many other key achievements in early computer DSP became possible. I hear there are even a few of these black boxes haunting labs and facilities around the world now, still in working order. And this design is all Jobs: flaunting convention or, arguably, even business realities, Jobs built the machine of the future. NeXT may have been Jobs’ Ford Edsel, but like the Edsel itself, it keeps looking better in hindsight, and it really did represent the technologies to come.

The revitalization of Apple will be what most pundits observe. But I think it’s tough to overstate its importance for the computer industry. I’d actually been preparing in my head an editorial prior to the announcement. The gist went something like this: we’re not living in the post-PC age. We’re living in the Apple age. Sure, computer maker executives point clumsily to a perceived shift to “tablets” that’s hurting their PC business. But mostly what they’re saying is that PC profit margins are falling, and they can’t make netbooks or tablets or anything else new people want to make up the difference. Look at Apple, by comparison: the “tablet” market is almost exclusively the “iPad” market for now, and at the same time, Mac sales are up, Mac market share is up, and Mac enthusiasm is generally up (the odd misstep with video editing and OS design oddities notwithstanding). Love them or hate them, Apple are the benchmark for computing, whether that computing experience is on a tablet, a phone, a laptop, or a desktop. That’s what a competitive company does. And it’s a combination of Mac OS X (now also a mobile OS) and Apple’s systems integration that makes it possible. (Like their competitors, Apple pulls together components from many, many other makers – but that makes the integration more impressive, not less.)

The Mac as musical instrument. Regular readers (or anyone who talks to me) know that I pull no punches when it comes to being critical of Apple. I think that’s my job. I also believe competition is important. But I think it’d be a mistake to dismiss musician Mac fans as being simply charmed by pretty computers. Apple’s OS is, of the three major desktop operating systems, the most able to make music with minimal user intervention. Their hardware is, generally speaking, reliable and enjoyable to use. For many musicians, comfort with the PowerBook and MacBook lines – from industrial design to operating system – is what allowed them to feel able to go out and produce and perform with a laptop. “Design” is more than skin deep. It runs to the very kernel of an operating system, literally, and in music it means design and engineering that can perform in tiny fractions of a second. Apple is not the only company capable of such engineering, but the work they’ve done in areas you can see and can’t see alike is all work you experience when you use their product.

When Jobs took over Apple, the entire music market was potentially on the chopping block. The idea of native creative software was no longer a sure thing. Jobs managed to build a platform ecosystem and an organization that supported continued leadership in the industry. In the grand scheme of the history of creative computing, that’s no small feat.

Digital music consumption. iTunes, iPod, downloads, digital music consumption … yeah, that whole thing. Jobs’ personal commitment to music, and perhaps to the romanticized ideas of the relationship with album and artist, may last even when these individual products are long gone. Even as “cloud” music makes music more of a commodity, the feeling of satisfaction you get when you buy an actual album download from Bandcamp is in tune with the vision Jobs had of music listening. (It’s a vision misunderstood by record labels made nervous by that original “Rip. Mix. Burn.” ad campaign from 2001′s iPod launch, though I suppose what that campaign did accurately predict was the rise of the single.)

Digital music creation. Apple under Jobs was also a champion of music making software, acquiring Emagic, bundling GarageBand with every Mac, and developing Logic Studio and now GarageBand on iPad. Even beyond the immediate impact of this software, the focus on music creation apps and the underlying infrastructure with Core Audio and Core MIDI gets unparalled attention. Jobs has led that emphasis and the relationship with artists and industry from creation to consumption in a way that has impacted the entire music software industry. While third-party developers may not always be happy with the immediate results, the long-term benefit of making music instrumental to this generation of computers is hard to overstate. (Thanks to readers pointing this out in comments – and pointing out, as well, that once upon a time this was really more true of Atari than Apple. That history will have to wait for another day, though.)

Popularizing new mobility and interaction. Yes, the iPhone and iPad is what I’m talking about. But if you believe these designs will prove to have an impact in the greater history of computing, you have to assume that impact will be larger than a single product. The ideas behind mobile computing arguably began at Apple in Jobs’ absence, the era of Newton and John Sculley’s Apple, and then at upstart General Magic (a company which employed many of the future movers and shakers of today’s mobile landscape, including the founder of Android). But even those teams at Apple and General Magic had the thumbprints of the Mac team Jobs originally assembled, and their vision wasn’t truly realized until the iPhone and iPad. On the handheld and tablet, respectively, Apple under Jobs brought us new modes of interaction with software, from multi-touch and gestures to single-task focus, computers that began to feel more immersive, computing interaction that for the first time felt freed from the accumulated UI detritus (“chrome”) that had clouded the Mac’s original vision. Musicians and artists predicted (and built) these kinds of designs for years before the iOS revolution, and so it’s little wonder that some of the most ground-breaking software for these platforms comes from those communities. The ability to take a computer into a party, to make something as viscerally expressive as musical sound, is the perfect test for whether ubiquitous computing can be human. It’s the computer as part of culture, and it’s under Jobs’ Apple that we first saw those machines that made it seem like we were living in the future. If they’re not the last, if they do begin to come from other makers, that’s to me an even greater testament to that vision.

Jobs’ next act: Succession. Steve Jobs is by no stretch of the imagination a perfect manager; Apple’s products are hardly unassailably “perfect.” Often, the appealing vision of Apple is the counterpart of a lack of vision by their competitors, an inability to harness design and engineering talent – though that failure will give pause to anyone looking forward to the Jobs-less Apple.

But part of management is succession. Steve Jobs managed to grow as a manager, from the apparently tempestuous youth who was kicked out of Apple to someone who built a mature, wildly-successful global business. He learned from mistakes at Apple, at NeXT, and even at Pixar. He delivered new acts better than the last.

It’s immensely sad to many of us that health would be the reason for Jobs’ departure. I think those of us who work in computing and journalism hope for good health for everyone in this industry. But this is the nature of succession as a reality in any organization.

Jobs’ best days, his best achievements, have all come about as a result of intelligent leadership. Jobs didn’t design any of the products above; leadership is the ability to guide people who do that work. And to me, the best test of leadership is succession: it’s the ability to build an organization you can leave. I’m surprised by the gloom and doom around Apple. Jobs will be sorely missed. But I find it very unlikely that, as David Pogue argues, Apple will now be run “by committee.” This is the Apple Jobs built. Committees likely have nothing to do with it.

Ironically, Apple’s success following Jobs’ first departure – what were then some of the company’s best days – were partly possible because of the organization Jobs had built. Sculley ultimately proved the wrong leader for Apple, but he did helm smart decisions that helped Apple mature as a global business, helped the Mac mature as a platform, and defined how computers would be designed and marketed for years to come. And Sculley was not coincidentally a Jobs recruit. So, too, were many of the managers and engineers who built that healthy Apple, the Macintosh on which a lot of the music tech revolution has happened. They come out of an organizational culture and enthusiasm Jobs had built from the ground up.

Now, a more mature Jobs leaves Apple voluntarily, with a succession plan in place, and with an organization he has more directly molded. He’s staying on with the organization, too, and you can bet his voice will continue to carry enormous weight. If you want to evaluate the future of creative technology on the Mac and iOS, this is the greatest test yet of what Jobs can do as a manager, whether you love the man or not. In Sculley’s accounts of his long walks with Jobs in the early days of Apple, he reveals that Mr. Jobs was constantly aware of his own mortality. All of us will, without exception, be gone someday, someday not very far away. What is a “legacy” if not what you leave when you’re gone?

It barely seems as though it’s been that long, but synthesis pioneer Robert Moog died six years ago this week. That has brought a whole new wave of remembrances, including a great new EP you can remix. And if you still don’t know what the fuss is about, or want to refer a friend somewhere other than Wikipedia, a guest essay popped into our inbox here at CDM HQ, so I’ll add that, too.

The best news, from where I sit: Tara Busch has donated a three-track EP entitled The Rocket Wife to the cause of bettering the Bob Moog Foundation’s work in history, archiving, and education. You may know Tara as the writer behind AnalogSuicide, or from her synthesist/vocalist career. Regardless, give this EP a listen. It’s a fanciful, dreamily optimistic album, recalling grand pop songwriting traditions. “Motor Crash” channels another Bush (Kate) in a very good way over its all-too-brief yet oddly satisfying minute and a half amuse-bouche. (Amuse-Busch?) “Calendura” is a gliding waltz set to angular, sparse percussion. But “Rocket Wife” is my favorite, a wonderland soundscape that sounds like some sunlight of the two afternoon suns on your foreign planet streamed right into a rack of Moogs in the studio of your dreams.

And, anyway, if you think you can do better with these raw materials, you can try to prove it. 17 tracks of stems are available for purchase, too, also as a benefit. Grab them, give them a remix, and winners will receive prizes like Bob Moog merch and a collaboration with Tara. You’ve got until October 15 to make it happen.

The Rocket Wife EP

The Stems and Contest

SoundCloud-based Contest Submissions [great idea!]

About Tara Busch

What else is new in the world of Bob Moog’s legacy?

Michelle Moog-Koussa (Bob Moog’s daughter) has her own blog, Moogstress. (Does that make us dudes Moogsters? Maestroogs?) See also a great new limited poster for donors.

Here’s a beautifully-shot video about what’s now called Dr. Bob’s Sound School. It’s just this kind of engineering-rich effort I think we need now in the US and worldwide to restart the economy, though that’s perhaps a story for another post.

Finally, writer Jennifer Helfrich sent us an unsolicited bio essay on Bob Moog. I was delighted to see it show up in my inbox, and it has the Bob Moog Foundation’s technical editing applied to it, so here it is – a great introduction to Bob Moog’s life.

Side editorial: I think it’s notable that Dr. Moog was a product of New York public education, beginning his educational journey at Bronx High School of Science and receiving his first BA – in physics, initially, not electrical engineering until later – at Queens College of The City University of New York. (Disclosure: I’m a PhD Candidate at CUNY’s Graduate Center.) It shows the power of public education to help support the people who innovate — just at a time when, in many places int he world, public education can be targeted for cuts.

Here’s Jennifer’s nicely-compact story:

Robert Moog is the godfather of modern electronic music, the man whose genius and passion made synthesizers accessible and put electronic sound generation on the musical map. This past Sunday, the 21st, was the six year anniversary of Bob Moog’s passing. Let us take a moment to remember his life and his legacy.

A New York native, he was born in 1934 to a mother who taught him piano and a father who puttered with house-hold electronics. Moog showed exceptional intelligence from an early age. He built a simple Theremin on his own at 14, and the experience made music his focus. At the tender age of 19 Moog founded R.A. Moog Co. to manufacture and sell Theremin kits. The business, begun at such an early age, exemplifies Moog’s incredible productive capacity and perhaps even a desire to share the joy he found in building his own.

During his bachelor and Ph.D. studies Moog began to develop his version of the synthesizer. Electronic synthesizers commercially available at the time were made of vacuum tubes and magnetic tape – they were huge, difficult to set-up, and often had to be custom made. With the 1964 presentation of his synthesizer Moog ushered in a new era of electronic music. Smaller and easier to use, with multiple modules for modifying voltage controlled oscillations and an organ-keyboard interface, the Moog synthesizer was ready for the music studio. Moog synthesizers hit the big-time with the success of the 1967 Wendy Carlos album Switched-On Bach. It was among the first classical albums to sell half-million copies, it hit the Top 10 and stayed in the Top 40 for 17 weeks.

As Moog synthesizers improved throughout the 60s and 70s they were featured in numerous albums by a wide variety of artists. Moog’s synthesizer helped shape disco; it showed up in the Beatles, the Doors, and the Monkees; both Stevie Wonder and Tangerine Dream loved the Moog synthesizer; it made appearances in genres from country to rock to jazz.

R.A. Moog Co. began to produce the Minimoog (Model D) in 1970 – an extremely popular smaller version of the synthesizer that was better suited to live performances. But the 60s had bankrupt Moog as other producers with larger factories outstripped his namesake firm. Moog sold the company and rights to the Moog name in 1972. Five years later Moog left the company, now Moog Music, frustrated with weak marketing and bad management. For the next 30 years he continued to develop and produce analog and digital tools for synthesizers, but during the time he could not produce under his own name Moog made no new instruments. Until, in 2002, he won back the rights to produce under his own name and returned to Moog Music. He designed and improved instruments at Moog Music until his death three years later in 2005.

The Moog legacy is a powerful inspiration for innovation in electronic music. His life was dedicated to the creation of quality analog and digital sounds composed in beautiful, interesting, and instructive ways. His understanding and appreciation of sound manipulation and the joys it can bring are carried on by the Bob Moog Foundation. His daughter, Michelle Moog-Koussa, as the Director, remembers her father as a quiet, introspective, cool, quirky, funny guy with a rambunctious laugh who loved to teach. The Foundation teaches science through music, has a Grammy recognized archive of the Moog legacy, and plans to build a museum. They recently released Mooged Out Asheville, Volume 2, an album exemplifying the many ways Moog changed music with songs spanning far-flung genres from hip-hop to avant electronica, from dub-step to rock. To learn more about Bob Moog and how his life still touches ours, visit http://www.moogfoundation.org/.

By the way, since this tends to come up – CDM welcomes suggestions for innovators you’d like us to cover. The Bob Moog Foundation archives alone cover lots of early designers, inventors, composers, and musicians, not only Dr. Moog himself. If you’ve got an idea, let us know.

Watch for, at long last, a series remembering the history of Max Mathews shortly — I’ve been editing it. It’s great the assemblage of people who helped build the tools we use.