As you may know, the creators of games like Grand Theft Auto have collaborated with Timbaland to bring a mobile music studio to Sony’s PSP (and later, the iPhone), based on an ambitious free Flash experiment on their Website. Now, it’s my impassioned belief that you shouldn’t need lots of canned loops or celebrity endorsements to make music fun, so normally I might actually run the opposite direction of any story starting with that line. But here’s the surprise: underneath, the app is more powerful than I expected.

I’ve gotten an early preview of the title in person at Rockstar’s offices here in New York, and was also able to grill their developers on geeky details of how the sound engine is put together. A test copy isn’t yet available so I can’t properly review the app, but I am at least able to talk about some of what lies beneath the PSP screens and marketing.

For some time, a select few have known that the Sony PSP’s secret is that it’s a powerful handheld computer, ideal for mobile music. Brilliant-but-underground apps like PSPSEQ and PSP Rhythm capitalized on this potential, but required you hack your PSP in order to run them, because Sony restricts launching non-authorized applications from memory.

Beaterator is the first full-featured app that can be run directly on the PSP. Some people may not look past the fact that it comes from a game company, past its (admittedly) thick layer of marketing glitz and celebrity endorsement. But based on a first look, I believe Beaterator is the most powerful music app ever released through game channels, surpassing in functionality even the recent cult hit Korg DS-10 for the Nintendo DS.

In the interest of disclosure, I have a confession: I didn’t expect to have any interest in Beaterator at all. I was concerned that the musical experience would be watered down (though more on what I actually discovered below). The fact that this game had one artist – Timbaland – literally dancing around the screen talking about how it’s his game I thought would be a deal killer. And, of course, it’ll be impossible to talk about this game without the shadow of the “Acidjazzed Evening” controversy, which aleges Timbaland plagiarized music by Finnish composer Janne Suni – made worse by a lawsuit and a glib interview in which the artist responded, “It’s from a video game, idiot.” Timbaland is by no means the first artist to get into trouble with an uncleared sample, but the fact that it was a much lesser-known artist and that the situation was handled less than gracefully certainly created a credibility issue in the enthusiast community.

I bring those issues up front, because I know readers will bring them up. But what intrigues me about Beaterator is that it has an essentially split personality. At one moment, Beaterator is an animated Timbaland talking to you while you trigger canned loops with game buttons, neither game nor, really, a music creation app. At another moment, though, it’s a full-blown music sequencer you can carry around on your PSP, with some retro design and sound features that might actually make it appealing. And I think it’d be unfair to cover one side without the other.

The marketing for Beaterator focuses on the thousands of loops assembled by Timbaland and Rockstar. But Beaterator isn’t limited to those loops. What you likely won’t see emphasized in the gaming press:

• Sampling: You can make your own samples using the mic (or, if you can find it, you can add a PSP microphone)
• Audio import: You can import WAV files from a computer, as easily as dropping them onto a MemoryStick.
• Audio export: You can save your work as an audio file. Rockstar will have its own site for exchanging your music with other users, but that will be limited to the built-in effects (I’m guessing so they don’t have to police piracy). But that won’t stop you from exporting audio on your MemoryStick and using it however you like.
• MIDI import and export: While even many serious iPhone games lack this functionality, you can use Beaterator as a mobile MIDI editing workstation.
• Grown-up interface and effects: Beaterator has real audio effects, with real labels. The Compressor has labels like Gain and Ratio, instead of, you know, “Phatness” or “AMPMEUP.” It’s a clue that this really is a tool and not a game.
• It’s-a-me … not! Game cartoon character heads never appear in the interface – though I do have to admit, those Mario Paint Mario noteheads were cute. (For the PSP, might I suggest semidemiquavers with the face of Kratos?)

I love my desktop sequencers, but having these kinds of features in a comfortable-to-hold mobile device you take anywhere, being able to fly through settings with the PSP buttons, and lots of little details added by the Rockstar developers like confining pattern editing to scales and keys make Beaterator look like something that’ll be fun to use. After a couple of minutes, I was ready to charge up my PSP and fire up Beaterator alongside PSPSEQ.

Inside Beaterator’s Engine

Beaterator began several years ago on Rockstar’s website. Before making full-blown music production tools with Flash was popular, before the idea of “cloud editing” had become a buzzword, a side project at Rockstar yielded a free Flash game, which you can still play. The interface is loop-based and reminiscent of tools like ACID, GarageBand, and Fruity Loops. But it’s surprisingly minimal, capable of full-blown pattern and loop editing, includes real-time effects, and comes with a selection of loops from some of my all-time favorite producers – A.VEE & 3D, Juan Atkins, King Britt, Matthew Dear, and Steinski. Side note: please, Rockstar, can we have a custom version of Beaterator with those producers?

http://beaterator.rockstargames.com/beaterator.html

Having talked to mobile developers both big and indie, I was curious about the technical details of Beaterator’s implementation – especially after being impressed in a short demo by capabilities that went beyond what I had expected. Rockstar replied with some very particular details from the developers. I think the answers say a lot about what’s possible on the PSP – even with that iPhone version in the works – and how a handheld sequencer on mobile hardware can be put together.

PK: So, I see eight tracks, some effects – what are the capabilities of the underlying audio engine in Beaterator?

Rockstar: Our engine runs at 16-bit stereo, 22.05kHz throughout. As you say, there are 8 tracks, each of which each can have up to two insert effects* summed into a stereo mix. Each track also has a stereo pre-fader Send to a dedicated reverb buss which runs a global reverb unit which is also added into the output. The channel level, pans, aux send and all effects parameters can be automated to 1-bar resolution, as can the final mix output level, pan, and the global reverb parameters. At any given time, each of the 8 tracks can be playing either a sample-based Melody/Drum loop (with 8 channel polyphony), a monophonic synth melody loop, or a mono/stereo timestretched audio loop.

Our sequencer also supports 8 channels, at 4ppqn. The maximum song length is 240 bars, and we are fixed to 4/4 time. BPM ranges from 60-300, and there is a simple 16th-note swing control as well.

The insert effects we support are: Compressor, Chorus, Delay, Distortion, 3-band EQ, Multimode Resonant Filter, Flanger, Noise Gate, Phaser & Tremolo.

A lot of the editing (aside from vocals, really) appears to be in MIDI pattern editing. Is this always triggering a sampled instrument, or is there live synthesis / DSP going on under the hood at all? (I know the PSP is capable of such things.) Do you have any control over the timbre of the instruments, or just the musical patterns?

We trigger either our pitched sample playback code or our own DSP synthesiser on a channel. The sample playback code is a fairly simple 8-voice (which means a theoretical maximum polyphony of 64 if you are playing 8 samples on each of the 8 channels) pitchshifter (no multisampling), with no real control of timbre (no filters). But it does support velocity sensitivity (although this has to be sequenced as the PSP buttons aren’t velocity sensitive) and a full ADSR amplitude envelope.

The inbuilt synth is monophonic (but you can run one per channel, so up to 8 in theory). It’s a simple 3-oscillator Virtual Analog design. Each oscillator has a smoothly-morphable waveshape from Sine, through Triangle, Sawtooth, Square and finally to 10% Pulse) and has independent +/-2 octave pitch and +/-1 semitone detune controls. There is also a separate white-noise generator. The synth also has its own multimode resonant filter (24dB/octave Low Pass, 12dB/octave Low Pass, 12dB/octave Band Pass, 12dB/octave High Pass and 24dB/octave Low Pass modes) with controllable keyboard tracking. There are two ADSR envelope generators, one locked to amplitude controls, and the other freely assignable to the modulation matrix. There are also two LFOs with multiple shapes and speeds. These three modulation sources can be freely assigned to any of the 14 modulation destinations, which amounts to 42 modulation slots. Unfortunately, none of the parameters of the synth can be automated.

Pattern editing in Beaterator does not use MIDI internally – The game is locked to 4ppqn on a five-octave keyboard, and the melody notes use a unique pitch bend/portamento technique which doesn’t map directly onto MIDI pitch bend events. However, we can import and export MIDI files with a reasonable degree of accuracy, which is a feature we think will be particularly useful.

I’m already impressed by some of the editing capabilities – I was surprised to see a brief glimpse of envelope rubber-banding. Any other specifics you want to talk about in terms of editing possibilities?

As explained above, we have ADSR envelope control throughout, and we are particularly proud of our Synthesizer. Our sound waveform editor supports most of the normal editing tools you would expect (trim, insert silence, normalisation), and also allows you to set up sustain regions for the sample playback engine, timestretch and slice the waveform.

Okay, so let’s imagine I’ve got a bunch of audio loops on my drive and want to do, effectively, what Timbaland did with his loops. Do you have as much control over authoring loops for Beaterator as Rockstar? Are there limitations on this feature?

You can freely import and edit any 44.1kHz or 22.05kHz mono or stereo uncompressed 16-bit WAV into Beaterator (we have 9MB of sample memory available in any one song). You can edit these however you like (indeed we use these tools ourselves to generate content).

Do you need to prepare your loops at a fixed bpm? If I bring in a 120 bpm loop and change the tempo to 144, does my loop stretch? (If it’s doing stretching, the audio warping engine sounds really fantastic!)

We do timestretch loops to match the songs tempo (but this can be disabled if desired). You can also over-stretch sounds for that early-90s “granular timestretch” effect. Thanks for the compliments on our warping engine too!

I’ve got a soft spot for 90s digital, I think. What was the emphasis of the Rockstar team in terms of their samples and musical genres?

The focus was on loops that could work well with most genres. We like to think you can create songs from Rock to Rap with the selection we present.

Is it (You) Live, or is it Timbaland?

Beaterator gets at the heart of what’s happening with the way music creation is packaged in a digital age. Rockstar contrasted their title with things that are “games,” like the Rock Band/Guitar Hero mold that was refined by Harmonix. Rockstar emphasizes creative music creation and deemphasizes gaming. At the same time, they pack the title with pre-made loops and are concerned about whether what you do will easily sound good, or whether you’ll be overwhelmed by the genuinely powerful tools underneath. Beaterator, unlike Rock Band, is not about playing along with your favorite artists – but clearly Rockstar is betting that Timbaland is a favorite artist of prospective buyers, and that you will try to sound like him and use his loops. Rock Band makes no such attempt to be creative. The Beatles, coming out next week, is about playing along with the Beatles. (I recall singing along with my sister when we were kids, and I was someone who grew up taking weekly piano lessons.) Yet the “game” in this case does just the opposite – instead of trying to be easier, the whole selling point is a ramped difficulty curve. Maybe the reason studies are showing people graduating from Rock Band to real instruments is that, eventually, if you seek out difficulty, you need to go beyond the game. (Actual instruments: they’re the ultimate expansion pack.)

It’s a paradox, but it’s not a paradox restricted to gaming. You can take the conflict above and apply it to the way all music technology is marketed. On one hand, you have software that’s almost comically complex – sometimes offering so many options that it’s hard even for people with doctoral-level training in digital signal processing to make actual music. On the other, from many of the same vendors, you have pre-built loop libraries and presets with push-button simplicity, requiring less musical coordination or rhythm than, well, Rock Band on Easy mode.

All of us, like our technology, have a split personality when we use digital tech. But maybe the ultimate question is a simple one: can you make something?

I’ll reserve that question in regards to Beaterator until I get a final version. I was set to take a development build home with me, but I do have to wait until the final release. I do think these are interesting questions, though.

Oh, and say what you will about Timbaland, but animated Timbaland has some sort of nuclear control panel that he uses to DJ from. I want a real one. Surplus shopping, anyone?

Stay tuned for a look at the finished product. If fans of mobile game music were willing to use Mario Paint to get an extremely basic song editor, I think Beaterator could be a revelation. And in addition to looking at music production in Beaterator well beyond what might qualify as “Rock” or “Rap,” I think it’s long overdue for a guide to the other independent apps for the PSP. (In fact, I just got a new one in my inbox), so watch for that, too, in a separate story.

Videos from Rockstar (all images and videos are of the PSP version, not the iPhone)…

Now, I talk too much. The best way to make my argument? Listen to the kids. Their favorite feature: recording their own voice.

I rest my case.

July 1, 1979: it was thirty years ago today that the Sony Walkman went on sale, launching mobile music for the first time.

Wait – rewind (so to speak). That honor really belongs to the portable transistor radio – and, indeed, part of the reason America already knew and loved Sony by the time 1979 rolled around, having embraced their pocketable radios as early as the 1950s. In fact, if you want to blame a device for degrading audio fidelity, you should again look not to MP3s and iPods but back to — you guessed it — the same transistor radio.

But no matter. The Walkman did popularize carrying your own music collection with you. It was not only about mobility, but mobile music collections free of airwaves, mix tapes and the experience of walking around the city or doing a workout with your own personally-assembled soundtrack. It turned everyone into DJs and made the music something that could easily bounce around inside your head rather than around your living room or a music venue. The Walkman and not the iPod might also have to carry the burden of claims that music was made antisocial – but it also made for a uniquely personal experience.

And do we ever love cassettes, with their ability to accommodate our own mixes and recordings and stack in neat cubes.

True, the link that’s making the rounds on the Web parodies the clueless 13-year-old child of the iPod age:
Giving up my iPod for a Walkman [BBC News]

This comes from a different planet than the one on which we live on CDM. In this world, snarky 13-year-olds have no idea what the metal/normal switch does, and the zinger is “Did my dad, Alan, really ever think this was a credible piece of technology?” Okay, you snot-nosed brat, it’s a good thing global warming will revert us all to a primitive Stone Age existence and you won’t have to suffer the fate of technological advancement. PS – your dad says never to call him Alan again. (I kid, kid, really. Just can’t resist.)

Of course, on our planet some 13-year-old is probably assembling his or her own cassette player out of spare parts and turning it into a circuit-bent DJ machine, and knows the entire history of the Sony Walkman by model number, and can tell you which factory assembled your old broken model based on the serial number. In that demented spirit, I invite readers to share your own Walkman memories, and offer up a selection of my favorite cassette-themed posts from CDM (of which, I was surprised to discover, there are quite a lot).

I won’t even try to summarize the history of the Walkman, because I have no idea what it is, and Wikipedia has beaten me to the punch.

CDM on Cassettes

The best story of all time: Eric Beug on how to make a Mellotron sampler entirely out of Walkmans, as seen at an early Handmade Music with CDM, Make Magazine, and Etsy. See MAKE:blog for the full post.

The best-ever cassette quote: from experimental DJ Artjom (DIY machines and Max patches below):

Yes, you can contact with me. But, if you would want that I played on your party on cassettes, then I refuse. I do not play on cassettes any more. In general, I don’t want play in the club, because people come there to drink and to search partner for copulate. This is bad.

The best day for cassettes: when we read RIAA numbers that showed that DVD Audio and SACD combined were still matched by cassette sales. Some new formats catch on. Some do not.

Cassette tapes (and other tape media) as a way of making lo-fi samples:

Free Tape-Recorded Samples of Roland TR-606, 808

Cassettes for uses silly and uses practical alike:

Cassette Change Purse; Choosing Cassette Decks with Pitch Control

In other words, cassettes can be entirely useless and about nostalgia only — or they can remain a useful and inspiring musical tool even for digital users, helping you get out of your rut and approach sound in a new way.

Cassette Jockeys at the 2007 Maker Faire

The work of DJ Artyom, who assembled DIY DJ gear using cassette tapes for a unique sound and mixing techniques:

Homemade Cassette Tape DJ Mixers + Max/MSP PC

An international collective shares mix tapes – the physical tapes, yes, even in the Internet age

Above: Andy Warhol shills for TDK. Video cassette tape, to be sure – but sublime nonetheless. If I had to remember my Japanese lines, I might have to close my eyes, too.

Tape collections:
The brilliant Project C-90
The Obsessive “Tape Jam”

Walkman Sequencer: Tape + Homebrew Sequencer + Nintendo Game Boy

Gijs Gieskes is a master circuit bender, and cassette is a favorite medium. Check out his Tape Seq 02, which varies cassette playback using controllable pots and synchronizes to a Game Boy. It’s an analog result that’s only possible in this way with tape as the playback technology.

Put a cassette deck inside a Windows PC (sadly, this product appears to be discontinued?)

You Tell Us

Nostalgia is one thing. But what to you have the cassette and the Sony Walkman meant for music? And is there anything these youngsters (well, anyone younger than … 20, I guess?) could learn about this technology? Is there a lesson from the Walkman?

Above: You know a technology makes an impact when it has its own graffiti. The cult of the cassette, as captured (CC) hugovk.

Wired has a great mini-documentary on the score for the videogame Infamous. It’s chock full of sound design ear candy, not only served by the chops of composer Amon Tobin but the team at Sony Music and Sony’s entertainment division, as well. Curiously, Jonathan Mayer, Music Manager at SCEA, says explicitly that he doesn’t want composers writing interactive music. He’d prefer to have them write a conventional score and then adapt it to the interactive engine. Now, of course, around these parts we like the idea of composers finding ways to write genuinely generative and interactive scores. But in this case, Mayer is acting as a kind of remix artist for the game realm, sampling Tobin’s compositions and reconceiving them in the game world. That kind of collaboration could be powerful.

Chuck Doug, SCEA music director, overstates things a bit by claiming this game has a unique aesthetic. The visuals are a burnt-out, post apocalyptic city – yeah, been there quite a few times. The music involves lots of ethnic percussion-y instruments and bowed metal and deep booming sounds. (Let me get this straight: we’ll hear a plucky stringy thing, then a bowedy metally thing, then there will be a big boom!) So, generally, not some radical new departure from game and motion soundtracks. But regardless of its novelty, I’d be an utter killjoy to complain: it sounds utterly gorgeous.

Previously:

I got to listen in on a lot of gems regarding sound design from composer Troels Folmann. He doesn’t just bow metal instruments – he boils them.

GDC: Boiling Waterphones and Other Sonic Inspirations from Composer Troels Folmann

And on the subject of getting composers to write interactively, Matt Ganucheau has been teaching that way:

Teaching Adaptive Music with Games: Unity + Max/MSP, Meet Space Invaders!

The urgency of being way behind a single dominant player can make electronics makers do some odd stuff to promote their products. iPod, once an icon of digital cool, has achieved such ubiquity that it doesn’t even try to be hip any more. The thing is being promoted with American Idol, for crying out loud — not exactly indie cred. We saw Microsoft enlisting indie musicians and animators to sell Zune, of course.

But here’s where things get surprisingly amazing: Sony is using weird and wonderful Japanese experimental music to promote Walkman.

Now we’re talking.

And whether or not Walkman is cool again, this is for sure: Japanese experimental musicians? Mind-blowingly cool. And, apparently, in love with using light as a controller for sound.

Atsuhiro Ito uses contact mics on a fluorescent bulb he dubs the Optron. Instead of just being stage eye candy, the bulbs are really making the sounds here; coupled with guitar effects, he can solo on the bulbs. It’s what the Knitting Factory will be like after the nuclear winter. I can’t wait.

Taeji Sawai uses a light pen to draw melodic lines and rhythmic onto a screen. The basic effect – track light from a single source – is old. Yet he’s clearly got a brilliant aesthetic mind that makes it all work; the elements are strikingly simple but never fail to be engaging. And there’s a strong connection to work by his fellow sonic inventor Toshio Iwai.

Thanks to our friend Donald Bell of cnet, aka very talented and (cool) musician Chachi Jones, who has a great write-up:

Sony Walkman promos are awesome, confusing

Confusing? No, I’d say Sony is confusing; the real question is why their Walkman can’t be more like these ads. Plus, since neither Don nor I can read Japanese, how do we know those characters don’t say something like “Hey, guys, sorry for that bit with the lousy boring electronics – we’re coming back from the dark side to make awesome things again”? Okay, maybe not. (Do let me know if the next one says “Fine, you damned snarky blogger, I’d like to see you run a giant multinational corporation.”)

Admittedly, the problem here is this makes me want to toss my iPod touch out the window and build my own open source MP3 player with Popsicle sticks and wire, or, at best, mod an original Walkman so I can play circuit-bent OGG files using power from a bicycle. At the very least, I’m ready to add to my Atsuhiro Ito and Taeji Sawai collection. And I don’t think their full body of work is on iTunes. That’s just as well.

So, Sony, thanks. Now, will you let us run homebrew music apps on your PSP? Please?

PSP lgpt port [fundable]

You’ll need to hack your PSP, of course, until Sony sees the light and allows arcane music downloads via its official store. But hacking isn’t so bad. We’ll keep you posted!

Retro hardware? Vintage game machines? Old computers? New mobile devices? Whatever it is, we’ll make music and motion on it.

The Blip Festival, the legendary international festival of vintage music and visual tech, invades New York today (Thursday) through Sunday. There’s an unbelievable lineup, with fantastic musicians and live visualists playing every single night Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, from music from m-.-n to Bubblyfish and visuals from Paris Treantafales to Meneo (and many other friends). In fact, every single musician has their own live visuals, so your eyes and ears are guaranteed to be (over)stimulated at all times.

Saturday afternoon is a lineup of workshops, including making your own visual electronics with VBLANK and putting music on NES albums with NO CARRIER.

Sunday is the debut of Reformat the Planet, the documentary film.

2008 Blip Festival

And before the Friday night Blip festival starts, get your 32-bit / mobile gaming + music device / happy hour mixer on:

Mobile Music: 32-Bit Blip Drinkup/Meetup with CDM + Boing Boing [Facebook]

Friday 32-bit BB/CDM Meetup @ Bell House Bar

Blip has a strictly 8-bit and/or retro focus. The stated mission is to:

showcase emerging creative niches involving the use of legacy video game & home computer hardware as modern artistic instrumentation. Devices such as the Nintendo Entertainment System, Commodore 64, Atari ST, Nintendo Game Boy and others are repurposed into the service of original, low-res, high-impact electronic music and visuals…

Now, I love retro tech, but being the subversive character I am, I have to say, cough, “low resolution”? “8-bit”?

And so, with Joel Johnson (Boing Boing / Offworld / Boing Boing Gadgets), we’re hosting a very informal meetup to celebrate all things mobile and 32-bit with the Boing Boing and CDM communities. If you’ve got one, bring your PSP, your Nintendo DS, and your GamePark (or even mobile phone / PDA), and prepare to share. I’m especially hopeful we’ll get some wireless action with multiples of the DS, Korg DS-10, and homebrew. We may be able to unlock your PSP for homebrew (contact us first – likewise, give us a holler if you’re good with a Pandora’s Battery and Magic Memory Stick). If you’ve found a way to hook your 8-bit Game Boy into your new DS DIY MIDI interface, all numbers of bits will be accommodated.  I’ll be bringing my PSP with the incredible PSPSEQ onboard – which sounds utterly beautiful and is really inspiring to use. I’ll have DS homebrew, too.

If you just want to meet me and Joel and folks and see what’s possible and nerd out and have a few drinks, that goes, too!

We’re meeting at the bar at the Bell House, which also happens to be where Blip is happening. So you can come, get some drinks and snacks, and get your mobile music/visual geek on. Bonus: it’s two-for-one happy hour, so bring a friend / significant other and we’ll make them feel at home!

Bell House Food & Drink Menu

RSVP on Facebook

When: Friday, December 5, 6-8p

Where: 149 7th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215 [Map | Directions]

See you there!

Again, very important rest of the planet, I’ll try to stream live if WiFi cooperates in the bar! Watch http://twitter.com/cdmblogs for updates.

With all this talk of mobile music creation, it’s time to get a little scientific. Which mobile digital platforms do you actually own? Which do you want to read about on CDM? We have, of course, lots of interesting stuff happening with actual mobile computers – think UMPC, Eee, and OLPC – but then, those fit nicely with other computing platforms since that’s what they are. Other handheld game systems, PDAs, and phones require real, specific attention for musicians. And naturally, this is about making music on mobile systems, not necessarily playing Mario Kart.

We need to know what you think. Your feedback will help us direct the site. Don’t worry, we still love things that no one else does, so fear not if you’re in a more obscure category – though you will want to get your votes in.

This is also a chance to sign up for our soon-to-launch email list, which we’ll use for human-created, exclusive dispatches from team CDM in a form that makes sense for our overburdened inboxes. (It won’t duplicate anything else, and it won’t be too often, and it won’t be sold to anyone else – it’s just another way for me and the team to chat with you.)

So, here goes – you’ll need to click through to the actual site to finish the survey, or head straight to:

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/61300/yvwf9

Respond now; poll closes Monday 8/18

Photo credit: Yesrobot’s Game Boy rig, captured by Alícia

NitroTracker 0.4 (Now)

First up, on the uber-popular Nintendo DS, NitroTracker 0.4 adds some big features. Creator Tobias Weyand writes:

I wanted to tell you that I just released NitroTracker v0.4 with lots of new features and improvements, the coolest ones being sample looping and stylus-drawable volume envelopes. You can basically just record a sound, make it loop, draw an envelope, and there you have your instant instrument.

Sample looping is interesting, too – you can loop forward or, as in many video samplers, ping-pong style (back and forth). The envelopes are a nice fit for the stylus, as well.

Other features: multi-samples for instruments, and channel mute/solo.

Why you want it: Intuitive, tracker-style sequencing with a stylus, live sampling, MIDI integration, now with real sampling and envelope features

Site: NitroTracker

PSPSeq 3 (Soon)

I also got an advance look at the next version of PSPSeq when creator Ethan Bordeaux stopped by the CDM/Make/Etsy Handmade Music night I put together. I’ve got video from that event I’ll be editing and posting soon. But before I get into features, I should say this: Ethan wants PSPSeq to be so good, you’ll buy a PSP to get it. Why a PSP? Because the extra CPU power Sony built into the device makes it a formidable handheld synth. And because it’s different. And because it runs PSPSeq.

Ethan’s in bug-stomping mode, so you can’t have PSPSeq just yet. But the upcoming build includes new randomization and interpolation features, more powerful copy and paste, shortcuts, and workflow improvements. (It’s funny – it sounds like we’re talking about a DAW.) I was particularly impressed by the randomization stuff in person. It really turns PSPSeq into a powerful composition environment. Ethan, whose day job is DSP programming, has also included some unusual features like “rotational synthesis” – I’ll let him explain it in the video, once I get that up.

So, CDM readers, would you be interested enough to get a CDM group buy of PSPs, pre-installed with homebrew-ready firmware?

Come on. Humans have two hands. One hand can be on the DS while the other is on the PSP.

Why you want it: Powerful arrangement features, real synthesis that sounds great, all-in-one power

Site: dspmusic.org/psp

New featured spotted via Palm Sounds. See more PSP coverage on Palm Sounds, too.

PSP Rhythm 8.0 (Now)

From comments, I actually missed another big announcement. (Too much going on! Thanks, Louie!)

The popular PSP drum machine/sequencer PSP Rhythm got a new optimized audio engine, yet another interface upgrade (there seems to be one in each version), and an ADSR synth mode. For some reason, I’m not particularly drawn to PSP Rhythm musically – it lacks some of the exotic charm of PSPSeq – but it’s still very much worthy of your attention if you’ve got a PSP, and proof that the DS doesn’t have a monopoly on mobile music.

It’s even got a pro-style music trailer.

PSP Rhythm Site

GamePad Companion (US$15 shareware)

Of course, the nice thing here is that the basic steps apply to other controllers, just in case Rock Band doesn’t float your boat (or rock your socks, or whatever).

I ended up choosing kick, snare, two toms and one cymbal, since the other cymbal I wanted was in a inactive area of the keyboard. I re-mapped the keys in GPC, switched back to GB and gave it a try. Success! Samples were triggered correctly, the fast key repeat rate didn’t cause any problems, and latency was basically nil.

The results:

And step by step instructions:
GarageRockBand [billpendry.com blog]

More good news: Bill has updated the post with information on Xbox 360 controller possibilities. Generic Xbox controllers work just find via the Wireless Gaming Receiver. No word yet on the Rock Band controllers, though, and I think they do a little more than the standard controllers. Anyone got an Xbox 360 and a Mac who can tell us if it works?

Previously:
Game Day: Use Rock Band Drums as MIDI Controller – Windows, Yes, Mac, Soon? (and I guess we got our answer!)

Brad Linder is a blogger, freelance journalist, and producer for National Public Radio. If anyone loves mobile recorders, he sure does. He writes in with a great overview of what was happening in mobile recorders at the AES show here in New York, with plenty of detailed information on his blog.

Here’s my little writeup of the new portable flash recorder from Sony:

http://www.bradlinder.net/2007/10/sony-announces-pcm-d50-handheld-flash.htmlSony announces PCM-D50 handheld flash recorder

Overall, it blew me away. The successor to its $2000 PCM-D1 flash audio recorder is 1/3rd the price, and packs almost all the same features. For $600, it’s a bit pricier than the Zoom H2 or H4 recorders, but it’s aimed at professionals with high quality audio standards.

Here’s the Sony product page:

PCM-D50

Also, Digidesign/M-Audio is launching an updated version of their Microtrack flash recorder in November. They didn’t have a working model at AES, but the new unit will sell for $299 ($100 less than the original), features a brightness control, 48V phantom power (compared with 30V on the original), and improved battery life. On the down side, the battery is still non-removable.

M-Audio Microtrack II available for $299 in November

And Marantz (who is not exhibiting at AES) is competing with Zoom, Edirol, and M-Audio with the new PMD620 recorder:

More Marantz PMD620 details emerge

The long and short of it is, it’s an exciting time to be shopping for field recorders.

Be sure to click through for some sound samples, details, and observations. I feel a little sheepish about my Zoom H4, which has some definite issues, but this is good news for anyone buying. Maybe I need a second recorder, huh? If you’re in the H4 boat, here are our past tips from Brad:
Zoom H4 Mobile Recorder, In Action on NPR
Fix for Zoom H4 Mobile Recording: Use a Mobile Battery Pack