Get a whole new Live, for free. Smart users can make it happen.

Sure, just a mere mention of Ableton can bring out angry hordes of Live users waiting for whatever they imagine they want out of Live 9. We can’t comment on Ableton’s internal development process. So, why not instead make Ableton new for yourself – no need to pay for anything, all with free downloads, free tips, and more musical power? (Hint: I do expect an upgrade from Ableton – I, uh, don’t think they’ve abandoned their development efforts – but when you can upgrade your own music making, it’s even better.)

Our friend AfroDJMac, NYC-based producer and musician, has been producing amazing Live Packs over the past year. (In fact, while I expect I frightened away any non-Live-users with this headline, the audio is perfectly usable in any software you like.) Setting himself the ambitious goal of producing one Live pack every single week, he’s done the unthinkable. One year later, he has 52 Live Packs, all free giveaways on his site, all wonderful and unique. Everything conceivable and inconceivable is there: Commodore 64 drums, a Casio MT-68, Justin Bieber (third-ever mention of Justin on this site), water bottles turned into synths, Christmas Trees, Game Boys, glitches and resampling and bizarre sounds, Melodicas and Fenders, the works.

Grab #52 – built with the Korg iMS-20 app for the iPad as a starting point – then lose hours perusing all the other entries.

1 YEAR OF ABLETON LIVE PACKS! AFRODJRACK #52 “KORG-ASBORD”

(I read that initially as SAT word “abscond,” as in “I absconded with your MS-20; I’m very sorry.” If someone can make that pack, let me know.)

So, when you’ve pulled off those 52 packs, how do you one-up yourself? How about by starting all over again with a weekly series – this time, with two-minute video tips. (Seriously, man, can you let us know what you’re having for breakfast?) Episode #1: having learned the lesson the hard way, our hero AfroDJMac remaps the “stop” button on his APC to avoid utterly destroying a live set. (Doh!) Video:

2 MINUTE ABLETON TIP #1: REMAP DANGEROUS CONTROLS

Still hungry for more? We turn, then, to another friend, Austin, Texas-based Francis Prève. When we last joined Fran (who I hear turned 23 yesterday, making him one year older than me), we got to download via Vulcan Mind Meld and the Internet a wealth of tips, sounds, and Live Packs:

A World of Sounds: Academik’s Francis Preve Shares Label’s Music, Studio Advice, Samples for Live

Well, Fran didn’t stop there. His latest addition is a really cool patch, not so much because it manages to steal a sound design trick from Sweden’s OP-1 synth and Sweden’s Swedish House Mafia (though that is nice), as much as because the resulting use of Racks to morph from kicks to leads could help you find all sorts of new instrumental effects. Go. Download. Enjoy:

Free Ableton Instrument: One Trick Pwnage [Francis Prève blóg]

I do look forward to what’s coming in software upgrades – but I can’t wait to upgrade my own music-making first. Go forth. May your set not coming to a screeching halt as you play, may the white noise generator always be at your back.

It’s that time of the year, when the halls echo with the sound of … horrible electronic synthesized Christmas tunes, playing on endless loops from strings of lights and other cheap electronics!

But wait – what if you could take those sounds and embrace their low-fidelity, chippy sounds to more inventive musical purposes?

Turn to our friend AfroDJ, who has gradually built up several dozen Ableton Live racks. The latest samples Christmas tree lights for a festive, chiptastic holiday timbre.

I just put up my Christmas tree and put on some lights that play Christmas songs. The songs are comprised of very simple monophonic melodies, coming out of a tiny little speaker, but as soon as I heard it I was transported back to my youth sitting around the tree late at night. Naturally I had to sample it. So I put my AKG C3000 right up to the speaker and let it play. I selected four different notes to use in the instrument.

With reverb and the wave shaper inside Ableton’s sampler, those samples get a bit more creative. (If you don’t have a copy of Live, you can use the samples and add your own effects chain.)

The results are good fun, and could be just the thing for an improvised track while fiddling with your laptop, the warm glow of Egg Nog spreading through your fingers. Enjoy! (And if you make a track with this, do send it our way!)

Want more inspiration? AfroDJ is selling packs at 50% off through January 1. So take that holiday, and make some music.

Ableton Live Rack #39: Christmas Tree Synth

I tend to tune out when it comes to sample libraries, but here’s one that takes the scripting capabilities of Native Instruments’ Kontakt sampler to extremes. The Grid Machine line developed by Lindon Parker (Channel Robot) and distributed by LoopMasters brings to Kontakt the sort of grid-based, sliced-up sample manipulation we’ve seen in the monome community and in custom tools in environments like Ableton Live and Renoise. Using KSP, the scripting environment in Kontakt, these produce entirely-custom instruments that cut, chop, stutter, reverse, mix, trigger, sub-loop, re-trigger, and modulate. You can change speed, mute, skip, reorder, and play patterns, and even mix between loops.

Even before you get to Kontakt’s effects, this kind of work really challenges the notions of what people imagine a “sampler” or “loop library” to be. And that’s been true of the sample sound design community, generally – they can brew things beyond the expected boundaries of a sample. I could even see this becoming a performance instrument.

Now, for those of us not content to use existing loops, I hope we can somehow convince Lindon to explain how he did the KSP scripting work to make it all happen. Drum ‘n Bass and House libraries are £29.95 each.

Loopmasters: Channel Robot

Some House for those of you who weren’t into the DnB version:

Ableton Live fans hungry for sounds, what a good half-year it’s been. AfroDJMac alone has been busy putting together delicious-sounding, versatile racks of virtual Ableton-ready gear. After six months of contributing free downloads and videos – and discovering the use of this kind of generosity as a tool for exposure – he’s come up with some 26 such racks. You can grab them all, but I asked the artist to choose his six favorites out of the bunch:

1. Nintendo Rack- Maybe it’s just nostalgia, but these sounds have so much personality, I love them This rack has been the most popular and has been downloaded more than twice as many times as any other (I blame the CDM feature
Free Weekly Ableton Live Rack #6- “AfroDJMac Nintendo Rack”

2. Vocal Rack and Dub Delay- I first got a good taste of Ableton’s capabilities when I mapped out a more primitive version of this rack to my midi controller. I don’t think I’ve looked at another DAW since.
Free Weekly Ableton Live Rack #12: Vocal Rack and Dub Delay the AfroDJMac Way

3. Super Glitch Machine- I like when things sound broken!
Ableton Rack #23: Super Glitch Machine (part 1)

4. Laptop Feedback Rack- This was the first one I ever released, having no idea if anyone would even care, and to my surprise they did. I really like how this sound starts out pad-like, but decays after a few seconds into something a bit more glitchy and spacey.
Free Weekly Ableton Live Rack #1- “AfroDjMac Laptop Feedback”

5. Broken Bells Rack- Made from xylophone samples playing forwards and backwards simultaneously, in my opinion there is a lot of character in this one. To my surprise however, it has been out-downloaded by most of my other racks.
Free Weekly Ableton Live Rack #10: AfroDJMac Broken Bells Rack

6. AfroDJMac’s Drum Racks- I like this one because it gives a peak into how I treat my drums in my live performances. I got a couple of really nice emails from people expressing how it inspired them, and that to me is the ultimate compliment.
AfroDJMac’s Drum Tracks [Free Weekly Ableton Live Rack #16]

And, to celebrate the half-year anniversary, he’s got a new rack out, as well. Tom of the Waveformless Blog provides samples of the Ensoniq SQ-80 – hardly something we get too much of. Here, you get bits of “the “Hush” preset, as well as a sample of the synth powering down,” all mapped into a sampler. Video below:

Download and more information:
Ableton Live Rack #26: SQ-80 Hush [6 Months of Racks!] [afrodjmac.com]

And all of the free racks:
http://afrodjmac.com/category/free-ableton-instruments/

There have actually been a number of other free downloads this month for Ableton; more on that next week.

Native Instruments today launches a new version of its flagship Kontakt sampler with new filters, effects and processing, improved sound quality, and sound design features. NI also refreshes Komplete – including, at last, a Komplete bundle that really does include kompletely everything. And we see new products covering drum samples and grooves and studio effects, too, as well as a major update to the sound design and processing capabilities of Guitar Rig.

Sadly, that isn’t the Komplete Infinity package we saw lampooned last week, which promised “quite literally every sound that can be possibly be acoustically produced in free space on Earth … ” even including “the sound of one clapping on the North side of a Forest in Tanzania at four o’clock in the morning 60% humidity and low air pressure with a Neumann U87 at a distance of three feet.” But it does include a lot – optionally everything NI makes, bundled on a hard drive.

Here’s the parody ad, wherever it came from (I’m happy to provide credit if someone will step forward):

But what we do get is a Komplete I think may come closer to what users have wanted from that bundle.

Aside from Komplete, though, let’s talk Kontakt 5, which in this upgrade promises a whole host of new processing, filtering, and sound design tools, as well as worthy-looking new releases in the studio effects, guitar processing, and sampled drum groove categories.

Kontakt 5

The creator of Massive, the terrific “no, you don’t only have to make dubstep with it” synthesizer, is behind the new Kontakt. As a result, you get:

• 37 new filters, from Moog-inspired ladder filters to state-variable models to modern formant filters.
• Adaptive Resonance, which manages “excessive resonance peaks” (I assume by adjusting either gain or the resonance curve or both, but I’ll have to find out)
• TimeMachine Pro time-stretching.
• New EQ and compressor algorithms from an upcoming “Solid Mix Series,” plus a new Tape Saturator.
• Vintage sampling modes from Maschine.
• Transient Designer, available separately, is now an integrated effect. Ed.: confused here, as NI refers alternatively to Transient “Designer” and Transient “Master.” I’ll clarify. Hmmm… “Transient Lord”? “Dark Sorcerer of the Transients”?
• MIDI file support for KSP scripting users.
• 16 internal stereo buses for routing flexibility.
• New retro synth presets.

To me, it looks like the biggest Kontakt update since the sampler added scripting capability, and a very big deal. It’s really part of the challenge of NI’s product line, honestly – you could easily enough lose yourself in just Kontakt without needing a whole suite of stuff, even before you get into Kontakt’s 43 GB bundle of sounds.

If you are a completionist, though, the new Komplete is looking good.

Komplete 8

Komplete 8 is the obligatory update of Komplete that brings together the latest software releases. The standard version now includes 27 products, adding Kontakt 5, Guitar Rig 5, the West Africa percussion instrument, Studio Drummer, Transient Master, plus 1300 additional presets for Absynth, FM8, and Massive.

More interesting, perhaps, is Komplete 8 Ultimate, which packs all of the currently-available “Komplete instruments and effects” (so, the current active NI product line) onto a USB 2.0 hard drive, with 13,000 sounds and 240 GB of samples.

Clarification: As observed by reader aje of Keyquest Music, the hard disk is a convenience for installation, but not, sadly, a self-contained external means of running the software. As NI words it in their press release:

The hard drive enables a fast and convenient installation process, and also constitutes a compact and robust backup medium for the software.

To be sure, hard disk upgrades are inexpensive these days, but it’d sure be nice to have a version of Komplete you can plug into any machine and use as-is.

This note is interesting, too, suggesting NI sees Massive at the kore (sorry, poor choice of words) of its new strategy:

Both new KOMPLETE versions are optimized for Native Instruments’ groove production system MASCHINE, offering direct browser integration with attribute-based preset search as well as convenient automatic parameter mapping for the rotary knobs on the hardware controller.

So, that gives you a lot of presets. To me, the ease of having things on a hard drive is the real draw. I wonder if we’ll ever see custom hardware/OS combinations for software distribution, but that’s another discussion. (For previous examples, see early custom versions of Final Scratch, Native Instruments’ own Komplete shipping on the Linux-based, rack-mounted Muse Receptor, or, to get really obscure, Emagic’s C-Lab’s work with the Atari Falcon.)

Guitar Rig 5 Pro

I’m glad I didn’t have to write NI’s press release. Guitar Rig includes more guitar rig things. It has more guitar things in its rig than it did before, covering the things that they added to the guitar thing.

What’s new:

• New amp models, “Van51″ and “HotSolo+.”
• New effects: a new “classic” compressor model, “vintage” plate and spring reverb, studio-grade convolution based on Reflektor, 8-band filter bank, “stereo tune” chorus, “Resochord” harmonizor.
• Convolution-based speaker emulation with “Control Room Pro,” which adds 27 cabinets, 16 mics, combinations of eight cabinets (which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me relative to real world sound, but sounds interesting, at least), and mic placement and room sound controls. Since where you put mics and speakers in rooms has such a profound impact, this has been a kind of holy grail of guitar modeling; it’ll be interesting to hear how it stacks up to rivals.
• Sidechaining with modules. (Invent guitar dubstep!)
• Effect chains can be combined into macros NI calls “Containers” – very cool.

I’ve always been a fan of Guitar Rig for creative sound design, not just, you know, guitars, so this looks like a terrific combination of ingredients to me.

New Effects: Solid Mix, Transient Master

The effects developed for Guitar Rig are also being adapted into studio products. The Solid Mix Series is a 4-band EQ and compressor with sidechain capabilities, and a dynamics section and stereo compressor. Really, it’s somewhat surprising that these didn’t appear previously; it finally gives NI an entry in the bread-and-butter signal processing category for producers. (Aside from some intended for use in Reaktor, or presets based on those, I can’t think of a straight-ahead product from NI that did that.)

Transient Master is basically a dynamic-reshaping envelope follower.

Studio Drummer

Sampled drum kits meet a groove player in the newest drum product from NI. It’s an old idea – simulate what a drummer does by combining sounds with patterns – but the twist here is integration with Kontakt. The actual drum samples sound interesting, too, based on Pearl, Sonor, and Yamaha kits sampled at Berlin’s Teldex Studios and an 18-mic array for 17 GB of velocity-layered samples. That means I could see some people using the samples minus the grooves – and you do get some modern-sounding kits. Otherwise, we’ll just have to hear what the 3500 rhythmic patterns sound like.

In fact, my only real complaint is that the interface to me looks absurdly like the interface in Cakewalk’s Session Drummer. (Heck, they have almost the same names.) The sample content is very different – Cakewalk’s offering even includes electronic drum machines, which gives you the odd experience of looking at an acoustic kit and hearing a LinnDrum.

Anyway, that was just my first impression. Upon looking closer, you can see that the Studio Drummer UI has no rug, and parquet hardware floors instead of hardware floors.

Enough of nit-picking the UI. NI has cowbell and tambourine. Advantage: NI.

Putting it all together…

Pricing and availability, in short:

Komplete: US$559 ($229 update)

Komplete Ultimate, US$1099 ($559 update) with hard drive

Kontakt 5, US$339 ($119 update)

Guitar Rig Pro: US$199 for software, US$449 with pedalboard controller; US$79-only software update

Solid Mix Series: US$229 for the set or $119 a la carte effects

Transient Master: US$119

Studio Drummer: US$169

Everything’s available in September, and all the software is now included in Komplete.

Yes, that’s a lot of software. I hope my few months in Berlin this year prove to be this productive. I’d better chug the Club-Mate.

The word on the street I’ve been hearing is that a lot of users are curious in which direction NI is headed. A lot of users are, understandably, frustrated by seeing Kore discontinued after NI had pushed it as a central strategy, and because they worry about their own personal investment of time in tools. We also saw a shareholder reorganization in May, which returned the company to self-owned status. With the original founders and executive team now also in full ownership of the company, that could give NI freedom to focus on their priorities, and it comes at a time that they’ve seen significant sales growth. (Despite a rough economy, and past claims that music software doesn’t grow the way hardware does, I’ve heard several makers say they’ve seen healthy business right through the global recession. You can probably thank the passion of musicians for that.)

I’ll be interested to see this latest generation of NI software, and more of the company’s direction.

For connecting music hardware from the 80s, 90s, 2000s, and today, you can’t beat MIDI and the standard MIDI connector (5-pin DIN). This week, both IK Multimedia and Line 6 announced adapters that support Core MIDI. Previously possible on iPad via the Camera Connection Kit, the new adapters support the 30-pin dock connector for the iPad (no additional adapter needed), iPhone, and iPod touch.

IK’s iRig MIDI has a number of features that set it apart from previously-available iOS adapters:

It’s got MIDI Thru. MIDI Thru means you can route MIDI into your iOS device, so an external keyboard can play an iPhone synth, for instance, and route that same signal “Thru” to another device – say, if you want to also record your playing, or layer another synth with the same notes an octave higher. (I can rant about the disappearance of Thru on other hardware some other time; it’s great to see it here.)

There’s a USB power port. This one’s huge, especially having tested Line6′s adapter. Normally, any hardware you plug into your iOS device takes over the jack you’d use for power – so you have to watch your battery life as you use it. By adding an additional USB jack for power, you can connect both MIDI and power – problem solved. That’s especially essential if you plan on using this a lot, or onstage.

A Gig of Sounds, to Go… IK Multimedia is also bundling a new SampleTank app for iOS so that anyone buying the adapter gets sounds straight out of the box. SampleTank has 1 GB of sounds (500 of them), 20 insert effects, and a master reverb-delay — yes, really on iOS, for free. (8 GB owners may not be thrilled about that, but those of you with more storage might.) You get acoustic, electric, and electronic instruments, and even orchestral and sampled Moog sounds.

Samples of those samples, via SoundCloud:
Two New Products Coming Soon by ikmultimedia

Other specs:
Detachable cables; “pocketable” (also true on the Line 6)

IK claims the hardware is “lightweight” so that you don’t hurt the fragile connector on the iOS gadgets

iRig Recorder for free MIDI recording and playback (there’s a similar feature on the Line 6 offering)

Pricing:
iRig MIDI, US$69.

SampleTank for iOS, price TBD.

iKlipMini is a little adapter for clipping an iPod touch or iPhone to a mic stand. US$39.

www.irigmidi.com
www.sampletank.com/ios
www.ikmultimedia.com/iklipmini

Producer Sam Greene was so in love with Aalto, the semi-modular, Mac and Windows soft synth whose developer we profiled last month, that he made his own place to share patches for it. Patches are free to download and use in your music, and you can upload your own; the only restriction is that the site asks that no one re-sell the patches themselves. Find the results:
patchdump.com

You can thank the synth for making it easy. While discussion of sharing features often turns to sophisticated cloud and social features, here’s one solution: just make exchanging files dead-simple. As the patchdump.com site puts it:

Sharing patches for the Aalto synth is easy. It’s just an XML file – a simple text file that the synth uses to make settings and configure all the patch cords. You can copy your presets right from Aalto by using the menu command: “Copy to Clipboard”. All you need beside that is an audio sample of your patch.

Viva XML. (That’s the same thought I had recently when I solved some batch processing of sessions in Ardour, a DAW which uses a simple, understandable XML format.)

In fact, Sam notes he was interested in sharing other instruments, too, but file format complexities made that difficult. That leads to a question: have you got a favorite synth that uses simple, text-based file formats?

Renoise 2.7 is now available, following some eight weeks of testing by the community. The update, which the developers describe as “back to the beats” in reference to focusing in this release cycle on musical workflow, delivers plenty of features that make the modern tracker more modern. I wrote about them back in March, with some detailed Q&A from the developers – including tips on where to get started:

Renoise 2.7 Adds Sample and Slice Savvy; Tips and Inside Info from the Developers

The short version: better automation, sample slicing, and sample keyzones, plus improved DSP and audio routing and MIDI routing, make Renoise more usable. For people slicing up and sampling audio, even, I dare say, MPC-style, it’s a huge release.

2.7 Release notes

But that’s not the only story here. Renoise are also announcing 500 MB of free sounds designed by Puremagnetik, all in the native XRNI file format. That’s from a sound house better known for Ableton Live sounds than Renoise. And, at the opposite end of the spectrum from preset soundware, Renoise is involved in a Berlin Music Hackday that could bring new DIY features to the tool – plus tooling that makes it easier to grab and update tools from the community.

We’ll start with the Puremagnetik news. Rather than just tell you about the sounds, Puremagnetik’s Micah Frank shares how the sound set was built, and what they learned about making soundware for Renoise. That includes some valuable tips for anyone interested in programming sounds in the environment, as well as insight if you’re just curious to try the resulting sound pack free. Micah shares:

About Puremagnetik: Puremagnetik is a sound development company that I founded in 2006. I had freelanced as a sound designer with Ableton for some years and didn’t see many 3rd party choices for that platform. Puremagnetik was launched as an affordable subscription service offering new “Micropaks” every month, with a focus on Ableton Live content. That was 5 years ago and we are continuing to produce new packs every month. As of this writing we have almost 60 Micropaks in the catalog, a number of bundles, standalone libraries and Max for Live content. We have close to 40k registered users and are working with a number of developers (desktop and mobile) to help realize their sound libraries. By the time you read this, we will also be offering content in Renoise’s XRNI format.

Why Renoise: Always on the lookout for products that break away from conventions, I became interested in content development for Renoise soon after the 2.6 release. It’s obvious that Renoise is created by a small and dedicated team of developers backed by a strong, supportive community. To my surprise, I couldn’t find many resources for Renoise format instruments. All of the above reasons factored into Puremagnetik’s conception in the first place – to fill a niche within a community of dedicated individuals that are passionate about their work. Once the Keyzone Editor was introduced, it was clear to me that someone had to make content for this innovative product.

What it was like making the 500M sample pack: The first thing we did is comb through our entire catalog and pick a well-rounded selection of kits and multisample instruments. We are working with an independent developer (Renoise user MXB in building a tool to translate our libraries to XRNI. [That tool is now released; see comments. -Ed.] So this was a huge asset in efficiently building this library. After importing the sounds they were fine tuned and tweaked with modulations and envelopes. The final step was exporting the monolithic XRNI files. Throughout the entire process we worked alongside the Renoise team to ensure that Q/A standards and selection of sounds was spot-on.

Thoughts on the latest XRNI format: Despite its simple interface there is a lot going on under the hood. I personally love the “point” setting in the envelope params. And the selection of filters really kicks ass (my favorite is the Low Distortion). Just in coupling these two things, one is presented with vast sound design possibilities, and that’s before you beat sync pitch envelopes!

For the most part, editing is very intuitive if you have previously built multisample instruments. The instrument editor is still in its infancy so there are some parameter persistency issues that need to be ironed out. It is somewhat cumbersome to save variations of the same instrument as it saves each one as a single monolithic (flac compressed) file.

Overall, it’s easy enough to dive into the editor, tweak the available settings and resave the instrument however you like.

Room for improvement in the format: The most valuable thing for us from a development standpoint is sample grouping capabilities. Our instruments really become 3 dimensional once we can program group modulations based on user events. Our TeeBee instrument for example is heavily dependent on groups of samples to create a realistic emulation of the original TB303. So this is a feature I would like to see implemented.

I would love to be able to save track DSPs with the instrument but perhaps that could conflict with Renoise’s native architecture and workflow. However, this capability when combined with Renoise’s effects and Meta Devices could open enormous possibilities for sound design.

More LFO waveforms with an even slower frequency would be very welcomed into my Renoise sound design toolbox!

Each parameter setting has 4 envelope preset slots but these are currently shared between parameters and are only session specific. It would be really cool to have independent preset buttons per parameter that save with the instrument. That way, the user can load it up and call any number of combinations for instant sound shaping variations.

Velocity crossfading.

Visit Puremagnetik at http://puremagnetik.com/ — you’ll see new Renoise-format sounds starting to appear.

Included in this pack:
Analog Synth Basses
Circuit Bent Drum Kits
Buchla Drum Kits
Mellotron Strings and Flutes
Glitch, Toy & Lo-Fi Sounds
Fender Rhodes Mark II
Model-C Clavinet
Electric Guitar
Upright Bass
Classic Analog Synths
Grand Piano

And there’s more soundware free with this release, too, I see from the Renoise site:

Additionally, Berlin based artist and longtime user Beatslaughter has blessed us with a touch of evil in his sample pack “Beatslaughter SoundPack Volume 1″.

Those two sample packs total over 800 MB and let producers jump into all the latest sampling features of Renoise 2.7. The packs are free for all registered users new and old, and are waiting in the Backstage.

Get Your Tools Faster

It’s like an App Store for Renoise hacks: tools.renoise.com has gotten an upgrade, and there’s a new automatic updater called the Tool Updater. Combined, this should make it easier to keep your tools fresh, and customize Renoise to do what you need. I’m a huge fan of the lightweight hacking mechanism they’ve built into Renoise, and the fact that it’s an integral part of the software.

Hack Renoise

As a mentor at Music Hackday Berlin, if you happen to be in Germany later this month, you can learn how to hack Renoise from the developers. I’d love to see some new projects. (I may even try to see if I can drop by, if I’m in fact in England around the same time!)

Renoise will be mentoring at Music Hack Day Berlin. The event takes place on the weekend of May 28th in the MTV Network offices located at the Spree river. Erik, dblue and Taktik will be on site to discuss Renoise, the Lua API, drink beer, and give out high fives. Check our community forums in the upcoming days for more details.

Background/info:
http://musichackday.org/
http://vimeo.com/7129735
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/02/music-hack-day-nyc/
http://fuse.tv/music/music-hack-day/
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/digital-and-mobile/midem-2011-can-hacking-save-music-1005009032.story
http://blog.programmableweb.com/2010/02/03/48-hours-31-hacks-stockholm-music-hack-day/

And yes, I’ll happily, happily share any interesting hacks or creations here on CDM.

Of course, there’s plenty here to enjoy in Renoise even if you don’t hack – you can grab some free sounds and go play! Let us know what you think.

Ableton has introduced various features to its flagship Live tool over the years, but one of the simplest ideas – combining instruments and effects into accessible Racks – is also one of its most useful. They make those sound controls immediate and functional, and they can be a great way of delivering sounds. Two cases in point: free downloads that incorporate synthesized vocals and retro Nintendo blips.

AfroDJMac keeps his free Live goodies coming with noises constructed on a vintage Nintendo Entertainment System, the 8-bit timbres orchestrated by the sadly impossible-to-get MidiNES MIDI adapter. True to form, you get direct access to the NES’ Pulse and Triangle channels, plus Noise, which can give you either pure 8-bit sounds or game-styled chip retro tunes. Sure, there are plenty of other ways to do this, but you can’t beat the convenience here. Enjoy:
Free Weekly Ableton Live Rack #6- “AfroDJMac Nintendo Rack”

You can keep up with his musical productions and free downloads on http://afrodjmac.com/. In case you missed it, one particularly nice entry recently features his mother’s china dinner plates, layered into thicker pads.

Francis Preve has made a name for himself both as a writer and a sound designer; now he’s focusing on his new record label and artistic career, but connecting those two disciplines. So, when he introduces a classic formant filter used to synthesize vocal sounds, he also walks through the technique of producing it in the software and why it’s a relevant sound on clubland’s floors. (Hint: Pleasurekraft, most recently. But part of why I like classic synth techniques is that they’re become comfortable and familiar, in the way acoustic instruments have been, and thus don’t have to apply to any one genre.)

Picking apart this Rack will give you some good tips on how to build such things – or you can just go ahead and use it to start some new ideas. If you concoct something, I’d love to hear it. (No sound sample, so just go download!)

Ableton Preset: Tuvanism

Call it future shock. Love of retro gear is more than nostalgia; sometimes it takes time to appreciate what technology means. And so, today, classic digital samplers and drum machines like the E-mu SP-1200 and SP-12 can inspire even greater passion than they did when new. Today, producers can feel love not only for retro analog, but retro digital.

With plenty of 12-bit digital dirt, the original SP samplers sound gritty, warm, and unique. And one of my favorite samplists, Hugo of Gold Baby Productions, does a nice job of capturing that personality – enough for me to take note of a soundware set, which is something I tend not to do often on this site.

You can grab the second volume of SP-12 and SP-1200 samples for US$29, but Hugo also has a free holiday gift: over a hundred 24-bit samples from the SP-1200, none of which is in the paid version, have been added to the various nice free stuff on offer on his site:
http://www.goldbaby.co.nz/freestuff.html

Hugo talks to CDM a bit about sampling vintage equipment, good fodder for inspiration if you’re thinking of taking up a similar project yourself. (It’s a great way to spend the winter months, I think, fellow residents of the Northern Hemisphere.)

To start with, I have an extensive collection of drum machines, real drums, and percussion, all recorded by me over the last 20 years. I took a selection of these and got a Dubplate made. I also re-recorded some of them to tape. This made it easy to recreate one the SP’s more famous tricks — pitching down to get aliasing. The Dubplate was pressed at 33 rpm then played back at 45 rpm, then sampled and tuned down on the SP. Hello, aliasing! I used the same process on tape. I could have done this using pitch software via the computer, but that is not the Goldbaby way!

Back in the day, this trick was not originally done for sonic reasons. With a sampler only having limited sampling time, it was a ghetto way to get more [recording time]! So, with the analog filters and the 12-bit, 26.4 kHz sampling engine, you get both grit and warmth!

Another trick with old hardware samples is experimenting with how hard you hit the sampling input. For instance, snares sound great if you hit the input really hard. It kind of acts like tape and squashes the transient; it gives them punch. A high hat can sound grittier if you sample them at a very low level — it kind of works like bit reduction. Also, using threshold record triggering can help give a drum a sharper attack. It basically is a function where you select a threshold level for the sampler to start sampling.

Whatever you do, don’t read the sampler manual! All the advice they give is for getting clean-sounding drums.

I also did a few recording sessions with some newly-acquired percussion and drums.

I went through some of my old synth product audio demos and and sampled them also. I wanted to get that ‘sampled from a Moog concept album’ sound!

I also have a portable recorder I carry everywhere at all times. My field recording folder is a great place to dig for new sound ideas. I used a few in this product — check out Drum_Festival1_SP1200R.wav. The world is filed with sound…

So two months of doing this gets you about 1500 samples.

I think DRTFM (don’t read the f***ing manual) could be a new watchcry. Some sound samples:

SP-1200 Volume 2

All photos courtesy Hugo at Goldbaby; used by permission. (Is anyone aside from me impressed with how modern the panel designs look on the E-mu? I think we need an alternate MeeBlip case that looks like this – our plastic housing is the same shape as the SP-12. Any takers?)

Got vintage gear you like to use? Found inspiration for modern digital techniques from equipment from the past? Let us know in comments.

Side note: a project inspired by digital samplers of yesteryear worth mentioning here is the open-source Where’s the Party At. (It’s an 8-bit sampler, though; the E-MU would be easy enough to ape in a Max or Pd patch if you wanted to use the retro hardware as a jumping-off point.)