Could a piece of software make you think differently about sound? Could it reflect ideas, the culture of listening?

The developers of the SUFI series of plug-ins seem to think so. In place of screencasts showing which knob to turn which way, they head with a video crew to Morocco. The “instruction” might be about the value of reflection or call to prayer, about living as much as how to use a tool. You can see the first two examples: a meditation on the idea of daily interruptions in the soundscape coming from God, and a collection of electronic drones set to a beautifully-shot backdrop. The interfaces are rendered in graphics and (for the vast majority of us) a foreign language, and instead of reverting to the conventions of plug-in design, they assimilate ideas from another culture about tonality and function.

The plug-ins will be released for Max for Live on the 8th of May, and VST plug-ins later on. (Some version of the Max for Live plug-ins are available now – links at bottom.) The collection includes:

• DEVOTION, lowering your volume five times a day at the time of call to prayer
• A drone machine (in the second video, sounding quite nice)
• Four soft synths tuned to Arabic maqam scales. (They describe these as “North African maqams,” but I believe the tuning should be consistent with the use of maqam elsewhere around the Mediterranean and Arabic world.
• One drum machine amidst the synths, Palmas, with a hand-clapping UI (see screenshot).

You have a week to practice learning to read neo-Tifinaght Amazigh script.

Updated: There are in fact no references in the videos here to Sufism, but the creators respond to questions about why they selected this name on their FAQ. As with the videos above, collaborations and friendship inspired their thinking. They write:

The title is an homage to several Moroccan Sufi musicians we’ve worked with over the years who influenced our thinking about musicianship & sound itself, as well as a way of foregrounding the complex but largely unremarked relationship between faith and technology. We’re fascinated with how software and digital environments encode cultural values and beliefs by conditioning choices and framing possibilities. For example, If Apple is a secular religion, selling contemporary magic, then should that change the way we feel about – and engage with – its operating system? The spirit of Sufi aphorisms, we hope, is manifest in these plug-ins. At a literal level, many of the roll-over infotexts come from Sufi verse.

Apart from being an interesting “cross-cultural” exercise, though, these plug-ins can serve as a reminder of two things. First, design choices are constrained only by your imagination. Aside from any perceived cultural values, you can really make software do, theoretically, anything – and make any sound. Convention can be a useful tool, but it can also become a prison. Second, the creators consider VST compatibility as a way to reach users in the Middle East and Africa. Whether this particular effort is successful or not, those are massive and growing audiences. (To anyone reading there, by the way, hello from way up at this end of the Northern Hemisphere!) Of course, these plug-ins will be just as foreign to nearly all of that audience as it is to, say, producers in Melbourne or London, but as we watch the videos from Morocco, it’s worth considering just how small our Internet-connected planet is – and how wonderfully-vast the spaces between us, and the possibility contained there, remains.

Software can serve for a medium for collaboration, as in this case, which ties together a variety of backgrounds from traditional producer to Amazigh musician. The Amazigh people, tying together modern Arabic culture and language with Phoenician roots (much like my own Lebanese ancestry), represent a rich practice of music. Just as the remote, historical world of J.S. Bach might direct a modern software plug-in, these can, too – and in living fashion.

The work is led by Jace Clayton (DJ Rupture), with programmer Bill Bowen, designer Rosten Woo, Amazigh musician Hassan Wargui , and videographers Maggie Schmitt and Juan Alcón Durán. The creators report that “a physical Sufi Plug Ins Forever Box is expected for late 2012, and Clayton is currently preparing an installation version of the Sufi Plug Ins.”

Mark your calendar for next Tuesday, or join the mailing list at the site. More information:

http://www.beyond-digital.org/sufiplugins/

Thanks, Jesse Engel!

As seen on maxforlive.com (thanks, David):

Devotion: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1140/devotion
Drone: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1139/drone
Palmas: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1138/palmas
Hijaz: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1137/hijaz
Bayati: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1136/bayati
Saba: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1134/saba
Khomasi: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1133/khomasi

Let’s get straight to it: granular synthesis, and the various processes based on the principle, is one of the coolest things about making music with computers. With the ability to take sounds and stretch, mangle, and reshape them into new textures, it’s one of the fundamental techniques allowing sound software and lots of terrific timbral techniques to work.

Of course, explaining it to lay people is a bit of a trick. So that’s why, even before we get into talking about Steinberg’s upcoming Padshop synth, it’s worth watching the first few minutes. Sound designer Matthias Klag explains that coolness really succinctly (and, I think, accurately).

I’m excited to try Padshop. Now, on its surface, I can’t yet see anything radically new in how it works relative to what you get from some of the better Reaktor patches out there. On the other hand, a lot of people aren’t willing to go buy Reaktor just to use those tools. And it seems Steinberg has built something that brings together a traditional synth’s playability with some of the better tools for dialing in far-out granular textures. We’ll get to see it later this month, and then see if this is as big a breakthrough for granular sounds as Steinberg says. But I think it’s worth an early look, nonetheless – if for no other reason than hearing this nice explanation.

And if I get one great pad for a track out of this, count me in. Time to stock up on some Fritz-Kola, in Hamburg’s honor.

You might not expect a handheld game console, the gadget kids use to play Pokemon, to prove much worth as a musical instrument. But even in the age of readily-available computer plug-ins and iPhone apps, the DS holds its own. In the hands of two sets of artists, we find music that stands alone, independent of the gimmick of the device on which it was made. For these artists, the limitations of a fold-up touchscreen – entirely independent of doubling as a phone, or a computer, or a Facebook-browsing engine, or a powerful 64-bit DAW – apparently prove enticing. Beginning with Korg’s DS-10 cartridge, they use a stylus-operated software synth with its own unique character.

On some level, I almost hesitate to wax poetic about the fact that these were made with a Nintendo DS at all, because what these are, really, is love letters to synthesis.

And as it happens, both are available as free downloads from Bandcamp.

First up: AuxPulse is the duo of Rutger Muller and Michael Vultoo, based in Amsterdam and Kockengen, Netherlands, respectively. Late last year, they debuted their first album at Amsterdam’s prestgious Stedelijk Museum of modern art, playing a big set (two and a half hours) on small devices. Primarily employing the Nintendo DS, they nonetheless produce sounds that are rich and layered, sometimes even tending to the ambient exploration, not just the rawer chip-music sounds regularly associated with Nintendo handhelds.

Their music is trippy but danceable, unapologetically electronic, fully exploiting the DS-10′s idiosyncratic sonic character, one that’s slightly lower-fidelity than many soft synths (or even iPhone apps), without being “chippy” in the sense of retro devices. Dark textures collide with precise, clockwork rhythms, in sounds that sometimes tend to acid techno and sci fi game realms. (Lo-acid-fi, anyone?)

As you watch them live, you also see the value of the interface compositionally, both in terms of its pattern banks and its more conventional synth controls, all manipulated with the added precision of a stylus.

As they put it:

We aim to bring experimentation back to the dancefloor by expressing a psychedelic atmosphere through the use of a variety of rhythms and moods. Some of our inspirations are analogue synthesizers, acid, IDM, hardcore, gabber, ambient and oldschool electro.

Right now we mainly use the KORG DS-10 synthesizer for Nintendo DS to compose and improvise our music. When playing live we fuck with the synths as much as we can, trying to surprise ourselves with new sounds.

Our first album was recently released in Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam! Now we perform regularly, trying to open up some minds and move some feet.

The album, on Bandcamp:

And on SoundCloud:
Dream Stages (FREE ALBUM!) by AuxPulse

Bonus: an interview with them (in Dutch, naturally)

In a very different direction, Princeton, New Jersey-based DJ and producer Christian Montoya (love and tonic records) produces music on the DS-10 that’s drier and more exposed, as he programs intricate bass music on the unprocessed Nintendo cart. Christian works as a game designer by day, and channels some of the DS-10′s game music and so-called “chip music” heritage. The results, though, are a perfect marriage of game chip-waveform rawness, nude bass and synth and percussion sounds, and carefully-concocted grooves. For anyone concerned that game systems could hinder moving your butt out of the seat, this album is required listening. It’s utterly stripped-bare dance goodness – and it turns out the DS bass sounds fantastic.

Grab the record for free:

DS-10 users, got any tips for us on getting the most out of a Nintendo handheld and this KORG synth? Let us know.

Also, from comments but worth pointing out, Rutger directs us to good resources for getting the most out of DS-10:

If you’re interested in making DS-10 music you can check out http://www.ds10forum.com

I (Rutger, DS-10 Dominator, 1/2 of AuxPulse) run it with Harley (http://harleylikesmusic.com, superb DS-10 composer!) and we try to help out beginner’s and advanced users as much as we can.

Something I always appreciated about classical music training was learning to appreciate the particulars of each instrument, whether or not you played them yourself. A French Horn, for instance, is not an instrument without challenges: everything from tuning to balancing dynamic range to how you look when you add and remove muting can be demanding. And in technology – whether acoustic instrumental or digital – every design is about tradeoffs. You very often can’t get one thing without giving up something else. So I stand by the questions I asked about iPad synths in general last week, particularly as I had Moog’s own, brilliant analog synths and effects as a point of comparison. My aim was not to dismiss the iPad or Animoog – I was quite serious in my praise for Animoog and I think I’ve been reasonably committed to ongoing, often enthusiastic iPad coverage since its launch. Instead, I wanted to begin a conversation about how these tools are used as instruments that includes real critical discussion.

And that’s what I think we got. Readers responded en masse, and amidst some heated discussion (some of it having more to do with whether I’d lost my mind than the particular merits of Animoog), I thought there were some compelling points. I heard from developers, too, on and off the record, and I suspect this will continue to lead to experimentation in mobile software. I also really enjoyed Marc Doty’s impassioned response, which I thought raised some equally worthwhile questions about soft synths on computers. Incidentally, I also heard from a lot of people who went out and bought Animoog because they saw the story on CDM.

In the meantime, hordes of synth lovers have descended on Moog’s Animoog, making it very likely the most successful virtual iPad synth launch yet, at least in the traditional synthesizer mold.

Learning Animoog: The best of these videos is at top, a video tutorial as many readers had requested. Tip of the hat to Synthtopia here for following up on this issue. The video tutorial makes it really clear how to navigate Animoog’s deep and powerful synth interface. See also the official Moog tour at second from top for a speedier walkthrough.

Working out how to play it: Other videos investigate performance. One common theme with Animoog, and iOS apps in general, is whether you’ll focus primarily on the touch interface or external control hardware. Animoog applies a unique control solution to the touch UI, and one that many readers seem to feel is very effective. This gives you two principal advantages of the iPad as a tablet: you get the novel multi-touch controller, which allows gestures that something like a MIDI keyboard wouldn’t, and you retain the device’s superior mobility.

Mark Jenkins’ extensive video review really does the best job, I think, of examining the Animoog on its own terms, as a standalone iPad synth, using the multi-touch interface. I couldn’t possibly have topped the depth of this video review; kudos to Mark.

On the other hand, that won’t stop people from experimenting with adding an external interface. As our friend and MeeBlip co-creator James Grahame put it, the tactile experience of the iPad is the same as running your finger along a bathroom mirror. Instruments have frets and keys for a reason; tactile feedback allows you to play them without looking directly at them. So, I think it’s an advantage that iOS’ MIDI input hardware support at least gives you a choice. You still get a software instrument that runs on an instant-on tablet rather than buried in menus on a computer. And as readers point out, it’s affordable, though I’d say the cost of Animoog isn’t exactly “$1″ — you do have to buy that iPad and its dongles and keep it running, just as a computer requires care and feeding. Even if you only ever ran Animoog on your iPad, though, you’d be at the cost of a lot of low-end synths that are far less interesting in the hardware domain.

Geert Bevin has been talking to CDM behind the scenes – more on the Eigenharp soon — and I think has some real insights into comparing the iPad’s input and an external input. Like me, he has some good things to say about Animoog’s solution; he just suggests that you can have even more fun with an additional controller. A MIDI keyboard might well be disappointing, so enter the more-exotic Eigenharp. He also uses the Alesis iODock for better I/O capabilities; at least one reader via Twitter complained that the Animoog wasn’t “professional” because of the iPad’s poor built-in minijack. So, what you get in this rig is definitely not a “pure” iPad experience – you’re adding some weight and additional devices. But it might be one that you really enjoy, and that still gets you away from your MacBook for a bit.

This video gives a brief overview of the Animoog’s features and also shows how expressive it is when played with an Eigenharp Pico over MIDI using poly-pressure.

The Eigenharp and Animoog seems like a match made in heaven since the Eigenharp is able to send three independent detailed per-note performance data streams and the Animoog is able to react to this on a per-note level. Also, the visualization of the sound on the Animoog is marvelous, it gives a great representation of what your sound is doing.

The iPad is hooked up to my MacBook Pro using USB MIDI from the Alesis iODock, the Eigenharp Pico is also hooked up to the laptop and sends MIDI from the EigenD application to the ‘dock’ MIDI port. This uses a small MIDI-only Eigenharp Pico setup that loads very quickly and provides 16 MIDI playing keys with poly-pressure and three independent data streams for each key (pressure, left/right, up/down), as well as two 3D controller keys that are somewhat similar to little joysticks and are sending each three independent streams of MIDI CC data also.

The sound: A video compares audio fidelity of Animoog to the “real” thing — analog hardware. A number of commenters also noted that Animoog most likely uses sampled wavetables as its oscillator sources rather than modeling, but that approach can indeed yield good sounds. I’m not terribly surprised by the success of the Animoog in standing up to these other instruments; years of experience in soft synths suggests that you can get good results from virtual instruments. In fact, I remain more interested in what people actually do musically, and what about an instrument makes them happy more than splitting hairs about audio fidelity. If this video helps liberate you to go play with Animoog, have at it!

Synthesis, Still the Frontier: One closing thought: part of what interests me about synthesizers is that, even with a huge volume of music made with them and some generally-understood conventions, there are really no shared rules about how to play them. In acoustic instruments, there is at least a rough notion of certain folk traditions, or classical traditions, or “extended techniques” as something that stands apart from common practice. I think we’re still learning what the heck synths are.

Every aspect of the design of a synthesizer can therefore be fair game for consideration, including the spaghetti tangles of modular patch cords or the keyboard + mod wheel + pitch bend Minimoog-style arrangement. What synths are, how they might sound, and how we might play them and turn them into music remain open-ended. So, I hope that any criticism is not grounds for hand-wringing, as someone put it, but an added motivation to go and experiment and play. I know it is for me. Synth on.

Next up: we’re long overdue giving a look at the various iPad synths and how you might use them. Since Animoog isn’t the “first professional” synth, it’s time to line it up with some of its rivals. Unlike with a computer soft synth, though, you probably aren’t terribly concerned with outlay of cash; it may be a more “what are all of the synths you’d buy” question than comparing x, y, and z. If you have nominees you’d like to see explored, or ways in which you’d like to see us cover iOS (or anything else, for that matter), let us know. And remember, tell us what you really think — okay, I probably don’t have to say that. (ducks)

IK Multimedia this week is shipping both their SampleTank virtual instrument and iRig hardware MIDI interface for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. It’s not the first software instrument for iThings, but it is arguably the first appearance of a major, conventional computer soft synth in mobile form. MIDI interfaces, likewise, would require a comparison of some competing gear, but it’s the combination of the two in IK’s demo video that I think might give someone pause.

Music making tech has since the 1980s often involved some kind of computer. You might buy that computer in a piece of hardware that looks like a keyboard, or you might run software on a general-purpose computer. What has happened with Apple’s mobile devices is a third category. Observations:

1. Here’s a computer that’s a lot easier to fit on your music stand than a laptop is.
2. Here’s a demo that’s stunningly unchanged from what you might have done 20 years ago. (You’re even using the same hard-wired interface you were using 20+ years ago.)
3. This same instrument is more flexible and more powerful – though more challenging and time-consuming in setup – on a conventional computer. Of course, you may own both.

IK’s offerings:
SampleTank for iPhone / iPod touch
iRig MIDI interface, with Core MIDI compatibility for maximal application compatibility (including, incidentally, a recent update to Bjørk’s apps – more on that soon)

Side notes:

As for point 3, yes, a number of iOS developers are working now on routing MIDI between applications. It’s an interesting idea, but you have greater horsepower to run multiple applications simultaneously on, say, a MacBook Air than on an iPad 2, and I’m concerned that the mechanism for inter-app communication on iOS is not officially sanctioned by Apple. (I think those developers may be hoping that a critical mass of applications will protect them in the future, and there, they may be right.)

Another reality: all the fundamental technologies on which Apple are building, particularly the embedded platforms, are readily available. Challenging Apple in the consumer space is a massive challenge, as illustrated by the spectacular failure of some very awful – and some fairly nice – tablet entries in the last year or so. But building upon the same low-heat, low-power, low-cost, small-size boards could be something we see others do. (That’s a topic for another post, but worth considering while marveling at how much more convenient the form factor here is relative to a big, hinged laptop.)

It’s an interesting time – perhaps. The software isn’t really anything new. But convenience an make a small thing a big deal.

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:

Didier Dambrin, FL Studio’s original creator, has a new synth entitled Harmor that looks like one to watch. There’s a beautiful crop of new synthesizers this season that could have you yearning for a winter spent with long nights somewhere deep in the Northern Hemisphere, producing new music – see also, to name just one, Cakewalk’s Z3TA+ 2. (Both Harmor and Z3TA+ 2 are Windows-only, so time to boot up the PC or, Mac users, update that Boot Camp partition.) VSTi and native FL Studio support; US$149 but on sale this month for $99.

For some reason, releasing any synth right now involves demonstrating that the kids can make their wobble bass and dubstep with it, but I trust synthesists out there to do other things, too.

Introducing Harmor

Okay, I kind of buried the lead, but I wanted to give the synth its due.

Don’t want to boot into Boot Camp to run FL Studio?

This beta might interest you:
FL Studio for Mac Beta-Testers Wanted [Image Line forum]

Yes, you see that right: it’s FL Studio, aka Fruity Loops, running on the Mac platform. Synthtopia wonders if Hell froze over, but not so fast. Image-Line said they’d never build a Mac version of FL Studio. And they haven’t. The magic here is possible through Codeweavers Crossover, a commercial proprietary technology built on the open source tool WINE. Codeweavers already offers a standalone product that lets you run a variety of Windows (and Linux) software on the Mac, based on the same tech that lets you run Windows software on Linux. Here, Image-Line reports that there’s some additional customization and testing and tweaking that lets this run without further intervention on your part. (WINE can work beautifully, but there are various compatibility wrinkles with specific software – Image-Line and Crossovers have evidently worked specifically on making FL Studio function properly.)

WINE, the underlying technology, is an emulator but not in the sense of a virtual machine, which is how most Windows compatibility tools are implemented. It’s actually a re-implementation of Windows APIs. See WINE myths for more. That means that, once fully tested, FL Studio can run as well on the Mac as on Windows. What you won’t get is Mac-native APIs, meaning the resulting software won’t behave terribly like a typical Mac program. But FL Studio, like much music software, tends to behave in its own way, anyway, so I don’t actually believe that’s a huge deal. Updated: I realize I should say that compatibility issues or unpredictable behavior can be a big deal; I’ll be interested to see if the Mac experience can replicate the Windows experience or you’ll want to still reboot.

If you want to give this a try – and help ensure the quality of the release – beta testers are wanted. See the forum link above.

- MIDI sync has been improved when Live is a MIDI clock slave
- Imported tracks (from the Live Browser) now route to Master if their original output routing can’t be resolved, instead of “Sends Only.”
- The default for the Takeover mode in the MIDI Preferences is now Value Scaling instead of Pick-up.
- We now prevent choosing the root of the system hard drive (or the Windows system folders on Windows machines) as the third-party plugin location. Doing that would crash Live on startup, because these folders contain files that are interpreted as third-party plugins.

Registered users can download the new release from the Ableton site.

Also, Ableton quietly introduced a new Support site with searchable direct Q&A.

Okay, since dot releases aren’t terribly thrilling, let’s use this an excuse to check out some artists. Christian Andersen, aka XI talks working with the Operator synth and shares some custom patches; Bruce Pronsato chats Resonator (one of my favorites, going back to the pre-Ableton AAS days).

We’re still working on catching up with Nicolas Jaar himself, especially after some comments, without much context, caused controversy. (See our previous coverage, which I personally still think points to a pretty good video!) But here’s more on Mr. Jaar’s live performance approach, and how he’s set up Ableton with live band and vocals. Some nice stuff; it’s always great to get some live band performance, and something that dates back to the origins of Ableton Live.

By the way, speaking of Operator, here’s a terrific-looking download of Operator patches, accompanying live clips, and tutorial videos, all for the absurdly-low price of $10. Samples:

Operator Ambience Vol. 1 by nickmaxwell

20 Operator Patches. 20 Live Clips. 21 Videos. Inspiration + Education In 1 Pack! [Nick's Tutorials]

Heck, I may give myself the day off from being the one writing the tutorials and doing the sound design and check it out myself. Nick’s been doing great stuff.

God Bless Russian engineering. As of this summer, it’s the only ticket to and from our space station, via a capsule that Just Works. It gaves us the very first electronic instrument (thanks, Professor Theremin). And it gives us an insane music tracker slash production tool slash soft synth selection slash modular hosting environment that runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, Palm, Windows Mobile (yes, you’re reading this list right), and now iOS and iPad.

Well, don’t just thank Russian engineering. Thank Alex Zolotov, who sends along his latest work. Highlights:

• Waveform drawing
• A drum synth
• Sample recording
• Side chain compression (top)
• iPad MIDI keyboard support (second from top)

Fortunately, if you’re not a mad scientist, we’ve got a lineup of videos that show you what all of this does and how to get started with this eminently affordable, insanely powerful tool. (Cue someone complaining in comments that they can’t read the interface, etc. Uh… well, you can’t have everything, eh? Bifocals?)

And in case you don’t believe this is a music tool, we even have some music created in it. (Actually creating digital music – interesting.)

Now, let’s Crash Adobe Flash(TM) with a bunch of videos:

More New Features

Where to Start

And yes, even where to start performing live on an iPhone / iPod touch:

More video tutorials:

SunVox Video Tutorials @ warmplace.ru Forum

Official SunVox page:
http://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/

Developer Alex Zolotov has been producing fascinating experiments for the iPhone. Today, we’re covering updates to Alex’s SunVox production tool, on iOS and desktop alike, but this pair of iOS tools deserves its own post. I could try to describe them, but there’s little to say that can’t be clearly seen in the video: you draw sounds, in spectral form (bottom) and waveform view (top), in order to produce synths graphically. The idea isn’t new, of course, but it’s beautifully implemented here in a way that’s immediate and sonically rich.

Below, one other recent iOS creation, SoundFields, which also takes on fascinating graphical approaches to sound.

The apps:
SoundFields [warmplace.ru]
SpectrumGen [iTunes App Store]
PixelWave [iTunes App Store]

Off topic, but a terrific way to waste time not making music from Alex – and a great audiovisual experience, to boot. (Call it “homework” researching sound and image or something.) Pixel Cave [Windows, Linux, Palm, Windows Mobile, iOS - that link also links to another interesting tracker]