Universal Audio has a big set of updates to their DSP software out today. It seems worth sharing in part because I find the (faked) look of that Ampex reel-to-reel does give me a warm and fuzzy feeling, even if it mainly makes me want to get in a studio and hear the whir of the actual gear.

Here’s what’s in the update:

For Pro Tools users, there’s vastly-expanded support, including native RTAS plug-ins (instead of the VST-to-RTAS adapter), control surface support, proper automatable parameters, and correct naming and sorting, plus a quicker installation and workflow. I’m embarrassed to say, not having tried UA’s stuff in Pro Tools, I was unaware they’re missing – that sounds like the set of functionality that would make mixing UA and Pro Tools genuinely workable.

Full Mac OS X Lion compatibility is a big deal. We’ve seen a lot of Lion support arriving lately, and I saw readers specifically complain about the lack of support in the update. Seeing a hardware DSP platform with support seems to me a good sign, because it means both plug-in and I/O compatibility have to be in place. It’s getting to be about time to do a new compatibility update, and it may be an OS update that’s possible to recommend shortly (though Snow Leopard is working just fine for now).

Then, there are the plug-ins:

Brainworx bx_digital V2 EQ: This popular mastering EQ now comes to the UA platform, with M/S mastering, M/S recording, and L/R stereo modes. It’s kind of an EQ-plus, with M/S de-esser built in and mastering-specific EQ options, plus a mono plug for mixing.

SPL Vitalizer MK2-T is back in the emulation territory, modeled on the tube-based gear. Separate bass and mid-high modes give you frequency-specific loudness controls.

Ampex ATR-102 models the legendary two-channel tape, and has Ampex’s seal of approval. That means UA now models the two studio workhorses, the Studer A800 (see our previous coverage and shameless gear pr0n gallery) and the Ampex. ATR users and engineering titans Chuck Ainlay, Richard Dodd, Buddy Miller, and Mike Poole contributed presets, in a nice touch. US$349 buys you the plug … and yeah, that’s likely to make a few studios nervous on their rental fees. Then again, look at the names on the presets, and remember just how valuable engineers are, whether they’re behind an analog deck or a computer with a UA plug. (Take it from me – someone who’s not really an engineer.)

The SPL and Brainworx plugs were each developed outside UA. My guess is that Pro Tools support is a factor in seeing more third-party development. And while readers correctly noted the demise of other DSP platforms, UA’s is looking very healthy from a business perspective.

The only bad news: I’m confirming this, but there appears not to be support for 64-bit operation on Windows, which remains a significant omission in UA’s software.

Now, we need some double-blind A/B tests with both the Studer and Ampex (and maybe the real gear). Wonder if someone could help us set that up.

I really enjoyed some of the skepticism in comments on the last article. I think the questions “do I really need this?” and “will this give me the most value over time?” and “what alternatives should I consider?” are absolutely the questions you should ask about any music tech products. This is a news item, so I’m not anywhere near knowledgeable enough to comment in this case. I think the best thing to do is, beyond just reviews, continue to talk to producers and engineers about how they use software, and to developers about how it’s made. If you have specific questions, let us know.

And let’s have another look at the original. Simon Campbell on Flickr has this shot of one with the spools spinning:

We mastered onto this rascal at 30 ips using Dolby SR. Nice.

Recording the album ThirtySix at Gracieland Studios [UK], Rochdale

Photo is (CC-BY-ND) Simon Campbell, whose music you can go hear (linked via his name).

Universal Audio Downloads for the latest updates | Universal Audio Site

What a lovely coincidence that tape, originally a recording medium, works beautifully for distortion and saturation. Whatever the reason, tape saturation is a popular effect. If you want subtle, pristine saturation, there are various meticulous models of high-quality studio equipment. That was one topic in our interview earlier this week with Universal Audio’s Dr. David Berners. (UA’s model is intended to model the entire multitrack tape deck, so quite a bit different.) There’s also, on a much gentler budget, a simple saturation effect in the US$79 Harrison Mixbus, intended more for the saturation behavior on main or submix buses than for replicating the tape equipment itself.

But sometimes pristine, high-fidelity tape equipment is the opposite of what you want. You want, instead, raunchy, destructive, dirty distortion. To me, like many others, that’s more valuable. And it can cost nearly nothing, if you’re willing to scrounge.

You don’t need any pricey equipment: just one unwanted tape deck and a CD-to-cassette adapter you almost certainly have buried in a drawer or closet.

And yes, as many have noted, this is really best considered an overdrive effect rather than tape saturation. (Tape player saturation? There is a faux cassette tape in it, at least. But it isn’t saturation created by the tape medium, so technically, it’s really just a clever overdrive distortion hack; I agree with commenters.)

Helsinki-based producer and musician Riku Annala shares in a video tutorial how this works.

He writes:

Really, it’s just a simple, almost stupid trick and I’m 99% sure that many others have realized it too, but I’ve never bumped into it anywhere. It seems at the moment that producers are trying to get away from the clean digital sound and there is a clear lo-fi trend going on. I’ve always been somehow fascinated with old c-cassette tapes (I’m a product of the 80′s) and I got myself an old tape deck for experimantation purposes. Here is the catch, I realized that by using one of those 3mm jack CD-to-tape adapters that are used in tape car stereo’s for plugging external players, you can route digital (or any) audio through the tape deck to color the audio in various different ways!

More on his blog:
Studio Experiment #1: Tape Saturation for Cheapskates [Recue]

Well worth checking out his music, too, whilst you’re there.

Variations on this trick? (I’m working on some hacks with a speed-variable portable tape player.) Other ideas? Make anything interesting this way? Let us know in comments.

Photos courtesy Recue.

While out of the budget of many home musicians, Pro Tools HD remains the lifeblood of the studio, broadcast, and live worlds. Make no mistake – even in a slow-moving economy, that’s still big business. Users sometimes accept Avid’s hardware grudgingly, but revisions are significant news.

Avid has promised a series of new products for its audio lineup; the first major announcements have arrived in the form of revised audio interfaces and a software effect for adding analog warmth to mixes. Both are targeted at Pro Tools HD. (The audio interfaces also support Core Audio and ASIO on Mac and Windows, respectively.) They’re also the first to sport the Avid logo on the faceplate, though I suspect it’s the claims of improved quality that will earn the most interest from customers (and, likely, the most natural skepticism).

I was invited to a private press event last month at which Avid discussed their strategy and unveiled the new products. I would say the two major themes were quality and openness. In practical terms, that means that Avid claims these pieces sound better for your interface dollar, and that we’re beginning to see (legitimately) support for industry standards — see MADI, below.

There are three new HD interface offerings:

• HD I/O. 2 RU rack, 16×16 analog, 16×16 digital, 8x8x8 analog and digital. See full specs. US$3995.
• HD OMNI An all-in-one, 1 RU rack, 4×8 analog, 2x S/PDIF, 8x ADAT, 4 mic pres, 1 headphone out. Full specs. US$2995.
• HD MADI If you have to ask, you probably don’t need it, but MADI is a very big deal in terms of finally connecting Pro Tools HD to an industry-standard multichannel audio format. In fact, MADI likely should have become a broader de facto standard earlier. Specs mostly blank as I write this. US$4995.

Of these, the Omni seems like a particular sweet spot, particularly in that it is more compact. Note that it is HD-only, not an LE interface.

All of these boxes, as before, require internal computer PCI-bus cards to connect.

Avid’s competitors and critical users alike read CDM, which means that low rumbling sound, a bit like distant thunder, is probably them complaining about some features HD interfaces have lacked for some time. The HD boxes now operate as standalone mixers, offer headphone jacks, and an ample selection of inputs worthy of their studio name. Those are features hardly new to the audio interface world, particularly once you get well into four-digit gear.

The quality question is more elusive, though. On one hand, while a lot of audio hardware easily undercuts the price of these boxes, low cost is easy when you’re willing to make some quality compromises. On the other, I’ve talked to plenty of studio engineers who feel the HD interfaces haven’t necessarily hit the “pro” level they claim. (In fact, take the previous verbiage, drop the mention of “HD,” and we could have had pretty much the exact same conversation in 1998.)

On paper, at least, the next generation of HD interfaces is different. Avid has replaced the mic pres on previous models with newer options for the Omni and the I/O, something they emphasized at the press event. They’ve also looked at filtering and clocking – clock and jitter being major contributors to real-world performance. While comparing across product lines is harder, at the very least, the newer HD interfaces should be better than the older ones. By how much, and how this compares to competitive entrants, is something I hope the CDM community will continue to investigate – as well as starting to take these kinds of issues to task across product lines and budgets.

More on all of this soon, so if you have questions – and especially if you fall directly in Avid’s target market and can talk about how you use these products in the real world – send them our way.

http://www.avid.com/US/products/family/Pro-Tools

HEAT, Analog Warmth in Two Knobs

To me, the most interesting announcement Avid made is one that’s getting a lot less attention. The problem isn’t new: how can you model the sophisticated nuance of tape in a digital realm?

HEAT, an analog warmth simulator for processing your Pro Tools HD mix, is the creation of Dave Hill, the legendary audio engineer, producer, and designer. Dave’s been responsible for a lot of the best gear involving tubes in the last couple of decades, with notable creations for Summit Audio and now his own vendor Crane Song. (Think pieces like the < ahref="http://www.cranesong.com/stc8.html">STC-8 compressor.)

Dave isn’t new to TDM development; his Phoenix suite of plug-ins were an earlier attempt at doing what HEAT does. But Phoenix, from a design and interaction standpoint, was a bit more cluttered. You got a suite of plug-ins rather than a single solution, with bizarre labels like “Gold,” “Sapphire,” and “Opal” on a knob called “Luster.” (Sounds like the Spaceballs school of technical nomenclature. “They’ve gone to plaid!”)

HEAT is different. For starters, it’s not a plug-in. It’s a single, global control, as seen in our image above, which you enable or disable for tracks. When you want to impact the tone, you turn the tone knob. According to an Avid source at the press event, that was by design, so that you intuitively find a sweet spot in the sound rather than try to intellectually work out what impact you want. That knob actually consolidates a number of related simulations, which is something I hope to follow up with Dave about later.

I’ll say this: with HEAT and some other rivals entering the space, the days of bouncing out to tape may be over. Another prediction: while HEAT is not available in a native version, I’ll bet CPU-bound competitors will eventually get the sound right, as well.

HEAT is for HD only, at US$495. If you do have an HD rig or access to one, it’s available as a 30-day trial.

Avid HEAT

I expect Avid did not anticipate one unfortunate, topical coincidence of the name. How many studios in Cleveland do you think will buy a license?

Teenage Engineering’s OP-1 is something unique in music hardware. It’s got a form factor inspired by the Casio VL-Tone series – you know, those cute little 80s-vintage synths. It’s a sampler. It’s a synth. It has an FM radio. It will have a variety of sequencers. It has, we’ve just learned, a multi-track tape mode that lets you do beat-synced virtual splicing as a performance technique. It is expected to integrate and interoperate with a design lifestyle including, if you like, a luxury-priced, meticulously-machined desk lamp, and according to one rumor I heard, perhaps even a specially-designed electric bicycle. (Seriously.)

I got to spend some hands-on time with the current prototype of the OP-1, and hanging out with the guys from Teenage Engineering. I do mean “the guys” – I had expected to go out to dinner with the CEO and found myself with almost the entire team of 9. (One was sleeping off Sweden-to-California jetlag.) The company has a pedigree in sound engineering, including the legendary drum maker Elektron, but also in marketing, advertising, industrial and product design.

The OP-1 is real, it’s coming, and it’s far enough along in the prototyping phase that I think we’ll see real details on getting one soon. Pricing will be under US$1000 – perhaps a goodly amount under, depending on the final details of manufacturing. There’s no availability date, but progress appears to be accelerating. I poked fun when the OP-1 was introduced, only because it seems like something too cool to be real. I am surprised, though, that people are now complaining that the OP-1 is taking a long time – I think some people don’t realize how time-consuming hardware development really is, and we only just saw an under-glass prototype last spring. The fact that the OP-1 does integrate hardware and onboard software tightly and does do things in new ways is a testament to having a single, small team that works on the whole product.

Teenage Engineering – OP-1 @ NAMM 2010 from Neil Bufkin on Vimeo.

In the din of the NAMM hall, some people didn’t seem to “get” the OP-1. The prototypes available aren’t entirely refined in regards to the sound engine, so it’s too soon to judge sound quality, and some functionality was missing from the units on display. And it’d be easy to see this its collection of synthesis and sampling tricks as nothing new. (In fact, I get the sense that some people dialed up essentially an init preset and judged the sound quality based on that.) But look closer, and even prior to the finished product, there’s real design genius here. Some of the little touches I was able to glean:

You can record backwards, an idea so simple in sampling, but also powerful, it’s a wonder it’s not widespread. Go crazy with this, and you can prove some pretty out-there results. It’s not hard to imagine putting an OP-1 alongside a computer, and using it alternatively as a hardware synth and a tool for resampling the output of a live computer mix.

It’s a four-track virtual tape recorder, complete with virtual splicing. The craft of early electronic music was deeply connected to the process of recording to tape, then splicing, into a finished product as a collage. The OP-1 is the most convincing adaptation of that idea I’ve ever seen. A simple, iconic on-screen representation of a reel-to-reel shows you your recording in real-time, with even some light physics simulation so it behaves like tape when you stop the transport. But you can also cut the virtual tape – split, lift and join features are quick key shortcuts away. Just like on tape, you can change the speed during recording, not just during playback. And, so as not to be too caught in the past, the tape deck itself can be beat-synced. Let’s just reflect on that for a second: you can sample the instrument or an external source, and then speed and slow the recording like tape synced to beat, all on hardware. Sampling features are nothing new, but the implementation here really is something special.

Whereas clunky hardware designs from mainstream manufacturers have typically treated tape recording as something you do to record an arrangement, the OP-1′s tape recorder is one you can play as an instrument. (See our video of one of the Teenage Engineers jamming with this feature, which I smuggled off one of their Mac laptops.)

And it’s finally a sampling feature that functions on recording like tape, not just on playback. That sound you heard all around NAMM was the sound of developers and engineers collectively saying to themselves, “why didn’t I do this myself, first?” (Okay, knowing this site, I’m sure we’ll get someone on comments who has done this first, so do speak up.)

Watch it in action in this video of a live jam, shot by Teenage Engineering and smuggled off one of their computers for CDM:

The screen isn’t just beautiful: it fits perfectly. To me, the greatest accomplishment of the OP-1 is making a small screen seem integral to a hardware design, rather than a concession to practicality. Since computers became commonplace in the 80s, the primitive screens on music hardware have seemed an anachronism, a compromise. I remember synth shopping for the first time around 1990 and being frustrated by that, and things aren’t much different now. The design of the OP-1′s interface is so minimal, however, that the onboard screen seems perfect. The display itself seems like part of the hardware and the instrument, rather than being a menu system or a tacked-on indicator.

It’s finally a small screen that seems ideal for its purpose – maybe even better than looking at a computer-sized screen. And that’s not just because it’s pretty; it’s because it’s functional. For a look at some of these beautiful design ideas in motion, here’s a video from a hands-on (more with sound yet to come):

The synth and sampler are friendly – toy-like in the best way. In keeping with some of the most fun instruments of all time, the OP-1 is something people will want to play. Color-coded knobs and extensive graphical feedback make a reasonably sophisticated set of synthesis, envelope, and sampling options accessible. There’s nothing revolutionary in the synth or sampler; it just takes the 90% of sound-making techniques most people use and makes them more immediate.

All of these things are wonderful, and clearly it’s a gorgeous little device. And it’s impossible, as always, to judge a design that isn’t finished. I have a suspicion, however, that some of the most important magic of the OP-1 lies in what the impishly-secretive Teenage Engineers aren’t saying:

• What are the sequencers? I don’t know what braincell-killing spirit the Swedes prefer, but I’m going to need a lot of it if I want to find out what the deal is with the OP-1′s internal sequencers. That’s sequencers – plural. Teenage says they’ll have multiple ways of sequencing the instrument, and they won’t say what any of them are. I saw a brief glimpse of a grid of dots that suggested a tracker-style sequencer of patterns, but I wasn’t able to conclude anything. And ask anyone from Teenage what this is all about, and they’ll hint that what we haven’t seen is what they think will make the hardware must-have.
• We haven’t heard most of the synths yet. When it ships, the OP-1 promises the following models: “FM • String • DRW • Pulse • T10 • Cluster • PSE.” I did get to play with the pulse synthesizer engine, which you can see a little bit in the short video I saw, and was struck by how intuitive the display is – the OP-1 really makes it easy to visualize the harmonic content of your sound patch, and gives you immediate control over the sound. But I didn’t get to hear much, and some of the synth models I most want to play with weren’t ready yet. That means most people at NAMM missed out not only on the coming sequencers, but also on a lot of the sounds. I’m convinced enough by the interface that I think those synth models hold a lot of promise.
• What other sonic recipes might make it onto the OP-1? Teenage prototypes their sound creations and interface in Python, wrapped around native code, before re-implementing them on the device. That means there are all sorts of potential software features that could still make the cut. By the way, if you’re wondering why hardware tends not to work this way, it’s because too many music hardware developers have huge gulfs between the people who engineer on the hardware/embedded/DSP side, and on the computer desktop software side. At Teenage, it’s really just one group of guys who know their way around both. They’re in one office, not separated by lots of time zones or a language barrier. (It makes a difference; trust me.)
• Where do the bike and lamp come into this? This isn’t Roland or Yamaha, or even IKEA. Teenage have an immaculate studio, and have conceived and built an expensive work-lamp that’s machined out of medical-grade metal tooling. The lamp can be used to conveniently produce stop-motion animation, noted one of the Teenage staff. It’s not only a standalone lamp: it’s a modular system for all sorts of application. Oh, yeah, and they’re also working on an electric bike. TE are design-obsessed, and I get the sense that there could be a connection between these products. Already, it sounds like it’ll be possible to integrate the lamp and the OP-1 in your work setup. Could the electric bike and the OP-1′s synth have some connection in the future? TE weren’t saying. Will I be able to afford this luxury? No. Does it tickle my inner design geek? Yes. Oh, yes. Maybe for those of us who are poorer, I can publish some hack that lets you connect your OP-1 to the unicycle and cheap IKEA desk lamp you own.
• There’s been no mention of MIDI in. Something a number of people seem to have missed: TE has promised MIDI output (so you can use the device as a controller for software), and even a USB storage device (for drag-and-drop sample interchange). But one thing they haven’t yet said is that you’ll be able to route MIDI into the OP-1. This could be a deal-breaker, of course, to some people. But I’m holding out hope for another solution, like finally having hardware you can sequence with OSC. (I’m going to be doing as much research as I can on USB OSC implementations and dumping them on the studio in Stockholm, just as a hint.) The problem with MIDI has been that it tends to impose certain design decisions in regards to timing, how musical events are represented, and even the size of devices (given the amount of hardware that still has onboard DIN connections). So, while this aspect of the OP-1 remains a mystery, I’m intrigued by where it could lead.

The OP-1 is definitely one I’ll be following; it’s at the top of my list for the year. And it’s about time we got some really significant new hardware. For more information…

MusicRadar got a hands-on with some sounds.

Teenage has a lovely set of photos on their blog – and yes, that’s me, by coincidence amidst a crew from Hispasonic:
NAMM Photo Bananza

Check out the full Teenage Engineering blog for loads of videos, including a few in the fabulous luxury of their Super 8 motel room:
http://www.teenageengineering.com/now/

And don’t miss the product page, which now has a lot of detail on it:
Teenage Engineering OP-1
Among the juicy specs: how about an onboard accelerometer, Li-Ion rechargeable battery, a 60-fps display, and a powerful (for this kind of gear) 400MHz processor core?

Just please, please, don’t judge the sound quality of a non-shipping synth based on YouTube videos. I’ll be sure to report back on final sound quality before you unload your hard-earned change.

WalkSX from Gijs on Vimeo.

As the Sony Walkman turns 30, many of the mobile cassette’s fans wax nostalgic. But it takes Gijs Gieskes to wire up a new Rube Goldberg-style musical instrument based on the Walkman’s simple tape playback.

Follow along carefully through the signal flow of this unusual instrument:

1. The Walkman has audio on the tape itself, sampled from a Roland TR-808 drum machine.

2. Because a compact cassette has two tracks (left and right, for stereo), one track is dedicated to the drums, another to the rim shot.

3. The rim shot track is fed as a mono audio input to an Arduino (the open-source microcontroller platform). The Arduino responds to the audio level, so each time a rim shot hit occurs, it ….

4. …sends a sequence event to the Gakken SX-150. That means that you can adjust the speed of the whole contraption by…

5. …adjusting the speed of the tape. (Bless you, analog playback!)

It takes Gijs to think that way somehow: put together, these elements are actually fairly simple, but strikingly effective. Fortunately, if this does inspire new ideas, Gijs has posted all his Arduino code, so you can check this out and try something yourself.

http://gieskes.nl/instruments/?file=walksx

High-tech graffiti is all the rage these days. Alongside various forms of LED graffiti and “photonbombing” with non-intrusive video projections, some artists are moving to the medium of sound. It’s not quite the same as the geniuses risking their lives to tag subway cars and long-forgotten tunnels, and it’s totally separated from the culture originally formed around graffiti, but in this post-modern age, I guess you take what you can get.

Regine at We Make Money Not Art reports on two audio graffiti schemes presented at the Mobile Music workshop in Amsterdam. (There was a similar, mobile-themed event here in New York that I think actually fell roughly the same weekend — but I missed it! It’s a mobile meme.)

The Audio Bombing scheme involves electronic “spray paint cans” reading from analog audio tape. Placing magnetic tape on walls and instruments is a technique popularized by Nam June Paik and later Laurie Anderson (Paik did installations, Anderson built instruments). It’s fascinating to watch old analog techniques making a resurgence.

Sonic Graffiti takes a related but distinct approach: not only do you use spray cans to “paint” and “play” sound, but the cans themselves employ a gestural interface so the participant can remix the sounds as they go. All of these projects play with the notion of place, so appropriately Sonic Graffiti geo-tags the sounds.

Both projects summed up here:
Musical graffiti [WMMNA, via Make]

I still wonder, though, if any of these objects have any meaning whatsoever, devoid of their original context. Boom boxes, graffiti, spray paint … but now as art events, at conferences, rather than part of an illegal subculture roaming the elevated trains and forbidden underground worlds of the Bronx? Something just doesn’t add up for me. The projects themselves are fascinating; would they be stronger or weaker if separated from these objects? Maybe selective graffiti via cleaning makes more sense. (Well, wait a minute — even that, is that so avant-garde? Hasn’t anyone seen trucks with “Wash Me” written on them?)

On the other hand, what these objects do successfully is provide props for people to understand what an otherwise abstract sound installation is about, because they’re icons with meaning. Curious to hear what people think on comments.

Instructables has a tutorial that lets you create your own sonic graffiti project. Here, finally, we have a solution to everyone’s apparent need to interact with strangers, time-delayed, in bathrooms (well, if that is what drives people to make graffiti). I wonder if anyone has actually installed and used one of these, and what they say?

audio bathroom graffitti box [Instructables, via graftag, who seems to follow digital music making + audio graffiti topics!]

Some of the other Mobile Music workshop, covered in detail on WMMNA, may be of still greater interest to CDM readers. Think pocket gamelans, paintings producing sound, performances on circuit-bent instruments and mobile phones as rock instruments, giant wearable speakers and mics and audio “guns”, and other wearable/portable instruments. The big story seems to be the renaissance of the Cracklebox, a self-contained, sound-making instrument with touch-sensitive input, originally created in 1974 and now finding its way into modern installations. Regine covers the whole event, so I’ll leave that to her.

Reel to Wheel is a massive sound-making device built from bicycle parts and a dismantled reel-to-reel tape deck. Move around the absurdly over-sized controls, and its analog inner workings groan and creak their way through recorded sound. Move the wheel at the right speed, and you get an effect quite like scratching — or, since it’s tape, it’s really “scrubbing.”

Reel to Wheel Project Page, with wonderful hand-drawn illustrations featuring Hank the Dummy.

The project, shown last weekend at the Maker Faire, is the creation of Sasha Leitman, Steven Backer, Jesse Fox, and Jen Carlile at Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), which had their own booth full of musical interfaces and goodies. Like an equally Biggie-Sized string instrument, Reel to Wheel delighted adults and terrified children with its elegant impracticality. If it seems like sculpture, that’s because it is. In the installation version of the same work, the hardware is part of a Rube Goldberg-like configuration of bikes on mannequins and full-sized stationary bicycles.

This work also suggests that this site has stumbled upon a really bizarre, evolving musical meme. Look at the elements:

Bikes. Our friend Flip Baber created a new arrangement of the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy in December, recorded on bike parts. Much to our surprise, this story landed on Digg and launched to the most popular CDM story ever (promptly devastating our server), and Flip wound up on television and national radio. As it turns out, quite a lot of our readers are interested in music made with bikes, including bike ensembles, symphonies, and bikelophones, and bikes that control music and graffiti and inspire a young Frank Zappa.

Reel-to-Reel DJing: Because no one can beat-match on reel-to-reels like BBC Radiophonic Workshop wizard Delia Derbyshire.

So, I’m a little terrified that we’ve hit upon some strange statistical anomaly that seems to be tapping us directly into a musical world entirely based on tape and bicycle technology, but I’ll go with it.

The piece in question is Pot Au Feu, an incredible piece of early electronica that’s, surprisingly, not nearly as far lesser works. To dig into the Delia back catalog, head here:

Delia Derbyshire: An audiological chronology

Or visit the major site with information on her:

Delia-Derbyshire.org

There’s a real chance for the Web to create a Derbyshire-mania phenomenon. What we need now is electronic re-releases of the albums, documentary materials, and so on. Word on the street is that BBC is teaming up with YouTube; maybe this could be the first step.

Now I’m going to sheepishly get back to Reaktor programming. It’s inspiring to see the mastery of an early pioneer like her; you begin to see all your tools in a completely fresh light, and wonder what really could be possible with them.