“HALO: REACH” Game Audio Profile from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

Our friends at Designing Sound have been rocking out on that site, with extraordinary original and linked content for sound designers, ranging from work on games, broadcast, and films to sonic exploration for the curious field recorder or producer. (Designing Sound is hosted by CDM and Noisepages – hence the new template, which will benefit from some corrections we’re making over the coming days.)

Now, they’ve launched a second site just to pull together video content.

If you love sound design of any kind, get ready to curl up on the couch with this one. I could say more, but instead I’ll simply give you a moose and some Halo above, and let every minute you have be spent watching sound design videos:
http://designingsound.tv

The explosion of interest in filtering out sounds of the vuvuzela has spawned some interesting discussions. Most amusing to me is the notion of some sort of anti-vuvuzela bias. The simple matter of the fact is, recorded (and broadcast) sound are not the same as the sound you hear when you’re physically in a location. If you’re at a sporting event, you hear all kinds of noise. Your expectations are differently calibrated, and you have 360 degrees of (real world) sound spatialization. Watching TV is different. You want background sound, yes, but not to the point that it drowns out commentary. In effect, you want the broadcaster to create an artificially well-balanced soundscape. What’s really striking about the World Cup is that the planet’s largest broadcasting companies all seem to have been caught unprepared for the vuvuzela cacophony.

Which brings us to Waves. So, yes, I took some cheap shots at Waves’ pricing on their plug-ins in yesterday’s massive round-up, and yes, I did actually … hear about it.

First, I want to be clear that in the avalanche of responses to the vuvuzela, there are a number of different techniques – not all notch filtering, though, as my headline hinted, the fact that “notch filtering” is a phrase coming up in mainstream media, blogs, and sports coverage is itself newsworthy.

Waves’ approach involves their noise suppressor. What I said about pricing may have been unclear in regards to the presets: the custom-developed preset chain, made by Waves for broadcasters (and apparently in collaboration with one, specific broadcaster Waves has not named), is entirely free. The cost to which I referred is the noise suppressor itself (US$2900) and the parametric EQ ($300).

And no apologies here for pointing out the gap: compared to most audio software, $2900 is indeed a lot to pay for a plug-in. One of the strange things about audio is that there are sort of parallel dimensions of value/cost equations and markets. In this case, I’m sure the broadcasting market is absolutely willing to pay $2900 for audio software – looking at the cost of, say, a World Cup license, the cost of the equipment used for that broadcast, the human hours that go into plug-in development, and the limited number of potential broadcast customers, Waves’ pricing is actually pocket change. But that further illustrates the disparity: it’s pocket change to the BBC or ESPN, whereas an individual, home audio producer might well use tools that are entirely free as an alternative.

Waves isn’t even, as [someone] pointed out to me, the pricey end of that spectrum – not by a longshot. France’s Canal+ hired an entirely private commission to do what, for Waves customers, at least, was free. [article in French] The result: a non-TDM custom effect solution from a local developer with what was likely a very, very high price tag.

But you can also judge this for yourself: if you’re curious to try out the Waves solution, both WNS and Q10 provide a 7-day demo. It’s definitely the posh steakhouse of plug-ins, to the “street vendor sausage cart” alternatives I mentioned. Pricing is economics, not a quantification of value – such is the nature of the beast. But you can determine how much that market-driven pricing translates to the software. What Waves gives you is certainly a friendly interface, some sophisticated tools tailored to the task, and what’s likely, out of the box, to come closest to producing broadcast-quality sound. Naturally, I also think that delivering that broadcast-quality sound ought to be the job of the broadcasters, not someone at home with a TV set. The question of which tools are relevant for music production, rather than covering the World Cup with an entire network TV crew, can be saved for another day.

While we’re clarifying, I think the most interesting of the long list of solutions I mentioned, apart from Waves’ solution, is the plug-in from the Centre for Digital Music (C4DM) at Queen Mary, University of London. Dan Stowell notes that, while some of the other techniques mentioned do indeed involve notch filtering, what’s at work here is “a bit cleverer, kind of tuned median-filter.”

The C4DM plug is truly free software, under an MIT-style, open source license. It’s actually a pleasure to browse through the code – bless you, digital signal processing, as mathematically, tasks like this look pretty readable in C and C-style code. No, such things aren’t comparable to, say, a Waves plug-in. At the same time, at their heart, they are fundamentally the same animal. We’ve seen this basic technique (digital signal processing) packaged in wildly different forms. We have academic research centers, which one might argue should engage in open code if they’re publicly funded. We have free code that comes from people who aren’t in academia. We also have businesses that naturally spawn around catering to a very different customer, for whom value is easy to justify given the potential revenue from the product (a sports broadcast), and who likewise have higher expectations of user interface, real-world performance, and support.

But such is the broad spectrum (ahem) of sound software today. Take something as simple as filtering out a drone at a particular frequency, and you see a broad set of potential uses, an audience literally as large as the entire planet’s sports fans, tools on every conceivable platform and operating system, and markets that range from interested academic researchers and programmers to broadcasters with deep pockets.

All over a cheap plastic horn.

It’s a reminder of all kinds of disparities. There’s the economics of sound software, scaling from hobbyist to academia to business, from code that people give away to highly-priced custom services that make Waves plug-ins look like $2 iPhone apps. But more important than that, while specialization in sound software remains the domain of a tiny niche of society, but the ultimate market – human ears – is in the billions. Perhaps while we hide out in our blogs and trade magazines, we forget that.

“UP” Sound for Film Profile from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

Miguel Isaza has created a must-read new blog for anyone interested in sound design, and much to our delight has put it on noisepages. He’s being incredibly prolific with posts, covering creative projects to get your ideas flowing, terrific overviews of leading people in the field with links to interviews and resources for learning about their work, and tons of links for learning your craft technologically and artistically.

http://designingsound.noisepages.com/

Naturally, Pixar figures prominently, with some of the best sound design on the silver screen in recent years. I’m looking forward to finally seeing UP; Michael Coleman offers the video above. See Miguel’s site for more links and interviews and an overview of the all-star team that did sound for Pixar’s latest.

Thanks for this great resource, Miguel; I’ll certainly be reading daily.

You know that viral, deeply inspirational Britain’s Got Talent clip in which a lone singer bursts the preconceptions and expectations of the whole world, dazzling audiences and bringing people to tears with her talent?

Yeah, okay, so this is pretty much nothing like that.

This is more in the category of self-deprecating artists who aren’t afraid to laugh at themselves, being exactly what you’d expect them to be – and then some. Let’s call it “dorkpop,” intentionally geeky musicians willing to be just the people they are. Three keyboards, and one man with a keytar. (Note that he basically demonstrates in the video why these should be called shoulder-mounted keyboards or something, since the only thing they have in common with a guitar is a strap.)

Artists able to laugh at themselves: always a good thing.

But the really funny thing about this clip is that Simon Cowell apparently can’t laugh. He seems somehow offended by the fact that they don’t take themselves seriously. Mr. Cowell, unable to handle irony?

Well, if Susan Boyle was so heartwarming you needed a dose of irony, here it is.

Via our friends in the UK who themsleves have quite a lot of British talent, MusicRadar (of Computer Music and Future Music):

Simon Cowell bemused by keytar trio

“This is not serious, right?” Evidently Mr. Cowell has quite a bit in common with certain grumpy readers of this site in comments. (You know who you are. We forgive you.)

Make:Television has done a really lovely piece on CCRMA, the research center at Stanford University that works on problems ranging from acoustics and sound to musical instrument design. CCRMA is really just one microcosm of the whole music tech making scene around the world – a lot of increasingly beyond the walls of academia. But what a microcosm it is: I don’t think it’s understatement to say this is just the kind of institution a lot of us dream of. Among the highlights from the MAKE video that I could pick up:

• Ge Wang, professor and creator of ChucK programming language and certain popular ocarina-themed iPhone apps, and Stanford Laptop Orchestra director
• Carr Wilkerson: Electronic “Rub Board”(?) with a nice accompanying Pd synth patch
• A very nice Max/MSP app that everyone seems to be using for signal analysis
• Edgar Berdahl: a one-handed drum that “hits back”
• Nicholas Bryan building the legendary hemispheric speaker (incidentally, no one seems to be able to tell me who invented that)
• A giant interactive musical playground, with a Wii-powered teeter-totter (with one somewhat silly patch, and then another very lovely bowed-sounding patch)

Thanks to patospurlock on Twitter for the tip. I know at least some of you CCRMA students read this site, so feel free to chime in and identify your colleagues.

The featured Feedback Piano project is a hybrid with a bit of acoustical design (a piano), electronics/recording (mics), and digital/computer design (the Max patch that completes the circle). The results are really striking, and while it’s a lot less portable than a convolution reverb, it’s certainly very different having an actual piano into which you can play your saxophone.

Make followed up with directions on the Feedback Piano (please use a truly broken piano, thanks!) and we’ve got some video, as well:

HOW TO – build a feedback piano [MAKE Magazine]

feedback piano #1 from Alloy Electric on Vimeo.

Alloy Electric has more Vimeo videos of the feedback piano and other projects. (Nice footage, as well! Actually, I think, a bit artier than what Make:TV shot!)

More on Chris Warren’sblog and project website.

By the way, does anyone know why educational programs about Science always have to have some geeky-sounding guy shouting at you? (See the condensed history of all music tech at the end.)

Living in the digitally-connected age means a constant flow of media – but also the chance to reprocess (or even hack) it. Tim Exile (aka Exile aka Tim Shaw) is an electronic music innovator and one-man DSP laboratory. He didn’t just turn on his TV to watch today’s US Presidential Inauguration – he mashed it up on his own Reaktor creations. Here’s a live take (after a few moments, he warms up and it absolutely takes off). Tim notes:

Most significant international events don’t have a pre-warning but this one did, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to mash it up live with my live remix/mashup/improv machine which I made. It’s all improvised using the BBC world service live web stream. Unfortunately the web stream flaked out at the beginning of his speech so I had to start part way in.

The likes of William Saffire may ponder how today’s speech stacks up against past US Presidents Lincoln, F.D.R., and Kennedy. But no one was doing live remixes of Roosevelt’s fireside chats, were they?

More on Tim Exile: check out the Tech Talk from NI, or visit Tim’s MySpace page

More on Reaktor:
http://kore.noisepages.com/tag/reaktor/

Tim Exile: Reaktor Video Master Class/Demo [kore.noisepages.com]

What’s new in the world of music technological creations? It’s stunning how much people are creating in their private workshops and bedrooms. I’m pleased to have the chance to share it virtually here, and Thursday night in person in New York City.

We’re proud that Handmade Music returns to Brooklyn’s 3rd Ward this Thursday, presented by createdigitalmusic.com with XLR8R.com, Make, and Etsy.com and sponsored by Pabst Blue Ribbon. (Free beer.) It’s a party, a science fair of music tech and instruments, a show-and-tell, and a noise-making jam, for musicians, tech lovers, and the musi-curious.

Free (+ free beer while it lasts)
Thursday, January 15
7:30-10:30pm (drop by for as long as you’d like)
3rd Ward, Brooklyn NY
Facebook event page
Going.com event page
RSVP to handmade (at) 3rdward (dot) com — walk-ups welcome, but it helps us to know how many folks are coming!
Directions to the Space

If you’re in town, you’ll want to be there. For everyone else, we’re working on getting lots of documentation for you of the projects, so stay tuned. (We’ll have to have an all-global virtual Handmade Music Night soon!)

Here’s a look at the projects. It’s a bit like having an all-DIY, oddball music tech trade show – eat your heart out, NAMM show! (Warning: one slightly not-safe-for-work clip of a mannequin getting felt up.)

Dueling Gestural Interfaces

GCe2 // GestureSynth from Mouse & the Billionaire on Vimeo.

We have not one but two fascinating takes on gestural objects as music controllers. Brian Kerr is bringing his research into new dynamic interfaces for music, drawing upon an academic background in industrial design, as M Bethancourt brings the Gesture-Controller Exploration 2 (GCE-2).

Mouse & the Billionaire (M Bethancourt): GCE-2

M Bethancourt has created a really gorgeous object, so I’m eager to see it in action. Check out the site for research, presentations, ideas for use, and more. And clearly we have to get Mouse & the Billionaire and Brian Kerr together – they’re working on similar lines, so they’ll either learn from each other or break out into a big gestural music battle. (or, ideally, both!)

The Gesture-Controller Exploration is an ongoing study in innovative musical controllers that explores the relationship between movement, physical space and musical performance. The most recent incarnation is the GCE-2 (Gesture-Controller Exploration 2). Dipping, swinging, swaying, tilting, and turning the The GCE-2 sends signals to the computer, informing its sound-making functions. This allows for a more satisfying performance experience, leveraging the power of the computer and helping the electronic musician to use physical means to create and manipulate digital electronic sounds in new and interesting ways.

Link: http://www.mouseandthebillionaire.com/gce 

Brian Kerr: Dynamic Musical Interfaces

Prototype Video 1 from Brian Kerr on Vimeo.
Prototype Video 2 from Brian Kerr on Vimeo.

My blog link: http://dynamicmusicalinterfaces.blogspot.com/

Vimeo link: http://vimeo.com/briankerr

I’m currently completing my industrial design masters thesis at Pratt Institute. My working thesis title is, Dynamic Musical Interfaces. I’ve started to document my first prototype, which is a wireless gestural controller for Max/MSP. One of my main goals with this project is to create an physically expressive performance device for computer music that is engaging for both the performer as well as the audience.

I love that Brian’s design was able to make use of a 3D printer, because I believe someday these will be as commonplace as the Canon multifunction sitting on my desk. Brian writes:

I worked in the parametric 3D CAD program, SolidWorks to design the exterior casing of my controller. After it was built in with this software environment, I converted the file into an STL format and printed it out with a 3D printer. The bottom of the controller has a potentiometer joining the half sphere with the upper section. To stabilize this connection, I built a pair of channels into each of the parts and inserted little plastic ball bearings for support (I’ll add photos of this later).

Mannequin Parts as Instruments

Richie Brown says he’ll have to see how much he can carry with him on the train from New Jersey, but he’s got a stockpile of wonderful technology oddities he’s created. He writes:

I’ve recently come into possession of several mannequin parts which I have used to house several electronic musical instruments. This marries two of my favorite things: surreal humor and blippy bloopy sounds. One project is the Torso Theremin. It is made from a circuit bent cassette tape recorder. I’ve included a video link here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox2xCvWxPwY

Another is a Leg Maraca as seen in this included video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CLKh28t0Sk

I am also working with graphite’s electrical conductivity and resistance value to make drawings that can be played like instruments.

Wearable Leather-and-Snakeskin Controllers and Other Goodies

Rucyl is already a favorite on this site for her terrific creations, like this over-the-shoulder, wearable (if not so animal rights-friendly) snakeskin-and-leather MIDI controller. I believe she’s bringing this along,

See previously: Sexy Computer Nerd: Rucyl Mills’ Wearable, Over-the-Shoulder MIDI Controller

And her new site: http://www.rucyl.com

She’s also working with King Britt, one of my favorite musical peoples, among other collaborations. She writes: “I’ll be releasing a new album in a few months on my own label, as well as some upcoming collaborations with  Xaphryn Follicle, King Britt, DJ Kiva, and Sarah White. I’m also working on an even smaller version of the elektro-07.”

Prepared NES

You’ve heard of prepared piano. Notendo, aka Jeff Donaldson, will be in with his prepared Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) for a bit of blippy goodness, explaining how it all works.

notendo.com

notendo @ last.fm

Premiere of Music Coverage from Make:TV

Maker Channel 101 Screambody, Laser Harp, Cupcake Cars, TV-B-Gone from make magazine on Vimeo.

Phil Torrone of Make Magazine will be on-hand to talk about how the Make community is adopting TV – both old-school (PBS) and new-school (online). We’ll have screenings of some of the music projects from the Make:TV show that premiered this month. Bring popcorn!

And More

Walk-ins of unusual creations are encouraged. The Make crew usually bring some of their stuff in. Machine+1 has promised “An atmospheric guitar and synth deluge- in the fashion of live looping- using custom, handmade footswitch controllers triggering software.”

There’s usually some surprise I didn’t expect. You really are encouraged to bring out stuff you’re working on, even if it’s not yet awesome / functional. Hopefully we can do some of this sharing and learning increasingly online, as well.

The UK electronic music scene lost its pioneer Tristram Cary this week, so it’s the perfect time to look back again at the marvels of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Low-budget but long-running Doctor Who is unlikely to be remembered for breaking new ground in, say, fancy props, sets, or visual effects (though they did plenty with what they had). But when it comes to sound and music, the BBC’s DIY approach to sound, ranging from Who to "serious" classical music (even my composition teacher Thea Musgrave worked there) remains significant today.

The BBC is again offering a look inside the storied workshop, now at its 50th birthday. (As their designs stand the test of five decades, I think perhaps electronic sound isn’t just about novelty after all.)

And one of their best finds? A lampshade.

Four sound effects that made TV history [ BBC News Magazine; happily this video works worldwide]

Thanks to Andy Tekkaz for the tip.

Yes, the green lampshade pictured above was Delia Derbyshire’s favorite toy to sample, a reminder that sometimes the non-electrified object is an electronic composer’s best friend. Other gems: the room for the largest synth the BBC ever owned, ominously titled "The Delaware" like some kind of WWII aircraft carrier, which wouldn’t fit through the door. Or room #12, in which the Doctor Who theme was born. Or what must be the world’s oddest home-built mixer, encased in plexiglass. Or, below, the suitcase synth the Workshop custom-built. (Note the prominence of EMS VCS3 synths, designed by Tristram Cary.) Updated: Okay, I was confused as well by the terminology "custom-built" in regards to the synth (evidently a Synthi-A), but then again, given the relationship between EMS and BBC, it’s possible the Radiophonic Workshop was the initial customer. Anyone have any idea?

Host and Radiophonic vet Dick Mills also settles any lingering controversy about how you make a Dalek voice: it’s what (I think) is a VCS3, a ring modulator tuned to 30 Hz, and a little bass attenuation (Dick corrects his colleague on that). If that doesn’t sound like a Dalek, you’re probably not shouting enough.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d be a little confused and freaked out if I woke up and saw this first thing in the morning (and I lived in Ohio):

And it’s not just Dan Deacon. Dynamic duo Beatrix*Jar had a similarly awkward experience. There’s something strange about what’s going on here. The news people conducting the interviews are are genuinely enthusiastic, but there’s something not quite connecting in their approach. I don’t know if it’s an intentional lack of arts-based analysis or if they just like to keep it light & fluffy for the morning viewers, but the ultimate result is surreal.

Maybe it’s because it’s really early in the morning and these musicians are night owls? They seem a bit out of their element, trying to connect to that internal place that makes music happen, but they seem to be working uphill in that particular environment. When they do connect, the newspeople look a bit alienated and confused, like they just let a wild beast loose in their studio.

Here’s Getlofi.com’s Talking Computron and Igloo Martian on an evening news program in Madison, WI:

Don’t get me wrong- I think this trend is awesome. It feels like the media companies are really starting to get a whiff of this whole DIY-Maker-Bender movement, and they like what they smell. And really, what isn’t there to like? In many ways, this is human ingenuity and creativity manifest. People making the most of what’s around them, creating solutions instead of buying them, only limited by their creativity. It’s not just a fluff piece, it’s what got us to where we are today, and a sneak peek at where we might be going in the future.

That’s assuming that the future is strange, nerdy, glitchy and loud. I, for one, salute our future weird overlords.

Note: BENT festival 2008 takes place this week in NYC and next week in Minneapolis, and you can read all about it on the festival website.

And the answer is … this real-time music production software is used for instantaneous sound effects and music clips needed in the fast-paced world of two popular game questions.

What is … Ableton Live?

Veteran sound pro Barbara Hagan describes to Ableton.com how she works with both programs:

Now I have two computers with Live; one is my main computer (new MacBook with 2.16 processor), and one is a back up (G4 PowerBook). I currently use Live on both computers, and I’m constantly busy building cues during two days of taping, six shows a day, on Wheel of Fortune, five a day for Jeopardy. I transfer new cues from CDs right into iTunes, then edit them in Live. I transfer info to my backups with flash drives and build folders for post production use every day we tape. I store everything, and back up three times everywhere. Guess I’ve ended up being the keeper of the music, safe and intact. Sometimes it’s pretty crazy, but mostly it’s fun. And it all started because of Live!

Now, music tool developers are regularly touting various “celebrity” users and pro applications for their product. But, of course, what makes this especially interesting is that Ableton Live was never designed to perform this task. It just happens that Live is the only general-purpose music software that tackles how to do live, real-time sound, not just as a plug-in but by baking what amounts to sampling features into the app itself. Years later, there’s been little response from anything else. It also demonstrates that certain general capabilities can have applications for users you haven’t thought of, particularly if there’s some fundamental utility to them (like triggering sounds easily).

Something to think about, not only in respect to Live, but if you’re building your own tools in programs like Max or even just working on tweaking your own live performance music setup.

Thanks, Marcel Ramagnano! Photo: xbeachy.