“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?)

What comes in the box has been expanded, too. In all the editions, you get the new stereo shaper and Autogun. In “Fruity Edition” and higher, you get SimSynth Live, DrumSynth Live, the DX-10 FM synth, and cool-sounding WASP and WASP-XT. In Producer Edition, you get the Vocodex vocoder.

Unfortunately, Image-Line still continues some confusing a la carte options, and actually eliminates its XXL edition that gave you everything. So, there’s a new Gross Beat that manipulates pitch, position, and volume in real-time, but you only get the demo with FL 9. I can’t really complain about this because FL has so much in it, but it can all get a little hard to follow sometimes.

On the other hand, if you’re an FL fan, I think you could do some serious damage with the vocoder and new sequence generating features.

I’ve always wanted to do a better job of covering FL on this site, so FL users, get in touch!

FL Studio product page
Download the demo

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.

We may need to revisit the vocoder issue as there’s a new vocoder in FL Studio (Vocodex in the current beta), plus the existing vocoder in Reason. Sounds like there’s an article here waiting to happen. I like Ableton’s vocoder, though; it’s a different implementation and coupled with their unique Frequency Shifter, you can get some really unusual sounds.

For more Live 8 learning (and a more in-depth discussion of different ways of approaching the Frequency Shifter):

Live 8 Videos: New Warping Explained, APC + ReMOTE SL Integration

Ableton Live 8 Misuse: Ping Pong Psuedo Scratching Effect Video Tutorial

Ableton Live 8 Creative Tutorial Videos: Using and Misusing Groove Extraction

Ableton Live 8 Creative Tutorial Videos: Misusing Frequency Shifter

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.

Encounters for Live 8 looks especially interesting. It’s a Live Pack intended specifically for performance and DJing, with some interesting bits and pieces:

• 25 Arpeggiator racks
• 40 effect racks geared for live playing – with some specifically designed for Live 8
• 50 Groove presets, taking advantage of Live 8’s new groove extraction
• 100 Dummy Clips for triggering automation

That’s the first time I’ve seen a download of Dummy Clips. Trigger these, and you can control other instruments, audio, and effects using dynamic envelopes. If that starts to piqué your interest, the Covert Operators have done a tutorial on how to use these clips:

Encounters Audio Modulation Clips from Bjorn Vayner on Vimeo.

That package sells for EUR25. I’m a little too idiosyncratic in my own work for it to be of much interest to me personally, but I love the ideas there. And power users, if you haven’t started to experiment with Dummy Clips, this is worth a look.

And be sure to check out the live slicing pack and tutorial we worked on with Bjorn (and myself) – that works with Live 8 just as well as Live 7.

Exclusive: Free Ableton Live Slicing Pack by Covert Operators

More Live 8 Tutorials:

Psuedo Scratching with Ping Pong

Misusing Groove Extraction

Misusing Frequency Shifter

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.

Nonetheless, these are two of my favorite processing plug-ins, and having them ready for Intel Macs is truly a great thing. Expect to see me vocoding my voice at the next gig.

Cost: US$29 / EUR 25 upgrade, or free for owners of the individual plug-in or Komplete who registered after 9/12/06.

Spektral Delay Universal Binary
Vokator Universal Binary

Anyone out there using VOKATOR for live vocoding effects? (In case you’ve been struggling, soon I’ll post my tutorial on setting this up in Ableton Live, which is not immediately intuitive because of the lack of dedicated side-chains in Live, though it is possible.)

The only real challenge in using vocoders in software is routing, since you need two signals — a carrier and a modulator. People are regularly asking how to do this on the Ableton Live forums, because there’s not an obvious way in Live to sidechain signal. Here’s one tutorial, and it’s friendly to people who have never used a vocoder before:

How To Use A Vocoder In Ableton Live [SonicTransfer]
More Orange Vocoder Tips [SonicTransfer]

Since some of the links are broken, here are the vocoders mentioned in the article. Both are Mac/Windows compatible, but only mda TalkBox is free:

Orange Vocoder Mac, Windows [Prosoniq]

mda Free Effects (Download the whole archive in VST Windows or VST/AU Mac format; TalkBox is in each version — and yes, the free mda stuff now runs Universal on Intel Macs)

Interestingly, this tutorial assumes you want a non-live solution. My preferred method is to set up two channels, one with the vocoder, and another with a live mic input (or other source), then route into the vocoder using the “Audio To” dropdown. I’m working on a tutorial specific to this with some other tips, so stay tuned.

My own vocoder of choice, which immediately suggests breaking out of the cliched vocoding mold with lots of wacky experimental presets and lovely-sounding synth sounds (I’ll share some of mine if I come up with anything nice):

Native Instruments Vokator [also in Komplete]

The vocoder has a long and fascinating history, one that goes beyond the narrow knowledge many people have of it. Wikipedia keeps getting better and better and has an extensive history; Obsolete.com looks at the first vocoders:

Vocoder [Wikipedia]
Homer Dudley’s Speech Synthesisers, “The Vocoder” (1940) & “Voder”(1939) [Obsolete.com: 120 Years of Electronic Music]

Note that Bob Moog and Wendy Carlos get credit for creating the vocoder as we now know it. (The original vocoder sounded quite different!)

The best news, here, however, is that you can build your own vocoder thanks to a PAIA kit designed by none other than Craig Anderton. It’s a traditional 8-band model (none of this new-fangled, 128-band nonsense), but with a “spectral cross modulator” for some additional effects. I would be running to buy one myself if I weren’t dead broke.

PAIA Vocoder

If anyone has one, let us know how it is to work with.

The key with making new vocoder effects is to get out there and experiment; love or hate the song, Imogen Heap’s blockbuster “Hide and Seek” (just when you thought vocoder hits were dead) came out of some happy accidents as the vocoder modulates between pitches. That’s made it hard to perform — and inspired choral a Capella versions — but it demonstrates yet again that the organic effect of struggling a bit with your technology often creates the most satisfying results.

Got more vocoder questions or tips? Send them on in.