It’s simply stunning some of the terrific instrument and effect plug-ins available that are now free and open source – yes, free as in freedom, not just freeware. I had commented in the past something along the lines of, “boy, wouldn’t it be great if this now meant, say, a Linux port?” and then went on the business of my daily life, which tends not to include re-compiling plug-ins. But now, the folks of JUCETICE have been busy doing just that, serving up delicious instrument and effect goodness, running native on Linux.

Translation: fire up that netbook and make some music.

Following up on our tutorial on Ardour and netbook-optimized music competition with Renoise and Indamixx, here’s what you need to get rolling.

With Linux growing in popularity on netbooks – and an option like the pre-configured Indamixx solution saving you the work of optimizing and configuring it – it’s suddenly no longer a stretch to imagine yourself a Linux music user. Of course, what you don’t want is to wind up without the arsenal of plug-ins to which we’ve all become accustomed. There are various ways of hosting Windows VSTs under Linux as though they were native plug-ins; check out dssi-vst (which also enables 32-bit VSTs from Windows under 64-bit Linux hosts), in conjunction with WINE. That should probably be the subject of a separate tutorial. (Ardour 3 also promises Windows VST support.)

But here, let’s have a look at native Linux plug-ins. JUCETICE has some beautiful creations of their own – an elegant, 32-voice polyphonic drum synthesizer and a TB-303 clone – plus some familiar favorites ported from Windows, like the ingenious DiscoDSP sampler created by the late, great Arguru.

Here, we’ll use the native Linux version of a commercial host, energyXT. energyXT is proprietary, but it costs just EUR59, has a free demo to check out before you purchase, and – if you do like it – is really different than any of its competitors.

Patrick Shirkey of 64studio, the music-centric Linux distro, walks us through the steps necessary to get the JUCETICE plug-ins going under energyXT on Linux – all native, no WINE or Windows anywhere.

I’ll be doing this myself on my Indamixx test unit, and will let you know how that goes.

Developer note: yes, you should definitely check out the JUCE framework, which makes developing cross-platform C++ easy, efficient, and modern, and is free for open-source projects.

Patrick explains:

1. Download the jucetice linuxvst plugin : http://www.anticore.org/jucetice/?page_id=7

2. Make a folder called “plugins” in the home directory

3. Save or move the plugins to that folder and extract the plugins.

4. Open energyXT and add the “plugins” folder to the “Plugins” folder list. Choose File > Setup:

Select the “Browser” tab and set it to the “Plugins” section.

Now select the “plugins” folder and add it to the list of known folders.

[Here’s what it looks like in the path structure.]

5. To add the plugin to a project double click on the “Plugins” section on the left panel of the main window to show all the plugins and right click on the plugin you want to use. Click “Add as Send” from the popup menu.

6. Finally, open the “Window” menu and choose the plugin from the list to display the user interface and adjust the settings.

Ed.: Definitely let us know if this is helpful to you; we’ll have some more comprehensive, big-picture tutorials on this stuff soon – but in the meantime, I’m definitely checking out these instruments!

The wait is over – and rumors that Melodyne’s bleeding-edge technologies to allow direct access to notes in polyphonic audio had failed to come to fruition turn out to be false. (I was skeptical about those rumors in April.) Melodyne DNA did take longer than expected to ship, but then, that isn’t exactly news in the software business. And now you can try this “note access” concept for yourself and see what you think (well, provided you’re an existing customer). Coupled with time-based manipulation of audio in the form of updated tools in Ableton Live 8, Cakewalk SONAR 8.5, Propellerhead Record, Logic Studio 9, and others, with Melodyne handling the pitch, audio today could be more fluid than ever.

Celemony Melodyne
(Note, since you are a bleeding-edge type — the software is also considered compatible with Snow Leopard, though host-by-host certification is still forthcoming.)

What Melodyne’s editor enables:

• Harmonies are accessible, note by note.
• Pitch, position, duration, and loudness and softness can be modified.
• Formant spectra, vibrato, and pitch drift are accessible.
• Pitch, amplitude, and formant transitions between notes can be edited.

Now, all of this is in a plug-in, but that plug-in is more capable than previous versions, with better multi-threading, an adjustable window size (sigh of relief), and the ability to audition and scrub as you edit. That’s not quite as good as having this functionality in your host, but it’s more than good enough to make this usable.

I’m especially interested in what unusual sound design possibilities can be harnessed using this technology – abusing it rather than using it as intended.

Here’s how to get it:
Registered Melodyne customers are able to participate in the beta.
Launch is planned for early November at US$349 / EUR349.

I’m testing a copy now, so if you’re not a Melodyne user, I will get to report back.

More videos:

(Part 3 of 3 appears to be temporarily missing; I’ll add it once it is re-posted!)

“Fruity Loops” has long proven that not all music making apps have to look the same way. FL is quirky and different. Its editing interface is built as much around step sequencers and pattern sequencing as the conventional, mixer and audio-tape-derived views. But perhaps some of its real draw is that it packs, in its mid-level-and-higher packages, it’s packed with fascinating and unusual sonic toys. FL 9 looks to continue that tradition.

And because it’s FL, if you’ve ever bought FL, you get a free lifetime upgrade to this version. (Seriously, if you’re pirating FL, stop. You have absolutely no excuse.)

New toys in this version:

• Autogun Derived from the excellent sounds of the Ogun synth, this instrument has “more than four billion presets.” (Wait… what?) I do agree with Image-Line’s description of “rich metallic and shimmering timbres” in Ogun; that’s exactly what it sounds like.
• Vocodex vocoder, the “last word in Vocoders.” (I thought the last word was, “No one needs a vocoder,” but I could be wrong.) Automatic speech enhancement plus up to 100 “variable-width, multi-parameter” bands does give this some interesting twists.
• Stereo Shaper.

I think that improved performance and editing may be bigger news, however:

• Multi-core CPU support, multithreaded generator, and multithreaded effects processing. This is the one that I expect most excites you crazy, synth-and-effects-routing mad scientists who have been pegging your CPU.
• Improved effects: sidechaining in the limiter, mid-side processing in the reverb, export and noise reduction in the awesome Edison and Slicex audio-editing instruments.
• Improved Playlists with “Clip Track” features
• A “Riff Machine” for automatically generating sequences in the Piano Roll
• Multiple controller support for defining different instrument channels. (Okay, FL experts – did I miss something? That wasn’t present before?)

What comes in the box has been expanded, too. In all the editions, you get the new stereo shaper and Autogun. In “Fruity Edition” and higher, you get SimSynth Live, DrumSynth Live, the DX-10 FM synth, and cool-sounding WASP and WASP-XT. In Producer Edition, you get the Vocodex vocoder.

Unfortunately, Image-Line still continues some confusing a la carte options, and actually eliminates its XXL edition that gave you everything. So, there’s a new Gross Beat that manipulates pitch, position, and volume in real-time, but you only get the demo with FL 9. I can’t really complain about this because FL has so much in it, but it can all get a little hard to follow sometimes.

On the other hand, if you’re an FL fan, I think you could do some serious damage with the vocoder and new sequence generating features.

I’ve always wanted to do a better job of covering FL on this site, so FL users, get in touch!

FL Studio product page
Download the demo

Native Instruments released a slew of soft synth updates today – thanks to everyone who sent this in. The big news is that Absynth, the alien-sounding synth that has become a darling of sound designers, gets a big update. But with so much to cover, here’s the in-a-nutshell version so you can grok it all in one place.

The other big news – Komplete’s price is down to EUR499/US$559, with cheaper upgrade pricing to match. That makes the suite much more aggressive, and certainly as far as software instruments, as much as you can get in any one box, anywhere, for that amount of change. It’s not all good news, though – there were some cuts of instruments from the lineup. Correction: These products are in fact discontinued. Pro-53, Akoustik Piano, and B4 II are being terminated, though unlike the previous vocoder and spectral delay, it sounds as though the replacement is effectively sample libraries in Kontakt.

Disclaimer: I’m reading this from a press release and peppering it with what either might be considered my expansive experience and finely-honed instincts or, in technical terms, “randomly made-up speculation.” Less review, more fauxview. Expect more once we’ve used these in the flesh.

Absynth 5

The synth Jim Aikin once described to me as a “rabbit hole” has just gotten deeper. New in this release:

• Supercomb filter for “physical-modeling-type” sounds – think exquisite new resonance.
• Cloud filter for granular-based modulation.
• Filter feedback paths for “gritty” “unpredictable” …well, you know, filter feedback.
• “Aetherizer” for breaking up and rearranging sound particles, apparently derived from granular models but implemented in an unusual way.
• More presets, in case you want a guide exploring the stuff above.
• Mutator for morphing presets based on musical keywords – an alternative way of navigating presets.

Those new filters and processors sound really extraordinary to me. I have a small selection of “desert island” synths. Absynth might qualify for when you move to a different planet.

Kontakt 4

Here’s a surprise. You see, Native Instruments only updated its flagship sampler to 3.5 as recently as July. That was no minor update, either, featuring 64-bit memory support (on Windows) and greater 32-bit memory (up to 32 GB on Mac), plus improved from-disk streaming, multi-core support, MIDI learn, and other enhanced features and compatibility. In less than a month and a half, they’re back to announce version 4.

And it does sophisticated live convolution of samples. Somewhere, someone is thinking of realistic purposes for that. I’m thinking Absynth may have company on that alien planet.

• Authentic Expression Technology (AET)  What? A process that mimics authentic instruments – with an obscure acronym to match? Is NI channeling Roland? AET isn’t quite like anything I’ve heard before, with a “phase-corrected convolution” based on an analysis of the original acoustic instrument sample. (In other words, it squishes your sample together with the analyzed behavior of a real-world instrument.) It’s a unique-sounding process, and one I’d love to hear warped to unusual sound design purposes – not just faking real instruments, but inventing new ones.
• Vowel morphing for choirs. (Yeah, see what I just said? You’re going to want to route synths through AET, too, aren’t you?)
• A sampled Mellotron.
• Sample compression to save on resources – without losing audio fidelity or taxing the CPU, says NI.
• Multi Scripts for Kontakt scripting users.
• A new sound browser with “more musical” terms.
• A stack of belgian waffles, dripping in syrup. (Okay, I made that one up. Mmmmm… waffles.)

Guitar Rig 4 (Pro and otherwise)

Where do you go in a crowded guitar emulation market, with a package that’s already crammed with sound tools? NI has chosen to focus on the speakers/cabinet/mic. There’s more talk of convolution – here, “latency-free” convolution – but I know NI’s tools often use different techniques for the different products, which means this may not be exactly what’s showing up in Kontakt; more on that once I find out exactly what they’ve done. New in “Pro”:

• Advanced cabinet, mic modeling: NI says they’ve applied latency-free convolution in order to get more precise models from their software. (Well, okay, digital processes inherently add latency, so let’s assume extreme-low-latency).
• Control Room mic + cabinet matching: Other guitar amp emulations do effectively this – there are some simple combinations in Apple’s new Logic 9, most recently. But NI says that, again, their technology is special, with phase-aligned studio mics for each cabinet and work by German guitar and recording guru Peter Weihe.
• New tube amps: “Hot Plex,” “Jump.”
• Two new delays, two new reverbs.
• Dedicated master effects section.
• True-stereo processing throughout the signal chain.
• Better sound quality for pitch-based effects.
• More host automation, controller assignment.
• Use the Rig Kontrol 3 pedal board as a MIDI controller with anything you like.

That’s just the flagship; some updates apply across the range to other packaged versions of the Guitar Rig line, with different sets of features and hardware that are a bit too complex to compare now.

Komplete 6

For those keeping score at home, here’s what you get if you prefer the whole box.

New versions:

• Absynth 5
• Kontakt 4
• Guitar Rig 4

And the existing lineup:

• Battery 3
• FM8
• Massive
• Reaktor 5
• Elektrik Piano (now simply as Kontakt samples, but that’s fine)

And those upgrading who felt burned in the past by the process, NI seems to be giving something back this time. All the way back to Komplete 2, you can upgrade for US$169, and Kontakt and Reaktor owners – any version – can Komplete themselves for US$339/EUR299 through the end of 2009.

The full Komplete package is now just US$559/EUR499.

So, what got cut:

• Akoustic Piano
• B4 II
• PRO-53

These three products are in fact discontinued. Pro-53 was a bit out of place in the suite, it’s true, and looking (and sounding) long in the tooth; NI is generally more about creating new synths than emulating old ones. The B4 and Akoustik Piano, though, I think are going to be missed. Akoustik Piano has some great piano samples and controls that aren’t really replaced by the piano samples in Kontakt. And while the C-3 samples in Kontakt sound terrific, you miss out on the variations and sound design options in B4 II. I’m guessing someone may be passionate about that, seeing as how they’re handcrafting full-sized controllers for it with custom stops and DIY electronics just to play it. It sounds like the direction is toward sampling, though, so perhaps we’ll see some additions in the Kontakt sample library to compensate for these omissions. Meanwhile, if you’ve already got these products, you can hang onto them.

I still think this gives Komplete an extra edge. And let’s not lose the real story here – real time convolution and crazy filtering in Absynth. I’ll sleep on that.

Oh yeah, and iPhone apps? Cool, but when you want to put more supercomputer-style processing on your tracks, your desktop computer is still your friend.

Native Instruments

You’ve got to respect BeatKangz: here’s an independent company doing something new in the world of hardware drum machines. Their design is blinged out like crazy, the polar opposite of a minimalist MachineDrum, but with easy access to the controls you need. It’s a box that has personality in a world of gear that often doesn’t. The team has at least some experience, too, having made the SB-246 drum machine for Zoom. (Okay, I hadn’t heard of it before, but it looks like a fun toy for about $200. Here’s a video review.)

I have to say I’ve done a pretty terrible job of covering their upcoming Beat Thang, mostly because, well, I just don’t know anything about it, beyond seeing the videos everyone else had. (And yes, I’ve heard the complaints about the fact that I haven’t been covering it.) So I’ve been waiting for some news about the actual hardware shipping.

Unfortunately, the shipping gear isn’t here just yet. The good news is, Beat Thang hardware is now promised for October, with a pre-sales price of US$999. The bad news is, for now you’ll have to live with a “virtual” software edition. What looks like a very cool hardware interface gets translated directly to the screen – where it just doesn’t make as much sense to me. It may just make you want the hardware all the more. (Full disclosure: I’m biased. I’ve never been a fan of software that emulates hardware. Even less so when you have the actual hardware to look forward to.) It could be really useful to someone who owns the hardware – if you’re on a bus with your laptop and can’t grab your hardware BeatThang. For hardware lovers, though, it’s a bit of a tease.

Still, if you’re starved for BeatKangz news, at least this gives you more of an idea of what to look forward to – and the workflow features look impressive indeed. My guess is they’ll use software sales to fund production. If you’re already committed to this concept, your US$149 spent on the software gets you a $149 off coupon on the final hardware – nice idea.

Feature set details from the company:

• One octave pad layout with 8 banks so you can bang out beats or play the keys.
• 16 tracks so you can create patterns that can be performed and remixed on the fly.
• 16 layers of velocity sensitivity for emotive performance.
  High Quality Sampler & waveform editing. Sample your own sounds using your computer’s built in mic or line input.
• Edit sample start and end times. Process samples using features like normalize, reverse and resample.
• Easy to use Realtime Sequencer. Create patterns in real time using quantize, swing, individual bar lengths, tap tempo then string them together in SONG mode.
• Mixer with built in FX Change track, pad and pan levels.
  Add 24bit reverb, delay, flange, phaser, pitch shift, old record and many more.
• Add BANG with onboard mastering.
• Export your songs as .wav files or save them to your Beat Kangz Playa Thang equipped iPhone or iPod Touch.

I’ll say this: I’m intrigued. These guys may in fact find a sweet spot between the software drum machine capabilities out there and hardware, in a freestanding unit that doesn’t require a computer. So, while I doubt the software will satisfy impatient drum machine fans, we’ll know soon enough if the hardware is something special.

The Beat Thang Virtual (For Mac & PC)

The Beat Thang Beat Machine [yeah, this is the non-virtual hardware link)

The Music Bore – Video 2 from Nicholas Humfrey on Vimeo.

“I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t allow you to listen to Coldplay.”

What would radio be like if playlists were not only robotic, but had robot DJs pulling information from the Interwebs dynamically? That’s the question asked by the winning team at London’s Music Hackday last weekend, which created an epic mashup of data sources to produce a voice-synthesized IRC chatbot that researches and plays music for you.

Music Bore

Music Bore was just one of a number of projects developed in the weekend of musical hacking, some for listening, and at least one (a fantastic and free synth plug-in) for what we really like – production. With some of the world’s top musical coders in attendance, the results were amazing, even if not all projects were entirely finished. (Hey, that’s why they call it hacking.)

You can check out the full list on the wiki, but here are some favorites — and if you were there, do shout out to us as you put more documentation up of the event and projects.

Harmony Box by Dave and Mike is a synth plug-in for Mac (AU/VST) and Windows (VST, thus also Linux) that quickly creates lovely chords. I love the simplicity of the instrument – really lovely work, gents – and I think I may actually use it on a project. They accept donations if you’d like to see this instrument mature. Of course, with everyone else doing Web mash-ups, this didn’t win, but it’s more up our alley. (Web 2.0 – meh, whatever.)

The synth has its own project blog:
http://davenoise.com/blog/

Other winners (in our book, and as recommended by Harmony Box co-creator Dave Gamble):

LonelyHarps by Jamie Hollingworth and David Padbury is a Last.fm-based tool concept that helps you find dates – and choose the right tracks to set the mood – using music for compatibility. And, really, do you really want to date someone who doesn’t have musically compatible tastes? (I’m sure it’s just because they spotted lots of hotties on Last.fm, but…) The only bad news: the app didn’t actually get fully made yet, but we’ll stay tuned, gents. They do have impressive-looking formulas.

Music Zeitgeist by Cristiano Betta visualizes lyrics by decade, such as the 1980s, above. (Yeah, it was all about wanting and karma, the 80s.) Check out the project directly.

Theremag by Jono Cole and Jonty Wareing of Last.fm is actually the app I most want to see, but there’s no documentation yet. It’s a Theremin emulator on the Google Android-based HTC G1, with an unusual sensor — the built-in magnetometer (the one that normally acts as the compass) which was used to pitch-bend Michael Jackson. Once they get documentation up, expect to see it here. (I love that magnet sensor, too. Good fun.)

iPhone Music Visualizer by George J Cook and Matt Biddulph grabs Soundcloud files, analyzes them with Echonest (which recently got an iPhone-friendly Cocoa API), and then plays them back with a visualizer. It looks like a great place to get started if you’re planning on building something similar yourself.

In fact, it’s well worth checking out the wiki not only because some of the projects have (okay, sometimes-sloppy) source code, but point you at the resources you’d need to tackle something like this yourself if you’re a coder. And the event prompted a lot of folks from Last.fm to Echonest and BBC and others to get their APIs together.

It’s a terrific idea, and it sounds like we need another music hackday here. (Press releases, ahem, claimed this was the “first” music hackday, even though we’ve done a global event ourselves, but who cares — let’s do more!)

New York would make a nice base of operations for a similar event because a lot of folks with interesting APIs are here (or in nearby East Coast towns), but I think it’d be great to get more people online and not just in one locale.

What think you, sirs and madames? Tips on how we could make an online event work?

Automap on other devices – and an iPhone as a remote control for your Live set? Our friend Ben Rogerson at MusicRadar have caught up with the chaps at Novation at a London trade show to have a look at Automap for iPhone. This app hasn’t yet hit the App Store yet – Hispasonic and the Ableton Forums got the jump on the story last month. But it looks appealing.

It seems to auto-detect the computer to which it’s connecting – as it should, folks, look up Zeroconf. (implemented on iPhone as “Bonjour”) And you can learn in both directions – so you can interactively choose parameters on the iPhone and decide what you want to control. It also sends MIDI to Live for clip triggering, though you’ll notice that some features on the APC40, like clip status and the ability to move through blocks of clips, aren’t possible here. Because Automap wraps around VST and AU automation parameters, you also get high-resolution control of plug-in parameters.

This should also open up possibilities for other Automap-supported apps, not just Live; I’ll be able to test this once the app comes out. No official word on availability or pricing other than soon and cheap. Before people start complaining about the tiny iPhone screen — yes, absolutely. But there’s a nice blank spot on the Novation controllers on which you could put your iPhone or iPod touch. Think about it: you can add an intelligent multi-touchscreen to your existing hardware, use your conventional gear for physical control, but keep the Apple gadgetry as an additional remote (now fairly cheap with no contract for iPod touch). You can even wander around the room during sound check while still controlling your set.

Update: I should note, as I just got asked on Twitter, most Wi-Fi adapters allow you to create your own Wi-Fi network. So you don’t need Wi-Fi in a venue. You’d just create your own network on your PC or Mac laptop, and connect via that – the iPhone and iPod touch both support connecting to these networks. (Note that not all devices do: the Android-powered TMobile G1, for instance, has a chip that apparently doesn’t support them, and I have an 802.11b/g USB adapter that won’t create them. But mostly, this is an easy matter.)

Cool as this is, and elegant as the work Novation appears to have done, I can’t help but notice this is still something of a kludge. The iPhone communicates natively over TCP/IP with the computer. That’s what this app is using – but then it needs a Rosetta Stone and another set of software on the computer just to untangle the archaic protocols music software uses (plug-in automation, MIDI, and more oddness heaped atop of MIDI). There’s absolutely no reason that music software couldn’t be intelligent enough to support networking protocols so that all software and devices can easily communicate. That wouldn’t put Novation out of business, either – on the contrary, it would allow them to do their jobs and this very app could be more productive. Instead of MIDI CC numbers, imagine if you could refer to clips by scene and position number, or even by clip name. Imagine if the iPhone displayed clip parameters and changed when clips were launched. Imagine no more drivers or software to install: someone who bought Novation hardware with OSC support could bring it to a friend’s place and work on a session without that friend installing Automap software.

(singing) You may say I’m a dreamer, but … (sorry, cough) actually this is all possible right now.

I’m all for solutions that work, and Automap (and M-Audio’s HyperControl) both have great capabilities now. But OpenSoundControl is also something you can implement now (provided hosts like Live will support it), and we’ll be talking more about what it can do over the summer to make it more practical and less abstract.

The mda-vst collection of effects has been a long-time favorite for me. It’s a set of no-nonsense, unique, simple effects, just useful stuff that doesn’t have any unnecessary bells and whistles. Oh, yeah – and it’s free, making an easy way to fill out your effect arsenal. But until recently, the collection was proprietary freeware. Now, it’s GPL-licensed open source for Mac and Windows.

Included: multi-band distortion, drum replacement, amp and speaker simulators, de-essing, degrading, delay, detune, dither, dub delay, compressor/limiter/gate, envelope following stereo imaging and simulation, a Leslie simulator, multi-band compression, an overdrive, a really insane pitch changer, a 3D panner, a sub-bass synth, a couple of vocoders with different numbers of bands, test tone creator, flanger, pitch tracker, and more.

I imagine the access to code for these things could help people launch their own effects projects. And as Windows VSTs, it can run easily in Linux hosts that support that format, too.

http://mda.smartelectronix.com/

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mda-vst/

Thanks to Marc Resibois for the tip. And you budding C coders out there, if you dig into the code, let us know.

Live-triggered video inside your music host is about to get a lot more popular. Daniel “Herb” Herbert writes to let us know that his Mabuse Software, an “experimental audiovisual software company,” has developed a new AV plug-in for mashing up video. It’s a VST plug-in based on the now-defunct Pluggo, with a Max for Live port coming later this year as that is released. Of course, that does reveal some of the trouble with Cycling ’74’s decision to dump Pluggo. You’ll be limited to running this kind of cool software in Live, and from what they’ve said so far, you’ll also have to pay for Max for Live to do it – no free run-time is planned. But I can tell you that all of Jitter’s video and 3D output capabilities work from inside Max, including in full-screen mode, so there’s no question you’ll get some power out of the combination. I just hope people find some creative stuff to do and not just more of the same YouTube mash-ups.

Herb describes the software and promises more AV tools to come:

The beta version won’t save, but is otherwise fully functional.
A full screen add-on will be available soon, as well as a number of other plugins to expand the Mabuse AV range.
Features include:
Run video within a VST plugin
Automatic Tempo matching
MIDI controllable video fx
Easy to use browser
Record to Quicktime Movie

A PC version will be available if there’s enough interest through the forum and you could be in with a chance of winning a copy by joining the mailing list before the full version is released.

Short 1 min demo video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9TGDrkJh6A

5 min tutorial video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ_xDptp-ws

MOTU is now shipping Volta, the software plug-in seen exclusively here on CDM at the beginning of the year. The Mac-only plug-in finally brings together two distant technologies: virtual software instruments and control voltage are together at last. (You can just forget all about that MIDI and digital business in the middle.) With it, everything from Moog guitar pedals to the Rolls of modern synths, the mind-bogglingly pricey Buchla 200e, can be easily controlled with a computer rig.

You know that cheezy Disney movie, with the astronaut in King Arthur’s Court? It’s sort of like that, as the 21st Century meets the 1960s.

Volta isn’t just about having more flexible control, either: calibration, routing, and automation all become possible.

For more details, it’s best to look back at our January interview with Matthew Davidson of MOTU, as he revealed this creation to the world:

Analog, Meet Digital: MOTU Volta Connects the Mac to CV Synths, Effects Graphically

Pricing is now final, as well, at US$249.

More tutorials and details at MOTU:

http://www.motu.com/products/software/volta/

The key requirement: “An audio interface with DC-coupled outputs, such as any MOTU FireWire, USB2, or PCI audio interface with quarter-inch TRS outputs.” I believe that also includes the RME interfaces. Correction: at this point, I’m unsure which non-MOTU interfaces may work. But if you don’t own one of those interfaces, now’s an excellent excuse to buy a fantastic piece of gear. 

Sadly, Volta require an iLok for authorization. Okay, whoever is out there who would buy something like a 200e or a rack of Doepfers, then pirate this software, you and I need to have a little talk. (I’ve seen stranger things, however.)

I can look on at all of this with a sense of awe and mystery, because I’m staying in the digital realm these days. But you can check out extensive discussion on our previous story of how useful this is, and other ways of creating the effect (albeit less-elegant ones). Apparently Trash Audio already grabbed the domain createanalogmusic.com out of spite, though that means I’m safe from getting sucked into your addiction, analog lovers.

Volta and the Buchla 200e from Matthew Davidson on Vimeo.