I’ve had the weekend to begin working with Sonic Charge Synplant, a wonderful new synth creation from Magnus Lidström. Lidström is a Propellerhead veteran best known for creating Reason’s Malström synth. But while Lidström has made a name in sound, I have to say, Synplant is something very, very different. Partly because of the user interface, partly because of the strange and mysterious sounds that emerge, Synplant makes you feel like you’re on an episode of Star Trek – like you’ve smuggled some alien vegetation after shore leave and are squeezing its leafy bits so it makes odd sounds. (Watch out for spores!)

Having looked at two examples of what the Lemur multi-touch hardware can do, the videos above illustrate directly what I’m talking about when I describe two different approaches. Metrognome is an insanely-talented guru in the modular instrument/effects-building environment Reaktor. He’s working to build new live performance tools that meld live arrangement / remixing / DJing with a kind of computer meta-instrument. It’s really a great illustration of how software can become a live instrument. It also represents one of two paths in thinking about what touch can do for live music performance.

1. Multi-touch as virtual controller: The Lemur’s design assumes that what you want to do is create virtual hardware, using a stock set of knobs, faders, gestural controllers, envelope editors, and the like. The advantage is, these interfaces are modular and consistent. The disadvantage: you’re limited to pre-built screens and pre-built widgets, so you can’t do anything outside what’s given.

2. Screen as direct controller: The difference with the Reaktor examples is that there’s no intermediary. Whatever is on your computer screen is the interface. The downside: that includes all the usual UI clutter, and the open-ended possibilities could be overwhelming. The upside: as Metrognome artfully demonstrates, you can imagine any interface, build it, and immediately control it – including things the Lemur may not do. The other, not insignificant advantage: you don’t have to buy another piece of hardware, making this route much cheaper. Your screen or projection simply becomes the touch controller surface. Multi-touch isn’t quite ready for prime time on computers yet, but it could be soon.

I’m not saying one is better than the other. In fact, I suspect some people will prefer the Lemur approach even if it means spending additional money, because they want something that has some of the flexibility of a screen, but still behaves more or less like a dedicated controller. But I think it’d be a mistake to miss that we have two very different angles on touch here.

Of course, none of this stops you from building or buying a $50 or $100 knob box and being perfectly happy with that.

For more details on what Metrognome is doing (including an up-close shot of that beautiful ensemble), see our Kore minisite – and expect some more details on this soon over on that site, thanks to our Reaktor contributor Peter Dines:

Reaktor + Touchscreen = Touch Grains, Touch Performances, Wild UIs [Kore@CDM]

We’ve been lucky enough to break the story of Circle, a new soft synth with a creative user interface, and to take you behind the scenes of its creators thinking process in creating the software. But maybe you don’t buy into the idea of a synth that focuses on flow and working method, or its wave morphing, modulation and effects, and quick MIDI learn features. Well, now you can give Circle a try for yourself, because it’s publicly available:

Future Audio Workshop Circle

It’s obviously something a lot of people are eagerly anticipating, because, having missed the announcement only by a day, my inbox is full of tips. (Thanks to all of you for the reminders – and seriously, don’t hesitate to nag me on a story; sometimes I get distracted!)

Normally, this is where I’d put the specs, but the specs you’ve seen before: wavetable plus analog-modeling synthesis, with lots of modulation and effects. That’s the formula we’re seeing in plenty of new synths. The difference here is an unusually clean interface with color-coded assignments and bright, friendly graphics that have been optimized to support touch should computers go that way. (Windows 7? Snow Leopard?) There’s drag-and-drop assignment, much like what I loved in Native Instruments’ Massive, but with a distinct, graphical approach here. And, incidentally, you get this graphical goodness without the latest OS – Vista and Leopard are supported, but so are XP, Tiger, and Panther. Thank cross-platform libraries in the software’s foundation – it’s the Other Platform.

The creators also tell us this release is just the beginning, with additional features in store (like OpenSoundControl support, which I’m personally eager to try out).

I’ll be playing with this in the coming weeks. Stay tuned. But I’m very eager to hear your feedback – and sound designs, if you go that route.

And if anyone sees a cheap airfare from New York to Ireland, I may have to go visit FAW myself. Hmm … Farecast?

What’s this new Max about, and why was it such a big deal at the AES trade show? To really understand, let’s turn to gaming for a moment. When Nintendo described their vision for the Wii, they talked about appealing to three groups of customers:

• The “hard-core” gamer; that is, their existing audience, of course
• “Lapsed” gamers: people who had done some gaming at some point but lost interest
• Entirely new gamers, across a variety of demographics

History will have to be the judge of Nintendo’s slim white box and controller-wagging interface, but I heard some similar development goals at the AES audio show this weekend. Nowhere was this more apparent than Cycling ’74’s upcoming Max 5. Substitute the word “patcher” for the word “gamer”, and you’ve got a snapshot of the new Max.

After all, whether you’ve touched Max before or not, you’ve likely got some needs in at least one of these categories. Beginners are easily intimidated by the “visual programming” metaphors of a blank-slate, modular tool like Max. Many others get through a couple of patches, often in a school course, but wind up having difficulty getting beyond that first work later on. And even advanced users (maybe especially advanced users) are always looking for ways of working faster.

The build I saw of Max wasn’t entirely complete, but I will say it’s tremendously promising. I talked to many for whom the chance to see Max 5 was the highlight of the entire AES show. It’s a tool you really need to see in action, so be sure to check out Cycling’s just-posted videos of the program:

A First Look at Max 5 [Cycling '74]

This is not the all-words, no-pictures manifesto we saw recently: now you actually get to see the tool in action. Highlights:

Technology and music have always had dynamic, changing, intertwined histories. It’s easy to forget that we’re in the middle of that history, both in terms of the now ubiquitous practices of DJs and the mind-numbing progression of software updates.

I recently got to chat with Ableton’s David Cross about the new crossfader curves in Live 6, and we wound up talking more generally and philosophically about crossfaders, how they’re designed, and how they evolved. Crossfaders are wonderful things. We take finely-tuned crossfade curves for granted in video and motion work, but when it comes to music and sound, you rarely see crossfaders outside DJ hardware and software.

Cross, himself a DJ, recently revealed to me that he had been researching mixer history before coming to Ableton’s US staff, and even wrote a thesis paper on the topic. DJ history might not yet have been embraced by the average music historian, but Cross recommends Last Night a Dj Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey, by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton (Grove Press):

Last Night a Dj Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey

Bill and Frank have their own website with more resources:
DJ History

… and they’ve also built “the DJ Centenary”, 100 Years of the DJ, an interactive timeline of DJing for Yahoo! Music UK/Ireland. 100 years, you say? Absolutely, as long as you count the broadcast of a contralto singing Handel’s ‘Largo’ from Xerxes to shipboard telegraph operators in 1906. (Now I feel like I have to do a Xerxes remix!)

Of course, this foray into 100 years of history all began because I asked about a software feature that cropped up just a few years ago. So back to that: David explains how Live 6 wound up with crossfader curves at the eleventh hour of development.