Users want more: that much is clear. But for years, Reason has famously (or infamously, depending on your point of view) resisted plug-in formats as a way of extending its production environment. At the moment, plug-ins have been dominate largely by Avid (RTAS), Apple (AU), and Steinberg (VST), as open source alternatives have failed to gain wide commercial traction. Those formats apparently didn’t make the cut with Reason.

That changed officially tonight. Reason’s rack is open to third parties, via something called Rack Extensions, previewed and available by summer for all Reason users. What you’re getting is not so much a new plug-in format as a new set of ideas about what a plug-in should be, in the form of a way of making add-ons for Reason alone.

The ability to get more out of Reason’s rack will clearly mean more for lovers of Reason, who at last will get some favorite sonic toys and tools without switching hosts. But how exactly do the specifics work? I spent some time with Ernst Nathorst-Böös, CEO of Propellerhead, as well as other developers working on the program to try to understand what it’s all about, and trying strange new green sauces known in Frankfurt. (Non mood-altering substances, mind. Just stuff you put on potatoes; don’t read too much into it. German cuisine.)

Before we get to that, though, here are two obvious take-aways for other plug-ins. To me, the benefit for the Reason community is pretty clear. But I think even for Propellerhead, the best thing that could happen here is if other plug-in formats follow the lead. Plug-in formats in general could work better than they do. It’s frustrating that they’ve made little progress since their introduction in regards to some obvious shortcomings, over a range of years. (Don’t believe me? Ask almost any plug-in developer, anywhere.) There are two obvious elements of the Propellerhead announcement that could mean something to competing plug-in formats (AU and VST in particular). Propellerhead aren’t the only ones complaining about them.

Note that given the nature of this being a fresh announcement, we haven’t yet fact-checked this with Propellerhead, and some statements here are interpretive or speculative. And, of course, some stuff is still in the works as this is developed. We’ll cover it as it evolves.

1. Plug-ins shouldn’t bring down hosts. One of the most important point Propellerhead made was widely misunderstood. The idea is this: when a plug-in crashes, the host shouldn’t crash with it. Now, the developers of Reason are obviously very proud of the stability of Reason, but that isn’t the issue here. However stable or instable your host is, the notion is that a plug-in shouldn’t be the reason that host crashes. Some effect you downloaded shouldn’t send your whole session toppling to the ground. Various forms of sandboxing can prevent this. We’ll have to test the Reason solution in practice, but in principal, I know of no reason every plug-in couldn’t support this basic notion. And even if you’ve seen Reason crash, as some commenters have said, the idea here is that a plug-in won’t be the cause.

2. Plug-in developers ought to be able to sell their stuff right in the host. This is a no-brainer. Set aside the obvious success story of Apple’s App Store on iOS and Mac. Plug-in developers have an impossible time these days just selling their work (or, indeed, even giving it away). It’s kind of bizarre that in the Internet age, no other host makes it easy to find and try out the work of other developers. (I was going to give an exception, but … there isn’t one. Seriously. What the heck?)

It’s pretty easy to make an extended argument for either of these ideas without talking about the Reason announcement. And I’m not trying to sell Reason here: believe me, I’d like to see other plug-in formats advance, too. Reason might want that, as well, since they rely on that same developer ecosystem. (Translation: they need devs making enough money to spend the time to keep making plug-ins … for anyone, not just Reason.)

As for Reason, here are some answers to frequent questions and comments from readers.

What will it cost? When can I get it? It’ll be free for existing Reason users, available by end of Q2 (beginning of summer, more or less).

Which add-ons will be available? So far, all we know is the developer list: KORG, SonicCharge (of uTonic and Synplant fame), Peff (Kurt Kurasaki), Softube, and Urs Heckmann (u-he). I also saw iZotope in the crowd, but make of that what you will. Props aren’t saying much more than that; other developers may be involved but aren’t yet public.

Will there be an SDK for any developer? I got a clear answer from Ernst on this: yes. Anyone will be able to download the SDK and make add-ons. There are a couple of caveats. First, you have to have an established business entity (in the EU, with a VAT ID / outside Europe, just some legal entity). Second, it’s just not ready yet. What we saw today was a technology preview, but Propellerhead says they’re eager to open this up to other developers; they’re just not quite prepared to handle that process yet. We don’t yet know to what extent the store you see in Reason will be curated or how, and I wonder if free add-ons might get around the need for a publishing business. What I can say is, there won’t be a developer fee.

Will hardware DSP be supported? Not at this time, or evidently in the forseeable future. Ernst emphasized that Propellerhead feels the current multi-core engine is sufficient. So, no Universal Audio add-ons — but remember, if you really want that, you can just ReWire Reason into a host.

Will you be able to make open-source plug-ins? This seems possible, given you can run DSP code. Your code is your own. I didn’t have time to get an official answer on this; I think it’ll be easier to look at once we can see the SDK.

Can you have UI elements? This came up in the press conference. There are some limitations in the “first release,” say Propellerhead. But there was an impressive demo from SonicCharge with a nice, animated visual display for Bitspeak; suffice to say, you won’t directly port VST UI code, but plug-in devs can work with what Propellerhead is giving them. It’s not so much having to deal with having a new plug-in format as having to work with some new UI requirements – and, quite frankly, that’s a potential issue with any plug-in that has any UI at all. On the upside:

Can you use Reason back-panel routing tools and the like? Yes. You can do all the CV routing and automation and other good stuff a conventional Reason device would have.

These are just more Combinator skins, yeah? No. We’re talking low-level DSP – which also means the DSP portion can be ported really fast. Propellerhead said Softube compiled in 15 minutes – for both Mac and Windows. Most of the time you’ll now wind up investing in UI. (That chuckling sound you hear from developers is because this is generally the case with plug-ins.)

But I can do this with existing plug-in formats. Not quite. There are several elements missing. First, Reason will have an integrated store for this stuff, which also means the ability to move between users, computers, and operating systems more seamlessly. Second, existing plug-ins don’t do things like true host-integrated undo. (Ernst gave the ugly example of tweaking a knob in a plug-in, hitting undo, and undoing the last step – inserting the plug-in – making the whole thing disappear.) Third, and perhaps most importantly, you don’t get sandboxing features in any current plug-in format, meaning a misbehaved plug-in can theoretically crash your whole host.

What’s in it for developers? A 70/30 split — developer/Props — just like Apple’s iOS and Mac stores. And it’s free to join the developer program, so there’s nothing to lose but, uh, time.

But this is just proprietary tech. What experience does Propellerhead have with third-party developers? Oh, just these little things called ReWire and (loop format) REX – which, along with Steinberg’s VST really led the way as far as third-party, cross-platform formats. (REX arguably had a lot to do with the rise of looping software.) Each of these have been used in multiple operating systems and hosts, and require dealing with developers. This is much bigger, of course.

How does this help me collaborate? Propellerhead brought this up with a selling point, so I followed up. Basically, the scenario is this: you’re sharing a track with another Reason user. They don’t have the Squidoodlidoo plug-in you purchased. They can use a 30-day demo, and try it for free. (Otherwise, they have to buy the plug-in, too, naturally.) Also, Ernst tells CDM that the store will maintain every back version of every plug-in. So if you need a previous version, you can revert to that on a set. Reason itself can still open, in version 6, files created in version 1.

So, why would I use an existing plug-in format, if this is The Future? Probably because there’s a host you like better than Reason, or you have one of the many plug-ins that won’t yet support this new thing. But you knew that, right? The payoff here is clearly if you like working in Reason and want more flexibility.

Why a new format? Actually, I’ll editorialize on this one. The kind of integration with Reason here just wouldn’t work with any plug-in format – we’re talking routing control voltage in and out via the back of the rack, integrated automation, and a UI that seamlessly blends with Reason. It’s not a question of formats; you have to write a plug-in for Reason or none of that is possible. As for why existing plug-in formats don’t do some of the things Reason’s tech here does, that’s easy. No one has actually proposed a plug-in format that does that, a handful of vendors control existing formats in wide commercial use (Apple, Steinberg, Avid), and efforts to build a new standard haven’t gotten traction. So, in the meantime, if you want these ideas in practice, you have to build them in your own software, which is what Reason has done. If you want these ideas elsewhere, let’s see it.

Got more questions? I’ll append answers here if I can find them. Expect more once we hear more on what’s actually available to add onto your rack (for users) and once we’re closer to having stuff ready for a wider audience of developers (for you coders). No images or video yet – I know we still owe you a look at the new iOS app – but that’ll get posted when ready.

More details, and ugly speculation about whether or not I was wearing pants, in the live event coverage:
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/03/propellerhead-announces-mobile-app-figure-live-announcement-coverage/

Who says every music production tool has to be either a traditional DAW or Ableton Live?

Not Renoise, for one. I’m running out of things to call it. Modernized tracker? Tracker on steroids? Music production tool from an alternate history in which conventional DAWs were ignored and everybody just kept on using trackers? How about this: a gem that a tiny development team somehow keeps making more awesome with regular updates with misleading names like “point 8.”

So, what does “2.8″ give you? A couple of OS compatibility fixes and one new delay effect? Wrong. New in this release is a massive set of improvements. 64-bit is in there, but in terms of day-to-day use, the workflow improvements may be what really matters. (Okay, I usually cringe when I see “workflow improvements” in a press release, and here I’ve gone and used the same phrase. Let’s just say it’s “more awesome to use.”)

The new Renoise Pattern Matrix aliasing means powerful arrangement and compositional tools.

Highlights, condensed:

• 64-bit for everybody (Mac and Windows in addition to existing Linux support), so you can access more than 4 GB RAM. A bridge plug-in lets you use 32-bit instruments and effects, and there’s 64-bit ReWire support.
• Pattern Matrix now lets you alias and clone pattern slots. It’s a powerful arrangement feature that’s a bit different than similar block arrangement or clip launching features in other tools (both because of Renoise’s approach to patterns and clips, and this ability to use those aliases to create structure). Expect some follow-up.
• Collapse tracks and groups (see image below), giving Renoise some of the screen economy that made trackers famous. Route those grouped tracks, and use pattern effects across grouped tracks (also something relatively technique).
• DSP multitap delay. (Yes, there’s that, but also…)
• DSP repeater (“stutter”) effect.
• DSP Exciter.
• New pattern effects: Tremolo, Auto Pan, Set Envelope Position. (That last one sounds like it could be pushed into some insane places.)
• Meta Mixer lets you combine modulation signals. (It’s really a meta device – imagine combining what Ableton does with Devices and Reason does with Combinator and CV devices.) Improvements to other modules, as well, both aesthetically and in parameters.
• Improved editing in Sample Editor, including destructively rendering slices to individual samples, and editing features typically associated with waveform editors rather than tools like this. My favorite: cross-fading loop creation, which previously required jumping out to another tool (Peak, SoundForge, etc.)
• More performance: Hyper-threading on new Intel chips.
• More spectral views and editing, more envelope editing views, Favorites for devices.

And there’s a lot more, as well.

http://www.renoise.com/new

You've got to love the ultra-compact track collapse feature - ideal for 11" MacBook Airs or Linux netbooks.

You also get features like this: “up to 34 DSP devices can be addressed via pattern commands 1xyy-Yxyy.” Power users know instantly what that means musically. The rest of you – well, don’t worry, other parts of Renoise will gradually level you up to that kind of ninja insanity. And Renoise is humanizing things, as well: “Logical mnemonics for pattern effects from A to Z instead of cryptic numbers.”

Will everyone drop everything and use Renoise? Odds are, no: this tool remains an acquired taste (though don’t dismiss until you’ve given its unique workflow a try). But, then, that’s part of the joy of this: it’s not an “industry standard.” It’s just an incredibly terrific music making tool that proves that not all music making tools need to look identical.

Now that I share the same home city as the developers, I think I owe you more information from the inside. Stay tuned.

Renoise 2.8 is a free update for current users, and an insanely-low 58 € new.

http://www.renoise.com/

The Melodyne editor, which promises to make working with audio as fluid as working with MIDI, has long had some impressive technology under the hood. But it’s as the tool gradually matures in terms of workflow and usability that I think it could win some additional converts.

Melodyne 2.0 is a major update to the editor all around, with additional timing and tuning options and better usability, and the addition of ReWire (atop plug-in compatibility) is a big plus for some. It’s easiest to just see the videos, but the overview of what’s new in this release:

• Attack Speed tool for editing transients. (That could make this a lot more interesting creatively.) New Time Handles for changing time in the notes. These tools have special applicability to percussion and vocal phrasing, respectively, but may have some other interesting alternative applications.
• Edit notes in other scales, temperaments, and tunings. (Re-tuning to alternative tuning systems, anyone?)
• Keyboard shortcuts work in plug-in mode, display and highlight is improved.
• Work via ReWire with hosts that lack plug-ins. Read: Reason. And that could make this an interesting companion to Reason’s record workflows.

Now, sure, all of this is often understood to be for people who just want to obsessively correct pitch and rhythm of recorded audio. But I remain interested in creative applications, just because the upshot of this is having audio you can modify after it’s been recorded.

There’s just one bottom line: will this stuff be compelling enough that you add an additional tool to your DAW just to get it? I still have yet to hear from die-hard Melodyne users, so if you’re out there reading, I’d love to learn how you use the tool, particularly if you go a bit beyond the way it was intended to be used. (That’s always interesting.)

US$/€399, $99/€99 upgrade, or free if you registered after October 1. More vids:

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.

Record is now shipping, and the beta closed – and now is a perfect time to talk about learning.

Okay, let me explain something. Propellerhead doesn’t want Record to be called a “DAW,” for Digital Audio Workstation. I personally overcame my own distaste for the strange acronym today because, well, there’s not another good name for a related set of tools.

But I do think Record is different. Workstations are usually defined by being all-in-one environments, for hosting other third-party instruments and effects, and adding in additional features like notation and video scoring. Record is none of those things. You can even treat it like a virtual mixer or rack of processing tools and load it into your existing “DAW” of choice, or take something like Ableton Live and load it into Record for mastering.

But then, Record is the exception that proves the rule, isn’t it? Aggressively geared to be the anti-DAW, to avoid trying to be all things to all people, Record illustrates the variety of ways you can get your music making done.

We’ve had a good, healthy debate on this topic, so no reason to resurrect that. Instead, I have two pieces of news: one, Record is now actually shipping. Two, if you’re interested to learn how to use it, or just to see what they’ve done, the Props have assembled a terrific set of learning resources. For beginners, “Record U” promises to cover the basics of recording tasks as well as the software. (So far, the first episode, “Recording Guitar,” is available.) You can add that to lovely ReWire tutorials from the folks who developed the technology, and mini-tips on how to use the tools. Whatever you think of the software, it’s an exemplary learning site, just the kind of thing you’d hope developers would do.

Basics video
Record U
Tutorials Page
Micro Tutorials and iTunes podcast link

I’ve chosen my favorite so far. Love it or hate it, I think this illustrates some of the vision of Record. It makes moving tracks and devices as easy as racking up instruments and effects in Reason, and makes mixing and matching audio uncommonly easy. That could make Record a nice tool to have around for trying to take your pile of recordings and productions and turn them into finished tracks and albums. (A lot of this “love it or hate it” phenomenon seems to depend on your feelings about Reason, so Reason fans will also want to take a look at the Reason – Record integration video.)

Renoise has already earned a passionate following among lovers of trackers. The once-forgotten alternative to conventional sequencers, these music editors were beloved for their quick workflow and vertical, atomic approach to assembling beats and patterns. But Renoise is increasingly poised to appeal to other kinds of music makers, too, not just tracker purists.

2.1 you can sum up pretty easily: now you can integrate Renoise with other stuff easily. There’s ReWire support (appropriately enough for a tool beginning with “Re” in the title). And if you’re on Linux, you can pipe control and audio through the ultra-elegant, ultra-powerful JACK. (If you’re not on Linux, you may have just gotten a good reason to give it a try.)

http://www.renoise.com/

This is on top of a rapidly-growing set of features like multi-core balancing, automatic delay compensation, audio recording (cough, Reason), and MIDI inputs and outputs. In other words, this is a tracker you can use without giving up modern luxuries. Maybe it’s like the difference between having a tent in gorgeous mountainous wilderness, and having a mansion with a hot tub and a T1 Internet line.

ReWire is the headline, but some of the live performance tools may make an even bigger difference. Live control tools and live pattern sequencing could make Renoise a lot more useful in performance, even without just ReWiring into Live and recording clips. The pattern triggering looks especially nice, because it brings a feature Game Boy trackers have often used live. (Add JACK on Linux, and you could add your own custom instruments.)

And, oh yeah, the whole program runs on every OS, has an incredibly responsive and involved community that impacts the direction of the tool, and is distributed on a shareware model rather than with painful copy protection.

Full disclosure: I’m slightly biased by enjoying a couple of beers with Renoise’s Dac, and by the fact that I think this looks completely delicious.

Here’s the full changelog.

Full ReWire Slave & Master support (on Windows & OSX)

ReWire allows you to connect and synchronize multiple software applications, so that you can run them side by side while passing Audio/MIDI information between them.

For example, you could connect Renoise to Logic, program your drums in Renoise, while arranging the bulk of your song in Logic. Or you could connect both Reason and Ableton Live to Renoise, arrange your track in Renoise, control Reason’s built-in synthesizers, and play around with loops in Live. All it takes is some ReWire enabled software and you are good to go.

ReWire has two modes, both of which are fully supported by Renoise: *ReWire Master* (ReWire Mixer) and *ReWire Slave* (ReWire Synth)

Jack Transport Support (Linux only)

Similar to ReWire, Renoise now supports the Jack transport protocol. Jack transport allows Linux users to start, stop and reposition multiple audio programs, all connected/running through Jack. 

New Pattern Sequencer Features:

Decoupled Sequencer Playback Now Possible: This new feature allows the user to detach the current playback position from the edit position. This lets you edit a pattern while other patterns are playing.

Live Pattern Triggering:

Patterns can now be "scheduled" for playback via a new column in the Pattern Sequencer. Without stopping playback you can now trigger new sequences in the song "in real time". 

New meta devices (Modulation / Automation Device fun)

• Hydra Device: Automate/change/broadcast multiple FX parameters with a single parameter. Think of this as a magic slider, which connects itself to up to 9 other parameters – allowing you to change multiple settings with just one slider or automation.
• Keytracking Device: Modulates parameters depending on an instruments key (note) value. Like what the "*Velocity Device" does with Velocities, the Keytracking device does with Keys/Notes.  
• MIDI Control Device: This device replaces the old "MIDI-CC Device", finally offering Pitchbend, Channel Pressure, Program Change & regular controller (CC) in a single device.

I hope to check this out in June when I can sit down and get back to production.

Sibelius today gets the biggest upgrade I’ve seen from the tool in a long time, with major improvements to the way the notation package lays out musical objects on the score, and ReWire support so you can integrate it with your host of choice.

This is an especially meaningful upgrade to me, as I’ve spent a lot of time with Sibelius since its first Mac release about a decade ago, both composing and teaching with it. In case you missed it Friday, I just spoke about some tips that can help with working in both education and composing:

Five Sibelius 5 Notation Tips, for Education and Experimentation with Scores

A couple of the recent upgrades, while nice enough, were not necessarily “must-haves” – a natural part of any upgrade cycle. But this to me looks different.

Here’s what’s new in Sibelius 6:

• Magnetic Layout: Sibelius has always been “magnetic” in that it automatically reflows objects and page layout to keep everything looking “tidy” as its English creators would say. It’s also always been fast at the task. The problem is, a lot of objects have still required lots of manual tweaking. Sibelius users, you know what I’m talking about: hours spent fine-tuning dynamics and text indications, rehearsal marks, and the like. Basically, all the objects that we’ren’t magnetic now are. (see above)
• Magnetic Layout implementation: In addition to the more intelligent objects and space optimization, you’ll see clever collision avoidance, and red-colored collision highlighting when a collision is unavoidable. It also looks like there are nice new guides for, say, making a forte, piano, and hairpin descrescendo all line up, something that required painful manual tweaks previously.
• Versions and comments: Scores now track and manage revisions, and you can create comments on the score. Theoretically, this is for collaboration and teaching, though I imagine it’ll be useful even to a solo composer as a score is developed – enough so that you may start to haul your laptop to rehearsals instead of just paper.
• ReWire: Sibelius will now act as a ReWire client, so you can record the output of the notation software itself (see the new instruments), or simply sync Sibelius to an existing project. Avid is naturally talking all about Pro Tools, but because the integration is with ReWire and not just Pro Tools, Ableton Live, SONAR, Logic, DP, and the like all become possible, too. I’ve never much liked the notation facilities in standard DAWs, so that’s good news – and this should be huge for the composer just wanting to record a quick mock-up with virtual instruments as well as someone doing film score.
• Notation improvements: Slurs have always been reasonably elegant and automatic in Sibelius, but when it comes to manually overriding those controls, they’ve been more challenging. Sibelius 6 includes (appropriately enough) six handles for controlling slurs. There are also optional stemlets when beaming across rests (hugely helpful for people who write complex, cough, rhythms in their music), automatic feathered beams (instead of the hack we’ve been using), and smarter articulation placement. There are new jazz repeat bars, and cautionary accidentals are finally added automatically. These are minor things, but quite frankly, it’s little details like that that often make the biggest day-to-day difference. (The cautionary accidentals alone might be worth an upgrade.)
• New integrated instruments: Profiting from Sibelius’ acquisition by Avid (formerly its Digidesign unit), Sibelius now acquires the lovely virtual instruments from the AIR team who have been doing soft synths for Pro Tools. There’s a new player, plus M-Audio’s General MIDI sound player. This replaces a previous player from Native Instruments. I love NI, but the NI player in Sibelius often wasn’t quite plug-and-play, and this promises to be an improvement. (See additional notes below.)

There are other features, as well. Keyboard and Fretboard windows provide visual feedback to those just learning musical notation. (The guitar fretboard is handy, too, for keyboardists like me who need to think through what a guitarist would do with our music – it was an early feature of Sibelius’ entry-level guitar product G7.) Classroom Control allows educators to monitor students, send and receive scores, and monitor changes, which could help with file exchange or even administering exams in Sibelius.

One feature may be especially revolutionary for certain user applications. Live Tempo finally allows you to tap in a conductor track so you can control tempo fluctuations manually. This is more sophisticated than the (useful) similar feature in Finale – it integrates with Sibelius’ existing fluid tempo functionality, allows subdivision of beats and other musical possibilities, and can be recorded and played back and edited by section.

All in all, this is a very significant upgrade. I’m still disappointed that Sibelius – and mainstream notation in general – remains so inflexible for lots of alternative notations, and that seems not to improve in this release. But as I noted in my tips from last week, there are workarounds, and for sheer usability and saving time, these improvements all look welcome. I’m also pleased with the subtle notation changes – these are little things, but I think it refines the quality of score you can produce and saves time. We expect review copies soon, so stay tuned.

Q&A on Slurs, New Instruments

CDM asked Daniel Spreadbury of Sibelius to talk to us about some of the specifics of the new instruments from AIR and the slurs.

CDM: As I understand it, the sounds have been ported to the new instrument engine, built by AIR. What does this mean for bringing scores you’ve produced in earlier versions of Sibelius into Sibelius 6 for playback?

D S: When you open a score that was created in Sibelius 5 that used the old version of Sibelius Sounds Essentials played back by Kontakt Player 2, Sibelius 6 will silently update the score to use the new version of Sibelius Sounds Essentials played back by the Sibelius Player.

99 times out of 100 this will be an improvement on the playback you heard inSibelius 5. Although the updated Essentials library excludes a set of GM sounds (now provided by a separate virtual GM module, which can nevertheless be used simultaneously with the Sibelius Player if desired), and some sounds from old providers (e.g. recorder, handbells, piano, harp) have been replaced with alternatives from Garritan, Tapspace or AIR, there are many new and improved sounds that better complement each other than the sounds with Sibelius 5. For example, Essentials for Sibelius 5 contained only a solo violin sound from GPO and the other solo strings came from the GM set, so ensembles like e.g. string quartets didn’t sound great. In Sibelius 6, we have licensed further solo string sounds from GPO, so a string quartet will sound substantially better. And we’ve tried to do this across the board, for all the common genres of music.

For that one time in 100 when the original library would sound better, provided users still have Sibelius 5 installed, they will be able to choose to use the Kontakt Player 2 version of the library by choosing ‘Sibelius Essentials (32 sounds, Kontakt)’ from the Configuration menu in Play > Playback Devices.

CDM: Slurs with more manual control handles are something we had seen previously in Sibelius’ rival, Finale. Can you describe what’s different about Sibelius’ implementation?

Sibelius’s slurs have a number of advantages, including the power to copy and paste a tweaked slur and have its tweaks reliably reproduced when pasted elsewhere, the ability to tweak multiple selected slurs simultaneously via the Properties window, reliable keyboard editing of the position of each handle and control point, and so on. Sibelius 6 also implements the standard slur positioning rules (i.e. slur below when all stems point up, but slur above if any stem points down; in two voices, slurs go above stem up notes and below stem down notes, etc.) but retains the ability to simply flip slurs by hitting X. Slurs are also now properly editable on both sides of a system or page break.

Sibelius’s method of editing slurs (including multiple slurs simultaneously) and copying slurs while retaining these edits, together with the fact that creating, extending and retracting slurs is in general simpler in Sibelius, gives slurs inSibelius 6 the edge.

Ed. note: Based on my experience with previous releases of both programs, this sounds about right – now I just need to pick something to compose this summer so I can give Sibelius 6 a try! –PK

If you have more questions about the new release, ask them here, and we’ll have a look as the new release comes out or pass along technical specifics to the folks at Sibelius.

What do you really want from a recording tool on a computer? The Digital Audio Workstation answer to that question has for years been on giving you a generalized set of tools that try to anticipate every possible need. The “workstation” approach puts a whole bunch of functionality in one place, in particular adding features like plug-in hosting for supporting third-party effects and instruments, video editing and scoring, and music notation.

Record is a different animal: it’s a specialized tool focused on making music with audio, instead of a generalized tool. Reason has focused on synths, with a distinctive set of hardware-styled modules in a virtual rack. Record focuses on sound, with a distinctive set of hardware-styled modules in a virtual rack. Get it?

What’s left out is important. There’s no plug-in support, but by limiting use to the internal sound modules, Record is entirely agnostic about things like sample rate and can be far more flexible with modular audio routing and fluid tempo changes. (There’s also no MIDI out support, but if you’re looking to sequence external hardware, I might look elsewhere, anyway – especially with gems like Numerology out there.) Record also supports ReWire and has various export features, so the assumption is that – as with Reason – when you really want plug-ins, you can use your existing environment of choice.

Maybe you can call the results a DAW, if you really want to. But the one thing that isn’t debatable: Record is Reason for sound.

CDM was first with the official story from Propellerhead over the weekend, talking about the philosophy behind Record. Now we can talk about the specifics inside – and I have a test version here I’ve been working with while on the road.

Basically, Record combines comp-based recording with Reason-style racks and a whole load of goodies for processing and mixing your sound, including Line 6 guitar effects and an emulated SSL mixing desk. Why am I excited to begin working with it? Basically, it’s what happens when you flip the Record interface around. The most important screenshot (see any of these shots bigger by clicking on them):

Here’s what you get:

• All about “Record”ing – with comps: As the name implies, the real soul of Record is recording. Comping is built in from the beginning so that you get a take you want, and each track even includes an integrated tuner by default. This is really a tool that assumes you’re actually one person plugging in an instrument and playing.
• Music and tempo-based sound: “Tempo-independent” audio is almost the reverse of what this is. When you record sound, the idea is that you always have some musical information in mind – beats and bars. Record lets you then change the tempo of that audio fluidly, without ever having to think about warping or slicing or markers or loops or anything like that. Propellerhead says they’re especially proud of the audio quality of the stretching algorithm working behind the scenes to make these changes sound good, which is what we’re already hearing (unofficially, of course) from beta testers in comments and elsewhere.
• Tempo changes: Unlike other tools that have focused on DJ-style or electronica-style master tempo, Record assumes fluid changes in tempo from version 1.0. There’s always a “conductor” track, a main tempo lane, which can have subtle, curved tempo changes (accel./rit.). When you export your audio, that information is exported as MIDI, so this musical information travels with you to other tools.
• An integrated recording/mixing/arrangement environment: This is the one DAW-like part of Record, though it still feels more like Reason than anything else. Each track gets three things: a channel routed into the mixer, an individual device module you can insert into the rack (as in Reason), and a sequencing lane for MIDI and audio.
• Sequencing: This is the most traditional part of Record – you do get conventional sequencer lanes. Clips can arbitrarily contain audio, MIDI, and automation data. The important thing to note is that, because Record doesn’t support plug-ins, you can count on consistent integration of automation – if there’s a knob in a module, you can automate it in the sequencer, just as in Reason.
• Hardware-style mixing: No software-style mixer here: the mixer inside Record is a direct simulation of hardware, not a loosely-inspired emulation. The Record mixer is modeled after an SSL 9000k analog mixing desk, so that it intends to look, work, and sound like the real thing. (SSL was not officially involved, so you’ll just have to count the Propellerheads as SSL fans.)
• Reason-style effects: In addition to the mixer, you get Reason-style modules for EQ, dynamics, and other effects.
• Line 6 guitar effects: Line 6’s virtual POD is built in, so you get their guitar amps and cabinets built in. I’m guessing those should be quite nice with keyboards, too.

Arrangement: Looking at the birds-eye view, Record does admittedly look like a DAW. But dig in a little bit to how these modules work, and there’s more Reason DNA than anything else. It’ll be interesting to work with these modules over the coming months. Also, most important to recognize is that when you see audio in Record, it will always obey tempo changes you make, including gradual speed increases and decreases – no warping or slicing required. When you do want to slice up audio, you could, say, drop Record as a ReWire client into an Ableton Live set, or even export your audio with tempo changes from Record as one track and put your sliced audio in a different rack.

The mixing desk:

The thing is, it’s not so much what Record does as what it does in a Reason-style way. So while this is a preview, not a review, here’s what makes Record more like Reason:

For Reason users, this one image pretty much sums everything up. The workflow is still essentially a Reason workflow – if you love that, you’re likely already salivating. If not, it’ll likely take more convincing from the other aspects of the tool.

• Every track is a rack: Each time you create a track, you get a modular rack, which translates to the inserts you see in the mixer. For advanced users, this means you can do anything with routing you want. You get a full-blown rack on each track, with all the usual goodies for routing. For beginners, it means you can call up easy presets for whatever you’re doing, and the parameters show up as plain-English knobs in the mixer. You don’t have to think about routing or what everything represents; you just focus on sound. For beginners and advanced users, the ability to “see” all of this routing with virtual cables and such means sophisticated mixing and routing setups aren’t quite so abstract.
• It’s a Reason interface: Everything looks and feels like Reason, even with a much more involved UI. All the new views continue on the theme of adjustable navigation panes. These views either get combined into a single-window interface, or can be detached if you’d prefer. But there are almost no dialog boxes, with one notable exception:
• You get Reason patches and patch browsing, for audio: Reason users will feel right at home, as Record extends the patch browsing metaphor from Reason. And because track effects inserts use what are essentially Combinators, those inserts just feel like Reason devices inside a mixer.
• Reason + Record: If you have Reason, you have access to all your Reason modules. And since Record has a big Reason rack – well, you get the idea. Instead of recording inside Reason, what Reason users get is Reason inside a bigger version of Reason that understands not only recording, but mixing and audio arrangement, and treats audio like music, with tempo.
• ReWire: Record is a ReWire client (slave), not a host (master). That should be your first clue Propellerhead aren’t trying to replace Pro Tools, Live, and Logic. But it does mean you could easily use, say, Record for recording purposes on your own, then drop it into a Pro Tools session in the studio, or Record to do some song-writing that you then bring into an Ableton live PA or remix set.
• Reason-style automation and control. Most notably, this is the first audio production tool I’ve seen that was set up from the beginning to be used with keyboards, as Reason was. It’s funny: right now, M-Audio are pitching using a keyboard to control Pro Tools with their Axiom Pro / HyperControl product. This essentially goes the other way: like Reason, Record uses the “Remote” protocol, which was effectively the first to “automap” your keyboard controller and control surface to the software. That means you can comfortably produce an entire work from your keyboard, while adding guitar or vocals as an audio recording.
• Oh yeah, it’ll be fun even if you only use synths: In case you haven’t guessed already, for Reason users, this means mixing and processing and arrangement tools that weren’t available before, so even if you never hook up a mic to Record, I imagine you could use almost all of these tools. (Only the tuner and audio comps become redundant.)

It’s really the relationship of the device rack to the mixer and tracks in Record that make it unique, and will be fun to explore over the coming months. When you create devices and Combinators, you can easily see them in the mixer and track sections. Sends are named as the actual sound parameter, too. Because it doesn’t support plug-ins, that also means you never have to worry about the way parameter names are handled in formats like VST, though you can always return to your favorite host when you do want plug-ins since Record is also a ReWire client.

Line6 guitar and bass amps are available out of the box as insertable modules. This is all you need for the interface: it’s aggressively simple.

The patch window will look familiar to Reason users. But if you’re new to this, what it means is that you can easily surf through, say, Line 6 guitar presets and hear immediately what they sound like.

So, what does the music sound like? Josh Mobley via Twitter tells us about his official demo song, “Push Me Down,” made in Record for Propellerhead. All the songs in the embedded player below were made in Record, with the exception of “Narrow Escape,” the demo for Reason 4.

About that Dongle

The other bit of news – and the one item that’s likely to be most divisive – is that Propellerhead is changing the authorization scheme in Record, as explained here:

Ignition Key

The good news: “demo” mode / non-authorized mode is actually only “open”-disabled. You can even save files in the demo; you just can’t open existing files. The Ignition Key comes free with the tool rather than being a separate purchase as with some iLok products, and if you lose or break it, a replacement is available for a nominal fee. (Some manufacturers actually have the gall to charge for the full purchase price of the product or close to it, which is utterly ridiculous.) Also, if you don’t want to use the key, there is an Internet authorization.

The bad news: it is still a dongle. Internet authorization requires a consistent connection while you’re working; the moment that’s dropped, the software reverts to demo mode. I would personally much rather have seen one-time Internet authorization as is available from Ableton and Native Instruments, among others, especially as Record would be fun to use on a bus or train without plugging in a dongle. Propellerhead say they’ve put some thought into this and wanted to do copy protection right, but I expect they’ll hear about it anyway.

The one upside I do see is for people who use a lot of machines (like myself, for one). You can use just the dongle without any other authorization, and you can use it on as many machines as you want. So that means you can move from a studio to a Mac laptop to a PC laptop to a netbook just by moving your dongle around, and never have to fill out a registration form or worry about if you’ve run out of authorizations.

Also, I’d suggest that people use this as an opportunity to freely try the demo without any annoying limitations and decide if you like the tool before you buy it.

Availability / pricing

Beta testing is starting now, today – sign-up at the site below.

September 9, 2009 is the official release date.

Suggested retail: US$299, EUR299. No word yet on what bundles will be available for existing or new Reason users, but Propellerhead says that it will have special bundle pricing of some kind.

Videos and more info at:

www.record-you.com

It’s been a long, long wait for side-by-side Reason and audio racks and recording in Reason, but there’s no question that this is a big announcement.

Since many of you will be beta-testing this alongside me, I look forward to hearing your opinions of the tool and any tips or techniques you discover.

Sequencing – the collection of techniques that actually assemble events in our music – seems to get far less attention than it deserves. After all, there are fairly accepted ways of synthesizing sound, but as many ways of thinking about musical events as there are ways of thinking about composition. Among the big DAWs, you’ll often see pitches to upgrade based on new effects plug-ins or magical audio-processing abilities, but rarely MIDI sequencing improvements. (When there are, of course, I applaud.)

That makes this week’s pre-Christmas announcement of Numerology 2.0 all that more special. Numerology is a modular sequencer and that alone. It brings some of the modular capabilities usually found in synths to sequencing, with component sequencers and modulation for manipulating sequence evens the way you’d usually transform sound signal.

The upshot of all of this: you can play with musical patterns with the freedom usually reserved for synths. Features:

• Sequencing modules, including MonoNote (monophonic sequencer), polyphonic PolyNote (duh) and MatrixSeq, eight-track DrumSeq
• Component sequencers for modular-style sequencing, plus LFOs, envelopes, CV mixers, MIDI generators, MIDI processors
• Stacks: virtual equipment racks for easier composing / performance, and an integrated audio mixer
• Add software plug-ins (AU) or route to external hardware gear (yep, the computer is still awesome when it comes to sequencing outboard synths, even in 2008/9!)
• New, simple sound-generating modules for easy integration with the environment, including synthesis, polyphonic AudioSample and eight-part DrumKit
• MIDI remote control of parameters, plus custom CV, audio, and MIDI routing
• Timeline playlist arrangement
• Sync via MIDI clock, MTC, or ReWire
• Mac-only, 10.4.11 and later; US$99 until 1/4/09 (then $119)

System requirements are pretty tame (this is a sequencer, after all), so this could be a great application for an older Mac, provided it has a 1GHz or greater CPU. (PowerPCs included.)

How does it all work? Here are some videos to give you an idea. Hope to add this to my scary but delicious testing pile (New Years’ Resolution: more useful hands-on content).

A demo:

Getting started:

Any passionate Numerology users out there? We’d love to hear from you. What are your thoughts on the new version, and how do you use the tool in your music?

Logic’s Environment, a modular layer in the program for creating custom configurations, isn’t well known to many Logic users. But if you can get used to its slightly unusual interface, it’s capable of some really powerful stuff. You know, important music stuff. Like connecting Logic to your Nintendo NES game system. Jonathan Flugel writes:

The MIDINES evironment was created based on this chart:
http://www.wayfar.net/0xf00000_midi_chart.php

The environment allows for control of the 5 channels of synth/audio that the NES [supports]

Here are the 5 parts:
1-2 – Pulse Synthesizer waves
3-4 – Triangle/Square waves
5- sample channel

Since this is also my primary template for a Logic session there are other goodies I left in there:

1. NYC compression bus channel
2. 3 bus channels that I got from Hybrid (electronic group) for simple drum processing
3. MPC groove templates taken from an MPC 60
4. Ableton Live and Reason ReWire objects

There you have it: Logic + NES + MPC + Live + Reason. If that’s not a digital dream studio, I don’t know what is.

In case you want to give this file a look:
MIDINES.zip
That’s the MIDINES, Logic 8 file (if anyone has a MIDINES but Logic 7, let us know and we can share the Logic 7 file.)