You’re not, in fact, a lonely bedroom musician with no friends. You’ve got friends. You’ve got collaborators. You’ve got audio and visual artists who want to play with your laptop with sync piped between you, and yet wireless synchronization for laptop performance has often been an elusive ideal. Here, in spectacular fashion, you can see it all come together over WiFi with Ableton Live, a projection-mapped coffeemaker, and everything from percolation sounds to the keypad sound effect from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

This just in from Barcelona – a new Max for Live plug-in is making laptops and coffee pots jam in harmony. A proper review is in order from CDM. (Well, once we find a few friends… by astounding coincidence, I’ll be surrounded by Ableton users – visual and audio – next week in Rome. I’ll make it happen.) But that’s no reason to deny you the pleasure of the video now. It’s the best part of waking up.

More: http://www.ooeevv.com/

Let’s get this out of the way: musicians are not a “niche” group. Recording has done some damage to the popular practice of live music, but still, you’ll find an astonishing number of people play instruments and sing. (New pop culture phenomena like Glee, the Guitar Hero/Rock Band games, and the resurgent TV talent show have helped, too.)

What’s “niche” is conventional music production software. While it’s a fast-growing segment, music making software remains elusive and befuddling to a whole lot of musicians. GarageBand for Mac was one answer to what software for the remaining group should look like. But pick up GarageBand for iOS, and you experience software that comes even closer to that vision. It’s simply one of the best-designed music tools for iOS, and would be so whether or not it carried the Apple name. It’s not the perfect tool for every iPad owner, necessarily, but it’s perhaps the best window into what a tablet can be for music. It realizes that original idea of GarageBand better than anything we’ve seen yet.

GarageBand has had just over a year on the iPad, and has gotten a significant revision. That’s left time to dive deeper into its features, for me, testing on the very first iPad and working now with the additional features Apple added more recently. Here’s why it could be worth trying (including if you’re an advanced iOS user or even music developer), why you might recommend it to beginners, and a few things about it that you might not know as far as more sophisticated functionality. (I’ll focus on the iPad functionality primarily, because for me it was the ideal form factor with which to produce music.)

I’ve spent some time with the software design. Here’s what makes I feel it special:

Design Strengths

I am your density. Density of touch controls is essential to design. Some iOS apps, while powerful, have so many controls that they can be tough on fat fingers and confusing to beginners. Others go to the opposite extreme, becoming so oversimplified that it’s hard to make the music you produce sound like your own (fine for toys or games, but not for creative software). Editing on GarageBand for iPad never feels awkward. Switching between editing modes can be a little disorienting at first, but the interface on each screen is crystal clear. The interface details (like woodgrain) that seem sometimes out of place on desktop also look perfect here, and they manage to add detail and texture without being distracting.

It feels naturally touchable. I still prefer hooking up a MIDI keyboard, but the touch instruments in GarageBand, and the editing interfaces, also feel natural. It really is possible to sketch out an idea with touch, at least in a broad sense. That immediacy is perfect for something that’s mobile, and for making music software feel like something you can touch directly. It overcomes the feeling both in desktop software and many iPad apps that the software is somehow at arm’s length.

It’s the most familiar to conventional musicians. Without being condescending to its users, GarageBand for iPad makes choices immediate and visually obvious. Rather than puzzling through a foreign interface, you find crisp text and images of familiar instruments, microphones, and other eminently musical metaphors. That extends to musical vocabulary on synth controls, keys and scales, and the like. People who have at least a little background in music will understand how to use this app, and without having to either learn a futuristic, alien UI (fun as those are) or be specifically versed in electronic music technology. There are a couple of confusing icons – the “Instruments” icon looks like you’re tying up a boat with a knot more than a patch cord – but by and large, this is a familiar interface.

Now, for a few details you might not know.

A showcase for the iPad’s tech

Initially, some third-party developers worried that Apple’s entry into iPad apps would crowd out independent developers. Instead, I feel GarageBand can be an effective showcase – and, given its price, it’s also a good entry for those of you curious about iPad music making, which could lead to other apps. You would hope Apple would lead in tech adoption, and in this case, they gladly do:

• It supports high DPI. If you do have a third-generation iPad (“the new iPad”), it should look especially nice. (I’m still on an original iPad; happily, it doesn’t look too shabby there, either.)
• It has some powerful wireless Jam Session features. You can communicate over Bluetooth or local WiFi with up to four total iOS devices. One device acts as a “bandleader,” and then other gadgets – including the iPhone – can synchronize to tempo, play position, and play controls. Smart instruments also follow shared chords, though you can play outside those chords if you like. You can also elect to turn off bandleader control.
• The coolest feature of sync, and the one that’s something new in “multiplayer” music making, is the ability to collect recordings on the “bandleader” device automatically. This suggests some real collaborative possibilities for music making that go beyond just syncing tempo, and it’s something I hope we see on desktop soon, too.
• You can use USB keyboards and the like, via Core MIDI support. So, cool as those smart instruments are with touch, you can also play conventionally. Some of the “smart” features are even supported via MIDI.
• You can use GarageBand with other iPad apps, thanks to Audio Copy/Paste. That could make GarageBand an ideal iOS hub for a studio of other third-party instruments and tools. It does work in just one direction – you can paste materials into GarageBand, but not out again – but that makes some sense, with GarageBand as your main “host” or editor tool.

I hope to get together with some other iPad owners in June to document how the wireless features work in video, and perhaps show off some of those Copy/Paste workflows; stay tuned.

Playability

The Instruments are an important feature for GarageBand. They won’t suit everyone – people wanting to make specific kinds of music should take a look through the diversity of what’s available for iOS in synths, instruments, and the like. But they do cover some basics. There are also some unique “smart” playability features.

Advanced articulations: try playing with some of the different instruments, and you’ll discover some nice features. Multi-touch gestures will often unlock certain instrumental techniques. The stringed instruments will respond when you play on the neck or use different voicings. Sections, as in grouped strings, will add swells or pizzicato, depending on how you play. These are features you’d expect of an advanced sample library, but not necessarily an iPad app – and it’s nice to be able to use your fingers on the screen to play them.

Also, while non-electronic genres definitely get a lot of love from GarageBand from the amps to instrument models, fans of electronic or dance music (or electro nuts, if you like) get plenty of synth bass and keyboard instruments. That’s what you’d expect from software that shares lineage with Logic, and it almost strikes me as a challenge to produce an electronic track entirely on GarageBand. (I’ll see what I can do; I’ve got a lot of travel coming up!)

My favorite current feature is the arpeggiator in the keyboard, which is a must on a touchscreen instrument.

In fact, while it’s also one of the more innovative features, I think my only disappointment is with the smart drum instruments. It’s a fascinating feature, letting you add different rhythmic parts by complexity, but it often falls a bit short of coming up with something genuinely musical, sounding a bit more like the auto-accompaniment it is. I think this really speaks to the demands we make of rhythm. It’s usable, it just may have you going back to editing to produce something original (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Guitar and string parts, in contrast, do really shine; they cover relatively stock gestures, but that could be perfect when you’re sketching out a new song idea. You can always fill in more elaborate parts later when you work on a more complete track, more likely then in a studio or on a desktop machine.

Editability

Editing was a bit short in the first release, and in some music making apps, but here, those features have been fleshed out in a way that’s nonetheless intuitive and accessible.

A lot has been made of the comparison of the old tape four-track – like a Tascam – and the iPad. Here, you can create subs and bounce tracks together to make new tracks, so that basic workflow is possible. (In place of the four track, what you’ve got, basically, is an eight track.)

It’s also possible to non-destructively merge editor tracks.

Note editing is, of course, a major addition to GarageBand. At last, it makes this a usable production tool. You’ll also find, appropriately, different editing options for drum parts, audio, and instrumental parts.

It’s also important to note that your musical options aren’t dumbed-down. You can create custom chords, rather than being locked into certain harmonies. Triple time signatures are possible, too (3/4 and 6/8 – sorry, Elliot Carter fans, it does stop there). You also get basic options for features like swing and quantization.

The only editing feature I’d still like to see is notation. A notational view would open up GarageBand to still more conventional musicians, and a score seems a perfect editing interface on a tablet. Aside from force of habit, the score is literally designed for this form factor, making music easy to see and understand.

Sharing and workflow features:

Some people will choose to produce entirely on an iPad or iPhone, but to make that mobility an advantage, you need to be able to share directly, and for some of us, at least, you’ll want to use the mobile gadget as a satellite, coming back to your main studio for more.

You can now sync projects across iPhone and iPad, and so on, as well as back to your desktop Mac for editing in GarageBand and Logic. You can also save to an iMovie soundtrack directly on the iPad, so you can use this as an on-the-go scoring tool.

You can also share to Facebook, YouTube, and, as part of a growing trend, SoundCloud.

But most importantly, import/export support means you can make projects your own, and use your iOS device in conjunction with a desktop machine or full studio. You can import and export your own media, including MP3, AAC (up to 192 kbps), AIFF, WAV, and Mac Apple Loops. (Of course, lossless files are generally a better choice.) Just add the file to iTunes.

Which devices are supported? GarageBand works on iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad. You can use Jam Session on iPod touch (current models), but not third-generation iPhone or earlier and or older iPod touch models.

Conclusions

Part of the beauty of iPad music development, as the field matures, is that not every single tool tries to be all things to all people. But that doesn’t mean a tool shouldn’t feel meaty enough to be used over time.

On a variety of platforms, we’ve been waiting for a tool that can be an effective starting point. GarageBand on the iPad hits a sweet spot as far as that’s concerned. For playable instruments usable with touch – via the tablet, even if you’re crammed into a narrow seat on easyJet – it’s fantastic. Its interface is conventional enough that beginning musicians won’t feel as though they’ve just stolen a Klingon battle cruiser. But it’s also sophisticated enough that you can sketch out a song. For more advanced users, it’s still worth having around for that purpose, arranging chords and performing simple capture from other apps.

When do you outgrow it, what’s nice about the iPad is that it’s stupidly simple and affordable to add other tools. Want a more powerful song editor? Need a better groove machine / drum machine? Want to add vocal effects? You can simply turn to another app – but only to do what you really need, and only when you need it.

My only real regret is, even beginning musicians and songwriters often benefit from music notation. The absence of a score view/editor or the ability to see your music as notation seems a big omission.

Otherwise, GarageBand is a marvel – a perfect anchor from which to explore the outburst of developer creativity on this platform. In fact, far from portraying Apple as “consumer” company, it makes an excellent argument for the pro application development chops they’ve built up over the years – and could easily get people hooked enough to get into Logic Studio on a Mac laptop.

I hope we have at least opened some doors to finding new tools for users wondering what to do with their iPads (or iPhones, or iPod touches). And on that note, it’s worth revisiting the original GarageBand launch video, to see, with more distance, how Apple articulated their ideas for the app:

Ah, I remember March 2011…

Grab the app or review it yourself:
GarageBand for iOS @ apps.createdigitalmusic.com

Equipped with MIDI, a phone or tablet can communicate with a vast range of standalone hardware and computer software for music. So, what to do with that power? Two recent applications show just some of the breadth of possibility, one from Japan, one from Ukraine. One provides an array of powerful tools, combining into one application a lot of functions that have otherwise been available only in separate apps. One takes a more novel approach. Each demonstrates Apple’s increasingly-ubiquitous iPhone and iPad to be a surprisingly-indispensible musical tool.

Let’s look at the more whimsical of the two first.

From Japanese media artist and developer Masayuki Akamatsu (known as aka), MIDIWriter is a bit unlike MIDI tools you’ve likely seen before. It sends MIDI notes not from a piano keyboard or more familiar musical interface, but from the key entry you’d usually use to type in messages. That means the on-screen keyboard – even, as pictured, in another language – can become a musical instrument instead of input method for SMS and the like.

Where things get even more interesting is when you add a Bluetooth keyboard or keyboard dock, for iPad or iPhone. Then, those gadgets become physical input devices. (In the oddest example, a projected keyboard even works.)

http://akamatsu.org/aka/ios/apps/midiwriter/ [lots of great documentation, in both English and Japanese]
MIDIWriter @ apps.createdigitalmusic.com [View, install; US$0.99]

It’s all quite peculiar, but I can think of one particular advantage to doing something a bit unusual: sometimes, the best way to break out of tired musical habits is to face an unfamiliar musical interface.

In the more conventional and practical end of the pool, we have Wiksnet’s MIDI Studio. With rather lovely, refined-looking interface design, the Ukrainian app treads in the competitive waters of iOS MIDI controllers. What it does that those apps don’t necessarily do, though:
1. It adds velocity senstivity, via vibration, as seen in Apple’s own GarageBand but less-commonly in MIDI tools.
2. It combines layouts into convenient configurations, coupling, for instance, knobs with MIDI keys.

And it looks nice. A future version promises editable templates, but for many, having some nice stuff up and running without any additional effort could be a draw. From the developers, a feature list:

• Essential MIDI compatibility (Core MIDI, over WiFi and USB)
• Drum pads with modulation across X/Y axes, velocity
• Two keyboards, each with a different key size, and customizable key/tuning mappings
• Built-in arpeggiator
• Easy mapping of ADSR, etc. to knobs on the keyboard layout

http://www.wiksnet.com/
MIDI Studio @ apps.createdigitalmusic.com [View, install; US$10.99]

There’s no official view, but here’s one fan-made entry:

The Ukrainian developer has done other commercial work, they say, but this is their first unique iOS music app. The next release will have, alongside editable templates, velocity sensitivity, and will fill other user requests.

In the case of MIDIWriter, there’s not a lot of comparison to be made – desktop software has often mapped standard input and keyboards to music, but not necessarily iOS apps. With MIDI Studio, of course, we’re overdue for an overview of MIDI apps.

Let us know how you use these – or other tools, including things that don’t begin with a lowercase “i” – to produce MIDI events in your workflow.

Like a World’s Fair of all the invention in music technology, the big trade shows still gather many of the latest creations from around the globe. And while the NAMM show in California is big, Musikmesse is bigger: spanning some 11 halls (together with a live lighting and event show called Pro Light+Sound), it’s the biggest on Earth. Having covered NAMM for German publication DE:BUG, I’m thrilled to get to do the reverse and highlight the best of Messe for California-based Keyboard Magazine.

Musikmesse 2012 Gear Report [Keyboard Magazine]

Instead of trying to cover absolutely everything, this is the stuff I found especially significant – and I got the luxury of giving into my personal bias toward things with keys on them. Some of the highlights:

• RME getting 36 channels, 24-bit, 192 kHz audio … on a computer and on your iPad. (Also, thanks to RME for the delicious beer.)
• Mode Machines’ wonderful German x0xb0x, SID drum machine, and other treats.
• More accurate modeled pianos, including the epic ALPHA with its full-sized hammer action inside. (No, not what keyboard makers usually call hammer action – like, the whole hammer.)
• Roland’s clever mechanism for using your iPhone to record and jam along with their instruments, wirelessly. (See my hands-on video, below).

And, of course, there’s lots of gear to look at. It wasn’t new to Messe, but if my ethics circuitry were to short-circuit and I decided to hide something under a coat, I sure do love that Buchla modular and touch plate, for all its quirky strangeness. In fact, apologies to the folks at Moog, but I have to recount this story. Evidently a couple of Moog reps went over to the Buchla display to try out the new modular, and came back frustrated about the touchplate and the lack of a conventional keyboard. (Believe me, they’re not wrong: these can keep you from making useful sound if you don’t have a lot of time.) Now, I cut my teeth in analog on two modulars side by side, an original Buchla and Moog setup. I was charmed by the reenactment of the controversy over Buchla – its unconventional input, its creatively-worded labels, and its different approach to patching. I talked to others with the same split reaction, not just Moog. It’s all the more topical after my passing mention of a giant sphere triggered a minor flame war in comments. (And don’t get me wrong: as I said before, I love keyboards, and still favor them over other means of input.)

I always loved both the Buchla and Moog for their differences, and the fact that these philosophical difference survive decades later gives some hope for the longevity of what we do – sometimes even the longevity of our peculiarities.

Let me know what your favorite finds were from Messe, even if you were watching online. (In all honesty, your odds may be better than if you get lost on the giant show floors!)

Yesterday, we saw a bit of the idea of making mobile gadgets more sociable with each other. The idea is, through network/wireless and cabled connectivity, you extend possibilities for expression, control, and collaboration with yourself and others. It’s the same thing that makes a recording studio useful: tools work together to let people work together to create music. It’s absolutely not a new idea; the engineering question is just making it work well on new platforms.

On iOS, we’re already seeing some of this: apart from MIDI connectivity, developer like KORG have even tried using wireless features intended largely for multiplayer gaming to connect multiple beatboxes and synths over a network.

Continuing a look at the Android side of things, Andrea Belloni sends an open source project that gets a sequencer working over a network with a computer and Arduino-based hardware project. It’s really a proof of concept – let’s call it a hack of concept – so they say specifically they weren’t concerned with making it pretty. It’s at an earlier stage of the process, but it’s nice to see that. The basic idea is to control the hardware sequencer, built on Arduino, with a Processing sketch running on the phone, all over a WiFi network. Take the same basic idea and streamline the hardware a bit (the Arduino and shield get a bit clunky), and this could actually be practical.

Android Arduino Sequencer [Italian + English]

But I think as an illustration of what I was saying in words yesterday, it’s worth covering this just so I have an excuse to use this picture:

Yep, that’s the idea. Add in some other operating systems to that graph, too, if you like!

Ready to cut the cord and go wireless? With mobile gadgets getting involved in music-making, it seems a logical solution – maybe not reason to throw away your MIDI cabling, but worth at least trying. Bluetooth could be an answer. In fact, it could work even without all those pesky, pricey mobile tablets and phones lying around, just with good, old-fashioned MIDI gear. (‘Bout time.)

Bluetooth and MIDI are a logical match; the big surprise is that these two haven’t paired off (cough) much earlier. We’ve seen the occasional implementation or paper or rant, but not much real-world usage. That could be about to change – that is, provided ample real-world testing.

Bluetooth mobile sync: First off, owners of Korg iOS software just got a Bluetooth-based update that provides sync. (See video below, shot by tipster and reader Danny Fluck.) Entitled “Wireless Sync-Start Technology,” KORG promises their Bluetooth feature now enables two iPads running iElectribe or iMS-20 to sync with one another with zero latency. (The update also includes perhaps more widely-useful features – SoundCloud support and AudioCopy, says Synthtopia.)

The name suggests that what the “sync-start” technique does is actually to match any latency between the two devices so that they start at the same time. That’s how multiplayer gaming typically works, and it applies easily to musical applications: you ping connected devices, then delay the start points of each of them to match the slowest device so that they sound together. (I think I’m saying that correctly and clearly; it’s Friday.)

Danny reports that it works perfectly and “instantaneously.”

Okay, so cool, as long as you only use iPads, and you’re lucky enough to have two iPads handy, and you only use KORG apps, you’ve got a nifty solution – but that’s a little limiting.

Bluetooth MIDI on Android or any hardware device. A bit further-reaching is something Peter Brinkmann, primary author of libpd, has been testing. (See video, top, which is much snappier than my explanation.) Now, Peter is no MIDI fanboy; when several of us talked about adding MIDI to libpd – an embeddable version of the open source patching environment – he described MIDI as a “plague upon humanity.” (I don’t recall seeing that quote anywhere on the MIDI Manufacturing Association website.)

But here’s the thing: MIDI is obsessively compact and simple, and absurdly easy to implement even on the cheapest microcontroller. That makes it ideally suited as a means of making inexpensive hardware inter-operate, and without using up lots of power or bandwidth – just as MIDI was designed to do.

Furthermore, as Apple tablets and phones demonstrated USB MIDI connections, it got Peter (and some of the rest of us) thinking. Yes, it’s too bad that Android devices lack key USB host capabilities that would let them talk to hardware. On the other hand, once you start attaching lots of cables to a device, you might as well use a (more powerful, more flexible) computer in place of the tablet. So low-power, efficient wireless – like Bluetooth – seems the way to go.

Like a good engineer, Peter went and hacked the solution he wanted himself. Partially inspired by Lady Ada’s own, well-documented Bluetooth MIDI experiments, Peter started documenting the process on his blog.

In his first blog post, he describes his hardware setup. (He later updated the rig and moved it off the bread board.

In part 2, he describes latency and jitter. Here’s what I’ve been told by mobile engineers to whom I talked: performance has greatly improved in Bluetooth implementations in recent years. That means that part of the reason Bluetooth MIDI may have been adapted is that, when people first began testing this a few years ago, the implementations weren’t yet good enough – and no one has checked since. (Until now, that is.)

Since then, Peter has released free software for the Android platform, all under a free Apache license, so anyone can try it out. And since it works natively with Pd for Android, this means you can very quickly hook up a Pd patch to Bluetooth support on any Android device. There’s even a sample patch and code to get you started!

As far as I know, Apple doesn’t let you implement a similar solution on iOS, so this would remain Android-only. (Hey, come on – iOS can’t have all the fun.) I’m curious to hear if I have that correct, though, so please do share.

The next step: refining the hardware rig and interface design and most importantly, testing. Correction: I claimed that the MIDI interface was not opto-isolated; it actually is.

Hacklab and testing: With that spirit in mind, on Saturday April 2 from 1p – 6p, we’ll have a free, open hacklab in New York. It’s mainly an informal get-together, but there will be short demos as we go. It’s the first step in broader testing and experimentation with these ideas. If you’re in the NYC area, you can RSVP on Facebook. (just went up, so it may be quiet) The plan is to play a bit with hardware and software and different Android devices.

All are welcome to the hacklab, regardless of experience.

This isn’t just an Android thing, though. Part of the reason to use Bluetooth in place of WiFi is that it’s much simpler and cheaper to implement, and has more modest power requirements. As such, providing Bluetooth MIDI interfaces for other music gear is more manageable than it would be with WiFi.

More resources:

A 2005 IEEE conference presentation describes early work, though this research could use a modern update.

A 2003 open letter encouraging Bluetooth MIDI use.

Meanwhile, in the Land of WiFi

Synthtopia reports on iOS MIDI WiFi, in the case of MoDrum and Bassline, using Apple’s own network MIDI framework. I’m assuming it claims it’s the most extensive such implementation because of the sync functionality.

SoundPrism Pro, in the trailer below, also recently added network (as well as wired) MIDI compatibility.

Incidentally, there are already compatible frameworks for Windows and Linux (in addition to Mac, of course), and no reason Android couldn’t also do WiFi MIDI, too. The advantage of Bluetooth remains doing so with less power consumption, and as direct serial communication over the wireless link.

More resources on the WiFi side…

From January:
New Solutions for Wireless MIDI, MIDI+OSC; Developers Answer Questions

And yes, devices like The Missing Link provide this kind of functionality over WiFi – though the Bluetooth radio could be cheaper and more power efficient. (As for performance, we just have to do more testing.)

Just don’t forget, all of this is a plague upon humanity and an abomination, so try to keep that in mind. Have a good weekend!

StepPolyArp for iPad controlling an Oberheim FVS from Logan Mannstrane on Vimeo.

Logan Mannstrane sends in this lovely video combining an iPad MIDI step sequencer — with an Oberheim FVS. It’s a striking intersection of analog and digital technology. But I wanted to ask Logan to explain why he’d use the iPad in this case instead of other MIDI tools — why crossing this generational gap mattered. He responds:

That fact that I can interface a synth from the 70′s to new device in 2010 is pretty amazing by iteself. I can have the sequencer in my hands and pull a chair up the window while laying back with my feet up it is very inspiring and a comfortable workflow. Also, for people that have multiple analogue synths scattered around, it is very nice to sequence the synth when you are right next to it. In a world full of DJ applications, rompler sequence programs, it sure does feel
good to have something fun and musical to try out. For a version 1 of the software, it is very neat. I heard more Midi apps are coming to the iPad in the future so this is a great beginning to wireless MIDI.

While TouchOSC is great, there are many people that want to start making music without having to spend a week of building an interface to talk with hardware and software alike. The StepPolyArp software was well thought-out and cleanly executed with a elegant interface. With Analogue synths you have instant control and feedback for designing the sound, and now you can step away from the mouse and chair to sequence. It doesn’t get better than that.

If you like the looks of this software and have an iPad, here it is:
StepPolyArp

It uses the free DS MIDI WiFi, a project born – as the name implies – on Nintendo DS. Viva open source.

There’s no question in my mind that MIDI remains lingua franca for interconnecting devices across the previous decades. Of course, that to me also suggests we need to make more progress on standardizing the way network MIDI protocols work.

Through the grapevine, I’m hearing the iOS SDK will incorporate network MIDI capabilities, but I think there are still some challenges there. Apple’s protoco,l while thoroughly standards-based and still essentially MIDI, is nonetheless for now specific to them. I’d also like to see some solid numbers on performance. New gear may want to investigate Bluetooth and not just WiFi, as Bluetooth could work nicely for embedded hardware, DIY synths, and the like. But it’s certainly an interesting time.

As a counterpoint, here’s Logan with a Pro One – no iPad in sight, just physical knobs. I think there’s something to be learned from the interaction design of each, and something unmistakably wonderful about the connection of hardware like this to sound and experience.

The infamous white faced Pro One from Logan Mannstrane on Vimeo.

For more Oberheim goodness, gaze into the glossy ads the company produced in 1981 and 1982 for Keyboard, and dream of the day when we enjoy electronic music ads again: Retro Synth Ads: Oberheim, at one of my new favorite sites.

With the iPad available now and more touch-enabled devices likely coming soon, we finally have hardware that can be both display and controller, visual feedback and input device. While tactile control will maintain its place, these devices can augment performance controls, acting as compositional brains, and can serve as studio creation tools.

Yesterday, we got a glimpse of something called “MB Control,” a custom Ableton Live controller that got a number of people excited for its eminently-practical control layouts. It’s based on the popular, promising, and open source Live Control project, one we’re watching closely, but with its own twists. Today, I have more details on that project from co-creator Bjorn, who has long been a maker of wonderful tutorials and devices for Ableton at The Covert Operators and works here with Uruguay’s International Feel. The bad news is, for now, this isn’t something you’ll be able to get your hands on – it’s not for sale because it’s so particular to the needs of its creators. But the good news is, it demonstrates a number of useful techniques, and at least some devices are on their way. (It’s also further evidence that a runtime for Max for Live could set this community on fire, if Ableton and Cycling ’74 were to decide to go in that direction.)

The project is powered by TouchOSC, the iPad’s apparent killer-app OSC touch controller, and Max for Live.

Bjorn writes:

This project is a customized Ableton Live studio controller made with Max For Live devices for Mark from International Feel Recordings.

http://soundcloud.com/international-feel/

After trying various control solutions ranging from Lemur Clip Launchers to ST8′s LiveControl, there still was a need for a customizable studio controller solution. Most of the solutions currently available are focused on Live Performance. There’s isn’t really anything out there to jam an arrangement with that works in a practical musical sense for studio heads.

In Mark’s case, he was looking for a Clip Launcher that could display 1 Scene of 40 Tracks wide. A change like that isn’t so easily made to a python script.
He also wanted 3 types of sequencers. That would definitely get tricky with python scripts and 3rd party MIDI drivers. So the project ended up being a customized version of ST8′s LiveControl, but entirely built in Max For Live.

MB Control Features:

• A Drum Sequencer that can be dropped onto any MIDI Track in Live. Up to 8 instances are supported which can be selected and controlled from the iPad. It has all the features of a basic X0X sequencer (and more besides). You can change the Rate/Range/Direction/Length/Velocity/Pitch of any sequencer lane individually, you can control all the lanes at once and you can even control all the sequencers at once. There is a randomization feature that allows you to specify the density of a randomized pattern.
• A Melodic Sequencer. Its almost identical to the Drum Sequencer. It also supports up to 8 instances and it has a feature to lock the pitches of all the lanes to the transposition features of the Bouncer Sequencer. It also allows various melodic scales to be selected.
• A Bouncer Sequencer like people know from on the tenori-on. Its supports 2 times 8 notes with 16 steps. There are a few extra buttons to transpose the sequence to a different pitch. The Melodic Sequencers have a Transpose Lock buttons that allows them to follow the transposition of this sequencer.
• 48 Track Clip Launcher of 1 Scene deep. A very useful Clip Launcher if you have lots of tracks and want to control all clips on a scene individually. Has a feature that shows how many clips are in any given track. It also supports group tracks and allows folding/unfolding on the clip slot of the group track. A button underneath each Clip Slot allows control over Arm/Solo/Mute and Stop Clip.
• A Mixer with control over the Volume/Pan/Send A/Send B/Arm/Solo/Mute. The Mixer follows whatever Clip was triggered last. If you trigger a clip on track 9, the Mixer will display track 9 to 18 automatically.
• Device Controller. Its like Automap with 16 Sliders. You can select any device and control all of its parameters. Devices can also be hidden if required.
• 16 Macros Device. Its like Macros in a Rack but there are 16 of them. And they can be assigned to any device regardless of which track they’re in. This device is integrated in the Device Controller page as a simple switch and allows users to personally tailor their multi device control onto one screen, thus keeping it in line with the ‘arrangement jamming’ principle.
• XY Controller. 5 XY Pads to control multiple device parameters.
• Drum Pads. A MIDI Device that can be dropped on any MIDI Track you wish to play on.
• Keys. A Keyboard that can be dropped on any MIDI Track you wish to play on, with velocity, Octave buttons, modwheel and Pitch Bend.
• Arturia Moog Editor. A custom controller layout for the [Arturia Moog emulation] VST. It is a device that converts the incoming OSC to CC data that the VST accepts.
• Most pages have global controls like Overdub/Record/Transport and switching MIDI Quantization between Off and 1/16ths.

This project is finished as far as Mark is concerned. He has the controller he wished for and it works entirely to his specifications. It’s all running very smooth in Max For Live and the response on the iPad is great. TouchOSC keeps improving so that means that eventually we’ll have more than 7 colors to work with and lots of cool little features surely to come. The day this project was finished, TouchOSC 1.6 came out with the ability to change colors and hide objects. Something that’ll be off great use for making customizable interfaces.

MB Control (in it’s current form), is not for sale.

It is far too personalized to be useful to everybody. I will release some of the devices individually soon. As for the core ‘brain’ patch that controls everything, I will keep improving on that until I’ve got a device that supports Clip Launchers of all sizes. Regardless of how many tracks/scenes you want to display. All you should need is ANY OSC controller, configure it to your liking, type in your IP somewhere and never have to set it up again.

Once a M4L runtime is available then we will definitely consider making this (and possibly different versions of it) available commerically.

Thanks to Bjorn for all this great info.

By way of comparison, below is a video of the LiveControl project, which now has a new homepage:
http://livecontrol.q3f.org/livecontrol/

As you can see, there are a variety of approaches to how to make the controller – software setup useful for music.

LiveControl for the iPad/iPod from ST8 on Vimeo.

First up, here’s a demo of the new app FingerPlay MIDI, which turns Android into a simple touch controller. True, we’ve seen similar things on iPhone, and Apple’s platform has precise multitouch which Android lacks, but it’s nice to see the concept extended across platforms. Big thanks to postromantic on Twitter for the tip! (Follow cdmblogs for more.)

FingerPlay MIDI

I can’t tell yet if this will be open source – that would actually be nice, I think, as it’d allow the community of developers to have a shared set of tools. (In fact, it seems a logical model would be to cash in on general-market apps and open source the more music-specific, niche stuff.)

In other Android mobile news, Christopher Souvey continues to work on his Musical application and the Musical Pro desktop app. The desktop client works with MIDI over Wifi, and thanks to the Cupcake OS update, latency is greatly reduced after a complete rewrite and the creation of custom drawing and event handling and controls. Check out the slick new tuner and UI Christopher has been developing, too.

http://www.souvey.com/ [blog with all the latest]
http://www.souvey.com/musical/

This play-along piano is probably not something any of you folks desperately need, but it is a good demonstration of what’s possible.

Another interesting thread to follow will be the growing power of Web apps. On Android, you’re already able to combine a Web app with the Java APIs, and going another level, mobile apps with native ARM code for the processor. Translation: while phones still have a fraction of the power of your computer, it’s getting easier for developers to work across platforms and to take advantage of what power is there. That’s leading to trends that could be of use not only to a single platform (Android, iPhone), but to mobile devices in general.

I love the sound bugs make when you squish them under a solution.

AlexP, whose blog is also a great source for multitouch and the Sony PS3 Eye Camera and Windows drivers we used in the recent hackday, has been diagnosing his MacBook under Windows Vista. Hardware problems are often the source of sound blips on computers. I’ve talked previously about using the DPC Latency Checker to find this issue.

The good news: Alexander has found the problem (the Broadcom Wireless Adapter in some Apple MacBooks) and a solution (switching off Windows’ automatic wireless network search when you don’t need it). I actually wonder if a similar problem was culpable in early problems with network WiFi on Mac OS X Leopard. Whatever is going on, check out the fix here if you’re encountering this problem. And let us know if you’re seeing this on machines other than just the MacBook revision F; I’d imagine any PC with a similar wireless adapter might have the issue:

MacBook Rev. F Audio Skipping in Vista Analysis and Solution – Part 2

And yes, hardware/driver problems may frequently manifest as what Windows terms DPCs – basically, a symptom of hardware usage that can interfere with reliable audio performance. I’m curious whether WiFi connections specifically may be a cause in other cases. The problem is almost certainly not limited to computers from Apple – especially since, in this case, the MacBook is just behaving like any PC laptop with similar specs.