For years, since the launch of Ableton Live, many have waited for a worthy rival, something that combines production and live performance for music users. Live isn’t without alternatives – Renoise, for instance, has earned some fans, though it isn’t necessarily built for live performance. But few provide the same real-time workflows.

Bitwig, based in Berlin as is Ableton and featuring some Abletronic veterans, today took the wraps off its own Bitwig Studio. The good news is, it’s looking as though it might shape up to be a viable tool for DJing, performing, and making music. The bad news is, in a market already crowded with lots of similar tools vying for your attention, the first release will look more familiar than radical. That is, it looks and works a whole lot like Live. There’s an Arranger view, a clip launching view with scenes, a tray on the bottom with effects and instruments (they’re even called Devices, like in Live). The screen layout, and even specific interface widgets and channel strip arrangements are all straight out of Live.

It’s not just a little like Ableton Live, either – it’s in some cases a direct clone. Nested drum machine Devices, for instance, work in a way that I’ve never seen out of Ableton Live. A channel strip similarity or two is almost inevitable; here, though, lots of little details add up to something that feels like Ableton, but didn’t come from Ableton.

What that means to you may depend on what you want: whether you just want an improved Ableton alternative that works like Live, or whether you want something more fundamentally different from Live as an alternative.

If you want “Ableton Plus,” Bitwig does take on features Ableton is missing. For instance:

1. Linux support. In fact, right out of the gate, this could quickly be the answer for Linux users waiting for something they could use without booting to Mac or Windows.
2. Proper multiple document support. You can share content between projects in Ableton, but here you can actually open and freely exchange media with multiple files at once.
3. Mix audio and MIDI on the same track. Tracks are content-agnostic.
4. Per-note automation, with the mixed MIDI and audio, promises more detail-oriented editing.

Those are three significant breakthroughs. And it looks like there are lots of tweaks and improvements throughout the tool, many of which I’m sure we’ll hear about as people begin testing the beta. (One nice example: a vertical pane lets you view arrange and clip launching views simultaneously.) Multi-monitor support, while present in many tools, is sorely lacking in Live but available here. Plus, as some readers note, you do get 64-bit support, though that seems an advantage over Ableton that won’t last long.

The challenge is, as a new entrant to the market, your first obstacle is telling a story about what you are. And here, there seems a missed opportunity to make a first impression as something truly different, rather than something “similar, but better.” Ableton Live 1.0 when it was released was a significant departure from what had been seen before. So, too, were the first trackers, the first audio+MIDI DAWs, and the first graphical sequencers. Bitwig Studio isn’t that kind of breakthrough – not yet.

Not that being different is easy, or even always desirable. Amidst so many things users want, and so many expectations they have about how things will work, it’s tough to do something genuinely new without simply confusing everyone and driving them away. But it has happened – Ableton Live’s original release being a notable case. One question is whether you make some sacrifices to release the most significantly-different tools initially, or whether you choose to cover the basic bases to provide a workable solution from day one, and the Bitwig devs seem to have chosen the latter.

The most interesting features remain on the horizon. LAN multi-user jamming and multi-user production are both on the roadmap – features we’ve seen in other tools, but which have yet to catch on. And there’s an integrated modular system that lets you build your own instruments and effects with graphical patching – something seen in various forms from Buzz to Max for Live, but one that could use a fresh take in integration with the tool.

In the meantime, we’ll have to hear from beta users whether Bitwig is something worth a look. You can sign up now:
http://bitwig.com/bitwig_studio.php

We’ll be eager to hear what you think.

Pics:

The Melodyne editor, which promises to make working with audio as fluid as working with MIDI, has long had some impressive technology under the hood. But it’s as the tool gradually matures in terms of workflow and usability that I think it could win some additional converts.

Melodyne 2.0 is a major update to the editor all around, with additional timing and tuning options and better usability, and the addition of ReWire (atop plug-in compatibility) is a big plus for some. It’s easiest to just see the videos, but the overview of what’s new in this release:

• Attack Speed tool for editing transients. (That could make this a lot more interesting creatively.) New Time Handles for changing time in the notes. These tools have special applicability to percussion and vocal phrasing, respectively, but may have some other interesting alternative applications.
• Edit notes in other scales, temperaments, and tunings. (Re-tuning to alternative tuning systems, anyone?)
• Keyboard shortcuts work in plug-in mode, display and highlight is improved.
• Work via ReWire with hosts that lack plug-ins. Read: Reason. And that could make this an interesting companion to Reason’s record workflows.

Now, sure, all of this is often understood to be for people who just want to obsessively correct pitch and rhythm of recorded audio. But I remain interested in creative applications, just because the upshot of this is having audio you can modify after it’s been recorded.

There’s just one bottom line: will this stuff be compelling enough that you add an additional tool to your DAW just to get it? I still have yet to hear from die-hard Melodyne users, so if you’re out there reading, I’d love to learn how you use the tool, particularly if you go a bit beyond the way it was intended to be used. (That’s always interesting.)

US$/€399, $99/€99 upgrade, or free if you registered after October 1. More vids:

If you want to be promptly ignored, the best way to do it is to try to release a new DAW. Aside from the fact that even most musicians don’t know what the word “DAW” is (hint: it’s a big program that puts all your computer production, mixing, and recording stuff in one place), you’re up against the likes of Cubase, Ableton Live, Pro Tools, DP, SONA… sorry, I get tired even just doing the list.

Here’s how to get some attention: be the first DAW to add Celemony’s crowd-awe-ing direct pitch modification, which lets you change the pitch of polyphonic recorded audio, right in the software.

That’s what PreSonus’ Studio One version 2 does. It’s something we’ve been waiting for ever sense we first saw Melodyne. You can now, without the restrictions of a plug-in, edit recorded audio and change pitch without having to leave your DAW, all in “one click” according to PreSonus.

PreSonus isn’t the first to add transient detection, editing, groove “extraction,” and groove quantization – features that let you make rhythmic modifications to recorded audio. Indeed, these features, once exotic selling points, have almost become prerequisites as DAWs leap-frog one another. But as PreSonus adds these features, they promise more seamless editing: to quantize, just group some drum tracks, and quantize; to do groove extraction, just drag and drop. Some tools require more steps; others promise this kind of seamless operation but don’t always work perfectly. This sounds like one to test – made, again, more interesting by the pitch editing changes.

Now, I have only one concern: Melodyne “Essential” is included, and only with the full-blown “Professional” edition; I hope we see the same degree of integration for people who buy Melodyne DNA, the all-stops-pulled “direct note access” editing. WIthout it, the integration is nice, but with it, I might even use the phrase I hate – “game changer.” Updated: Yep, DNA works. That’s a pretty big deal. Other DAWs have “pitch correction” – but I already see many readers share my comparative disinterest in just correcting pitch. Being able to directly edit recorded sounds gets really interesting, by comparison. And whatever other tools may claim, I haven’t seen anything that works quite like DNA, yet. What you need is just a copy of Studio One “Professional,” and a purchased copy of DNA.

Also in this release:

• Comping (making finished tracks out of the best bits of different takes) without switching tools – something I’ve found annoying elsewhere.
• Studio Browser for organizing assets and instruments and effects with search. (Yeah, we’ve seen that in tools like Ableton, Logic, and SONAR; now it’s here, too.)
• Folder Tracks – organize tracks, group and bus in one click. (PreSonus claims this is “exclusive,” though I’m fairly certain you get something like that group+bus function elsewhere. Anyway, it is nice.)
• Edit more than one MIDI track at once.
• New amp models, convolution-based cabinet models, convolution reverb, and an IR Maker for adding your own impulses.

So, the pieces are very similar to what you see elsewhere; PreSonus’ potential here may be how they put it together. I’m certainly ready to have another rival.

I’m always suspicious that fancy pitch and rhythm correction are just there to help you try to perfect imperfect performances. That’s something that can erase the human feel of good musicians, and make for soul-crushingly long editing sessions with bad musicians. (I’ve heard some horror stories on the latter.) But they can also be powerful remix and creative tools, especially if the workflow is improved, and that’s where they can be exciting.

I’ll be watching.

Not So Fast, Copywriter

We’re going to have to have a PR Shame Scoreboard every time a press release says something outrageous. Here’s PreSonus: “Only one DAW on Planet Earth lets you record, edit, mix, master, and distribute your music in an integrated and truly professional environment.”

Uh… no. If you send Studio One to planet Mars, then you can make this sort of claim.

(Maybe because they have SoundCloud export? I don’t know. Maybe “professional” means something that I don’t understand.)

This week:
Moog – I
PreSonus – I
Put a quarter in the jar, please. (I can forgive PreSonus, only because this has the feeling of the sentence you write when you’re exhausted and at the end of the press release: And that’s why we’re just ridiculously awesomely better than anything you’ve ever seen before and now I’m going out for a beer. ###)

So, the hyperbole beast rears its ugly head. But I’ll say this: PreSonus, who entered a category in which it’s nearly impossible to get anyone’s attention, you’ve got everybody’s attention now. And if you pulled it off, Studio One 2 could be the sleeper hit of this week’s AES show.

Because since numerous DAWs let you record, edit, mix, master, and distribute your music in an integrated and truly professional environment, on this crowded planet Earth, you do have to do something to stand out.

Update: PreSonus’ spokesperson responds:

“Oh no? Name another one. The key word is “integrated.” You can master in other DAWs but not using a dedicated mastering suite that’s intelligently aware of and fully integrated with the song editor. You don’t get that with Logic, Pro Tools, Sonar, DP, Live, Cubase, Nuendo, Reaper, or Record. I don’t know what the Martians use, but here on Planet Earth, the statement is true. “

Now, here we’re getting to the point – behind the vague statement is something that gets interesting (i.e., how it’s integrated with the song editor). I still stand by what I said, though – Record, specifically, could claim a fair degree of integration of the mastering tools within their own (different) paradigm. Anyway, I suspect users don’t need to get planetary with this; they care about how it work specifically in their own workflow. So stay tuned as we test this.

Roger Linn, he of the MPC and AdrenaLinn and Linnstrument, sends us his friendly walk-through video showing you how to get started actually using the upcoming Linn/Dave Smith Tempest analog drum machine. We’re awaiting details on when this unit is actually shipping; I’ll update this post once we hear.

What you get instead, though, is nearly twenty minutes of Roger walking you through every single function – this is as much a video manual as it is a “quick start.” It’s nice to see some clever workflow features in action, and you get some very in-depth looks at how the Tempest operates. This is documentation, not marketing, in a good way.

Incidentally, lest you think the Tempest is late — or, at least in terms of its last known shipping projection — Dave and Roger technically have until the Autumn Equinox, which in 2011 falls on September 23 inclusive, in order to ship in summer 2011. I’d go further to say that they have until the end of the date of the equinox Pacific time, which gives them a few additional hours beyond even the majority of their customer base. They’re currently listing the Tempest as due in “late summer 2011,” but unless they mean “late” as in early fall, they have until the 24th of September before they become seasonally incompatible.

I believe it’s briefly on the cusp of the Autumn Equinox on which MIDI clocks start running backwards, or vocoders talk without carrier signals, or something.

Happy Labor Day weekend, USA (and labor lovers everywhere). Happy Fifth of September, everyone. Only (??) shopping days until the Tempest ships.

http://www.rogerlinndesign.com/
http://www.davesmithinstruments.com/

Previously:
Tempest, Roger Linn + Dave Smith Analog Drum Machine, is Official [with specs]
The Father of Drum Machines and the Father of MIDI Talk About Design and the Tempest [CDM interview with the co-creators]

List price still US$1999.

Teenage Engineering’s hotly-anticipated synth / music-making hardware OP-1 finally got an official release last week. Early stocks promptly sold out, but new waves of deliveries should refresh availability. We’ll have more from TE on the launch and the instrument soon.

In the meantime, you can thank early-adopter Ludwig Mueller for being brave enough to post early experiments with the instrument. Ludwig is a proud owner of the beta release, one of a handful of people who signed up to get access to the OP-1 prior to its public launch – and even before functionality in firmware was entirely finalized. I’ve heard now from several readers who are beta users, and a variety of reactions to the instrument. Oversimplifying, they appear to break down to those who adore the OP-1′s restrictions and those who curse them (and those who do both). In the video at top, Ludwig shows off the process of layering beats and tracks; he not only plays the OP-1, but uses it as a production and composition tool. I asked him to share some further thoughts on how he likes his OP-1 — and what, exactly, it really is.

The OP-1 in short is a mixup of an [Akai] MPC, a pretty great synth, a radio, a mic, and a DAW [Digital Audio Workstation]. All of these components are rather limited looked at individually, but I guess what you can say here is that the sum is greater than its parts. It is the mixture of these parts and the device’s limits – recording is destructive, [so there's] no undo once you record two or more instruments on one track – force you to think ahead. But at the same time, the OP-1′s layout and abilities make you want to try out things you’d never consider in a DAW. So depending which takes over – your brain or your inner child – your results will vary from one extreme to another.

A thing that I really like about OP-1 is the fact that you can’t overtweak. In a traditional DAW, I’d EQ every track and add a little compression, etc., etc. On the OP-1, there’s no such thing. It either sounds good or it doesn’t – and if it does sound good, you keep going and building the track. At the end you turn up the mastercompressor, which BTW is quite amazing, and you’re done! Again: I love the mastercomp!

I can say that I finish a lot more projects / beats / tracks with the OP-1 than with a DAW. Granted, they feel more raw and have some hiccups here and there, but I’m willing to take that in exchange for the fun I have using that little device. And by now, quite often I actually prefer this rawness to the slick sound of my DAW tracks.

Of course there are times when I crawl back to the laptop, and do another track dissecting every element. But this doesn’t last for too long usually. With the OP-1, I can focus more on the music than on the technical side of things; it’s so immediate: No long boot up, loading programs, plugging in things. It’s just a switch and 5-second wait and you’re good to go. It also really fits the bill regarding the overall sound I want to achieve: it’s warm yet punchy. You can actually overdrive the output quite nicely using the mastercompressor within the unit. The achieved overdrive can be quite pleasing to the ear, I think.

I have heard many people say that TE should bring out an OP-1 iPad App. I am 100% certain that a touchscreen can not give you the same feel as a nicely-designed device with quality buttons and encoders.

Right now, I am on the latest OS (the one that is also available for download on TE’s site) and I didn’t have any problems at all since upgrading to that version.

If you visit www.soundcloud.com/yellow-tangerine there is a set on my page called “OP-1 Stuff”. All these tracks are exclusively OP-1 and nothing else.

Let’s give that OP-1 Stuff a listen, indeed:
OP-1 Stuff by YΞll❍W T∆ΠgΞriΠΞ

Thanks, Ludwig, for the thoughts. Plenty of design and workflow thoughts to chew over here, I think, even if you aren’t using an OP-1 – some of these same ideas about limitation can be applied to other hardware and even to software. So I’m curious to hear people respond to the musical ideas here, and not just the issues specific to the OP-1.

I welcome any reactions from OP-1 users — praise and criticism alike.

For the latest from Teenage:
http://now.teenageengineering.com/

Reforge, an iPad audio editor, has gotten a major update with version 2. It’s a ground-up rewrite with a new audio engine, and adds support for Sonoma’s increasingly-popular AudioCopy/AudioPaste API, which provides clipboard functionality for sound between iOS apps.

The novelty of running an audio editor on a tablet is clear. But how would you actually use it, in practice? I asked Tib Horvath, Reforge’s developer, to answer that question. He responds to CDM with some tips. It’s a pitch for his product, of course, but then that’s true if you describe the utility of any tool, and he has some nice ideas about what makes Reforge unique and how you’d work with it in production.

Tib writes:

Let me preamble that with what I believe Reforge is good at: Reforge modifies waveforms nondestructively. So copy, cut, paste, crop. But [it's also good at] also splitting stereo files into two mono files, or a mono file into a faux stereo file.

Then there is automation for volume, stereo balance, stereo widening and low and high pass filters, [as well as] time stretch or pitch (each is independent, but not yet automated).

You get all of this with a feel for actually touching the waveform and directly working with it.

So how does it fit in a production workflow?

1) None of the multitrack [iOS] apps support automation to the extent that Reforge does. So, if you need a sweeping low pass over a drum beat, copy the beat into Reforge [using AudioCopy, if you like], do the adjustments, render the file, and copy it back to where it came from.

2) Some apps work with mono files, but [what if] you have recorded/generated this great sounding stereo loop? Import into Reforge and split it into two mono files to copy over to your multitrack of choice.

3) Some multitrack apps do not work well with loops that just don’t fit. Get the loop into Reforge and make it fit by time stretching it. Clean up pops and other problems at the same time with the automated filter features.

4) Adjust the pitch of a voice recording — for example, if it is off-pitch or if you are looking for a special effect.

5) Podcasters tend to generate long recordings. They can now (since long audio files are only supported with Reforge 2.0) split and splice them. Or import podcasts (any other audio except audiobooks, [since they have DRM applied]) from the [iTunes] Library [accessible in the iPod app], and chop it up for easier digestion or further processing.

All of this is familiar to those who use dedicated audio editors on desktop. While many tools, such as DAWs, incorporate waveform editing, having a dedicated tool can be useful in assisting everyday audio tasks, making the drudgery of dealing with audio files take up less time.

Putting this on a mobile platform has a number of potential benefits:

• Form factor and interface. It’s just easier to pick up a tablet as a representation of your audio and carry it around, show it to others, and edit by touching the interface. You could manage some waveforms over a coffee before heading back to the studio or other workspace, in a way that involves different sorts of interactions than you’d have with a laptop.
• For the all-iOS producer, a tool like Reforge means you can work between other iOS apps more easily, producing sound and music all on the tablet without having to resort to the computer.
• For the person on the go, Reforge of course means the ability to do this editing in the field, as it were, without carrying along a heavier computer.

I do wonder, however, if this kind of easy audio copy-and-paste couldn’t come to desktop environments. Computers and hardware have long borrowed ideas from one another; it seems inevitable that traditional computers and tablets will do the same. And that means, even if you don’t ever touch an iPad, you could see positive benefits in the tools you use.

So, that’s what the developer says — and my speculative take on matters. Are you using Reforge, or other related tools? Let us know how you work.

Also, if you’re an iOS user who doesn’t already use Reforge, and you can tell us something useful about your workflow, I’ve got a promo code for you. Just be sure to leave a real email address in the comment field; only CDM administrators can see it, and we will only use that address for your code.

Mobile-based music can mean a chance to do more with less, but that hasn’t stopped lovers of production on the iPhone and iPad from wanting to move ideas between apps. So, you’ve got a great bassline … if you could just combine it with that vocal sample, and then finish a track…

That presumably explains why we hear so many readers clamoring for AudioCopy. It’s a proprietary audio API developed by Sonoma WireWorks with an available SDK, and it’s gained some real traction among iOS music apps. Latest to the fold is ReBirth, the iPhone and iPad all-in-one music studio. (A corresponding price cut makes the iPad version US$9.99 and iPhone edition $4.99, though if you have a choice, I’d avoid the iPhone version and stick with the iPad.) I know this was an oft-requested feature.

ReBirth

You can keep track of which apps work with AudioCopy (and AudioPaste) at Sonoma’s site:
Compatible Apps

A few apps stand out. Sonoma’s own FourTrack and StudioTrack allow you to multitrack arrangements from materials you’ve built in other apps, as well as add audio tracks recorded from another source. Other highlights:

• Jasuto is a full-fledged modular environment.
• Monle is a simple but elegant multitrack editor, ideal for laying out audio sampled from other tools
• VoiceJam from TC-Helicon is a vocal sampler and looper.

…and, of course, there are countless synths and other interesting sound generators, including Korg’s offerings and various tools we’ve covered on CDM. But it’s nice to see these tools in the mix, too, in terms of workflow.

I’m still partial to the far more open and capable conventional computer as a way of working, but what’s interesting to me is that part of what many want on mobile is the same sort of studio-in-a-box flexibility. And there’s no question that with these tools, you can get music made. There are efforts to route signal between apps, too, but what’s nice here is that you still focus on one app at a time – avoiding performance bottlenecks in either their device or your attention span.

If you do use iOS, let us know which apps you use with AudioCopy.

Israeli funk musician and producer Kutiman, creator of the famed Thru-You, is back with an encore. Once again, he’s mixing the best performances of YouTube into a single video. Calling it a “mash-up” is perhaps unfair: this is really mix and remix. It’s no different than laying down multiple tracks in a studio, except that the players were working independently in different parts of the world. “My Favorite Color” is a jazzy, soulful number, particularly carried by those incredible vocals on the original song “Green.” The rest is really arrangement, and it works pretty darned-near perfectly. (An occasional ragged rhythmic edge seems only fitting to the form.)

This raises a question. I don’t think anyone would question that the ability to work musically in the same room, to pick up on physical gestures, eye contact, and inhabit the same space together is the ideal for collaboration. But there’s no reason that shouldn’t stop musical expression from taking place in less-than-ideal circumstances, too. You could think of it less as a poor substitute for playing together in a room, and more an improvement upon lonely solo production, a chance to add collaborative musical experiences to, say, time late at night after a long day of work. It could the ability to share something with someone who would otherwise be separated by geography – as imperfect as a letter from a pen-pal, but also as intimate.

As the above video hits my inbox this week, so, too, does a new video from the creators of Ohm Studio. Among other ambitions, they hope their software production workstation, now in progress, will be Internet-connected and collaborative. In its execution, it represents nearly the opposite of the YouTube video above: whereas a tool for simple YouTube sharing is mixed together by hand, an accidental session, this software is engineered with intricate connections of workflow. On the other hand, they both represent the same idea: cloud-connected creation, across geography, between human beings.

Software workstations have traditionally not only emulated studio hardware, but assumed one person in front of one computer working in isolation. So part of what the Ohm crew have to do is to answer how one piece of software can be used by more than one person across the Internet. They make an effort to do that in this video; it’s best to watch. (Thanks to Cid Andrade from Ohm for sending this our way.)

They write:

Ok, the Ohm Studio brings real-time music collaboration. But when two people are working together in the same project, how exactly does it look like?”

We’ve just put online a sneak peek of it, a video capture of two people starting a track from scratch. We see both screens, listen to both audios, and understand how artists will be able to compose/produce as if they were together.

I still think there’s value in solo creation, but that doesn’t have to exclude collaboration. I’m curious – YouTube upload or sophisticated DAW, does any of this look practical to you? How have you collaborated online, if at all? (Or is it back to a rehearsal room or studio to work face-to-face?)

Music production once meant getting into a studio. Portable multi-track tape and later the computer liberated us from that, and the “bedroom studio” was born. When capable Palm handhelds hit the market, musicians imagined yet more mobile means of production, and everything from Game Boys and PSPs to phones, even before the iPhone, have been pressed into on-the-go music-making service.

In all that time, though, the way you actually make music in your palm has been a work in progress.

Intua’s BeatMaker was one of the first applications to demonstrate what might be possible on Apple’s handheld, and a radical new version looks like the new generation it is. A drum sampler, keyboard sampler, mixer, sequencer, wave editor, and effects combine into an integrated “studio” on your phone (or iPod touch, or iPad), and there are features for exchanging files with other apps, your desktop computer, and the Web (hello, SoundCloud). It’s a pocket workstation – maybe even a pocket DAW.

See below for an exhaustive set of features and more high-resolution images of the interface. Cost: US$19.99.

Whether you’d want to use this and nothing else to me is immaterial, novelty aside. If that makes you happy, do it; I’m sure for others, this will be more like a handheld sketchpad.

Intua’s Mathieu Garcia shares thoughts on what kind of working process this application might mean – and reflects on how the platform has evolved, and might continue to improve in the future:

We’re getting quite positive feedback on the workflow. BeatMaker tools such as the Wave Editor, iPod library import, and particularly the Chop Lab, are getting quite a lot of interest. It’s perfect for mashups, remixes, and overall sample-based composition.

Moving audio between 2 apps is still done via the iOS pasteboard, not very optimal, but it’s acceptable, and got better with iOS4 multi-tasking. People seems to consider iphone apps almost as portable DAWs. The market quickly evolved from the “casual” music app, to a pocket-sized version of their studio / setup. One of our featured artist, DJ Shag composed a full album entirely with his iPhone. People are definitely working around the limitations quickly, we are still astonished by what came out of BeatMaker 1.

SoundCloud integration is getting a lot of interest too, which is a must have for every music app, I think. Their API is clean and easy to implement, definitely a plus for software developers. It’s a timesaver for the end-users as the compression and transfer are done automatically. We’re looking into DropBox too (coming on the next update), as it’s just great for centralizing projects, preset and samples remotely.

Everything has evolved so fast in 2 years…. With the addition of OSC/CoreMidi some great controller apps were released. It proves once again that the iOS platform a serious candidate for bigger developers / companies. I will take as an example the Korg iMS20 app: the iPad is certainly getting a lot of interest. Audio connectivity / interfaces are also on the rise, with hardware such as the iRig, Alesis iO Dock Pro, Akai SS25, among others…

We’re implementing CoreMidi, which was recurrently requested in just 3 days. It was already planned when Apple dropped their beta iOS firmware. MIDI learning, velocity and a bunch of knobs will come out handy, that’s for sure. Still, there’s a lot to improve on the mobile / desktop interaction, especially when importing projects done on a mobile device. This should be seamless for people and not to have to manually export WAV, MIDI, etc.

We’d love to hear back from you and other dev’s, let me know what you think!

They also send the full-blown (long) feature list our way:

* FEATURES *

* STUDIO:
- Create multiple instruments with Drum Machine or Keyboard interface
- 10 effects to choose from: Reverb, Compressor, Filter, Delay, EQ, Flanger, Chorus, AutoPan, BitCrusher, Overdrive.
- 3 effect slots for each instrument, unlimited global effects racks
- Customizable Cross Controller for all effects allows you to manipulate multiple parameters at once

* DRUM MACHINE:
- Up to 128 trigger pads: 16 pads over 8 different banks
- Chop Lab: Slice audio loops to automatically create new sound presets
- Control sound parameters on individual pad: volume, pan, mute, output bus, semitone, fine tune, reverse and autoscaling
- Low/high pass filter per pad with cutoff and resonance control
- Choose between various pad trigger modes: one-shot, hold & loop
- Customizable envelope (ADSR) control for each pad
- Exclusive groups and polyphony management
- “Live” modes: trigger, mute, reverse, velocity and tune spreading.

* KEYBOARD SAMPLER
- 128-key keyboard with pitch wheel, double keyboard mode, note display and zoom controls
- Easily create your own instruments from any sample combination with the keygroup editor
- Volume and filter ADSR envelopes
- Low/high pass filter with cutoff, resonance and key tracking
- 2 LFOs with customizable amplitude, offset and rate (synchronizable), controlling volume, pitch and filter parameters
- Polyphony control, with up to 32 voices per keyboard sampler
- Legato play mode with customizable glide
- Keygroup controls: volume, pan, semitones, fine-tune, reverse and one-shot, hold, hold & loop trigger modes

* MULTI-TRACK SEQUENCER
- Create unlimited instrument and FX tracks
- Automations: Record, edit and replay instrument and effect parameters
- Record, draw, arrange and resize patterns along the timeline to build your song
- Compose and modify patterns with a piano-roll interface. Edit notes, parameters, and automations.
- Instrument and effect recording options: Quantize, take or partial undo, pre-roll, Overdub, note erasing.
- Includes multiple handy tools such as zooming

* WAVE EDITOR
- Full-fledged wave editor with intuitive pinch and selection for manipulating samples
- Basic edition tools: trim, cut, copy, paste, with undo/redo back to 8 steps
- High quality time-stretching and pitch-shifting algorithms
- Audio tools: normalize, silence, reverse, fade in and out, cross-fade
- Record new samples from device microphone or an instrument plugged into it
- Loop points and tempo/signature editor

* MIXER CONSOLE
- Realistic multi-track mixer with level meters
- Edit volume, pan, solo, mute and bus routing features for individual tracks

* LARGE SOUND BANK INCLUDED
- 68 Drum Machine presets from all genres
- 111 Keyboard Sampler presets, from synthesizers to realistic orchestral instruments.
- More than 1800 quality samples to choose from

* SHARING & GLOBAL OPTIONS
- Export your songs to Audio or MIDI files
- Transfer and manage your files from your computer using the integrated FTP server
- Import any songs from your iPod library to create new remixes
- Share audio content with more than 20 other music applications using the iOS pasteboard
- User-friendly file browser and manager, with sample, preset and project tagging for quick lookup
- Supports BeatMaker 1 kits and projects
- Fully supports Retina display
- Native iPad version coming soon as a free update

Modularity is an interesting point. On a recent story, iOS developer Richard Lawler made an interesting point:

I too am a big fan of self-contained musical instruments. They are a nice complement to the essential attributes of a mobile device like the iPad. But I have to wonder if the bar isn’t being raised too high for many independent developers trying to participate. It’s also resulting a vast landscape of insular music apps.
Desktop music production has benefited immensely from modular tools and structures. Sure the pendulum swings both ways between plug-ins and buss protocols and then back to integrated suites. But it’s hard to argue that many advances in the state of the art of electronic music production haven’t come from focused special purpose plug in instruments, effects or hosts.
In contrast, modular music software is pretty much impossible on iPad unless you make the jump off of a single device. At that point a lot of the advantages of mobile devices get lost in a maze of cables and protocols. We are left with is less-capable copies of what has been possible for many years with TablePCs and Lemurs.

On the other hand, when you look at the popularity of some tools in both hardware and software, specialization – with a payoff in simplicity – can often be an advantage. In that event, it’s really a question of whether these mobile apps will be able to be modular in the way these other tools have. That raises lots of questions in engineering and design, but they could be engaging questions, whether you’re build an iPhone app, a desktop plug-in, a hardware synth, or an effect pedal.

With these questions about, you know, actually making music in mind, if you’re using BeatMaker 2, we’d love to hear from you. The novelty or popularity of one platform or another has never been nearly as interesting to me as discovering the different ways in which people use the tools to be creative.

SoundCloud for iPhone from SoundCloud on Vimeo.

While it’s easy to focus on one platform or another, a profound trend in 2010 has been toward sharing media in the cloud. The basic concept is as old as the Internet, but from applications like Instamatic for photographers to syncing storage to tote around documents on iPads, this has been a year in which the server-shared media seemed to become a bigger part of our lives.

Sound could be next. Aptly-named service SoundCloud has added a big, red “record” button both to an updated iPhone app and the Web browser-based dropbox. That means you can tote an iPhone or iPod touch with the SoundCloud app, and record and upload, say, a field recording or rehearsal set all in one go. Or someone could leave a voice greeting or record a quick demo for you right on your site.

The service didn’t have to do anything to make this possible; it’s just a clever interface around recording, using native iOS features on mobile and Flash in the browser. (To me, actually, seeing HTML5-based support would be even bigger news, but a lot of HTML5 goodness requires waiting.) When you hit record, you use the same recording function that was always there; the app just takes care of the upload so there isn’t an extra step. SoundCloud confirms to CDM that there’s no change to the underlying APIs. For developers, there’s really nothing stopping you from building SoundCloud “recording” into any mobile or Web-connected tool.

The main questions for developers and users is, when is this the right choice? I had to explain to SoundCloud why I preferred Dropbox connectivity in mobile apps to SoundCloud – for me, the hierarchy and file system integration in Dropbox trumps the sharing features in SoundCloud for certain apps. I might want to record a bunch of samples to manipulate later in Dropbox; I don’t really need to share with anyone. Conversely, though, if sharing is your main goal, SoundCloud is easier. I expect we’ll see more of this kind of differentiation – and head-scratching about the best workflow – in the future. (Cue someone in comments mentioning free, old-fashioned, no-subscription-required tools like rsync.)

For the same reason, it’s worth noting that there’s more to the recent iPhone app and API SoundCloud updates than just recording. Apps will in the near future will be able to more easily connect to services like Facebook and Twitter. Those tools have been the “glue” that have made things like the faux-Polaroid and Holga apps for iPhone become so viral. It’ll be interesting to see if sound can make the same impression.

Then again, I think it’s worth noting that the biggest news this week came out of plain text you could copy and paste. The Google Translate beatbox, defying any rational explanation, became perhaps the biggest sound and music meme I’ve seen all year. And maybe that proves the point: the familiar copy-and-paste means of spreading it was something anyone could understand. There’s a lesson there, certainly.

In the meantime, SoundCloud is looking a lot more useful. Now, it’s just a matter of finding the most productive way to use it – and, oh yeah, finding some sounds.

The SoundCloud iPhone/iPod touch app is free on Apple’s App Store.

Sharing Note by Weatherman

Capture And Share Your Sounds [SoundCloud Blog]