“Fruity Loops” has long proven that not all music making apps have to look the same way. FL is quirky and different. Its editing interface is built as much around step sequencers and pattern sequencing as the conventional, mixer and audio-tape-derived views. But perhaps some of its real draw is that it packs, in its mid-level-and-higher packages, it’s packed with fascinating and unusual sonic toys. FL 9 looks to continue that tradition.

And because it’s FL, if you’ve ever bought FL, you get a free lifetime upgrade to this version. (Seriously, if you’re pirating FL, stop. You have absolutely no excuse.)

New toys in this version:

• Autogun Derived from the excellent sounds of the Ogun synth, this instrument has “more than four billion presets.” (Wait… what?) I do agree with Image-Line’s description of “rich metallic and shimmering timbres” in Ogun; that’s exactly what it sounds like.
• Vocodex vocoder, the “last word in Vocoders.” (I thought the last word was, “No one needs a vocoder,” but I could be wrong.) Automatic speech enhancement plus up to 100 “variable-width, multi-parameter” bands does give this some interesting twists.
• Stereo Shaper.

I think that improved performance and editing may be bigger news, however:

• Multi-core CPU support, multithreaded generator, and multithreaded effects processing. This is the one that I expect most excites you crazy, synth-and-effects-routing mad scientists who have been pegging your CPU.
• Improved effects: sidechaining in the limiter, mid-side processing in the reverb, export and noise reduction in the awesome Edison and Slicex audio-editing instruments.
• Improved Playlists with “Clip Track” features
• A “Riff Machine” for automatically generating sequences in the Piano Roll
• Multiple controller support for defining different instrument channels. (Okay, FL experts – did I miss something? That wasn’t present before?)

Still evaluating Live 8 – or want to learn more about how to use it? You can now read my review of Ableton Live 8 free on Keyboard Magazine’s site:

Ableton Live 8 Review [Keyboard Magazine]
See also (via comments) Nick Rothwell’s review for Sound on Sound June [subscription or US$1.49 fee required]

Keyboard doesn’t yet have comments, so feel free to discuss – or disagree – here.

I wanted to back up a little bit and consider Live as if for the first time. Now, I had also personally heard at least Robert Henke complain at one point that reviews of Live were uncritical. That to me would be a flaw as a reviewer, because all software designs involve compromises, so no software can ever be perfect. Here, I still feel there’s legitimate room for improvement in terms of the way Live handles interactive clip triggering and how it assigns control. Of course, we’re not just passively complaining about it – there’s also a community of Live users working to hack in functionality they need using the Live API, both via Python and forthcoming Max for Live.

Also for the review, I shot some quick video demos of features that were easier to show than describe, namely the new instrument Collision and the Vocoder effect. These are basically mini-tutorials on these creations. See Collision at top, Vocoder after the break at bottom. Fixed! Now the top video is actually the Collision video. (Oops.)

I’m a huge fan of physical modeling and Applied Acoustics, and Collision is one of the best percussion models I’ve seen. It starts to approach some of what’s possible in Apple’s Sculpture in Logic, but in a much more focused context, and with some unparalleled resonators (which you can also use on their own in the form of Corpus). See the top video for a walkthrough of the interface.

Vocoding Voices in Live 8 from Bjorn Vayner on Vimeo.

Continuing our growing collection of Live 8 video tutorials, our friend Bjorn of Covert Operators sends over a terrific tutorial on making use of the vocoder. Now, unlike the “misuse” tutorials we’ve been running, this is actually how this effect is designed to be used. On the other hand, if you’re still interested in misuse – and you’re not terribly interested in conventional effects – this can be a great way to wrap your head around the tool’s proper function, before you start warping it in another direction.

I think it’ll be fantastic having a vocoder ready to use, and if you haven’t played with a software vocoder, Live 8 should be a nice place to start. If any of you take this in another direction, do let us know.

Covert Operators has a whole bunch of downloads, tips, and tricks some available cheap, some free.

Live 8 is now officially out – for download versions, that means you can go grab the thing right now; retailers are also offering the software in boxed form today. See my previous look at top features.

The sorts of things that might make you like this new version:

• Groove extraction and dynamic groove quantization
• Live loop recording instrument (this one with the ability to set your tempo based on your loop length, for what’s called “first loop capability” a la the LoopStation)
• Some lovely new effects — Vocoder and Frequency Shifter being my two favorites
• Collision, a physically-modeled percussion instrument
• Lots of improvements to Operator
• A cleaned-up, expanded, improved sound Library

And quite a few other things, as well.

Curiously, I can’t find any information on what Share, the file sharing feature, will cost. I’ll try to find out.

Live 8

For those of you eagerly awaiting Max for Live – the environment that lets Max/MSP/Jitter patches appear natively in Live – that’s a separate release, expected later in 2009. (No beta is yet available of Max for Live, either.)

Update: Bits of the Ableton site haven’t been updated as I write this, but we do have the previous download/upgrade page (thanks, @plasticsounds on Twitter)

http://www.ableton.com/live-8-upgrades

Updated Ableton did update their site and the upgrade is now available for purchase and download.

I won’t comment yet on pricing as it’s a bit complex, but see some discussion in comments.

I’m finally editing some videos we have of tips for using the new version, so stay tuned right here.

Now, everyone go and write about / link to Live 8, as it’s getting really close to beating out the Live 8 concert event on Google (pictured at top).

Electro-Harmonix has made a quick-and-dirty vocal effects box. Usable parameters, good fun, and $200 – sure, it may not be the highest-fidelity vocal box ever, but what’s not to love? Our friend Collin Cunningham at MAKE gets the jump on this one.

It’s got some surprisingly unique features:

• 256-band vocoder “designed by the same EMS genius who made vocoding famous,” they say
• It will harmonically match electric instruments as well as vocals.
• 2- to 4-part harmonization, at the 3rd and 5th (labeled “Low” and “High” in case you slept through Music Theory class)
• 9 programmable presets
• Gliss
• Gender bender male/female formant mod (which actually sounds decent, and could be fun with instruments, as well)
• Mic pre, phantom power, balanced XLR output (thanks for not making this like a cheap consumer toy)

And the whole thing is built in NYC. I have to go see where they’re making these things.

I think this line is hilarious: “Diana Ross had the Supremes, Brian Wilson had the Beach Boys, Kraftwerk had The Robots. You have the Voice Box.”

Well, speak for yourself. I want the Kirnaires backing me up (matching sweaters and all) and I still want a Voice Box.

Above: proof you can have a product demo video that isn’t lame. (I’m looking at you, um … almost entire music instruments industry!)

EV appear to have seeded these to other folks to make some YouTube videos. You know what that means: it’s time for a really odd and wonderful cover of Knights of Cydonia. That’s funny, “No One’s Going to Take Me Alive” is the line I last used when I neglected to return a demo hardware loaner.

For an impressive, competing line of products, check out the TC Helicon line. They’ve recently offered up the smaller, stompbox-style Voicebox line, which nicely reduces their high-end effects to a smaller form factor. It’s a good time to be a vocalist shopping for gear.