For anyone whose complaint about OSC aka OpenSoundControl is that it lacks broad hardware support, I have one word for you:

Unicorns.

OSC now runs on magical unicorns. (Would a unicorn not want high-resolution, human-readable messages encoded with time-stamps? I think they would. And because OSC is transport-independent, it can absolutely run on magical Unicorn Beams.)

No idea what this post is about? Don’t worry — I’ll have a talking unicorn narrate a proper, sophisticated, complete introduction to OSC for beginners soon. They’re magical, so they can make complex topics lucid to any audience.

Yesterday, I wrote, entirely tongue in cheek and not expecting anything to actually come of it:

I think maybe I’ll start running screaming headlines with things I want in them, if only for good luck. Tomorrow on CDM: “You Know What Annoys Me? The Fact That We Don’t Have Unicorns. Magic Unicorns. Who Speak OSC.”

Today, via Twitter, Max patcher and audiovisual Merlock Andrew Lovett-Barron of Toronto wrote to me:

@peterkirn I made you a unicorn that speaks OSC.

And here it is, for your enjoyment, in Max 5 patch format:

http://andrewlb.com/max/Oscicorn_for_CDM.maxpat

This is, of course, very silly. But it’s an excuse to pitch Andrew’s site, which has lots of patching and coding goodies and visual creations:

http://andrewlb.com/

And perhaps more importantly, OSC now has a mascot. That means t-shirts, plushies, costumes, the lot. Your job: what should the name of this unicorn be?

All MIDI has is an antiquated DIN cable. Oh, yeah, that and millions of compatible devices. We hope OSC support won’t be as rare as unicorns.

Side note: please don’t troll this post, tempting as that may be. It’ll make the unicorn cry.

Given a choice between boring and crazy, I always choose crazy. After all, craziness is part of the artistic persona. So bring it on.

It’s been a while since we had a celebrity saying things that didn’t really make sense. It’d be unfair to ask Ricardo Villalobos live up to some of the titans – Bob Dylan saying CDs have “no stature” and “have sound all over them,” and Elton’ John’s classic call to “tear down the Internet.” (Not to mention, in the end I think we wound up agreeing with them and turned Elton’s quote into a brand-new verb.) As with Elton John and Bob Dylan, I love and respect Villalobos’ work, no less so as he says things with which I disagree. But Ricardo Villalobos does get special credit for claiming in a recent Resident Advisor interview, among other things, that what has really hurt sound quality today is the lack of cheap drum machines from the 80s, because they were analog. Or they weren’t, but it was as if they were. Or something. (If you think this might earn some ire from Ableton loyalists, you’re right.)

No. I think the development is going in the opposite direction because everyone is making tracks in programs like Ableton, which has an OK sound engine. When I started making music 20 years ago, you had to at least buy a mixer, then some synthesizers, a drum machine—which is the best quality possible of a sampled drum. There was a pureness of the source of the music. It was analog, direct.

Ah, yes, the good old days. Back in the day, digital samples of acoustic instruments played through digital-to-analog-converters were real digital samples of acoustic instruments played through digital -to-analog-converters. It was analog, direct – well, aside from the fact that it was digital and not direct, but it was real … um … analog … digital. Pulse code modulation was real, pure pulse code modulation, not like the pulse code modulation you kids have today. Not like now, when people don’t … own… mixers. It’s not like you kids today, you people who use Ableton, people like… Ricardo Villalobos. (Villalobos is, in fact, a notable Live user.)

I mean, at least it’s a novel argument. Usually, you get the “mixing in the box is bad” and “computers aren’t real” argument from crusty audio engineers with massive outboard analog mixing boards, not electronic musicians. Recently, many experienced engineers I’ve talked to have come to the side of accepting that “in-the-box” recordings in software can be just as good as their analog counterparts. So, we may have reached a real landmark, a world in which electronic musicians claim digital’s no good and turntables are the only way to listen, while engineers experienced with analog claim just the opposite.

Let’s go back in time. For the record, twenty years ago by my calculations would be 1989.

The drum machine you might have bought then could be the Alesis HR-16, or perhaps a Roland TR-707. They’re fantastic, unique-sounding instruments. But “the best quality possible” is not generally a phrase associated with instruments of this era. We love them because they aren’t 192kHz, 64-bit multisamples recorded from 30 microphones and shipped on a 100 GB hard drive, because “quality” isn’t actually everything. And if you bought a new mixer in 1989, I assume you picked up something like Mackie’s just-released LM-1602, rather than an SSL. Of course, you really could go do that now. In fact, Ableton Live recently added 64-bit processing in the signal chain; the software that does more aliasing to account for lower bitrates is actually Pro Tools.

He goes on:

The thing is, you have the limitation of the program, the limitation of the digital mixing which is happening inside the computer, you have the limitation of the sound sources of the synthesizers—the virtual synthesizers. Even the sound engine is playing a very big role in the whole sound of the product. If you have a good turntable and good speakers, you can hear it is made in Ableton. Logic, for example, is very neutral in sound but Ableton…you can hear it in two seconds.

It’s hard to know where to begin. Live does have an overused sound – but that comes from people using effects presets as-is, people not knowing how to mix, people time stretching and warping without adjusting settings or taking care to think about the impact on its sound.

The idea that you have to use a turntable to hear these things, or generally to hear quality issues in a track produced entirely digitally is… well, an interesting theory. (It’d be like testing the fidelity of your inkjet printer by first taking a Polaroid of the output.)

They have all of these virtual instruments that are calculated by a computer, and you have a certain space where you have to put everything. And when you want to leave this space, you have to live with compromises, the compromises of digital mixes and recordings.

Now, perhaps I’m wrong, but I thought that if for some reason you thought you needed to mix on an analog board and record to, say, analog reel-to-reel, you were no less able to do that with the analog outs of your MacBook Pro than with your 606.

And what exactly was in those vintage drum machines, if not a computer making  calculations? Eleven secret herbs and spices? Elves with slide rules?

But this is the beauty of interviews – you can say whatever you want. And it definitely beats boring.

There is also one statement with which I wholeheartedly agree:

People are finding it easy to publish something without any controls. And this is the problem with the internet in general. There is so much information, and no one knows if it’s true or not. It’s just there. It’s an information monster.

It’s almost as though the Internet is a place in which people can make any wild claim they wish, without anyone questioning its basis in reality or fact.

http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1128

Don’t believe what you see in the press releases, in the glossy write-ups of shiny, new technology from the NAMM show. Wandering the NAMM show is a truly surreal experience, like falling into a giant music store that acquired its own zipcode crossed with a swap meet crossed with a convention of badly-dressed rocker cosplayers. With apologies to Barry Wood’s superior NAMM Oddities, we couldn’t resist telling you what we really thought of some of the things we found. NAMM find: win or fail?

Part one, the items that registered fail (with one very sweet win that managed to undo one of those failures.)

(Warning: one mind-bogglingly not-safe-for-work close-up photo toward the end. If some things offend you, try not to scroll very far.)

Liz McLean Knight also contributed photos and editorial to this report.

Korg’s X-50 Camouflage Limited Edition: We suspected, and a Korg booth rep confirmed, that this would finally solve the problem of what to do when you’re up for playing some keyboard in your duck blind. FAIL.

Hmmm, now how can Korg possibly redeem themselves for something this utterly random (well, other than the pink polka-dot OASYS we asked them for)?

Oh, yeah. Black keys on a MicroKORG. We forgive everything. WIN.

The X-Tempo Pok Logo: The Pok is a nicely-built and compact wireless foot controller unit, as seen at Robotspeak. We’re a little concerned that its street is around US$400-500, especially when compared to a far more powerful new Moog multi-function pedal or our own Mike Una’s $10 DIY foot pedal. (Is it really worth more than 40 Unapedals?)

But the logo for this foot controller is a big hand. Note the cards in the corner, which look like either crippled hands or hands with webbed fingers. So, as far as the logo goes, FAIL.

Ratango: uh, pronounced “rah tango”? “Rat tango”?

“A sexy mix of tango, rap, and hip-hop.” FAIL.

Anaheim: Not pictured in this photo: the endless parade of Best Westerns (really, like dozens of them), IHOPs, and Denny’s that replaced that orange grove, or the one-mph traffic jams around the convention center, or the hour-plus drive to LA which is where you actually want to be most of the time. And can you even see mountains from Aneheim? FAIL.

Addendum: skipping some of NAMM to go to Disneyland, as even Roger Linn did? WIN.

This slogan: “Desire Analog … Embrace Digital.” Hmm, so in other words, “Analog is Better … But You Have to Settle Because You’re Cheap”? I’m sad on behalf of both analog and digital. FAIL.

Guitar Hero’s Relentless, Inescapable Presence: Don’t get me wrong; it’s a great game. But, uh, this is a real music show filled with real guitars, yet the biggest crowds were around a video game everyone’s seen before. At least with Rock Band there were hooks to the Roland V-Drums, real electronic drums that were used in development at Harmonix. I love video games. But standing in line to play video games at a music show? FAIL.

Da-Cappo’s mannequin, Princess Hollywood: I might have an idea of how this mic sounds if I could hear it over the piercing, terrified screams of small children. FAIL.

Wittner’s Laughing Penguin Metronome: Long practice session with this thing? Prepare to completely lose your mind. Oh, it’s laughing at you. Yes, it’s laughing. The penguin WINS, but you FAIL.

Addendum: Elton John probably could make this look at home on his piano, somehow.

Ultimate Support’s Keyboard Stand Model: We really feel for the two women modeling the keyboard stands at Ultimate. Not only did they have to stand awkwardly around a keyboard stand (sure, other models get guitars and stuff), but they spent most of the day bent over having to talk to random onlookers. I can’t imagine what their lower back was like Sunday night. FAIL.

(Addendum: those boots? Totally WIN.)

The Metasonix G-1000’s “Ream Your Ass” control. Technical edit: this appears to be mislabeled. This parameter should clearly be, if worded in this fashion, a momentary switch or toggle, but below you’ll see it’s a potentiometer. Suggest rewording as “How Deep.” FAIL.

(The G-1000 itself would be a win, but Eric told us we’re not supposed to buy them. More on that later. And, yeah, that in itself = WIN. “Metasonix Announces It Wants You To Stop Buying Its Newly-Announced G-1000″ was easily the best PR announcement of the show. We’ve got the video.)