You’ve seen “pay what you want” pricing for self-released albums on Bandcamp, and independent donationware software. But you certainly haven’t seen it in a major proprietary application like Reason 6. That’s what Swedish developer Propellerhead is doing with their Reason 6 upgrade, with name-your-own-price starting at EUR/USD 1.00, through the end of October. (One, not one hundred. Really. Apologies for embedding what’s essentially an advertisement below, but the video explains it.)

Edit: Readers observe that Reason 2.5 was a free upgrade, which is arguably just as notable as a pay-what-you-will upgrade here.

Now, this isn’t for everyone: it’s the upgrade, not the full product, and it’s only for people who own a copy of Reason and a copy of Record. In effect, what the upgrade does is reward early adopters who purchased Reason and Record Duo or bought Record separately on top of an existing copy of Reason. My feeling was certainly that the two products should have been offered together from the start. Many Reason users complained that they weren’t getting all the new audio recording features (only a sampling feature). And I noted in a review of Record for Macworld that Record didn’t come with everything unless you also bought Reason. The bundling of Reason and Record functionality into a single product called “Reason” to me makes perfect sense, and the deal here reflects that.

For that reason, I wouldn’t go as far as asking, as Jo-Ann at Shocklee does, if this is the future of music software pricing. But it is a big deal, and it proves that more significant names in music software can take some risks. It’s also a nice bargain: remember that Reason 6′s price, reflecting the incorporation of both programs, is effectively what you paid for Reason + Record duo, and that even if you have both, you still get some nice, new effects. (I’ve been playing with them for a few weeks, so expect a write-up on that soon, once I actually sit down and make some real music with them.)

But for me, the bottom line is, it’s nice to see a good idea trump caution in the accounting department.

http://www.propellerheads.se/paywhatyouwant/

As an addendum to our first look at Propellerhead’s new Reason 6 announcements (including incorporating Record), Propellerhead points us to a promo video of their new Balance audio interface. We’ve seen efforts before to make software more appealing to newcomers by bundling an audio interface, so this is, on the face of it, hardly “stop-the-presses!” sort of news for digital musicians. But there’s some evidence the Propellerheads may have hit on a new formula.

One, Balance doesn’t look exactly like every other audio interface on the market. The design is distinctive, and the wedge-shaped form would appear to make it friendlier to use. Two, they’ve really focused on metering, which in computer recording – absent an integrated piece of hardware on which you’re tracking – has been a sticking point. You both get some protection against clipping if you set the gain wrong and an easy way to watch level without hunching over either your audio box or your computer screen; there’s one place to look on-screen and it’s very large.

Propellerhead also promises Balance fits in your laptop bag. Wait… how do they know how big your laptop bag is? (Well, they know how big mine is, as I’ve been to Stockholm, but as for the rest of you…) And as I noted earlier, it’s class-compliant so it works with things like Linux and iPads and not just Mac and Windows.

The design looks really, really nice, and since you asked, you will be able to get this USB2 interface standalone. A 2×2 interface is something you’ve probably already got, but this one comes complete with I/O that lets you connect everything into what amounts to a matrix. The remaining question is how it all sounds; everyone claims things are “high-quality” and “low-latency,” but that’s where we do have to test.

More on Balance:
Balance Product Page

Propellerhead today unveils the new Reason, incorporating Record functionality in both the full-blown and “Essentials” versions, a new audio interface in their first-ever hardware, and a beta that will at last make ReCycle a modern Mac tool.

Record added some wonderful stuff to Reason, including a terrific analog-style console, modeled EQ and dynamics, the ability (finally) to place racks side by side, and extra effects modules, including nice Line 6 modeled guitar kit. In other words, Record introduced a bunch of stuff you’d really want in Reason all along. Conversely, if you only bought Record, you were left out of a bunch of useful stuff that was only in Reason.

Yes, there was the “Duo” box that included both Reason and Record. But what you really wanted was both. Since neither app supports plug-ins, you really, really wanted both.

Propellerhead has apparently heard us, because Reason 6 now includes everything. It’s effectively Duo, with both Reason and Record. If that’s overkill, Reason Essentials gives you Record plus the bits of Reason Record users most wanted — the ReDrum drum machine, the NNXT sampler, the Dr OctoREX loop player. Essentials also has a smaller mixer (actually, I rather hope that’s accessible from the full-blown product, too.)

Onto what’s new: Reason adds a bunch of new goodies:

• Pulveriser : “crushing” effect with “crunchy” compression. Given the niceness of previous distortion efforts for Propellerheads, I think there’s reason to be optimistic.
• Echo: stereo effect with “modern” delay and analog tape echo. Sounds delightful, that one.
• Alligator: three-band pattern gate.
• Higher-quality audio transpose. One of the most overlooked features of Record was its exceptional-quality time stretching; getting better transpose alongside could make a formidable audio tool.
• True 64-bit compatibility.

The biggest piece of news here – the one Propellerhead didn’t even include explicitly in its press release – is that ReWire is 64-bit. That ensures ReWire’s place in the future of the product line.

Finally, in its first foray into hardware, Propellerhead is unveiling Balance, the lovely design of which you can more or less make out at top. It’s a two-in, two-out audio interface, but with eight connections – that way, while you can only record stereo, you don’t have to swap cables.

There’s also this feature: “Hardware buttons on Balance bring up a large meter/tuner in Reason and can also enable Clip Safe, Propellerhead’s new recording technology that with one click heals clipped recorded audio. Musicians no longer have to worry about losing a great recording because gain levels were too high, and can stay focused on creating that goose bump evoking performance.”

I’ve confirmed with Propellerhead that the basic means by which this works is that the software automatically records extra audio, so that when you do clip a recording, you can effectively borrow additional dynamic headroom (in that you’re recording additional dynamic information) by using the additional recording. There’s some clever means by which this is automatic; it should be fun to test, intentionally setting gain wrong. (I was just looking at a Sony mobile recorder that does something similar, albeit using additional bits by recording at 24-bit over 16-bit, etc.)

The other good news on the audio interface: it’s WDM/ASIO on Windows, but class-compliant for Mac (and Linux, and iPad, and other things). The Balance upgrade will come bundled with Essentials for US$499; clearly, part of the idea here is to offer in one box some complete software for use by newcomers to music production tools, with everything they need in one box.

If you do want Balance and intend to use the full-blown Reason, Propellerhead tells us, “If you already own Reason or Record or the Duo you get a free upgrade to Reason 6 when you buy Balance. If you buy Balance new without owning any Propellerhead software previously, you can upgrade to Reason 6 by buying the Reason 6 upgrade ($169).” (See further discussion in comments.)

There are still things I’d complained about that appear not to be here – namely, MIDI output for hardware synths and the ability to run Record (now Reason) as a ReWire host and not just ReWire client, which I think would make it an ideal mixing, arrangement, and mastering console. (I do track the things I write in the “Cons” column.) But I’m very excited about this release. I’ve been a great fan of the work on Record, and it seems only natural to bring it to a broader audience of Reason users. This appears to make the product line more sensible and friendly, and I’ve long found those couple of simple effects additions in new Reason versions can turn out to be the ingredient in entire tracks.

Stay tuned for a hands-on when this ships. Ship date: September 30.

Pricing: US$449 for Reason 6, US$299 for Reason Essentials (without the hardware), or US$169 for an upgrade from any Reason version or Reason Essentials to Reason 6.

Full details:
Reason 6 minisite

There’s a public beta signup if you just can’t wait:
Beta Test Reason

And in other news, Propellerhead have an update on Lion compatibility. Their software, apart from its usual Windows function, will work on the upcoming new release of Apple’s software. Because Apple is, as expected, removing Rosetta, the now-ancient compatibility layer, it’s time for a native Mac OS X version of Propellerhead’s ReCycle loop creation software. There’s a beta coming for that, as well:
Lion Info

There’s also this nice video of Reason users, set in New York City, with a few people I know mixed in. It’s an advertisement, of course, but I like them focusing on the human side of music software.

May has brought two new Web projects from manufacturers – one a titan name from analog hardware, another the king of the software studio. In each, the product itself is downplayed to focus on artists actually making music. That means if you’re looking to kick off your summer music making with a little inspiration, you’ve got some video to watch, and not just the usual gear lust. I don’t think I can be an entirely objective judge of websites, since I do work for The Internet, but that seems like a good trend. (So, yes, I’m not only being partial to Moog and Props here – I always welcome real musical discussion from the folks who make our music tools!)

First off, Moog has a much-welcome rebuild of their previous site, replacing a hard-to-navigate kludge with tiny images. The new site I have to say is one of the best I’ve seen yet from a vendor. Of course, it’s the actual content we still care about. For that, turn to a lavish legacy section. (You can even reminisce about the year 2000 and those heady Big Briar days.)

The nicest feature – back to the idea of getting to the music – promises to be the Sound Studio. First up is The Dandy Warhols, surrounded of course by tasty Moog gear. They have a mixed lineup coming – and don’t worry; that includes the likes of Thereminist Dorit Chrysler, lest you think Moog is abandoning their synthy roots. Now, if they could just find a way to put the pronunciation of their name front and center. (Hint: if you sound like a cow, you’re saying it wrong. Rogue.)

Moog Sound Lab

Propellerhead has a unique approach in May’s “Music Making Month.” Hands-on how-to videos appear first as live webcasts, then on-demand YouTube clips, showing how to get into some real music making. Reason and Record are featured, of course, but the series is as much about production and performance as those tools. Check out the start of the terrific series by Josh Mobley on keyboard finger-drumming, for instance. (Skip a couple of minutes in, and check out Josh’s percussive dexterity.) Artist guests are doing Q&A and video how-to installments on everything from control voltage to sequencing to songwriting, and it looks like there’s a nice artist/tech balance. I like the first week’s videos; tune in for more to come. (This also, though, confirms some of my reservations about the “Like” button; I wouldn’t read too much into those numbers.)

http://www.propellerheads.se/

Mobile-based music can mean a chance to do more with less, but that hasn’t stopped lovers of production on the iPhone and iPad from wanting to move ideas between apps. So, you’ve got a great bassline … if you could just combine it with that vocal sample, and then finish a track…

That presumably explains why we hear so many readers clamoring for AudioCopy. It’s a proprietary audio API developed by Sonoma WireWorks with an available SDK, and it’s gained some real traction among iOS music apps. Latest to the fold is ReBirth, the iPhone and iPad all-in-one music studio. (A corresponding price cut makes the iPad version US$9.99 and iPhone edition $4.99, though if you have a choice, I’d avoid the iPhone version and stick with the iPad.) I know this was an oft-requested feature.

ReBirth

You can keep track of which apps work with AudioCopy (and AudioPaste) at Sonoma’s site:
Compatible Apps

A few apps stand out. Sonoma’s own FourTrack and StudioTrack allow you to multitrack arrangements from materials you’ve built in other apps, as well as add audio tracks recorded from another source. Other highlights:

• Jasuto is a full-fledged modular environment.
• Monle is a simple but elegant multitrack editor, ideal for laying out audio sampled from other tools
• VoiceJam from TC-Helicon is a vocal sampler and looper.

…and, of course, there are countless synths and other interesting sound generators, including Korg’s offerings and various tools we’ve covered on CDM. But it’s nice to see these tools in the mix, too, in terms of workflow.

I’m still partial to the far more open and capable conventional computer as a way of working, but what’s interesting to me is that part of what many want on mobile is the same sort of studio-in-a-box flexibility. And there’s no question that with these tools, you can get music made. There are efforts to route signal between apps, too, but what’s nice here is that you still focus on one app at a time – avoiding performance bottlenecks in either their device or your attention span.

If you do use iOS, let us know which apps you use with AudioCopy.

In our monster MeeBlip round-up the other day, I mentioned the stunning enclosure Michael Roebbeling made for his DIY synth kit. But that’s not all Michael has built. He’s also created a lovely, simple step sequencer with Arduino. It’s a beautiful combination of all open-source hardware, MeeBlip and Arduino. Surprisingly, it’s his first try at all of this:

After my first successful experience in electronics, building the MeeBlip, I was hooked. So I decided to buy an Arduino and dive a bit deeper. My first project was a rudimentary sequencer to work together with my MeeBlip. It took me 3 days to figure out the schematiks and code the program.

With projects like Arduino taking out some of the headaches of getting started, this is further proof that understanding computation allows you to do anything, from hardware to software, on any platform.

Michael’s project represents a simple, afternoon project, but the Arduino can also become the basis of more sophisticated gear – and some more complex groove-making. I’ll look at some of those options here, like Steve Cooley’s beatseqr, here making some grooves with an iPad running Korg’s iMS-20 soft synth and Reason running on the MacBook Pro.

There are plenty of Arduino step sequencer projects – it’s a nice project to try – but what I especially like is that Michael’s design is really minimal, meaning it could be a good starting point for your own project. He provides full code and (via a terrific prototyping tool called Fritzing), easy-to-read, colorful schematics.

If you’ve never done this before, some basic knowledge of how to read the parts, an Arduino, and some copy-and-paste skill is all you need to get going. I’m going to set aside some time to build one myself.

SimplenZAR [Blog post documentation at Carvin' Calamari]

But while we’re on the topic – and since having step sequencers around is a terrific tool for making musical patterns with all your music gear – let’s take a quick look at what else is out there.

littlescale is a must-read for musical Arduino makings, so a good first stop. He’s got his full list of projects, including a microtonal step sequencer, seen below.

http://arduino.milkcrate.com.au/

Johan Larsby has a terrific project, complete with screen, with loads of details and source. You can build the whole thing for under $50 in parts, and his page is also a useful set of references to working with MIDI, physical controls, and the display.

Arduino Step Sequencer… ASS. Fine. Funny enough. But you lose out on bonus points for not making it a recursive acronym.

Mr Speaker goes through the process of how to construct MIDI step sequencers on Arduino in a blog post, as well.

That’s not a complete list, but now onto some fancier projects…

Steve Cooley’s beatseqr, created with Derek Scott, evolves from simple hardware “sketch” into full-blown, feature-packed sequencer, but it’s still got an Arduino (Mega) at its heart. Accordingly, Steve talks through the behind-the-scenes tech details on the Arduino forum.

And, oh yeah, it goes great with Reason. (That in turn means this and an older laptop could be a nice little groove station set up in a studio, to keep your machines out of the closet of retirement.)

Beatseqr v3 — arduino mega based step sequencer [Arduino Forum]

Official site: http://www.beatseqr.com/

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the awesome MiniCommand by Ruin & Wesen. It doesn’t in fact have an Arduino board inside, but it does use the Arduino development environment for a custom MIDI firmware framework called MIDI-CTRL. Say wha? Basically, you can use Arduino-style syntax to reprogram this little box to perform whatever MIDI magic you wish. It’s utterly insane, and perhaps a little overlooked because it’s generally associated with the Machinedrum. I’m not going to say any more now, as I know Wesen is getting some time off to work on it, and I hope to talk more about this project over the coming months.

http://ruinwesen.com/products

Result: Euclid pattern generators. (I’m working on some code that does something similar, with visualization; stay tuned while I … um, finish it, in fact.)

So there you go. If it seems overwhelming, just remember, take it one step at a time – and start with the first step. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

As I said, the place to begin is doing something like what Michael did – and you can hook up his project in a few minutes.

If you give this a try, let us know! Sounds like a fun weekend project.

Take a very short survey, and you’ll be entered to win some six months of intensive training in music production and Ableton Live, or copies of some of our favorite recent software, a two-app box set of Reason and Record from Propellerhead or Roger Linn’s AdrenaLinn Sync.

Knowing more about our readers helps us develop Create Digital Music, Create Digital Motion, and the Noisepages community as free resources, both by letting us know about you and helping us to work with the sponsors who pay our bills. It’s also a chance for you to tell us where you’d most like to see us invest.

I think privacy is important. Questions are kept strictly anonymous; we don’t associate your IP address, location, or email address with your answers. You’ll answer a minute or two of quick questions, then be provided with a separate form for your email (because otherwise we can’t contact you if you win); winners will be randomly selected.

I’m also pleased to get the chance to help our friends at DubSpot celebrate the launch of their online school on Monday. The Live training includes 66 hours of hands-on instruction and labs and three levels of Ableton Live education over half a year.

Reason and Record Duo from Propellerhead gives you the latest version of both these music-making tools for Mac and Windows – a virtual rack of gear, plus recording, mixing, and production.

AdrenaLinn Sync 2 provides beat-synced modulation and effects and now runs on Windows (VST/RTAS) or Mac (VST/AU/RTAS).

The survey will close 11:59 PM NYC (US Eastern) time, Thursday, February 3. You must enter before that time in order to qualify.

Enter the survey to win!

http://cdm.2011.sgizmo.com/s3/

And thanks, as always, for your support for this independent site and community. More on the prizes below (with some rather interesting videos, all).

Ableton Live Training Online from DubSpot

DubSpot offers training from its expert staff, like the free tutorial featured above.

Ableton Live Core Program ($2,495)
6-months / Three levels / 24 sessions / 66 hours of hands-on instruction + labs

The Core Program introduces you to the fundamentals of producing music with Ableton Live, creating a number of sketches while developing your own unique sound, then developing your ideas into two fully fleshed out songs.

Courses:
Ableton Live Level 1: Shake Hands with Live
Ableton Live Level 2: Completing Your First Track
Ableton Live Level 3: Production Essentials

http://www.dubspot.com/ableton-live/

AdrenaLinn Sync

AdrenaLinn Sync is a software plug-in from Roger Linn Design that provides the same unique beat-synced filter modulation and sequencing effects of our AdrenaLinn III guitar pedal, plus quite a bit more. Though intended for guitar, it adds fascinating rhythmic tonal effects to any instrument or processed audio.

AdrenaLinn Sync transforms your input signal–guitar, keyboard, turntable, loops, etc.–into dramatic rhythmic patterns of filtered, resonated, chopped, pulsed, spiked, sequenced, looped, delayed and otherwise manipulated tones.

AdrenaLinn Sync

Reason and Record Duo

Record – super intuitive, streamlined recording software. Reason – the legendary virtual studio rack packed with synths, samplers, effects and all the electronic music production tools you need.

Combine the two and they fuse into one incredibly powerful application, while still remaining the fast, lean, rock solid music production environment that lets you stay focused on your music making.

Reason

Record

Enter the survey to win!

http://cdm.2011.sgizmo.com/s3/

In case you haven’t heard, having already made the leap to iPhone, ReBirth is now available in a new version re-conceived for the iPad. (Happily, Propellerhead resisted the temptation to call it ReBirth HD.) It’s a sign of the maturity of music software that there can be a “classic” production tool – and a bit of irony that that a major feature of that tool is, in turn, emulating the Roland TB-303, TR-808, and TR-909 bass synth and drum machines.

Propellerhead has done a really nicely-produced video that explains what they think the tool is about, complete with some well-executed screencasts so you see it in action. But for all the buzz this release has generated this week, it’s worth asking – how will people actually make music on these new platforms? Where does a tablet (any tablet, not just Apple’s) fit into a workflow? And what does this mean for music making?

One of the things I enjoy about talking to Propellerhead CEO Ernst Nathorst-Böös is that, when you ask him a question, he often answers with other compelling questions. (That seems to be a common feature of a lot of the most successful music software developers.) I think the video does a good job of talking about how ReBirth could conceivably work as a standalone production tool. But as for what iOS software means in the grander scheme of music production, in this case, we’ve got questions – and you, digital music creators, may be the ones who discover the answers.

Ernst tells CDM what they as developers want to know from you, and how they’re approaching ReBirth on iPad. (And yes, if you prefer a netbook, you can still do that, too, even if you’ve installed Linux.)

CDM: Propellerhead advanced notions of inter-application interoperability for music software with ReWire (alongside REX, Remote). There’s a desire from users and developers to find ways of maintaining the “one app at a time” focus of things like the iPad, but also being able to make the sum of those apps better than their parts alone. It’s just intuitive – you’re using one app, and then switch to another app, and it makes sense to take some of your musical ideas with you. Do you think there’s an opportunity for innovation here? Have you looked at all at third-party APIs like AudioCopy?

There’s absolutely room for innovation, and yes we have looked at AudioCopy. The way we decided to approach conversion to various formats in ReBirth for iPad is to let the user upload the actual song document (which is very small) to a server where we render out the mp3, integrate it with Facebook, build a small web page etc. This provides a much more flexible approach, we think. And yes, it is also innovative . With this approach we are only limited by what we can do on that server, in terms of exchange with other applications and even platforms. This potentially opens a lot of doors.

But what I think you actually asked about was getting some of the workflow we have on the desktop today – via plug-ins, ReWire and file exchange for example – to the iPad and iPhone. Here I have to say that I don’t feel at all sure about what the right approach is. And why I say that is that is because I don’t feel we know how people use these apps yet. On the desktop, the prices are high enough for us to assume that what people buy is also what they actually use when making music. On the mobile platforms, I’m not sure that is the case. Take, for example, the Korg iMS-20. It looks absolutely awesome and I think Korg did an amazing job on it, hats off. It’s just 16 bucks and ReBirth is just 15 so you can buy either (or both!) without thinking about it as an investment. But how will people actually use the iMS-20? Or ReBirth? Or NanoStudio? Is it mainly recreational, and the result is less important than the experience? Or do they really want take that work, add more stuff in other apps (guitars? vocals?) and publish it? Or does even adding that possibility add a level of pretension that kills the joy? Are we better off isolating the apps from each other completely to keep the fun in? OK, maybe that was extreme, I don’t think that is the right path at all of course, but you get how I’m thinking. Propellerhead wants to make what people *really* need, and when great shifts like these happen, finding out what that is takes some time. As we’re building, we’re also watching, very closely.

We at PropellerHeadQuarters would love to hear from users here on CDM and elsewhere how you actually use your iPhone and iPad apps and what your real needs are? Not just what would be cool, but what would be really useful in your music making.

One of the criticisms of ReBirth on iPhone – aside from lack of screen area – was that it was just a direct port of the PC version. Now, it looks like something very different, something really built for the platform. What was added here above and beyond ReBirth as we know it on the PC?

Yes, cramming all of ReBirth onto a phone was by definition a compromise. We think we did a great job, given the limitations. But on the iPad we could really go nuts. We redesigned the whole panel with new beautiful graphics. We added multitouch — now I can use all of my eleven fingers to tweak the knobs, which is actually much cooler then the original mouse-driven version. We improved editing and added a pattern selection, performance-type mode. We put a nice little song browser in and then of course the sharing, direct to Facebook in MP3 format without having to have any other service in between.

Thanks for the preview, Ernst. And yes, readers — the call is out. We’ve heard from people who love the iPad and similar platforms; we’ve certainly heard from those who don’t. But those of you who do intend to use these platforms for music — what do you actually want to do? You could conceivably ask for anything, so what’s most important to your music making? We hear about users wanting things like AudioCopy — how would you use it, and with which tools? Propellerhead has had your ear; now’s your chance to have theirs.

I just picked up a $280 Asus netbook and installed Ubuntu on it. ReBirth seemed a perfect addition; its compact-sized UI, lightweight processing and memory requirements, and simple functions are the ideal companion to a netbook. And, thanks to Propellerhead, it also happens to be free.

If you stick with Windows, just download and go. On Linux, though, you have to give the installer some help to see the install disc. (Why install Linux? I’m finding Ubuntu is just fine for battery life, and I wanted to take advantage of the OS’ optimizations for netbooks and its flexibility for the work I do, audio and otherwise. Windows 7 Starter, by contrast, I found slow and painfully hobbled.) You’ll need WINE, a Windows compatibility tool, in order to run this Windows app in Linux without virtualization.

Here’s what to do, adapted from a forum discussion on the topic.

First, mount the disc. I’m assuming you’ve downloaded to a folder called “Downloads” in your home directory:

mkdir /files/media/rebirth
sudo mount -o loop ~/Downloads/rebirth*.iso /files/media/rebirth
wine /files/media/rebirth/"Install ReBirth RB-338.EXE"


The trick is, while ReBirth is free, it does check to see if you have the CD the first time you load it. Even though the disc is mounted, it’s not mounted in a way programs in WINE can see it. The fix: make a shortcut to WINE’s virtual “E:” drive:

cd ~/.wine/dosdevices
ln -s /files/media/rebirth e:
ln -s ~/Downloads/rebirth*.iso e::

That’s it. Now you can go enjoy some soft synth history. 13 years after its introduction and five years after it reached the end of its life, ReBirth is still a lot of fun. I hope we see software get longevity like this more often. (I plan to work out some other tweaks for my setup here, so I may add to this guide later; stay tuned.)

More:
ReBirth Museum, with community, resources, and more
ReBirth port for iPhone, plus Q&A on that version

Anyone else running ReBirth on WINE? Other tips for netbooks running Windows or Linux? Shout out.

There’s obviously something about big. In the 1988 film Big, the iconic scene featured Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia tapping their way across FAO Schwartz’s oversized piano. Now, it’s the drum machine’s turn.

David Crowder*Band drummer Bwack made the oversized stage version of an MPC-style set of drum pads, seen below and on CDM in 2008. That model featured a rack for a computer, making it a real workstation.

This week, to celebrate the launch of their new releases of Reason and Record, Swedish music developer Propellerhead had their own entry. It features not only pads big enough to dance on, Big-style, but massive architectural projections on one of the biggest buildings in Sweden.

But it wasn’t enough just to see a few minutes of this thing in action. I wanted to make sure we could find out how the team that built it put this project together.

Perhaps all of this will mark the beginning of Brobdingnag-scaled musical instruments. (That’ll be the opposite of Lilliput. It’s the one with the giants.)

Propellerhead’s Ryan Harlin talks to CDM about all the little details that made up this giant creation.

CDM: Can you describe the physical device? How big is it?

The physical controller surface measures 74.5 inches square (that’s 190cm for the metric folks). Each pad is 16 inches square and it’s all housed in a 1X2 inch aluminum modular frame that provides the sidewalls in which the pad buttons rest. In keeping with the Swedish company… it was like a piece of Ikea furniture on steroids – right down to the little hex bolts. We wanted to build a device that was massive but we didn’t want to lose site of its ultimate utility. It had to be danceable. If you make each pad too big then the ability to play adjacent pads becomes too difficult. Too small and it’s… well… too small! I actually started experimenting with size and choreography by dancing on my kitchen floor tiles.

The pads themselves are 1″ thick clear acrylic (plexiglas). They were sanded down with an orbital sander on both sides to give them the necessary diffusion and frosting effect. The pads were easily the heaviest part of the unit but their weight helped give a very responsive tactile feel to the controller. When you stomp on something with the full force of your legs you want to hit something that feels solid, and they certainly did!

We also had strips of LED lighting running under each pad. We set up a dual color system that kept the pads glowing blue when the button was in the off state and it turned white and twice as bright in the on state (twice as many LEDs).

From the underneath side of the dance floor we ran all our cabling to two different USB micro-controller brains. One brain handled the sensor data, while the other one powered and controlled the LED lighting via high-amperage relay switches. These two units sat beside the controller on the sidewalk. They connected to a USB hub and then into our laptop which was running Reason 5 and the new Kong Drum Designer device inside Reason – which this “Kongstrocity” (as we’re calling it around the office) was obviously mimicking in terms of the pad layout.

How did you go about assembling the drum machine itself?

The assembly presented a few serious design challenges. First of all we had just two weeks to build it from the time we had the idea to the day we scheduled for the performance. Designing a drum machine of this size in that time required a very “leap of faith” design philosophy. We had to research our methodology and then implement it based on the blind, perhaps naive, confidence that our design would work. There would be no time in the schedule for revision. Our proof of concept had to be our final unit also and we were just fortunate that the decisions we made payed off and worked exactly as we expected.

The other major design challenge was that I was designing and building this unit in San Francisco and it needed to get to Sweden on August 16th. That meant it had to be built in such a way that I could bring it with me as checked luggage! That means it had to be somewhat modular in its design and all components had to be packed down to luggage sized parcels. Sure, I had to check 9 pieces of luggage on my flight but we pulled it off.

Once it was in Sweden we finished the final solder joints and attached the sensor bases and frame to a wooden plywood base which locked it all together as a single unit instead of a luggage-friendly modular unit.

What does it use to sense foot triggers? Were there any challenges to getting this calibrated properly and working effectively?

Under each pad is something called a “force sensitive resistor.” We considered using piezo transducers, which are popular on many DIY electronic drum tutorials. However, piezo sensors suffer from too much ambient noise that would come from adjacent pads. They measure sound energy just like a microphone. Therefore, nearby pad stomps could create false positives from a sensor-perspective. I discovered a video online of a kid who made “drum shoes” and in his description he mentioned that he used force sensitive resistors because they work better than piezos. He was right. By measuring the direct downward pressure on the sensor, we were able to create very reliable readings of when a pad was being triggered or not.

As far as calibrating and working with the sensors, it was as “plug-and-play” as anyone could hope a DIY project of this scope to be. We used a system of USB interfaces by a company called Phidgets. Phidgets are sorta like Arduino without the learning curve. They allow you to hook up a variety of analog or digital sensors to a USB interface unit and then use a variety of programming platforms to work with that data and communicate back out to the interface. Our setup used a Phidget 8/8/8 Interface connected to the computer, a force sensor under the pad, and a Phidget Voltage divider in between the two so we could scale the force readings and calibrate them so all 16 sensors behaved the same way. I can’t say enough great things about Phidgets. They were the thing that shaved our testing and learning curve down to something so small that I didn’t have to worry about it and I could rather dedicate myself to tedious tasks like 800+ solder joints and CAD drawings of frame components.

It seems in the video people responded well! What did you find, as people tried playing with their feet?

We learned a few very interesting things in the process. The first and most glaring user response we realized was that if you’re a musician, you were very quickly making beats on it. If you weren’t a musician, you tended to walk around on it making arrhythmic “sound art.” We wrongly assumed everyone would know how to make a basic beat on a controller. Boom boom crack… boom boom crack. Or just a “four on the floor” kick beat. Boom Boom Boom Boom… and then repeat. But musicians got it right away, whether they were drummers or not. As you can see in the video, some people didn’t catch on as quickly. Similarly, young people raised on Guitar Hero or Dance Dance Revolution were also likely to catch on quickly.

The other thing we learned was that our design was surprisingly versatile. We didn’t rest our big acrylic pads directly on the sensors because the weight of them meant that downward force was always being applied to the sensor, making it difficult to get a good reading between on/off. We ended up floating the pads on springs above the sensors. This accomplished a few fortunate goals. It gave the sensors an idle reading of 0, making it easy to determine when force was being applied (when someone was stomping on it). It also had the side benefit of give some spring to our buttons and making them feel like bouncy pads. However, the third thing it accomplished was that we were able to set our trigger thresholds so low that children could dance on the pads as easily as grown adults and the controller responded just the same. We didn’t know it would work so well for that until a 6 year old tried it out and it performed perfectly for him.

How did you connect the device to Reason? Any Reason-specific tweaks to set up a huge set of drum pads like this?

The Phidget interfaces allow you to program in Max/MSP [multimedia visual programming tool]. So we used Max and some Phidget objects from their website to read in the sensor data, convert it to note data, send it back to the LED lights as digital on/off messages, and communicate with Reason by setting up our Max runtime application as a controller in Reason’s preferences.

On the Reason side, it behaved just like we had plugged a keyboard into our computer. No tweaks were necessary.

Were you familiar with Bwack’s previous large-scale physical drum machine when you made this? (Now I have to get the dimensions on that to work out which really is the “biggest” in the world, though if we count the projection, I know who wins!)

I actually hadn’t seen that until I arrived in Sweden with the controller and someone in the office showed it to me. I think the world can’t have enough large-scale controllers. Playing on it reminds me of childhood visits to the “Please Touch Museum” in Philadelphia.

Who worked on this project?

The “Who” of this project is somewhat long and I’m bound to leave people out so apologies in advance. As far as the research, design, wiring, and testing… it was done largely by myself in San Francisco prior to arriving in Sweden but I had some of the brightest minds to rely on, of course. Our engineers were eager to help and help they did. When I got to Sweden I even enlisted a small soldering army to help me finish the last part of the wiring. In San Francisco, I had a lengthy meeting with Matt Ganucheau to talk about sensors and strategy. Matt helped me focus my design ideas and let me confirm that I was on the right track. I got a crash course in Max programming from a interactive media friend of mine based out of Bristol, named Duncan Speakman and he helped me wire up Phidgets to convert the sensor data to MIDI data.

Once the controller was in Sweden it became a group effort by everyone to finish wiring it, mount it, test it, and move it from location to location. As is often said, “It takes a village to raise a Kongstrocity.”

More on Reason and Record:
http://www.propellerheads.se/

Drum machines may have no soul. But if they’re big enough, they can also crush you like a monster truck, so careful what you say about them.