Commercial music producer Benn Jordan (recording as The Flashbulb) stumbled upon David Attenborough’s 1984 documentary series that was, in the creator’s words, “more in touch with nature than any other.” Along with the BBC he and his crew geared up for the endeavor–and they would risk their lives and careers to do so. The result, a TV series called “The Living Planet.” From Wikipedia:

Among the most difficult places, in terms of logistics, was the Sudan, where the crew had to be flown in — despite there being no runways or indeed roads. Conversely, areas such as the Himalayas permitted no transportation at all, so the only option was to walk. In South America, a shortage of boats led to one cameraman having to push his equipment in a rubber dinghy, while he himself swam behind it.

Some subjects proved even more challenging: the production team had to wait two years for news to arrive of an erupting volcano, and had to suspend all other filming in the hope that it would still be alight when they reached it. Elsewhere, cameraman Hugh Miles had to put himself 25 yards (23 m) away from a polar bear in order to film it in close-up.

Benn loved the concept and the film, but said, “the only thing I’m not in love with about this series is the music. A bit too minimal and synthy when perhaps a more cinematic approach is needed.” Taking it upon himself to re-invision the soundtrack, Benn–along with opener and visualist Polyfuse–will re-create live the score to the the first of The Living Planet series: “The Building Of The Earth.”

For this particular live-scoring Benn will DJ the cues to the movie in Traktor with a cue sheet and SMTPE code in front of him. Next month will involve a higher degree of actual instrumentation involving musicians with strings.

It’s a free show at Sonotheque, 1444 W. Chicago Ave in Chicago. The performance starts at 9:30 and will run for an hour, after which Benn will DJ.

Here’s the original video, so you can hear what Benn is refering to by “minimal and synthy”:

And here’s a clip from Benn showing his version:

Benn Jordan Re-envisions The Living Planet
Benn Jordan Re-envisions The Living Planet

Even online, words have a tendency to linger long after you write them. And I recognize that the risk here is not only what those words mean to me, but others, too. So I want to revisit a topic today in the interest of moving forward.

I wrote a kneejerk post earlier in the life of CDM about MonoTouchLive, a single-touch interface with UI widgets inspired by JazzMutant’s Lemur. MonoTouchLive was (and is) Windows-only, standalone software for controlling Ableton Live. It’s now free of cost.

I’ll be honest: in my original post, I overreacted, and I didn’t choose my words as carefully as I should have. Some regular readers called me out on it at the time. Since that time, I’ve tried to be more careful. Some comment threads referred back to it, though, and the developer, Pablo Martin, has continued to push his tool and has been outspoken about not liking what I wrote.

It’s now clear to me that I can’t just let this go, as Mr. Martin today has posted a multi-page diatribe focused largely on my short, now nearly three-year-old blog post.

A little of JUSTICE please

To be clear: I got carried away. I have since come to the realization that copying – loosely or closely – isn’t such a bad thing. They’re a learning process, and if something really is original, it does tend to shine through.

Also, to my knowledge, Mr. Martin is correct: the layout on the Lemur was apparently a mock-up to show what the Lemur would look like if configured with the layout of the MonoTouchLive. I incorrectly said that both the widgets and layout had been copied, as I misunderstood the image I saw. Axou created that design as part of a thread with some complaints about the similarity to the Lemur widgets, but I now try to make CDM less like a quick forum post.

For everyone who thought Twitter was just about “i m eating a ham sandwich lolz,” the desire to use connectivity to actually be connected continues to win out in unexpected ways. So far this month, we already saw the use of Max/MSP. Now, Twitter is showing up in the geeky, open source sound tool SuperCollider and in DJ sets in Traktor by Richie Hawtin.

Tweet a Sound, to the Max

First, some updates on Tweet a Sound, the sound design tool in Max that lets you share synth presets.

Creator Andrew Spitz has an updated story on adding a cleaned-up subpatch to Max/MSP. It uses the Ruby programming language to access the Twitter API. (You should be able to port to Pd, too – I have to look closer at this.) Correction: Ruby is implemented as JRuby, so it runs on the Java virtual machine – and there is a Java implementation for both Max (mxj) and Pd (pdj)

This means, if you’ve got a Mac or Windows copy of Max/MSP, you can now send Tweets from your patches. And that should open up still more possibilities when Max for Live becomes available, for Ableton fans.

How To Send A Tweet From Max/MSP { sound + tutorial }

Even if you’re skeptical about Twitter per se, if you’re interested in using Ruby and Max, this should be a good starting place for other APIs, too.

Friends of mine like Francis Preve have gone utterly nuts for this.

MOTU is now shipping Volta, the software plug-in seen exclusively here on CDM at the beginning of the year. The Mac-only plug-in finally brings together two distant technologies: virtual software instruments and control voltage are together at last. (You can just forget all about that MIDI and digital business in the middle.) With it, everything from Moog guitar pedals to the Rolls of modern synths, the mind-bogglingly pricey Buchla 200e, can be easily controlled with a computer rig.

You know that cheezy Disney movie, with the astronaut in King Arthur’s Court? It’s sort of like that, as the 21st Century meets the 1960s.

Volta isn’t just about having more flexible control, either: calibration, routing, and automation all become possible.

For more details, it’s best to look back at our January interview with Matthew Davidson of MOTU, as he revealed this creation to the world:

Analog, Meet Digital: MOTU Volta Connects the Mac to CV Synths, Effects Graphically

Pricing is now final, as well, at US$249.

More tutorials and details at MOTU:

http://www.motu.com/products/software/volta/

The key requirement: “An audio interface with DC-coupled outputs, such as any MOTU FireWire, USB2, or PCI audio interface with quarter-inch TRS outputs.” I believe that also includes the RME interfaces. Correction: at this point, I’m unsure which non-MOTU interfaces may work. But if you don’t own one of those interfaces, now’s an excellent excuse to buy a fantastic piece of gear. 

Sadly, Volta require an iLok for authorization. Okay, whoever is out there who would buy something like a 200e or a rack of Doepfers, then pirate this software, you and I need to have a little talk. (I’ve seen stranger things, however.)

I can look on at all of this with a sense of awe and mystery, because I’m staying in the digital realm these days. But you can check out extensive discussion on our previous story of how useful this is, and other ways of creating the effect (albeit less-elegant ones). Apparently Trash Audio already grabbed the domain createanalogmusic.com out of spite, though that means I’m safe from getting sucked into your addiction, analog lovers.

Volta and the Buchla 200e from Matthew Davidson on Vimeo.

Vocoding Voices in Live 8 from Bjorn Vayner on Vimeo.

Continuing our growing collection of Live 8 video tutorials, our friend Bjorn of Covert Operators sends over a terrific tutorial on making use of the vocoder. Now, unlike the “misuse” tutorials we’ve been running, this is actually how this effect is designed to be used. On the other hand, if you’re still interested in misuse – and you’re not terribly interested in conventional effects – this can be a great way to wrap your head around the tool’s proper function, before you start warping it in another direction.

I think it’ll be fantastic having a vocoder ready to use, and if you haven’t played with a software vocoder, Live 8 should be a nice place to start. If any of you take this in another direction, do let us know.

Covert Operators has a whole bunch of downloads, tips, and tricks some available cheap, some free.