Cycling ‘74 have updated Max 5’s pricing and streamlined a bit in the new release. (That means Max for MIDI and basic data crunching, MSP for audio, synthesis, and signal processing, and Jitter for video, 3D, and advanced data processing.) Since this impacts a number of our readers, it’s worth going over this.

Updated: The story now reflects a clarification from Cycling ‘74 over which Jitter objects work in Max/MSP.

Updated: Let me sum this up. Ableton may or may not have a vocoder in the works (signs actually do point to yes on that). The best part of this story is the remixed “no one needs a vocoder” video, which encapsulates electronic music’s current love/hate/cliche relationship with the thing. And other than that, there’s a lot of me talking without really have any idea what I’m talking about — which is why I usually don’t post on Sundays. Doh. Just watch the video / sample it in your next Live set.

I haven’t necessarily been following Live’s forums lately, but apparently one of the hot-button issues lately was a rumored "secret" vocoder in a future build of Ableton Live. The myth goes something like this: a camera crew doing a behind-the-scenes look at Ableton’s Berlin office accidentally captures a brief moment in which an unreleased vocoder appears in the bottom part of the screen. I’ve been hearing buzz about this for weeks, but Garret Collins is the latest.

I actually really recommend the Inside Ableton MusoTalk video (German); it’s a great little feature. But, of course, the hint of something new in Live has now upstaged that original video.

Live fans go even further, so that the Vocoder — hang on, it’d need a simpler Ableton-y name, like … uh … Carrier or Encoder — is part of a massive conspiracy by which Ableton keeps you from getting the bezier-curve envelopes you really want. (Side note: I prefer Catmull splines, myself.) And it turns out David Zicarelli was on the grassy knoll working for the CIA, or something. (Another side note: I just got to link to Geocities! And it’s still running!)

It seems zany, but then this is the week when the mainstream computer tech blogosphere is speculating about the likelihood of Microsoft switching to spherical interfaces. (Look out, Apple "i"! And will that get people high, like the sphere in Woody Allen’s Sleeper?)

No One Needs a Vocoder - Henke

Okay, I digress. The really amazing thing is this comes up today, again, when shortly after the original video was widely debunked earlier this year. Here’s the problem: just a few days after the video, Ableton co-founder Robert Henke had this to say about vocoders — hilariously:

Via our forums, April 22 is the magic release date for Max 5:

Max 5 release date [Create Digital Noise]

And if you’re lucky enough to be near Bellingham, Washington this week, you’ve got pretty good odds on winning the upgrade, plus a 100% chance of checking out some cool stuff. Atomic Afro, CDM regular and maestro of affordable Windows software, will be there.

Max 5 has been a long time coming, and it’s exciting to see the direction the software is taking.

In other news: the cycling74.com site is down possibly not down. So, we’ve learned the entire CDM readership was just sitting at their computers, waiting for the moment that the date got announced. Erm, that or it’s an unrelated bug, but I like the mental image.

As a result, we can’t look at videos of Max 5. We can look at the Monome, however, which runs on Max. What’s Max 5 like? It’s totally like Brian and Kelli’s cat. Just watch the cat. Max is like that now. Softer, more independent. Feline. Four-legged.

Site is back up, so you can check out the sample videos. Thanks, 7oi!

Ed.: Deckadance DJ software has been on our radar for some time on the DJ software front: lots of MIDI control (with one caveat; see below), agnostic support for multiple vinyl timecode systems, and most interestingly the ability to run the whole app as a VST plug-in. Dreams of loading Deckadance into Ableton Live danced through DJs heads. The app even added built-in support for Nintendo Wii remotes. But the software, from the development house that brought us FL Studio (”Fruity Loops”) was Windows only. No more:

Image-Line has just released the latest beta of Deckadance, 1.20RC3. This version is the first version to include support for OS X. The developers have written on the Deckadance forums that the port to OS X required almost a complete rewrite. Early reports are mostly positive, with a few bugs (mostly on the Windows side reported here and there). Other notable changes include:

• Redesign of the Digital Vinyl System panel. It includes now a real-time signal spectroscope and an easy-to-use interface
• Vinyl timecode control of decks inside Live and Live LE
• Native support for Numark Total Control console

However, there’s no reports of a fix to allow pitch bend messages for deck pitch control, a personal obsession of mine. [Ed.: Wally, fairly sure you're not alone on that! -PK] Still, though, kudos to the Deckadance team for getting the OS X version out the door before the end of the year. Let’s hope 2008 holds great things in store for Deckadance!

1.20RC3 Beta Announcement [Image-Line Forums]
Windows beta download; Mac beta download

(You must be logged into the free Image-Line forums to use the download links.)

Image-Line has also posted a video showing Deckadance running on both Mac and Windows:

Awhile back, we reviewed Wave Editor, and deemed it one of our favorite audio editors for Mac OS X. Our friends at Audiofile Engineering have ushered in the holiday season with a complete site redesign and numerous application updates, including the highly anticipated Wave Editor 1.3, and Leopard-ready updates to apps across the board.

You may also recall that Audiofile Engineering recently rescued the excellent instrument and effect host, Rax - formerly developed by our friends at plasq. It is clear that Apple borrowed heavily from Rax’s design choices and intentions with their new MainStage application (bundled with Logic 8) but with its impressive features, custom interfaces for audio units, cool visualizer support, and active development, Rax is still the application to beat in this domain.

Competitive upgrade, crossgrade and educational pricing, sleek new icons, one of the finest audio application suites in the industry (and did we mention a simple, non-draconian form of authorization?) - Audiofile Engineering has definitely brightened the days for Mac users this season!

Generally, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard has been working pretty well for most users, though we continue to hear a number of complaints about compatibility with M-Audio hardware. There are some annoyances, though, including one glitch as far as routing audio between apps. Updated: the good news is, this is fixable.

In the “bad” category, Paul Davis, the creator of JACK and Ardour, writes:

Leopard has stopped JACK and other inter-application audio routers from being used as the default audio device. Apple is now distributing an SDK that is aimed at “aiding” developers in writing user-space CoreAudio “drivers” such as JACK and SoundFlower. Early reports suggest that the SDK requires a much more complex design. JACK still runs on Leopard, and so JACK-aware apps (i.e. Linux audio apps ported to OS X like Ardour and Jamin) can use it, but native apps can no longer be connected to each other or to JACK applications. Work is underway to make JACK use this new SDK but it appears to be a non-trivial effort. Apple’s motive in making this change is not clear.

Now, the good news. JACK OS X’s developers chime in in comments to point out progress is being made. And this is even a good thing. (Unfortunately, such is the way with OSes — for even small improvements, you have to break, then fix things, then reap the benefits, sometimes not immediately.) From Stephane:

SoundFlower is actually a “kernel space” driver that is somewhat much more easier to develop and maintain

• Apple SDK is definitively a step forward to develop more compliant “user-space” drivers, even if mastering the new code layering takes some time…
• as Dan said, the new version is almost ready and should be more compliant (more application working correctly with it)

And a beta is available now.

In other words, if you use these apps in a critical project, you might want to hold off upgrading, but otherwise all is well. I’ll be sure to post an update when a fix is ready. Note that Audio Hijack is now compatible with Mac OS X 10.5, though that doesn’t allow many of the musical applications possible with JACK and SoundFlower.

A subtler UI annoyance, Apple has somewhat crippled the audio previews you get in Finder’s multi-column view. You get the “play” button in the last column, as before, but no scrubbing or volume control. QuickLook, fortunately, solves the problem. Hit space and you get a full view of your audio file. At first, I thought this would be less convenient, thinking you’d have to preview files one at a time. But you can navigate from one file to another by scrolling up and down with the keyboard to select different files. Thanks to David Hollands for this tip; David says he’s finding QuickLook to be slower than using multi-column view.

Another alternative would be to use a dedicated utility like Iced Audio’s AudioFinder for your sample sorting, which may be better than Leopard or Tiger anyway, depending on your preference.

Sure enough, today we learn that AudioFinder’s new sample editor is in beta. Combined with AF’s other sample juggling tools, the fix may actually be more interesting than the problem.

Ableton Live 7 was officially announced today. I’m here in an airport on a layover, but that gave me an idea: what does this mean, in plain English, without mentioning any specific features (with a couple of key exceptions), in a way you could explain to a friend in an elevator.

• The core sound engine is improved, including higher-quality effects. Most noticably, the Compressor sounds fantastic.
• Hardware lovers can now insert physical instruments as though they were plug-ins.
• Time signature changes and tempo nudge should please live musicians and DJs.
• A Drum Rack feature consolidates a whole bunch of workflows, from slicing up beats and assigning them to pads to easily creating complex chains of samples, synthesis, and effects on individual pads. This means remix artists, live performers, and DJs will all be able to more flexibly create beats.
• In addition to the standard Live version, there’s now a Suite for a few hundred extra that bundles in more instruments.
• You can also pick up new instruments a la carte, from a synth that models real-world instruments to sampled drums and an orchestral library. Ableton’s innovation here is reworking these instruments with their hallmark minimalist, consistent interface.

In short, Live 7 sounds better, is more flexible about rhythm and tempo, does the usual Ableton yearly release housecleaning, and introduces a simple but deep new method for working with virtual racks of drum pads.

Live Suite does for Abletonland what Logic’s instruments do for Logic Studio, but refined into a common set of interfaces and available a la carte (which could be good news or bad).

That’s the preview; more hands-on coming soon. Now, on to Australia, assuming my ground crew can fix my 747’s brakes. (Hmmm… you know what? I’ll wait rather patiently for that.)

Burning questions list: Okay, like 30 seconds after that was posted, someone already has a really good, technical question. So leave them here, and I’ll try to get to them over the coming weeks.

I expect I’ll be somewhere over the Pacific Ocean on my way to Australia when it happens, but now that Ableton has closed its beta list and sent out a release candidate, you can expect an official Ableton Live 7 release really soon now. (I can share that, as the forums and beta list said as much!) Francis Preve has a good Cliff Notes-style guide to what’s new for Beatportal. I’ve been using it in performance and hope to do that some more on the road, so stay tuned.

You can now go ahead and buy Live 6 and get the upgrade, so no need to wait.