Can you approach a symphony orchestra as though it’s an analog synth? That’s a question composers have asked since the first time they heard electronic sounds. It’s impossible to hear the 20th-century technology alongside the 19th-century technology without the one reframing your view of the other. Now, it will be tackled by the new album from composer/singer/violinist Owen Pallett, with an interesting cast of characters onboard, plus one imaginary ultra-violent farmer.

Ed.: It’s more than nostalgia that drives the dedicated chip musician with their modified Nintendo instruments. As guest writer Vijith Assar learned while interviewing Anamanaguchi, some more elemental love of digital synthesis leads these artists to deal with esoteric hardware and crashing homebrewed software. Vijith covered Anamanaguchi for New York’s Village Voice, but this trio had far more geeking than could fit in the free weekly’s pages. The band’s front man and songwriter, flanked by talented NES hacker bandmates, muses on the technology and artistic process – and on why, yes, the act did have to start with blowing on the cartridges. (Surprised?) -PK

I recently had a chance to chat with Anamanaguchi, who would probably be the boy-band teen idols of the chiptune world if the scene were to tolerate such things. Lead songwriter Pete Berkman opened up about his creative process and the digital speed bumps he hits along the way, and guitarist Ary Warnaar is on another planet when it comes to working with Game Boy synths like LSDJ and Nanoloop, but the most freakish technical bits came from bassist James DeVito. He wrote later to describe in detail the customized hardware he’s cobbling together for use on tour, which so far has involved modding the Nintendo for multiple outputs, each with a bolted-on 1/4″ jack and volume knob, and integrating a tiny high-res screen lifted from a PlayStation. He’s even considering a built-in controller for the next version.

The iPhone and iPod touch are getting more in the way of playable software instruments that could ease its transformation into a handheld idea-capturing gadget. noise.io lays claim to being the first full-featured soft synth on the platform, with unusual FM synthesis control – and I still like the fact that it isn’t anything like most soft synths on your PC. And of course there have been beat machines like the surprisingly capable Intua BeatMaker drum machine/suite. On mobile platforms, though, the more the merrier – especially given the bargain-basement prices. So I’m pleased to see the likes of noise.io and Beatmaker joined by two recent apps.

Released today, iSyn is a mini-suite of music apps released by online retailer AudioMIDI.com and a known quantity in soft synth design — VirSyn, makers of Tera and Cube. I’m giving this a try now, but the feature list looks impressive:

• Touchable drum pads, keyboard
• Three-track sequencer: two virtual analog synth tracks, one drum track
• Programmable virtual analog synths with tilt, X/Y pad for modulation control
• Sample playback drum machines pre-loaded with 808, 909, synth drums, other retro kits

It’s a little vanilla compared to noise.io – though the more conventional UI may be welcome to some for the same reason. It’s apparently missing the ability to use your own drum sets as on the iDrum app (with the desktop app) and Beatmaker. But it nonetheless looks promising, even a little reminiscent of the Korg DS-10 for Nintendo DS in presenting a simple combination of 2 synths and 1 kit.

Oh, yeah — and it’s a quite-reasonable $4.99.

Full information, videos, forum and such at the app site:

iSynApp.com

A Strummable Virtual Guitarist

(Ocarina killer? Hmmm… Amidio / Smule smackdown, perhaps?)

In a different vein, Star Guitar, from the makers of noise.io, simulates a guitar in software, down to passable imitation of the sound and strumming patterns. Tap the chords you want, choose a style and timbre, and Star Guitar produces accompaniment that’s more than good enough to noodle with song ideas. It could be a huge boon to songwriters, especially with mic input for iPhone and second-gen iPod touch.

Speaking as a sometimes-music-journalist, I’ve always had the sneaking suspicion that we were all part of a vast conspiracy. Our job can become wrapping big-name artists into a polished, glamorous narrative. There are small nods to humanizing them, of course, but the message can quickly become: this person is special and different from you, this is the person you should want to be or want to consume, and as a result you’ll buy our magazine. I’ve never believed that myself, and I do believe a lot of great music writing is something very different, but there’s always that danger looming somewhere in the background.

Of course, now it’s 2009. We’re nowadays broadcasting minute details of our lives in real time, blurring the line between celebrity and nobody. We have all become a kind of text-only cinema verité. It can be downright scary to expose yourself that way, even as a non-celebrity. But then, in the occasional high-quality corner of a service like Twitter, something extraordinary happens: the little, insignificant moments of your life can actually prove to be what you want them to be. “Live each day like it’s your last” becomes “live each day like you’ll be pleased to read about it, even 140 characters at a time.”

Combine a really gifted creative imagination with a special kind of personal insight, and Twitter tells the side of a story a music journalist can’t: the day-to-day life of making music. Imogen Heap has been unusually generous with her Tweets. Following her Twitter feed, I think you’ll find new appreciation for her as a person and an artist, and also some of the ways all of us can work through day-to-day creative challenges and juggling to actually make music. It demonstrates that a world in which artists live-broadcast what they’re doing (but in the right quantities, and with the right attitudes) could be more utopia than dystopia.

Oh yeah, and thank God there’s a musician who drinks coffee sometimes and not just tea, and who gets a little wired.

Apple’s GarageBand is a powerful tool for recording MIDI and audio and arranging loops. It can be puzzling to songwriters, though, because it doesn’t really understand chord changes. Sure, you can transpose MIDI loops or (more problematically) audio, but that process is a bit clunky and rarely sounds right. Many beginner-level GarageBand songs (especially by students) simply stay in one big, long I chord for an entire piece, which, by astounding coincidence, is what I sound like playing guitar. (Come on, I went to the trouble of getting my fingers on these frets — now you want me to move them? Where’s a piano? I’m through.)

Enter ChordStudio, an entirely Web-based tool that takes the opposite approach. Running entirely in a browser, the free Web app presents a blank score and lets you construct song structures with chords. Behind the scenes, 30,000 loops seamlessly render those chords into something that actually sounds like music. You can control the mix with common instruments, including electric guitars, bass, drums, piano, and electric piano.

The results are very simple, but I can see them being very useful. Aside from making it fun for a beginner with limited computer and/or music skills to put together basic song structures, it’s not hard to imagine someone using this as a quickie web tool on the road to get an idea down. It’s no GarageBand killer, of course — it’s just a simple Web interface — but if you like the loops, you can purchase them as a US$99 DVD and use them with GarageBand or your favorite looping app of choice.

ChordStudio.com

Web applications are unlikely ever to replace dedicated, standalone music and audio applications, because these applications by definition require an intimate relationship with your computer’s hardware. But that doesn’t mean the Web won’t be a place for some simple, useful ideas to complement standalone apps. Previously:

Tune Your Guitar Via the Web, with Free Tuner and Instructions