Photo (CC) Brian Gurrola …and yes, we expect the bit on the right to come into greater focus soon.
The name gives it away: Record is a product based on a feature Reason users have long requested — audio recording. The surprise is, that need has led to an entirely new tool. Instead of just adding a requested feature, the company has revealed that they built a new application, re-examining in the process what recording really means. Internet rumors have been predicting something along these lines. The problem is, rumors can sometimes create distorted expectations. In this case, I think it’s worth taking a closer look, which we’ll be doing over the coming days.
Today, the first audiences of Reason users learned of the tool’s existence at the Producers Conferences events staged around the world. We’ll be able to talk about the details on Monday, but having spoken to Propellerhead co-founder Ernst Nathorst-Böös, I want to at least say that this really is shaping up to be something different.
For those of you longing to mutate beats like so many promiscuous Petri Disk bacteria, programmer Bret Truchan is a kindred spirit. Bret has created a series of instant experimental classics for the Nintendo DS: glitchDS, a cellular automaton music sequencer, repeaterDS, a visual sample mangler, and cellDS, a grid-based sequencer you can script in Lua.
The Nintendo DS is portable and cute, but it’s not normally open to running software without the Nintendo Seal of Quality. (Insert snickers here.) To run Bret’s software, you need specialized hardware that fools the DS into running software. The DS isn’t entirely stable when it comes to things like timing, either, and it doesn’t have the flexibility of computers.
Enter the netbook. The netbook is nearly as portable, completely open to running whatever you like on Windows or Linux, and boasts easy USB connectivity, a big screen, and … well, you know, all the things you like about laptops. When it comes to musical productivity, much as I love the DS, the netbook has a whole lot going for it, and still has that added ultra-portability that makes you feel you can make music anywhere.
Bret recently made the jump to desktop software with Quotile, a step sequencer you can live-code for mighty morphing beats. Quotile is cool, but for many, glitchDS was the star. Now you can run glitchDS anywhere – just the job for a laptop you were going to retire, or that new netbook.
Not Sequencing, Glitch Sequencing
Glitch-sequencer is a sequencer, so it needs to either talk to a software synth or external hardware. Bret likes to hook it up to his machinedrum and monomachine. Our own Handmade Music event was the (unofficial) first public outing of the software, and included an HP netbook and the machinedrum, which makes for a sweet, mobile combination.
Bret’s mobile rig in action at Handmade Music. Photo: Jason Schorr.
Despite the appearance of a grid and sequences of levels, this isn’t an app that works like a conventional sequencer. Here’s the basic breakdown:
Cellular Automata via a seed + playback grid
Trigger and value sequencers to determine which MIDI events the organically-generated mutations produce
Pattern length, clock division settings for setting metric values
Sadly, Richie Hawtin’s copy of Traktor doesn’t talk to you directly. “We’re about to go on. I’ve got my files cued up.” “Oh, Richie’s hands are sweaty today. Ugh.” “Hey, who’s that hottie who just got onstage?” “I hope he uses all four of my decks.” “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that. lolz” Photo (CC) Caesar Sebastian.
For everyone who thought Twitter was just about “i m eating a ham sandwich lolz,” the desire to use connectivity to actually be connected continues to win out in unexpected ways. So far this month, we already saw the use of Max/MSP. Now, Twitter is showing up in the geeky, open source sound tool SuperCollider and in DJ sets in Traktor by Richie Hawtin.
Tweet a Sound, to the Max
First, some updates on Tweet a Sound, the sound design tool in Max that lets you share synth presets.
Creator Andrew Spitz has an updated story on adding a cleaned-up subpatch to Max/MSP. It uses the Ruby programming language to access the Twitter API. (You should be able to port to Pd, too – I have to look closer at this.) Correction: Ruby is implemented as JRuby, so it runs on the Java virtual machine – and there is a Java implementation for both Max (mxj) and Pd (pdj)
This means, if you’ve got a Mac or Windows copy of Max/MSP, you can now send Tweets from your patches. And that should open up still more possibilities when Max for Live becomes available, for Ableton fans.
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.
For all the emphasis on learning how to use creative tools the proper way, it’s often when you misuse a feature that it really becomes a powerful tool. So, in the spirit of some of the “mistutorials” from Ableton’s own Dennis DeSantis, here’s our friend Michael Hatsis of New York’s Track Team Audio / Warper Party / Dubspot with a really unusual way to achieve scratching effects.
You know the Ping Pong effect for its clichéd, stereo-panning echo effects. But here, it goes an entirely different direction: now that Live 8 has added new delay modes, you can create some special effects that don’t sound like the typical effect. Mike manages to warp and bend Ping Pong into something that sounds a lot like scratching. He warns that “this is not meant to replace vinyl nor will it produce a totally authentic sounding scratch sound.” On the other hand, you start to get some sounds that are reminiscent of scratching but sound unique, which I think is a Very Good Thing.
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