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

Numerology is a sophisticated Mac modular step sequencer, capable of brewing patterns from simple to elaborate using combinations of note-making building blocks. It’s also a powerful host, opening up signal routing and modulation to AU plug-ins.

Version 3.1, released this week, may be a “point” release, but its two additions are significant. First, it’ll run as a VST plug-in in any host, which adds direct MIDI routing from plug-in to host. (Somewhere, plug-in developers are nodding, knowingly – AU may be more commonly associated with the Mac, but VST can be a better choice even for Mac users.)

Second, as you can see in the video, you get some tasty new real-time pattern recording modules. Out of the box, they’ll run easily with Novation’s inexpensive Launchpad controller, though you could adapt them to other controllers, too, if you wished. Check out the video to see it all coming together.

Description:

Numerology’s updated Launchpad mapping with realtime pattern recording into the DrumSeq, PolyNote and MonoNote sequencers. The laptop is running Ableton Live with three instances of the Numerology VST, as well as Camel Audio Alchemy for synth lead and NI Massive on pads. The drum sounds are from Numerology’s DrumKit module with a patch designed by Jason Wolf of Tripl3Tone.

All of this is yours in two editions:
Standard (US$129)
Pro (US$199) with multi-output support for hosted Audio Units, OSC support, custom scale quantization, and advanced modules

http://www.five12.com

Thanks to developer James Coker – and glad I can prod him to release videos with these software updates.

1. Will majors get a better deal than minors? And who will get paid, and how?

Answer: unknown. With only $30 a year covering the Apple cloud service, the safe bet is that cloud sync isn’t really much of a new revenue source. Given that anyone can get on iTunes with a small chunk of change, though, if the cloud does generate more music consumption, everybody wins.

There’s an argument that syncing pirated files somehow legitimizes them, but people made that argument about the iPod, too.

Advantage: none. Things stay largely as they are, it would appear; wait to see if this causes an up-tick in online music sales.

2. Will “cloud” music mean lower-quality audio?

Answer: presumably, yes and no. Apple largely touted downloads, not streams. reportedly, the service offers both. The streams would likely be lower-fidelity (safe guess, 128k AAC?), though details are unavailable as I write this.

Case in point – Apple touts downloading and 256k AAC files, even with iTunes Match, but never once mentions “streaming.” TuneCore, who provide service to Apple, say streaming is the whole point. By the way, not just “blogs” are confused by this issue; NPR All Things Considered reports today oscillated over whether to describe this as “streaming.”

Confirmed: the way in which I described the service originally was correct; for now, Apple says they’re not streaming files. Files sync and play locally.

Advantage: Apple / more data needed. And if you want to sync lossless or higher-fidelity files, do it.

3. How easy will sync be? Will this add DRM?

Answer: Looks pretty easy, though as with other Apple services, you of course need an Apple device or iTunes to make the thing work. (Note to self: Google, Amazon, and Apple have all left the door open for someone to make something that “just works” everywhere.)

Advantage: None. A complex landscape of devices and vendors means there’s a one-size-fits-all solution is probably far off.

4. What if you don’t buy from Apple?

Answer: The picture’s a little better here. Rip music or buy elsewhere, and you either sync or get your music matched to the iTunes catalog if it’s available there. That appears to be the best-case solution for now.

Advantage: Apple, more or less. See point #3.

5. Interoperability and the open Web.

The good: works with non-Apple content. The bad: pretty useless for non-Apple devices, and there’s no API. While sharing your music online might just mean more piracy, it’d be nice to share your data. And what happened to Ping?

For Web lovers, not much here. But that’s not a criticism of Apple, necessarily: it should appear as an engraved invitation to Web developers to keep attacking the question of how to enjoy music in new ways.

Advantage: the Web – shame all these vendors are slow to take advantage of it.

Next: I may have to take these four questions to Apple’s rivals — and, of course, we’ll have to see:
a) what labels think of all this
b) what the experience of actually using these services feels like to users

The most important question: will this change how you get your music to fans, or is it something to leave the device and software makers? That may take far longer to answer.

I’m not one to post every single minor software update, but with the latest handful of free upgrades for Native Instruments software, I think it’s safe to say the 64-bit age has come to the Mac musician. Windows developer Cakewalk heralded just this sort of advance for years on the PC side, with largely little company (even beyond the music world), but today, the technology is finally a reality for average users.

64-bit computing means a marginal performance boost on capable machines and more flexible memory usage. The 32-bit Mac has had an edge over a 32-bit PC – each application can access up to 4 GB, provided available physical memory. But with Snow Leopard and a 64-bit Mac, you can finally, say, take advantage of all of the 8GB or more you might have on your machine. And Windows users, likewise, can load up their machines and fly past the crushing limit – slightly below 4GB – that impacted their entire system. (Linux users can run 64-bit, too, or a PAE kernel that nets the same result as that 32-bit Mac.)

Back to the updates: both Mac and Windows users should benefit from bug fixes to FM8, Massive, Guitar Rig, and Absynth. You’ll find the free update on NI’s Service Center utility, or heading to the updater on the website.

But the 64-bit aspect is the biggest news here. Since standalone mode is supported, you don’t even need a 64-bit capable host like Logic or Cubase (cough, 32-bit-only Ableton). That brings the current roster of NI products with 64-bit products to the latest versions of:

Battery, Guitar Rig, Kontakt, Maschine, Massive, FM8, Absynth

…and drivers for all the Audio DJ line and Traktor Kontrol hardware. Unfortunately, that does leave a lot of 32-bit only stuff, especially if you haven’t upgraded lately, but you still have a significant number of choices.

Now, the collective wisdom of the readership of this site is far greater than my own. Any particular software you wish was 64-bit that isn’t? Has 64-bit software meant any real-world improvements in music production for you? Let us know.

And there were three – three major production apps now have OSC control. Once considered the domain of “DIY” apps or developers, OpenSoundControl is beginning to look like a viable option for open, standardized controls of music apps. Open-source Mac/Linux DAW Ardour has fully-documented OSC support as we saw in the spring, and this week tracker Renoise added OSC in a public beta. They join environments like Max and Pd, and a wide range of live visual software.

Add to that list DP. MOTU’s Digital Performer is the first mainstream, commercial DAW heavy-hitter to get OSC support, in its 7.2 update. 7.2 is generally a nice update, including theme support for its UI, but I’ll assume that if you’re a DP user, you’ve already found out about it. What you may have missed is the custom OSC control features added to DP’s default control surface support.

DP 7.2 update

Select Setup > Control Surface Setup, and you can add an OSC controller. Right now, that’s most likely to mean some sort of iOS iPhone or iPad app, though this suggests to me the incentive is growing for someone – anyone – to finish OSC support for traditional hardware with faders, knobs, and buttons, too.

Once you’ve got your networking setup configured, you’re granted extensive control of just about everything you can do with DP tracks. That includes, to paraphrase from the MOTU OSC Programming Guide:

• Global properties: transport, click, punch, and even frame formats.
• Actions: Cut, copy, undo, scrub, zoom, scroll, jump to markers, selection tools – all the things you normally do with the mouse and keyboard shortcuts.
• Track properties: Volume, pan, mute, solo, of course, but also group settings, monitoring, and other more advanced options.
• Sends and inserts.

You can find all the details by navigating to DP’s online control surface help.

Not absolutely everything is covered, but it’s fairly extensive and copiously documented. Aside from controlling DP from a custom iPad control surface, I’m curious if this helps people to have another outlet for making “macros” for control.

We haven’t seen yet what MOTU’s own plans for its OSC support may be, but I’ll let you know. I think even having DP and Ardour with similar support in DAWs is already progress for the traction of the protocol. Saying “I’m first” or “I’m exclusive” isn’t, of course, terribly meaningful when you’re talking standards. Now, OSC support in music software has some company.

Of course, with opportunity comes responsibility. There’s an even greater need for coordination between OSC developers, and a broader effort to help the protocol mature.

I’ve completed my round-up of some of the most compelling music creation applications coming to iPad at or near launch:

iPad Apps for Music Making: What’s Coming, The Bigger Picture

The revised post includes some new videos and apps introduced over the weekend, so check out the full line-up. My thinking was that putting everything in one place makes it easier to find, and to get a sense of the … well, the bigger picture.

The iPad DAW? Perhaps the most intriguing addition is StudioTrack from Sonoma (pictured at top), which looks most like a traditional DAW, but with bigger, friendlier, finger-tip friendly touch controls. Through Sonoma’s AudioPaste capability, you’ll be able to pull sounds from other apps and paste them into this environment for mixing.

The one, free app you need to get is clearly Richard Lawler’s PatternMusic, a unique way of generating looped, instrumental music ideas. I love the thought he’s put into the UI, which has yielded some unusual interface concepts, and his hand-drawn sketch above (lifted from his blog.)

Considering UI design: Speaking of UIs for slates, David Battino of Looptastic developer Sound Trends offers some more thoughts on “flattening” user interfaces which could be relevant to UI design for other apps, too — even beyond the iPad. Check out the video below.

Seeing the interface in action made me realize that adding space can have a significant impact on flow. I think it was Julian Colbeck who floated the great analogy that programming a Wavestation SR was like trying to paint your landing through your mail slot. Beyond the boost in performance, just increasing the space should make a surprising difference.

Hardware restrictions – more details: On the lest drool-inducing, more unpleasant side of our iPad coverage, I’ve gone into greater detail – to whatever extent possible – with the discussion of hardware restrictions on the platform. The situation is convoluted and complex, and researching this topic is challenging, as the limitations on developers are written in legal code that Apple then requires developers to keep confidential. But the short answer is, if you’re hoping for flexible hardware input and output via either Bluetooth or the dock connector, don’t get your hopes up. For the more technical answer, see the updated story:

Of MIDI, iPhones and iPads, and a Restrictive Future for Hardware?

Finally, if you’re curious to reflect on touch as a musical input – for better and for worse – here’s a look at Smule’s latest app, playing a familiar tune.

Minor releases and bugfixes don’t generally make CDM news, but this is a special occasion. Ableton founder and CEO Gerhard Behles got everyone’s attention this week by making the rare public announcement that Ableton’s development team was temporarily halting work on new features to focus on fixing bugs. That has prompted some seriously impassioned discussion, on the Ableton forum but also here on CDM. Look past some of the hyperbola and name-calling, and you’ll see some insightful comments on both sides. In fact, the whole affair reveals a lot about how music software customers view bugs, updates, support, release cycles, and pricing – developers, take note. Naturally, some of the disagreement comes from whether or not users are experiencing bugs: those that aren’t, as always, are happier. But there’s some common ground, too.

Also sobering: read further into comments, and you’ll see who can really lose out in credibility when stuff doesn’t work the way people expect, even more than a developer – music tech journalists (so, um, yes, folks like me). Not to apologize for myself or my colleagues, but one challenge has long been that it’s difficult for one user to find reliability issues. As the comment thread itself demonstrates, some people are blissfully happy whilst others are in absolute agony; look through the specifics of the changelog, and you’ll see why. One person, based on their behavior in the software, could see dramatic, regular crashes, while another sees nothing at all. Now, CDM has an advantage there – we can operate 24/7/365, we don’t have a weeks-long delay waiting for print, and we have a complete feedback loop with you. If you’re finding issues, I want to hear about them.

New release: Late yesterday, the 8.1.1 release moved from beta to final release, meaning you can go grab it now from the latest releases download section. Synthtopia has posted the full changelog.

Some highlights:

• Fixes various problems with the integration of Novation’s Launchpad
• Fixes a number of somewhat specific but showstopper crashes, like “Loading a Max device would crash if Pluggo was already active. I count fifteen instances of the word “crash,” which is a serious issue.
• Begins to address some reliability/performance issues with Drum Racks; specifically, “Having a Live set with particular Drum Racks could increase the CPU usage of the main thread, which would result in very slow graphical updates.” Because of our fondness for Drum Racks, both Dave Dri and I have run into performance problems that would lead us not to use this feature onstage.

I think it’s difficult to make a sweeping statement about something as relative as the reliability of the software. What you can say is that Ableton themselves have acknowledged this set of releases isn’t up to their own expectations, they’re committed to working on improving the situation in exclusion of other factors, and bug fixes are now coming in a steady stream.

In fact, “beatsme” in comments counts up the fixes since the Live 8 release on April 2 of this year, marking 42 improvements (0.16/day) and some 261 bug fixes (nearly one per day). You can read into that whatever you like, but the bottom line is, those issues are now fixed.

8.1.1 is apparently not the release to which Gerhard was referring when he talked about halting forward development; we expect fixes to continue to appear over the coming weeks.

Of course, all of Ableton’s DAW competitors release similar point updates, so any question about the relative reliability of Live should also be asked of other software, as well.

I do have one concern, too: with so many fixes relating to the integration of Ableton’s Launchpad and APC40, why not focus controller features on tools that will work with any hardware? And why not allow users to customize scripts? Many in the Ableton forum are capable of devising their own solutions and providing their own support for those solutions. I don’t think that’s unreasonable to ask, because many applications have focused hardware controller support on generic solutions in this way. I don’t believe there’s a “right answer” to that question – Ableton has made a decision they think makes sense, and that allows them to devote resources to supporting certain hardware units above and beyond what they previously had basic MIDI controllers. But I would still like to see controller support in Live in general mature beyond where it is today.

About those new features… Many readers have asked whether the emphasis on bug fixes will have any bearing on announcements at the NAMM conference in January. I haven’t heard any indication of that; Ableton is planning a party with Serato, and I still expect we’ll see an Ableton-Serato announcement on Thursday, January 14. I’ll be meeting with Ableton at the show to talk about that and any other news.

Other releases: We’ll keep an eye out for other releases, and will check in with Ableton for a big picture of the situation in a couple of months after some of the development dust settles.

Your mileage may vary: Please, if you’re testing new Live versions, let us know your experience. Be specific. And be sure to follow up with whether a thread tracking this bug is open on the Ableton forums.

The tricky thing about introducing a new feature is that you almost immediately hear from users about other features that would go well with that feature. (There’s a children’s story that goes this way.) The folks at Cakewalk have done what I think is a pretty amazing job of working through a big feature list, and throwing in additional goodies users get without even asking. They’ve also listened to users and been thorough in fixing issues – some quite particular – in 8.5. The result is that SONAR 8.5.2 brings a mature version of some significantly-changed features, and an unusually significant amount of stuff for a “point” release. If 8.5 was beginning to feel like 9.0, 8.5.2 definitely does.

Flash back for a moment to SONAR 8.5 and updates, which made enough of an impact among die-hard Cakewalk lovers that we started to see bizarre fan videos about it. As previewed back in September, 8.5′s banner features were a step sequencer, an arpeggiator, a Matrix View grid for triggering MIDI and audio clips (yes, reminiscent of a program that rhymes with Sable Bun Drive), a new sampled drum instrument, AudioSnap for tuning the timing of audio, and nice new effects strips.

Matrix View, an ambitious new feature, was admittedly not entirely baked when it shipped, and saw a set of performance and functionality fixes with 8.5.1. But with 8.5.2, nearly all of those banner features get improved, with additional bonuses, to boot. Some of my favorites:

• 70+ new impulses for the lovely Perfect Space convolution reverb
• Swing individual arpeggiators
• Combine Matrix View cells with probabilistic Step Sequencer patterns for some generative music-making
• Drag cells from Matrix View into Track View – a bit like going from Ableton Live’s Session View to Arrange View, but in a more conventional DAW workflow

The full list of enhancements, tweaks, and fixes is utterly enormous. Now, of course, it would have been nice to see 8.5 ship with some of these issues, but I will say Cakewalk has shown some attention to detail and gotten quite a lot right. I’m finishing up a review of 8.5x based on the 8.5.2 version now. So, as I polish that off – any remaining questions you’d like answered?

Rather than just review the tool, as well, I’ve been working in my own material and with the folks at Cakewalk to share some tips, so stay tuned.

SONAR 8.5.2 Update Changelog
SONAR 8.5.1 Matrix View Update
8.5.2 Update on the Cakewalk Blog

Drum machines may have no soul, but thanks to an update, Native’s soft drum machine has a lot more meat.

As the year comes to a close, inevitably thoughts turn to writing “best of the year” stories and round-ups. For computer musicians, this year has been dominated by Ableton on one hand and mobile apps on the other. But one of the big software releases of 2009 was also unquestionably Native Instruments’ Maschine. The hardware/software combination returns to some of the traditional drum machine workflows, but in a way that integrates nicely with your software setup. I got to see a prototype while in Berlin in the fall of 2008, and thought it had terrific potential. It’s not that it’s radically different from other things we’ve seen so much as the hardware-software integration, combined with a beautiful implementation and lots of NI sound goodness, made it fun. But, as often happens with 1.0 releases, the first shipping version had some missing pieces – like full-functioning MIDI integration – which could be deal breakers.

1.1 changes that, finally bringing the necessary ingredients to make Maschine an essential part of your music-making process. New features in this version (see video demos from NI after the jump):

• Proper MIDI output: You can use Maschine to output MIDI to play software, and to play hardware. That makes Maschine a powerful sequencer you can drop into any host – including NI’s own KORE, making the KORE + Maschine combination finally workable. And you can use it to sequence that Minimoog Voyager / Sega Mega Drive synth you have lying around.
• Proper MIDI input: Finally, you can trigger Maschine from your host, so you can, say, drop Maschine into Live or Numerology and sequence it.
• MIDI scene switching: In addition to triggering notes/sounds, you can trigger scenes from a host, ideal for recording arrangements.
• Drag-and-drop pattern export: Export patterns as audio into a host by dragging and dropping.
• Metronome and record count-in: Yes, as I’m not a robot, this will help me actually play my patterns live.
• Use REX loops: Propellerheads’ REX remains a standard for pre-sliced audio, making it easy to import your loops.
• Better hardware integration: Navigate and adjust groups, sound volume, panning on the controller, and save files.

There are also new options for slicing and pattern triggering and other performance optimizations.

It’s best to see all of this in action. NI has made three videos; I’ve embedded them below for your drum machine-watching pleasure.

For me, these smaller changes have made a world of difference, to the point that I expect Maschine to be a greater part of my work in 2010 than 2009. I’ll be sharing what I’m doing with it here soon. (Also, generally I expect more of our NI coverage will now be here on CDM rather than the Kore minisite; stay tuned.)

Note: Because of the German spelling, and having talked to its creators, I think Maschine should be pronounced with the German pronunciation. Sounds cooler than “machine” anyway. Also, German food is delicious, regardless of what anyone tells you. (Yes, Kirn is a German name, and I grew up loving German-American food.)

Maschine Product Page [English]

Software update for both MC Control and MC Mix that fixes compatibility issues with Mac OS 10.5.7. Includes recent MC Control touch-screen response optimization, as well as improved Digital Performer integration and more.

http://euphonix.com/artist/support/downloads.php