Moving house is a tiresome affair at the best of times, but takes a whole new level of energy when you are basically something of a geek. When you have a room converted into a studio and most rooms in your house or apartment contain at least some element of gadgetry spilling out with a mess of chargers, documentation, manuals or interfaces then you probably don’t want to move often. Or at all. Much like learning the tooth fairy is not real (sorry) or realising that Sony has nothing but contempt for its customers (blackhat) it is an inevitability. It will happen. When it does, consider some of these tips that I have found useful in my own recent moving.

1. Keeper of boxes

Keep boxes for your studio visual monitors - such as LCD screens - and your studio audio monitors - such as reference speakers. For sake of shipping for repairs or warranty claims, and given their delicacy, it pays to keep the boxes for your studio monitor speakers in any case. This stuff is the most difficult to do without should something happen to it, so more than most other items you should consider packing down and storing these boxes where possible.

2. Plastic storage treasure

Plastic storage containers are much better then cardboard boxes for cables and electronic gear that might be affected by moisture and dust, or require some greater protection from clumsy handling. With the clip-on lids it only takes a small band of packing tape over the handles to secure, and they can be stacked for storage afterward. If they are unpacked after the move, they fit neatly enough inside each other for storage, and are always useful for shepherding gear around where sherpas are rare.

3. Pull the power

If you are like me you will have packed the bedroom, bathrooms, kitchen and lounge room well before you will even have moved one item from the studio or studio space. There are always so many projects to work on, so many great sites to read, and so much internet to download. You are addicted to being awesome. Go cold turkey. Pull the power to your computers, unplug the studio monitors, turn the modem/router off and disengage. Commit to the move and the hunger to get precious interwebz and megahurtz again will motivate you to hurry up and finish the process!

Sony PSP users: turned off by new-fangled graphical drum machines and wireless Ableton Live controllers? Want to kick it oldskool with a tracker? Check out PSPSeq, which has now matured to version 1.0 (from 0.2). Here’s what’s new:

1. editable parameters on instruments
2. customizable instrument groupings
3. multiple loops/song sequence
4. tap tempo
5. multiple audio presets, new generators/fx
6. improvements and optimizations to many of the generators and fx
7. configurable step length
8. proper swing handling

I have to say, those are some pretty luxurious features for a portable game system tracker, all while maintaining the feel of similar homebrew trackers on systems like the original Game Boy. Not to be overlooked are PSPSeq’s formidable synth capabilities, which sound appropriately glitchy and 8-bit but are capable of producing some unique results. The demo here, built in 0.2, sounds really fantastic — “A Day in the Life of an Android” by billy:

A Day in the Life of an Android

A next-gen game portable sounding like a tripped-out Game Boy? Priceless.

In fact, between this and the aforementioned, more modern software, the PSP is becoming a pretty impressive music system between games of Lumines. Earth to Sony: resistance is futile. Win back much-needed credibility in your core market (ahem, rootkit) and embrace the homebrews instead of fighting them. Sure, that might make the lives of pirates easier, but it’d also attract new attention — and likely hardware sales — to a platform that could use a little extra buzz. And think of the great parties you could hold with PSPSeq DJs glitching out in the booth.

On the subject of great user-built creations Sony has unwisely disabled, this is one of them. Read the fine print for compatibility information:
“PSPSeq runs on all firmwares between 1.0 and 2.71, along with 2.71 SE. PSPSeq is not compatible with 2.80/2.81 and cannot be loaded via devhook or Hen-C.”

For Nintendo fans, visit our sister site CDMotion and witness the Nintendo DS acting as a wireless VJ controller, cueing, scratching, fading, and effecting live video and animation over Wi-Fi:
Nintendo DS as VJ Controller, with vvvv and Homebrew Developer Tools

PSP Rhythm, the homebrew drum machine for the PSP, just keeps on rolling. The song contest I covered in July is now complete. Ah, but what kind of music can you create with a lowly PSP homebrew app? Something like this:

Tobias K: Nearly Flying
Tobias K: Nearly Flying

Isti: Summer Breeze, Summer Freeze
Isti: Summer Breeze, Summer Freeze

Horace: Plasma
Horace: Plasma

Has a sort of retro-90s game music feel to it, especially in comparison to the glitchy 80s-vintage of Game Boy musicians. I’m still partial to the latter, so I may not be running out to buy a PSP just yet, but this shows what fun you can have making mobile music. The winners all got Memory Sticks so they can make more music.

In other PSP Rhythm news, version 6.1 is here with pattern tap tempo and MIDI file export, making this an effective performance tool and sketchpad for your main computer music app. PSP Rhythm on the road, Fruity Loops at home? Sounds good to me. There are also new skins, tutorials, and forum posts; just scroll down the page for everything:

PSP Rhythm

We saw wireless MIDI and mouse control via the Sony PSP, the creation of media artist and hacker Rob King. Now Rob writes to say he’s finished the first release of his software for controlling Ableton Live directly from PSP, and it’s available as a free download.

PLAYLIVE IS HERE [Rob King's E-mu.org]

The Ableton Live interface is neatly recreated in miniature right on the PSP screen. Features:

1. Wireless control — MIDI sans wires
2. 8 tracks
3. 12 clips per track for clip triggering
4. 4 X/Y pads for joystick-style control (though for touch-X/Y, it’s still all about the Nintendo DS)

Mackie Control emulation is under discussion, but then you wouldn’t be able to use the clip triggers to send MIDI notes. Currently available as a free Windows download, with a Mac version on the way. But even in its current form, this should demonstrate to the folks at Ableton the real breadth of possibilities for controlling their software. Sure, you could have another generic plastic controller and slap an Ableton logo on it, but — Live users can’t be underestimated in their devotion to unique and personal solutions.

Now, we just need wireless MIDI for Nintendo DS. That or else I should take this as a sign that I can justify buying a PSP. Thanks, Rob!

Anyone got a PSP who wants to write up a review of this, let me know!

KAOSS what? On the forums, readers have been watching next-gen mobile gaming systems converted into musical controllers. Hang on to your seats, because we’re going to give three different consoles some love:

Louie Iturzaeta writes to say PSP Rhythm has now hit version 6.0 with lots of new features. It’s pretty incredible to watch this application grow. I know we have some readers using this, so here’s what’s new:

1. New user interface with programming grid, graphical knobs for parameters, oscilloscope.
2. Sample Loading from Pattern Mode with up to 1000 sample folders with 1000 samples each.
3. New skin format and support for up to 1000 skins.
4. Mute/Solo function.
5. Export Pattern and load it back as a sample.
6. Bass Line synth reprogrammed.
7. Time Stretch Effect.
8. High Pass Filter Effect.
9. Lots of bug fixes and performance enhancements.

Here’s the new UI, which has a definite hardware feel to it:

Of course, if you don’t like that skin, you can download or make your own. This is a PSP Rhythm 5 skin, but I enjoy the reference to FL Studio for Windows. It’s like Fruity Loops to go:

PSP Rhythm Homepage
Windows installer
Manual installer

PSP Rhythm users, there’s a song writing contest on; you can win a memory stick, but, more importantly, gobs of pride. Whether you win or not, we’d love to hear your entries here on CDM, too.

Since I couldn’t be at Cybersonica in London, some of the fabulously imaginative sound art slipped through the cracks. Here’s a brief look at the remaining pieces:

Schizoporotica is a music box that plays torn scraps of paper. The object itself is quite gorgeously decorated, and it looks like people had great fun tearing up the tickets that fed the installation:

Schizoporotica on Pixelsumo
“The melody shredder” on We Make Money Not Art
Project page from the Troika Design Studio that created it, complete with MIDI file samples (it’s been a long time since I saw a project documented with MIDI!)

Interchange by Wojceich Kosma is an application for PSP (built with open source / PSP-hacking tools), one of the PSP sound toys on offer at the show. What’s unique about it is that, in addition to controlling a sequencer on the PSP, you can control simultaneous 3D animations projected on the wall. PSP coding is very tricky indeed; I expect we’ll see more of this work as time goes on.

Interchange project page with pics
Interchange on Pixelsumo

Art blog We Make Money Not Art caught several projects that didn’t even make it onto curator Chris O’Shea’s blog:

Cybersonica roundup including details on a musical gate
Death Before Disko, the wonderfully impossible-to-describe art of Herwig Weiser
Digital shadow puppets by Philip Worthington

Okay, Sony PSP owners: get ready to make still more noise. We’ve just seen another major release for the superb href="http://www.createdigitalmusic.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1126&Itemid=44">PSP Rhythm 3 drum machine. Now, get ready for a PSP sequencer: PSP Seq Ver 0.00 has begun development with basic sequencing functionality all in place. Features are bare-bones — song and sound design functionality is yet to come, among other things — but given the rapid maturation of other PSP creations, this could be good news. We’ll be watching. Thanks to CDM’s redesigner and logo creator Nathanael Jeanneret, who has further thoughts on his blog.

href="http://dl.qj.net/PSPSeq-v0.00-Gaming-Consoles-PSP-Homebrew-Applications/pg/12/fid/912/catid/140">PSP
Seq 0.00, as created by Ethan of dsp music

And has been widely reported this week, the href="http://forums.qj.net/showthread.php?t=35463">2.60 PSP 2.60 Firmware has now been hacked, so you, too, can run this stuff. A copy of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City is required, but I assume you bought a PSP for a reason.

Unfortunately, the Nintendo DS doesn’t seem to be getting the attention of homebrewers, but oldskool Game Boy is another matter; I notice even Nanoloop again seems to be available again in both GBA (2.0) and original Game Boy (1.3) versions.

And they say the PSP doesn’t have a killer app. PSP Rhythm, the homebrew drum machine software for Sony’s portable game console, is getting updated at an astounding rate. New in version 3.0: start/end points for drum samples (a critical feature), warped drum sounds with a reverse feature, and wave file output. Audio output is particularly cool, because you can create drum loops on your PSP, then come back to your computer and dump them onto Ableton Live, Sony ACID (hello, Sony, you listening to this?), or another program. I hope the execs at Sony who said they wanted to squash homebrew development are kicking themselves.

Check out the audio output — not bad for a portable game system. This is a direct wavefile output from the PSP (using the new 3.0 feature):

PSP Rhythm 3.0 Demo Song

“But can it hold a tune?” Now it can:

Billy writes to tell us that the homebrew drum machine PSP Rhythm, previously PSP Rhythm Composer, has added a host of new features. Not only can you turn your Sony PSP game machine into a drum machine, but now via “parameter locks,” a la the Machinedrum, you can use instruments and melodic effects, too. As the developers put it, parameter locks let you “change the pitch, volume, and pan per step to
create moving, changing melodies and effects.” 2.0 also features an extended song mode for arrangement. More is on the way in future versions, including a skinnable interface, and you can download Korg, Kurzweil, and LinnDrum drum kits.