Let’s get straight to it: Ozone has already established itself as a do-everything mastering tool. It’s a suite of interconnected modules handling frequency and dynamics, designed to work together in an integrated interface. It does so much, in fact, that it’s hard for an upgrade to do more, but Ozone 5 promises new sound and visual feedback that could further entrench this popular tool.

And that could explain how Ozone 5 stole the Audio Engineering Society trade show in New York. AES is a flurry of knobs, dials, and faders, but some of the major buzz we heard was just this single upgrade to the software. (CDM’s Marsha Vdovin was out on the floor, and the word “Ozone” kept cropping up.)

Ozone is eminently visual software, so a lot of what’s new you can glean just by looking through the screenshots. But there are sound improvements, as well, both in the standard Ozone and the spendier “Advanced” edition.

What’s new:

• Updated modules. iZotope says they’ve “refined” their DSP algorithms. (Let’s see, carry the one…) The idea is, existing modules should sound better. There’s a detailed list on the iZotope site – aside from more subtle changes, you’ll find very specific adjustments to how parameters are controlled and how they impact the sound. To give one example, there’s a …
• New Limiter. The latest version of iZotope’s “psychoacoustics-based” limiter in the Advanced edition has a new stereo link control for handling left and right separately or together, and new intelligent transient handling algorithms, among other improvements.
• Enhanced EQ. Analog-matching EQ models analog shelf modes and frequency response, matching is easier than before, as with other modules, you can use left/right separately, and now zoom and display stereo info in your spectrum. There’s also new variable-phase functionality.
• New Reverb. Yes, sometimes you use reverb when mastering. (A little light reverb can do wonders.) A new modeled reverb algorithm adds new models and spaces and gives you unique early reflection control, as well as “cross-mix” for stereo imaging.
• New UI, workflow. I’ll let you just see what this looks like, but suffice to say parameters and labels are better-organized to be friendlier to advanced and beginning users alike. Past versions of Ozone were sometimes pretty-but-counterintuitive; this looks a bit clearer. Of course, you might not notice while dazzled by the…
• Slick visual feedback. In the standard version, metering has been enhanced. In the Advanced version, you get slick 2D and 3D plots of your sound spectrum for the Meter Bridge and Meter Taps modules. They look awesome, yes, but I also think these kind of “alien world mountainscape” views can help you better visualize what’s happening in a sound, so there is a practical use, too.

And, of course, all of this means you can easily wow clients when mastering by showing them visualizations that look like Geordi LaForge is studying abnormal quasar activity from the deck of the Enterprise. Just try to avoid opening up a cosmic string-related time wrinkle while mastering.

(And yes, when you’re all alone and no one is looking over your shoulder, you can do something useful with it.)

Pricing: US$249 (€195); US$999 (€799) Advanced.

Why is Advanced so expensive? Well, each module is also an independent plug-in you can use in your host. With that in mind, this starts to look like a better deal – some terrific reverb, EQ, and dynamics you can use anywhere. You also get the Meter Bridge and Meter Tap for analysis, fancier 2D and 3D spectrographs, and more advanced loudness meters. On the other hand, the basic version will also work with your host and gives you the sound-processing functionality minus all those more sophisticated meters you might need.

This month, there’s also steeply discounted intro pricing: US$599 for Advanced, US$199 for the standard edition. Expires December 1.

Ozone 5 was announced last month, but is now shipping. An OpenGL 2-capable video card is required for the 3D visualizations, but nearly all machines now provide that (including most integrated chipsets, too).

Ozone 5 Product Page @iZotope

For a look at what this tool can do, here’s our friend and experienced mastering and mix engineer Danny Wyatt, talking about how he works with limiting. The new UI and meters are actually a lot clearer than what you see in the video, and offer some nice, new functionality. I can tell you, Danny is a fully-converted Ozone lover, having worked with him in the studio as he mastered my own album. He’s got a big toolset of other stuff, but Ozone is very often what the real work comes down to, and — I think I can say this, Danny — he’ll be happy to evangelize the tool if you talk to him.

This isn’t a review, mind – in fact, my only significant reservation is that Ozone is so slick, it could distract from the reality that good mastering probably doesn’t need it. A great mastering engineer can do wonders with a fairly simple tool and their ear – no wild visualizations required. (“Great mastering engineer,” also known as, “not me.”) But that same person may well appreciate the level of precision iZotope, working with algorithms they’ve developed entirely in-house, can provide.

We want your feedback, as always. Ozone users – what do you think?

Users of rival products – what’s your all-in-one mastering tool of choice, and why?

Alongside its Pro Tools 10 and HDX unveiling, Avid turned some heads by recently announcing it was replacing its RTAS and TDM formats to a new format called AAX, “Avid Audio eXtension.” Now, your first reaction may not be unbridled enthusiasm, exactly: it seems the last thing users are likely saying is, “yes, please, I’d like a new plug-in format to worry about.” But I wanted to give the engineers at Avid a chance to tell us what they were thinking and why they made the move.

Avid’s product announcements have unfortunately coincided, presumably because of the financial calendar, with unpleasant restructuring and downsizing news, a topic NYC-based audio engineering site SonicScoop takes up. However, I prefer to focus here on the engineering side of what’s happening; we can look at Avid’s business and the changing business landscape another day. (For what it’s worth, I’m not as bleak as SonicScoop about the industry at large – least of all because I think the larger audio market remains healthy, even if Avid has been caught adapting to a new marketplace.)

The picture painted by Avid is one of a smooth transition to AAX. Now, of course, you’d expect them to say that, but I think they do have some specific technical reasons that, even with the change of name, the shift should be friendly to Avid developers. I’ll let them explain, though.

Bobby Lombardi, Senior Pro Tools Product Manager goes into the technical details of what AAX, and what it means for Pro Tools developers and users.

CDM: The main draw appears to be the ability to switch between native and DSP-based processing more easily, correct? From the end user perspective, can you get into specifics on what a user will see and how this will differ from RTAS/TDM?

Bobby: Visually, a user will see that the RTAS/TDM pop-up on the Pro Tools 10 Plug-in header has changed to Native/DSP. The exciting part is what they will hear. In the past, with HD Accel systems using a 24-bit fixed point processing environment, and host-based systems using 32-bit floating point processing, the gain staging could be quite different and produce significantly different results. With the introduction of AAX, sessions that migrate between host-based and DSP-accelerated HDX Pro Tools systems will sound identical.

How much work will it be for developers to migrate from RTAS/TDM to AAX?

Moving from an existing RTAS plug-in to AAX Native is relatively simple. Plus, once a developer has an AAX Native plug-in running, it will take a small amount of development effort to support AAX DSP. In comparison to TDM 56k used with the legacy HD hardware, AAX DSP is much easier to support and developers do not require specialized skills in writing 56k assembly code, so it opens up the opportunity for many developers to create DSP accelerated versions of their plug-ins.

We’ll still see parallel, separate versions of plug-ins for AAX Native and AAX DSP, correct? And some will, as with RTAS, presumably be native-only?

This is really up to the individual developer. Some developers may find it strategic to support one or the other, however Avid’s goal with this new format was to simplify plug-in development and reduce the complexity to support accelerated hardware.

RTAS and TDM are listed as “legacy” formats. Is Avid making any commitment to how long they’ll last?

The RTAS and TDM formats will continue to be supported in the 32-bit versions of Pro Tools but will not be supported once Pro Tools is released as a 64-bit application. The new AAX plug-in format is the bridge to 64-bit plug-ins for the Pro Tools and Media Composer platform.

Avid has expressed a desire to embrace open formats, but why is there still no common, industry-wide plug-in format? (Actually, there may be no good answer to that question, but I feel obligated to ask!)

We absolutely do embrace open platforms because they can open workflows that enhance the user experience. Part of the experience we need to ensure is that it’s stable, integrates well on our control surfaces, and provides a long-term commitment to the customer. For these reasons it’s important that we can design the plug-in architecture. For example, without designing AAX we could never give customers a plug-in environment that supports both DSP accelerated and native Pro Tools systems and ensure they delivered 100% sound parity. We hope that by providing a modernized AAX SDK for plug-in development, developers will find it easier not only to support Avid’s products, but also finding it easier to develop for non-Avid plug-in formats.

Any word on when we’ll see third-party plugs with AAX support?

More developers are coming online each week with their AAX offerings. We had over 25 developers showing over 60 individual AAX plug-ins at the AES tradeshow in NYC last month, and expect to see many more at the upcoming NAMM tradeshow. With the ability to provide all Avid third party developers a optimized development path to DSP-accelerated plug-ins, we do expect to see more DSP-accelerated plug-ins on the new AAX platform than the legacy TDM platform.

Thanks, Bobby. And for one other take, I happened to get to talk to Universal Audio about their transition. UA, given that they have their own DSP platform and support Avid’s rival packages, certainly aren’t dependent in their business on the Avid ecosystem (though you can be sure it makes a big part of their market). Anyway, here’s what they say; I’m guessing other third parties would say something similar, but if you’re a third party reading and wish to comment, please do so, and don’t let the fact that I only have UA here dissuade you.

Lev Perrey, Universal Audio Director of Product Development, responds to CDM:

Universal Audio intends to support AAX Native in conjunction with UAD-2 DSP accelerators ­ exactly like we have just completed with RTAS support in UAD Powered Plug-ins v6. There is no announcement as of yet as to when the transition to AAX will be complete but we are actively developing and committed to the Pro Tools platform. Pro Tools 10 does support RTAS and initial testing with UAD plug-ins shows it to work just like Pro Tools 9.

As for the significance question, for UA moving to AAX Native should be similar to our recent migration to RTAS ­ although it will be easier for us now moving to AAX since we have fully invested in direct Pro Tools development and better understand the Avid SDK.

We’ll continue to follow this story. Thanks to Avid for getting us more details; I know it’s appreciated.

More info:
AAX Audio Plug-ins @ Avid

Integrated Melodyne pitch correction in PreSonus’ Studio One is made more interesting by the technology behind it. Celemony this week describes a new technology they call ARA, or “Audio Random Access.” The notion is this: rather than just receiving or generating audio signal, the plug-in gets access to audio data. That means you can actually write a plug-in that rewrites the audio content in a recorded DAW track, as Melodyne does in Studio One.

As developer Celemony describes it, “ARA opens an additional channel of communication through which the DAW and plug-in can exchange information about the audio file, tempo, pitch, rhythm and much more, which allows them to work together considerably more closely.”

It’s the ability to exchange audio data information that seems the most compelling. Previously, audio processing plug-ins simply took buffers of audio signal from the DAW. You could “look ahead” further into that signal by increasing the buffer (and thus latency with it), but generally speaking, you’re doing the processing in something that approximates real-time. ARA in the example of Melodyne gives you access to an entire recorded track without having to transfer the audio file to and from the plug-in.

Celemony says this is “an extension of the existing plug-in interfaces,” not a new plug-in format. (If it were the latter, I’d have to point to this xkcd cartoon.) I’m still obligated to express some skepticism about how widely this will be adopted, or if it can be considered a “standard” extension, though they do promise additional vendors soon. (Implementation would seem to be by necessity on a host by host basis – and then once you have the host, a plug-in creator might add support.) It’s a proprietary technology, but then, so are the plug-in formats currently in wide use (AU controlled by Apple for Mac OS, VST by Steinberg, and RTAS by Digidesign, unless we see more of LV2). For now, though, we’ll have to see if the idea itself can extend what a plug-in can do. Check out the videos for more.

celemony.com/ara (no documentation for developers, but there is an email address to use if you’re interested)

I took a look at Omnisphere 1.5, the synth so big it’ll make your head hurt, for Keyboard in a story out now (and readable now). As I begin the story:

Seeing its six DVDs of sound content, you might be tempted to duct-tape a key down and let Omnisphere finish your film scoring gig. While the director would probably love the results, you’d be missing out on the real fun.

In other words, what I discovered in that review was that Omnisphere, particularly with additions in the new 1.5 update, is a powerful creative sound design tool, not just a preset machine. The highlights:

• Granular section, pictured, made nicer with the ability to combine with glide and intelligent parameter control design
• Harmonia, which allows you to control each harmonic component of a sound independently using individual oscillator and synth controls
Waveshaper, which can not only add bit-crush-style effects, but work its magic on each element, polyphonically
• Individual independent arpeggiator, plus MIDI file drag-and-drop
• An Orb for exploring sonic capabilities – we’ve seen these sort of X/Y controllers before, but here you can even dynamically assign parameters in realtime, and add features like inertia and gesture recording
• iPad control via a really wonderful controller app

Being able to navigate multiple sonic parameters in real-time with touch, and combining sound-bending, far-reaching sonic tools like Harmonia and the granular features means you can really take sounds far from their original source – and sync them to tempo, if you like, with those MIDI and arp features. I need to pick up the whole tool again after the review and see what new sounds I can make; if there are any other users who wish to share, I’d love to hear what you’re making, as the possibility is really deep.

And yes, they now have done a dubstep bass tutorial, so everybody playing at home should take a shot.

Read the full, detailed review at Keyboard Magazine:

Spectrasonics Omnisphere 1.5 [Review by me for Keyboard]

How does it all work? Here are some relevant videos:

From the wonderful world of plug-ins, we’ve got some good news for soft synth lovers.

I covered the forthcoming Z3TA+ 2 release from Cakewalk last week, and a number of readers pointed to the brilliant work of Urs Heckmann. As it happens, Urs has a number of updates releasing this week, adding 64-bit support, compatibility fixes, and new tutorial videos. Check out the mapping generator and “tap map” LFOs for one terrific example in ACE (the modular Any Cable Everywhere).

New features in the ACE modular and More Feedback Machine delay/multi-effect:

ACE (Any Cable Everywhere) Version 1.1
(modular synth plugin)

* native 64-bit support for Mac AU and VST Win
* extra factory presets by Howard Scarr
* improved installers take Win7 permissions issues into account
* improved compatibility of RTAS (Mac) version, supports “3-finger salute” automation
* adds Cocoa view to AU version
* several minor bugs and niggles fixed
* new tutorial videos: http://www.youtube.com/uheplugins

MFM (More Feedback Machine) Version 2.1
(complex delay and multi-effect)

* native 64-bit support for Mac AU and VST Win
* extra factory presets by Tasmodia
* new PDF manual, with hyperlinks
* improved installers take Win7 permissions issues into account
* improved compatibility of RTAS (Mac) version, supports “3-finger salute” automation
* improved synchronization
* adds Cocoa view to AU version
* several minor bugs and niggles fixed

Below, an image gallery gives you an idea of the capabilities of these instruments; pictures I think speak as clearly as words – at least when the interface is nicely designed.

Also, while it’s not new, this video of Urs’ Zebra2 gives a good overview of what makes that special.

And in Aalto News…

In another soft synth update, Aalto from Madrona Labs, which we’ve covered here previously, gets a bunch of fixes:

improved performance!
optimized patch loading
fixed Logic dropouts, improved Logic CPU spikes
fixed Live 7 UI hangs
fixed Sonar crash, tested in Sonar X1
fixed Maschine scan crash
fixed multislider parameter behavior
added debug diagnostics
smaller executable

Previously:
For Lovers of Aalto, Semi-Modular Soft Synth, a Place to Share Patches

And an interview: Madrona’s Randy Jones on Aalto Soft Synth, Designing a New Instrument, Small Makers

Notably, in fact, both ACE and Aalto draw inspiration from modular synths, but each take a unique approach to applying that hardware patching model to software. Note the schematic-style approach of Aalto, versus the more literal dangling virtual cords in ACE.

CDM is no match for the site KVR Audio when it comes to plug-in releases and updates, but I think it’s only appropriate to talk about updates to software we’ve been following – some selective news on plug-ins. If you’ve found an update that’s particularly useful to how you work, let us know!

In a sea of software and hardware, a handful of releases every year stand out. On the software side, one of the most promising is Rob Papen’s Punch. It reflects a number of trends in soft synth design – given a choice between sampling and synthesis, it choose both; 64-bit support comes standard; pattern sequencing is built in. But it’s worth examining for two reasons: one, independent soft synth designer Rob Papen has done some of the best work in recent years, and two, it appears to offer a rich set of practical features in equal measure.

The video above is quite extensive – one watch-through will likely tell you whether or not this is for you. But here are the basic features:

• The Drums, The Drums… 2 bass + 2 open hat + 2 closed hat + 3 tom + 2 clap + 3 user.
• Each drum can choose one of several synthesis models or samples.
• Presets, Custom Samples. Load one of any number of presets and preset samples, or load your own sample content into the drum machine.
• Lots of Per-Drum Control. Per-drum distortion, individual output busing, choke groups. These route together into a prerequisite Mixer.
• Modulation. 2 envelopes, 2 LFOs, 8 modulation slots, for one of four effects units.
• Sequencer. 16-step internal patterns, each with four tracks. Sounds useful enough, though for more complex rhythms, of course, you’ll want to turn to your host or another MIDI source.
• “Easy” Controls. Each drum has what are in effect Macro controls, all MIDI-latchable, and various MIDI assignment options, as illustrated in the video. When you go from programming to performance mode, in other words – even as you work – you can quickly add hands-on control.

Mac + Windows, 32-bit + 64-bit, VST, AU (Mac), RTAS

http://www.timespace.com/punch
http://www.robpapen.com/punch.html

Punch is not without competition. Native Instruments’ Maschine is becoming a full-fledged host and sampling workstation. Propellerhead’s built-in Kong drum machine offers a very similar brew of sampling and synthesis, multiple models, hands-on control, and routing and mixing – indeed, part of the appeal to me of Punch is that it does more of what Kong does in a plug-in form. Arturia’s Spark melds sampling, synthesis, and physical modeling, loaded up with vintage samples and models as well as newer ones. FXpansions’s GEIST is sample-based, but also worth a look. Audio Damage’s Tattoo focuses on synthesis and sequencing, at the opposite pole. Both Spark and Maschine also have their own dedicated hardware controller. That’s just a start among recent entries – I’m sure I’m forgetting half a dozen others. (Round-up candidates?)

But Punch is now shipping, and it looks like a balanced, logical approach to this. It’s also one of the more inexpensive options here – EUR149 / GBP125 / US$179.

For all the lusting after hardware drum machines, it’s tough to beat software options for flexibility, range and quality of sound, speed of editing, and cost. 2011 seems an especially good year. I think CDM will have to do a drum machine roundup soon. Tips welcome.

With modeled amps and synced effects all in one box for US$400, Roger Linn’s AdrenaLinn III has earned a cult following of dedicated users who appreciate its low-budget, rich sonic satisfaction. That has simultaneously shifted the Linn reputation from fans of drum machines to guitarists, though, naturally, clever players of other instruments, including keys, can get a lot of sonic goodness out of the AdrenaLinn, as well. (Want to make your own, shipping Dave Smith – Roger Linn combo tool? Plug a Mopho into the AdrenaLinn and go to town!)

But what if you don’t want another box? The US$99 AdrenaLinn Sync does the same effects (and then some) in software. Version 2 represents a big landmark improvement over the first version; the new release has been built by Way Out Ware (TimewARP 2600), which I’ve long thought was one of the most talented software sound developers around.

The basic idea of Sync is to do rich, rhythmic, sequenced, filtered patterns with a live audio signal. The resulting sounds are terrific and can (cough) make you sound like a much better player than you are. You can check out Roger relaxing at home with his software in the video above. This isn’t just for fake John Mayer sounds, either – Mayer himself is apparently a user.

The sequenced patterns are coupled with a wide variety of paths for modulation, randomness, tuning grooves, and more. New in this version, aside from a nice, friendly, hardware-inspired interface, are some brilliant filter, phasor, and flanger emulations, big stereo delays, and better sound quality. The previous version was built in Cycling ’74′s (defunct) Pluggo, but this far more mature release is built from the ground up. I’m actually keen to try it.

As Roger puts it to CDM, “It really does make some interesting and unique new sounds, much better than the original release.”

If you do have the original, this is a free upgrade, so let us know what you think. Currently Mac AU/VST only, but Windows VST/RTAS and Mac RTAS are coming soon.
AdrenaLinn Sync

David Zicarelli has announced that Cycling ‘74 is discontinuing Max/MSP Pluggo-based products, meaning the company will no longer develop Pluggo, Mode, Hipno, or UpMix. More significantly, this means an end to the use of Max/MSP as a way of developing plug-ins; David writes that there will be “no further development on … their supporting technology.” It’s the supporting technology that Max patchers have relied upon to make their own instruments and effects for VST/AU/RTAS Mac and Windows hosts, and its demise to me is the real news here for the Max community.

The article touts the upcoming availability of Max for Live as an alternative. Now, I think Max for Live is a very exciting technology – I’m finally editing some videos and discussion with Jeremy Bernstein, so we’ll have a preview next week. The flipside is:

• Less compatibility. Ableton Live is just one host. Pluggo support RTAS, VST, and AU on Mac and Windows, so you could use your Max patches as plug-ins in tools like Logic or FL Studio, too. (Ultimately, having to figure out how to support all those things was part of Pluggo’s demise, but the desire to do so still holds.)
• No free runtime. Cycling ‘74 has been clear in that Max for Live will be a paid product. So, whereas a developer could create a Pluggo plug-in with Max/MSP and deploy it for free use anywhere, now you have to assume that the person using your plug-in will buy both Live and (separately) Max for Live.

For an example of why the Pluggo technology has been important, see examples like Ms. Pinky’s Wrecked System (though I appreciate the irony of that screenshot being Ableton).

Max for Live is awesome, it just isn’t Pluggo exactly – for better and for worse. The good news is, some of the oddball Pluggo instruments and effects will be available for Max for Live when it comes out, and existing owners will get that at a discount. But you might want to keep an old Mac or PC around running Max 4 and some of the strange plug-ins in the Pluggo collection.

Pluggo Technology Moves to Max for Live

Thanks to Jonathan Bailey and Nick Inhofe for sending this in.

The upshot to me is that Max/MSP is no longer such a viable development environment for effects and instruments, if you want any kind of wider consumption of what you’re making. It can be, at the same time, an utterly brilliant environment for yourself and for other people working with Max and Live. But on the other hand, part of the reason this may not be earth-shaking news is that there are alternatives – see below.

That’s not to argue with the fact that the Max + Ableton Live combination will rock and be a big deal – no argument there.

So, I actually think it may be a good thing for Max to have this focus, especially because, if you do want to support other hosts, there’s no reason to limit yourself to Max.

Open Source and Commercial Flavors

What I think is happening – perhaps naturally so – is a differentiation between the proprietary and open paths. If you choose the commercial Max/MSP – Max for Live – Ableton Live route, you get a really unparalleled level of UI polish and usability, and extraordinary integration between your Max creations and the host (Live).

The open-source altnerative now increasingly offers greater compatibility and flexibility. We’ve seen Max’s open source cousin Pure Data (Pd) run as the back end to a commercial game (Spore), on Linux on PDAs and old iPods, and as the back end to commercial iPhone apps.This is enabled by the fact that Pd is open source and community-supported, just as the ability to interoperate more deeply with Ableton Live was enabled by a commercial development process. (ChucK has also shown up powering successful mobile apps, like Smule’s Ocarina.)

That’s not to say one route is better than the other. On the contrary, it’s important to look at these two choices side by side because they’re different, and differently suited to particular situations.

And focus can be a good thing. In the case of Cycling ‘74, the decision was that plug-in support was no longer practical:

…we have had to face the fact that it is simply not cost-effective to support three different plug-in specifications on two different platforms, particularly given the increasing absence of standardization of host platforms we have observed over the past several years. Supporting our Max/MSP-based plug-in technology involves trying to make the entire Max environment run inside another host application. This was never a simple matter to begin with, and it has only grown more challenging with time.

It may indeed not make sense for Cycling to continue to provide this support. But it could be possible for others to support that – and, I hope, for us to someday have a better cross-platform plug-in standard, though that’s another discussion.

Alternative Plug-in Development Tools

There are other tools that are focused on plug-in development, and depending on your needs, they could fill the void left by Pluggo.

Here are just a few:

pdvst, free + open source, Windows

You know how Cycling is talking about how they have to run Max inside the host? That’s what this does for Pd. It looks like binarines are only available for Windows, but I see no reason this couldn’t be ported to other OSes, too. (I also remember some sort of solution for making LADSPA plug-ins with Pd, but maybe I just dreamed that.) I gave it a shot, and it’s actually quite nice.

Plogue Bidule, US$75, Mac + Windows

Plogue may actually come out on top as a cross-platform, commercial tool for building VST and AU plug-ins – only Reaktor here does that, and Plogue is quite a lot cheaper. ReWire works, too. That means Bidule will work with any host you like – even Reason – instead of just Live. If you only use Live, that may not matter, but if you use anything else … well, you get the point.

See our previous story: Plogue Bidule Modular Music App: Get Started, Meet the Creators

SuperColliderAU, free + open source, Mac

For people using the elegant sound coding language SuperCollider, you can now turn your creations into Audio Units, with full OSC control retained. Again, it’s quite easy to do.

SynthMaker, US$133-255, Windows

SynthMaker is tightly focused on instrument and effect creation, more narrowly-so than Max but as a result very powerful for the task. Also, if the Max for Live / Ableton combination doesn’t do it for you, SynthMaker is now included with FL Studio. It’s Windows-only, but you can develop plug-ins not only for FL but any Windows host.

SynthEdit, US$50 (shareware trial available), Windows

The gold standard of DIY plug-in creation, SynthEdit is actually sometimes notorious for its popularity (as in, “crappy SynthEdit plug-in). But don’t let that dissuade you: this is a powerful environment for making your own VSTs, and some truly brilliant instruments and effects have been created in it. There’s also some extensive documentation.

SonicBirth, free + open source, Mac

Why SonicBirth isn’t being widely used is really beyond me – maybe the death of Pluggo will wake people up to its potential. It’s a graphical patching environment for MIDI, audio, and instrument creation, it’s quite elegant to use, and it’s utterly free. The only bad news is, the open source version or promised commercial successor seem not to have gotten much development love lately.

Reaktor, $399 street (academic discount), Mac/Windows

Reaktor has the same limitation Max for Live does in that there’s no free runtime. But a Reaktor patch can run – and be edited live – inside any Mac or Windows host.

csLADSPA, free + open source, cross-platform

Still can’t figure out what this new-fangled Max thing is about when your CSound is working just fine? csLADSPA lets you write your own instrument and effects plug-ins in CSound and run them on any LADSPA host (it even works on Windows). Geeky, yes, but as I think about it, that’s pretty cool.

This is not an attempt to be a complete round-up, so anything I’ve left out, do let us know. I’m particularly interested to know how, say, SuperCollider or Pd users could target Mac, Windows, and Linux hosts.

Not Using Plug-ins

There is one … other alternative. Plug-ins have their uses, but everything Cycling is saying about the challenge of using them is absolutely true.

Ultimately, it’s worth thinking about why you’re using a plug-in. Do you just need to route audio or control from one place to another? Do you just want your strange, DIY step sequencer to sync with a track?

ReWire is one alternative, and Max continues to support ReWire.

But you can also use technology like JACK to route audio and (on Linux) sync and MIDI from place to place. In fact, while there are tools for creating your own LADSPA plug-ins on Linux, I don’t know anyone using them for this very reason – the support for jacking audio, sync, and control from place to place is so good, you can simply start your different music tools and you may not care that they’re not plug-ins.

Your Thoughts?

Okay, that story wound up being quite a bit longer than I had expected, but that’s the point – you have lots of alternatives. I’m curious to what you DIYers and patchers out there are imagining you’ll be spending your time doing over the coming months, whether it’s all Csound or all Max for Live.

It’s a tough time for the music tech industry like so many industries. But there are beautiful products coming from independent developers – indie, boutique shops crafting musical instruments in code. The folks at Devine Machine, makers of the likes of Guru and Lucifer, unloaded three big announcements overnight – enough to make you think there’s some obscure trade show going on at the end of March no one told you about.

Here’s the capsule view of why they matter:

OTR-88: A modeled electric piano

The beautiful thing about electric pianos like the Rhodes is that they’re really electromechanical instruments – amplified, yes, but entirely organic in the way they produce sound. OTR-88 is not the first attempt, as the developers imply, to use physical modeling techniques to try to reproduce those properties. Applied Acoustics’ Lounge Lizard, for instance, (available in Ableton Suite as Electric) follows similar lines. (Native Instruments’ Electric Piano and Digidesign’s Velvet have modeling approaches of their own, but also make use of samples.)

But OTR-88 does appear to go further. Tine movements are modeled in 3D. There are elaborate models of pickup interaction and velocity response. Herbie Hancock was consulted on the design. And you can adjust keys on a per-key basis. That should appeal to sound designers and electric piano aficionados alike. You can thank new physical modeling research by Efflam Le Bivic, one of Devine’s two developers.

I’m really eager to play this one.

OTR-88 Electric Piano

Krishna 1.5: Samples to Synthesis

The Krishna synth instantly earned respect for its “Frame Synthesis” approach, which makes it atypically easy to turn recorded samples into oscillators – a hybrid approach that threatens to end forever the synthesis versus sampling debate. 1.5 has a rebuilt engine, more LFO and ADSR routing destinations, and this tasty-sounding feature:

‘Snap to harmonics’ option for the filter : each note will instantiate a filter to resonate to its own harmonic.

Krishna Synth

One Shot Recorder

OSR is a terrific-looking little tool that’s designed to grab sounds while you play them. Set a threshold, record, and OSR spits out ready-to-use samples. That makes setting up a quick sampling or multisampling session — times when you may have a whole mess of samples to record — much easier. The new release now supports standalone and more pg-in formats, has a decay control, automatic sample reordering, and a pretty new UI.

One Shot Recorder (OSR) Sample Capture

OSR looks like the dream tool for a big multisample creation. Sometimes you may just want to grab some quick, beat-synced samples. Not new, but related, Live Sync Recorder is a tempo-synced VST. Turn it on, and it just rolls, slicing up your audio into one or two bar loops.

I actually can’t believe I didn’t know about this – I expect to put this to use very, very soon.

Live Sync Recorder Free

If you like that, there’s a fancier version, too.

I’ve been waiting for the near-ubiquitous ExpressCard slot on laptops to see some audio goodness, so one of the more welcome announcements of NAMM is that there’s now finally an ExpressCard-enabled version of the Universal Audio platform. The UAD is a DSP platform for computers, with an emphasis on high-quality, boutique mastering and effects plug-ins, including some recent, familiar emulations of classic Roland and Moog gear. UA’s stuff really does sound great, and host support has been improving (look for the key words “latency compensation” in your host of choice). So it’s about time that laptop users get in on some of the fun the desktop users have had.

The surprise is, the UAD-2 SOLO doesn’t cost that much – $500 includes the card plus the “1176SE Compressor/Limiter, Pultec EQP-1A Equalizer, RealVerb Pro Room Modeler, and CS-1 Channel Strip.” That’s a premium over native plug-ins, but then you have access to other UA plugs later on. In other news, Antares and Manley Labs signed onto UA’s platform, so more stuff is coming.

And by the way, while the forums rip into the choice of DAW, this stuff will work everywhere – even, via RTAS, Pro Tools.

Universal’s stuff isn’t for everyone, but I’m pleased that laptop users are getting something more out of a slot on their machine. (You’ll find ExpressCard on most PCs and the MacBook Pro, as well.) I hope this is the first of more hardware to come.

http://www.uaudio.com/

Mastering – spoiled for choice? This means in mastering choices, you’ve got the UAD, IK’s T-RackS 3 announced at the end of last year, and iZotope’s Ozone 4 announced at NAMM. I’ll be talking to some folks in New York who know something about mastering (i.e., are not me). (One of them is a big Cubase fan, so I expect he’ll also be all over Cubase 5 – and he makes records that make real money, whereas I make records that go nicely with experimental modern dance.)

Each of these products goes a different direction, but the honest truth is almost any DAW will start you out with a pretty great selection of effects tools, and for a small chunk of change, you can add on with something like the UAD, T-RackS, and iZotope. None of this changes your actual skill level or the quality of your ears, but it does help keep your wallet from being the major barrier.