Stockholm-based design technistas and boutique synth shop Teenage Engineering have evidently worked out how to keep busy and brighten those dark Swedish winters. They showed up in Southern California this week with a slew of new stuff to show off. And while mention of their OP-1 synth may elicit controversy in comment threads online, their booths are crowd pleasers. In contrast to the buttoned-up, business-like atmosphere of a lot of tech vendors at NAMM, TE’s whimsical science lab seems to spill out onto the show floor, and – along with more analog-tilted booths Big City and Analog Haven – attracted crowds like no other tech.

What was actually going on? There’s a new OS update and a new product. The OS update delivers new drum and sequencer modes and badly-needed MIDI sync, plus cool MIDI modulation. Combined, it seems the OP-1 has really matured – sync alone removes a major obstacle for some adopters.

The new hardware is Opbox, a combination USB host / MIDI / CV box with analog sensors – and it has pretty plug-in modules and even custom-made shoes to match. The shoes may not be terribly practical, but the Oplab fits a unique niche in hardware I/O and DIY projects – provided it’s a niche that people actually want. We’ve got some details plus some exclusive images.

OP-1 Update

New in the OS:

• Finger step-sequencer, with 32 step patterns per key and 14 polyphonic patterns. (It’s an unfortunate name, given that’s also Tim Exile’s excellent Reaktor creation. Toe? But it looks cool.
• DrumBox, a drum synth. More on that in a second.
• MIDI LFOs for modulating four parameters at once – very cool.
• MIDI sync – at last, you can sync to clock messages.

Bonus: you get Reason integration (if you enjoy superior Swedish engineering), and, oddly, a game.

http://www.teenageengineering.com/products/op-1/os-update

I ran into CDM reader Neil Bufkin on the show floor, and he’s back with a new video of the OP-1 update and other goodies. Watch:

Teenage Engineer David Ericksson also shares some thoughts with CDM on DrumBox:

The idea behind DrumBox is to provide a spiced up version of classic beat box designs with everything from digital wave-shaping to FM and more. You get 24 keys each with a custom 2 oscillator setup where you can morph between different modes. The same knob also includes a volume envelope to balance the drum sounds. It’s been very tricky to build this up using only 8 parameters and still get a versatile drum machine. The payoff is that it’s pretty hands on and when you start using the LFO’s to control these params you can really do crazy stuff.

TE also shares with CDM the rough sketch from which this feature originated, plus a look at how it looks in the final product:

Oplab

Oplab is an all-new product. It’s marketed as complementing the OP-1, but it’s really a general-purpose board. Imagine an Arduino-like prototyping platform on steroids, with stuff you’d want to use for music applications. And then imagine that, much to the surprise of me and a number of other people with whom I spoke, that they made a bare circuit board look strangely beautiful and finished. This board looks better than a lot of housings. In one box, you combine lots of I/O connections and inputs for sensors.

• Three USB connections. One turns the Oplab itself into a USB device, so you can connect to a computer. But the other two are USB hosts. That means you can use the Oplab with USB devices and no computer in sight.
• Three MIDI connections. MIDI IN, MIDI OUT, and then a third MIDI port that can be either THRU or SYNC24.
• 2 CV in, 2 CV out for analog connections – using any analog connection you like.
• Program select switches. Easy access to settings.
• Ins and outs for anything else. 2 12-bit connections can be switched to input or output, so you can do everything from add sensors to use as music controllers or drive lights or motors. Now, that’s not many connections – but notice also the headers and coming development kit.
• Plug-and-play sensors. For those who want something that lets them hack around without having wires pop up or worrying about delicate, exposed boards, TE is making ready-to-use sensors. Flip is an accelerometer, Poke a pressure sensor, and Tap a piezo. You could also make your own and save some scratch.

http://www.teenageengineering.com/products/oplab/

All of this goodness costs you – US$299 is the price for the board, sensors costs $49 each, and the pretty red tray with the sensors and board all put together top US$425. But you do get some fairly sophisticated functionality in the form of adding MIDI and CV and USB hosting. Hosting isn’t easy. This also opens up some new interconnections with devices like iOS and Android and the OP-1, since the USB hosts can negate the need for a dedicated computer for USB MIDI gadgetry.

In fact, it’s nice to see a polished, designed product that does this kind of DIY stuff; that’s something we had seen in past entries from vendors like Eowave but had largely fallen away in recent years. There’s just no question that if you’re on a budget you should look to other ways of doing this. And I think the bigger question is whether people will like this I/O setup. It won’t suit people with lots of CV, and it’ll be overkill for people with simpler setups. My guess is it’ll make a lot of people happy in between, but I honestly don’t know. Let us know if you’re intrigued.

All of this is capped off by more Teenage oddities. The latest addition: they’ve designed their own custom shoe, complete with a pouch to hold their accelerometer.

More information – and lots of ideas for how you might use the Oplab, put quite articulately if a bit scant on technical details – at:

http://www.teenageengineering.com/products/oplab/
http://www.teenageengineering.com/products/op-1/os-update

Updated: Making Over Your Lifestyle with Design

Comments are getting a bit … heated … below. So, I simply wish to take this opportunity to say, if you don’t like the chic design of Teenage Engineering’s products, you can be easily replaced.

(PS – IKEA is now based in the Netherlands, so it’s fitting this is a Dutch, not a Swedish, film. But watch and learn. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pop open a can of Budweiser and use a real synth – one with wooden endcaps – in the back of my truck, before catching the NFC championship football game. None of this Swedish nonsense. And remember, all national stereotypes in your head are completely true! America!)

It bears saying: a lot of the taste for Scandinavian design was cultivated in the US. Along with other European modernists, key designers settled places like Los Angeles, and their style mingled with American style. If you don’t like the looks (or, crucially, function) of this, tell us what you do like: more variety is better.

The stream of iPad and iPhone apps for musicians gushes endlessly, but among that river of software, there are some visible trends. Demanded by users, features for sharing between apps – and other mobile artists – flourish.

Hardware heavyweight KORG has been one of the developers that’s been especially good at offering that kind of support. Their just-announced iKaossilator 2 app adds native iPad screen support (previously iPhone-optimized only), and a new “flex play” for fills and breaks.

But most notably, it offers options for sharing:

• Audio export for saving your audio – ideal for use elsewhere or sharing
• SoundCloud export (increasingly popular in desktop and mobile software of all stripes)
• AudioCopy for sharing audio between apps – adopted by many indie developers, this feature is becoming a demanded addition even if you’re releasing an app costing only a couple of bucks

This is addition to WIST, “WIreless Sync-starT,” Korg’s mechanism for syncing up multiple wireless apps. That’s ideal if you’ve got a friend with a device and want to jam. (It’s, unfortunately, iOS-only based on its reliance on Apple’s wireless sharing tech.)

The upshot of all of these features is, naturally, to help ease the tablet/phone app into the larger workflow, with desktop software and other tools. Korg’s other apps are similarly flexible – their iMS-20 synth works with MIDI and SoundCloud, for instance, and it and iElecTribe will wirelessly sync.

Korg iKaossilator

KORG isn’t alone. An updated Intua BeatMaker – more of a full-fledged beat-making and groove production workstation – added loads of similarly sharing-focused features.

Indeed, Intua goes further than KORG. Developers have been working together to route MIDI signals between apps with something they’re calling Virtual MIDI. (That deserves its own article, clearly, but worth mentioning in this context; see discussion on Google Groups.) As desktop apps have allowed collaboration between plug-ins and hosts, or multiple apps, this allows a MIDI app to control a synth app. It’s less powerful, arguably, on the limited horsepower of an iPad than it might be on a beefy desktop, but it can still be very useful for combining one controller or sequencer with something else that makes sound.

As reported on Synthtopia, Virtual MIDI is just one of a number of MIDI-centric features in the new version:

BeatMaker Getting All Sorts Of MIDI Love [Synthtopia]

There’s MIDI Out, yes, but also Thru and MIDI-over-WiFi for talking to other MIDI gadgets. There’s Virtual MIDI for communicating with other iOS devices. You can hot-plug MIDI and the app keeps working (essential onstage). And in place of SoundCloud support as in the KORG offering, there’s Dropbox file sharing support.

You can export and import MIDI – not just audio, but actual patterns – as well as read and write slice points in Apple Loops.

In fact, Intua even support Korg’s own WIST, so you could sync BeatMaker to KORG’s iElecTribe or the modulation of the iMS-20 and get synchronized rhythms between apps from different developers.

Intua BeatMaker @ iTunes

This is not to say iOS devices are identical to a desktop experience – in fact, their limitations and unique features are clearly part of their appeal. Instead, it seems part of an increased awareness that connectivity with other applications and other users is of growing importance to musicians. iOS developers seem eager to make these central design features, both emulating what’s been done right on desktops – and where there have been missed opportunities. It’ll be fascinating to see if other, non-iOS platforms follow the same trend.

FL Studio, beloved to its users by its original name “Fruity Loops,” has long had a Playlist mode that could be used to assemble simple live performances by jumping to sections of your music.

But a new alpha mode takes this mode far further. It’s still based on the Playlist, but can add clips dynamically – including Audio, Automation, and Pattern. While still in early testing, developer Image-Line has released some information about how triggering works, as well as the video above. And oddly enough, just like the video we saw earlier this week in Renoise, it employs a Novation Launchpad controller. (The impact of the monome on the market is really hard to overstate.)

More details from the developers:

Controllers

Keyboards – There are 12 Clips assignable to each Playlist Track (one octave of a MIDI controller per track)

Launchpad & Mouse – Unlimited Clips assignable to each Playlist track.

Other Pad based Controllers – Limited only by the number of MIDI note assignable pads

At the moment there is basic scripting to define extra pages on the launchpad, you’re able to define actions for buttons, among transport ones, notes & controls.

The CPU load is similar to the project as it would play normally.

Performance Mode [Image Line forums]

It’s not quite an Ableton killer – not yet, anyway, especially as it lacks Ableton’s unique Session View paradigm for working in this way. It’s even a bit short of some of the hacks we’ve seen for Renoise. On the other hand, if you’re an FL fan you should be able to make your performance plenty sophisticated – and since just trigger clips isn’t everything, you might also want to play along with an instrument or sing. And I could see this catching on. It’d be great to see something other than Ableton in live laptop performances. Variety is the spice of life.

Rating: very, very promising.

Previously (this week, no less): More Renoise Step Sequence Goodness: Launchpad + Lauflicht (Other Controllers, Too)

Thanks to Dario Lupo for the tip!

Native Instruments reveals some big news for Maschine that’s … well, smaller. A new package has smaller hardware and lower price, with the same full-sized software. And an iOS version lets you use Maschine on iPad or iPhone.

As their drum machine / drum sampler / groove workstation with plug-in hosting and doubling as plug-in matures, and becomes a focus of NI’s production and performance side, things are starting to heat up. And yes, this news comes just as we learn more about an upcoming analog drum machine. It’s a Labor Day full of drum machines.

Shrunken Maschine: Maschine Mikro is, for me, the best news. It’s cheaper than the full Maschine package. It’s smaller and lighter, with a more compact controller. You might expect NI trimmed down the samples set – nope, it’s the same 6 GB ibrary. Or maybe they added a “lite” version of the software – nope, it’s the same, full Maschine version. And you still get full-sized pads. The Maschine pads are some of my favorite currently on the market – controller or otherwise – so that’s quite nice, indeed. You do sacrifice some hands-on control: the Mikro lacks the big, beautiful screens on the full Maschine, and the additional knobs and triggers. The eight macro knobs on the full Maschine are pretty handy, as are dedicated group buttons.

So, why would I think Mikro’s a good idea? Simple: when you’re on the road, or performing live onstage in cramped spaces, the Mikro looks like a winner, and all with the same software and at a lower price. For studio use, the full Maschine is still your best choice. But I’m personally going to switch out to the Mikro, especially because – like many people, I suspect – it’ll ultimately be combined with another controller in my workflow. You can have a closer look at our two product shots from NI and decide for yourself. (Yes, there’s a Maschine Bag, and yes, I was just talking to King Britt about his on-the-go luggage setup with his Maschine, but I’m still partial to smaller and lighter!)

Finger drumming video: NI has also released a promo vid of finger-drumming virtuoso Jeremy Ellis tearing apart their new hardware. It’s supposed to make you want to buy a Mikro, or something, except it may make you feel somewhat … inadequate … with your own finger drumming, instead.

Really Shrunken Maschine: If the Mikro isn’t small enough – say, you’re on the East Coast “Chinatown” Fung Wah bus and don’t really have room for your knees – NI also has a Maschine coming for iOS in October. It seems eminently practical:

• four tracks
• sampling (perhaps the most fun part of having this be mobile)
• “high-quality” effects (no reason that couldn’t just be ported from desktop)
• instrument and drum sounds from the standard Maschine library
• bring back your sketches into the full Maschine and edit them there

I’m only sorry it’s called iMaschine. Oh, well.

Komplete integration: As a footnote to this other news, NI notes that Maschine and Maschine Mikro each now support sound browsing and parameter mapping for instruments and effects in Komplete/Komplete Ultimate – the kind of tactile control originally in Kore, now entirely focused on Maschine.

Bottom line: For lovers of this workstation, it sounds to me like Maschine for iOS on the bus, Maschine software on your MacBook on the plane, Mikro in the hotel room, standard Maschine in the studio.

Maschine product page
Maschine Mikro

While Roland this week is pushing their JP-80 and celebrating a 30-year milestone (the Jupiter-8), Yamaha has a different tack. They’re talking about the 10-year anniversary of the MOTIF workstation line, and introducing a version that’s actually easier to lift and afford. That could be friendly to the current economic tough times. But with all that people love their software synths, can Yamaha make a compelling case to the computer user, too? I put Yamaha on the spot to answer that.

First, here are the specs:

• MOTIF XS sounds, with 1,217 voices and 355 MB of waveforms. (Okay, that’s nothing to HALion’s 15 GB of sounds on a computer, but Yamaha promises content with “Expanded Articulation” features.)
• Virtual Circuit Modeling and MOTIF XS synth engine, with 18 filter types.
• 256 performance patterns, 6,720 arpeggiator patterns, MOTIF XS four-part arpeggio engine.
• USB audio/MIDI interface to record directly to a PC – 4-in, 2-out, stereo input for vocals or instruments/guitars.
• Onboard sequencer and direct-to-sequencer recording so you can use the keyboard as a sketchpad.
• MIDI controller functionality.

None of that is terribly earth-shaking; where the MOX line is worth mentioning is on weight, size, and cost. The MOX6 weighs 15.4 pounds with 61 semi-weighted keys; the MOX8 gives you 88 Graded Hammer Standard keys in 32.6 pounds.

MOX6: US$1199.99 MAP
MOX8: US$1699.99 MAP

That still isn’t quite an impulse buy, but there isn’t a whole heck of a lot of competition, particularly if you want a lightweight, playable hammer-action keyboard with these kinds of features. (Roland and Kurzweil compete in the same space, but only Kurzweil I think is on the same level for pianist-friendly hammer action keybeds.)

In fact, if you look at it this way – a keyboard with controllers and a real Yamaha keybed that you can still lift – the MOX fills a long-quiet spot in the market.

Having onboard sounds is a nice backup, but for most of us who are addicted to superior-sounding soft synths, half a gig of MOTIF sounds just won’t cut it. (Side note: I really do think there’s something to the Japanese aesthetic of miniaturized sample content. I’m stunned engineers at these makers can voice these things as well as they do.)

So, I asked Athan Billias of Yamaha’s Pro Audio and Combo Division to tell us more about the computer workflow and keybed. It brings up features you might miss, like controller capabilities, using the sequencer and arpeggiator with other gear, and other details.

Keybed: Yamaha’s keybeds are some of the best-liked away from actual pianos, so this comes as good news: “The Graded Hammer Standard is what we use on many of our digital pianos- the P95, etc,” says Athan. “It’s a graded hammer action that was designed to be lighter and allow for a more streamlined design than the Clavinova’s, but uses a similar mechanism.” Now, it is lighter – otherwise the keyboard would weigh more – but if portability is key, this could be a player.

Streaming from the audio engine: With USB onboard, being able to record the internal sound bank is essential; I saw commenters elsewhere asking about this. The answer is, yes, you can: “It is a 4 in ( to the computer ) 2 out interface. So yes, you can stream directly from the synth engine will also recording the L&R analog inputs.”

USB audio drivers: The keyboard isn’t class-compliant, says Athan, because it’s both multi-channel audio and multi-port MIDI. (I believe the latter is the issue.) You’ll need Yamaha drivers – so, no Linux / iPad.

Computer integration: With inexpensive controller keyboards available, Yamaha has a little something to prove to convince computer users. They’re obviously thinking of that use case, as they include soft synths in the box. Here’s Athan’s argument.

I think this is the coolest thing about the MOX. So let’s talk computer integration.

The MOX comes with Cubase AI of course, but it also has a suite of other software.

YC-B3 – Yamaha Organ Modeling VST soft synth
Prologue – Steinberg Virtual Analog softsynth

MOX VST editor – This turns the hardware into a VST so you can treat the hardware exactly like a softsynth. Save your project, open a month later and it recalls the setting of your hardware exactly as they were when you were last working on the project.

Remote Editor- The remote mode turns the MOX into a very comprehensive DAW and VST controller. There is an AI knob which means that rest the mouse over any parameter in Cubase and the AI knob can tweak it. You can use the Remote Editor to select almost anything in Cubase to be controlled by buttons on the MOX.

You can open, select and tweak VSTs , control the EQs of audio channels, open and close the mixers and other windows and many other things.

However, it is not just the software. The MOX is an audio interface so you can play back your VSTs audio out through the MOX. A MOX, some VSTs and a laptop are all you need ( besides a PA system) to play live. The MOX has a DAW level control on the front panel which is the output from your computer.

Sequencer / arpeggiator: Okay, actually, I find this potentially the coolest feature. The sequencer can record internal MIDI or external MIDI, so you can use the keyboard as a sketchpad or use it to sequence hardware. I’m not terribly familiar with the MOTIF sequencers, so I have to give this another try to see how usable it is, but it is one advantage of workstation-style keyboards – here, without all that extra cruft (and heft, and cost) you don’t need or want.

Also, a MIDI output switch lets you use the arpeggiator and patterns to sequence your external MIDI instruments.

Otherwise, this is effectively a MOTIF XS in the guts, just with less weight and cost. That’s, um, how I expect to celebrate my next birthday/anniversary, I hope.

This isn’t a review, but this looks like a contender – and I’d love to stack the Kurzweil and Yamaha offerings against each other. Cheap controllers are nice, but having a superior keybed and some useful functions and (even just as a backup) standalone sounds has some appeal, without feeling like your keyboard is trying to be another computer.

The only unfortunate detail is that the keyboard would share the name of nuclear fuel at a most inopportune time. Then again, if I plug it in here in New York, there’s a 30% chance I’m running off nuclear fuel, too. Think of it as short for “moxie” instead.

Apple is getting into mobile music production with a US$4.99 version of GarageBand that runs on iPad. It looks very impressive for a $5 app – which could be bad news for other music developers trying to set higher pricing for more serious apps. On the other hand, it also validates the notion of the iPad as a music creation platform, and it leaves plenty of room for other such tools. Capabilities:

• Touch-capable drums, drum machines, keyboards, and synths
• Interactive chord layouts for guitar, keyboard, bass, and drum patterns
• Audio recorder (with some silly effects, like “chipmunk” and “monster”)
• Guitar amps and effects – some nine amp models, ten effects

It appears this requires the new dual-core CPU on the iPad 2.

Apple tells CDM that the software is compatible with both the original iPad and the new iPad 2.

The heart of the app, though, is a multi-track arrange window borrowed directly from desktop GarageBand. Some fancier features appear to be missing (notation may be missed, in particular, and I don’t see extras like a tempo track), but otherwise, it’s the MIDI and audio arrangement you know from the Mac. You can even take projects from the iPad into GarageBand for a mobile-to-desktop workflow. (The reverse appears not possible, which would make sense – the mobile version is a subset of the desktop version.)

The instruments are impressive, too. Whereas the first GarageBand emphasized using pre-built loops, this version is actually more suited to a songwriter’s sketchpad: you have automatic chord generation as you previously saw only in music workstation keyboards. The 4×4 drum machine, synths, and keyboards look fairly basic, but they don’t skip over basic editing features. All in all, it’s unquestionably the most we’ve seen for $5 in a mobile app. On one hand, that could make Apple’s developers nervous – but, paradoxically, I think that at $5, someone has enough pocket change left over to go buy your $5, $10, or $20 app.

It’s also an app that thinks through mobile workflows. You can send to iTunes, email songs, and on a Mac, open in GarageBand.

In fact, my only big question is how software with live instruments on a tablet is going to contend with running out of system resources. We’ll know soon; the app isn’t available as I write this, but is promised soon.

I’m also a bit unclear on hardware compatibility, but I’m told MIDI and audio hardware will work, which makes some sense. I’ll try to reach out to my contacts at Apple on some of these questions.

There’s also no question in my mind that this significantly widens the gap between iOS and everything else – notably Android. That’s a discussion best left for another post, but it’s hard for me to see any competitor making the investment in music – still a fairly limited market – that Apple has. At the same time, looking at music creation in general, the more visible software like this is – and the more successful it is, which remains to be seen – the more attention mobile music creation may get from the public and vendors alike. (Technically speaking, by the way, there’s no reason you couldn’t exploit horsepower on next-generation tablets like the Motorola Xoom. I’m sure we’ll make use of the extra cycles with libpd Pure Data patches for both platforms. But there are lots of other variables, technical and in terms of the marketplace, that make iOS friendlier than Android to commercial music development by an order of magnitude.)

I’m curious to hear from iPad owners, though: does GarageBand appear, on first glance, to offer tools you don’t have in other mobile workstations? Would it make you consider iPad music if you hadn’t before?

(And, in the meantime, we can dream of our tablet, touch-savvy tracker. I know some of you want it.)

Screen images courtesy of Apple.

http://www.apple.com/ipad/from-the-app-store/garageband.html

With previews and teasers, it’s sometimes easy to miss when useful new tools actually become available to you. Two tools this week became available, each potentially high on the utility end of the spectrum.

There’s no shortage of variety in iOS music creation apps, but when people really want to get down to music making, many of them want to focus on one tool, not twenty. (That’s not universal – ask Richard Devine‘s screaming VST plug-in folder – but you ought to at least be able to make such a choice.) It’s therefore little surprise that there’s been a lot of buzz around NanoStudio.

NanoStudio incorporates a range of tools in one app. There’s a virtual analog synth, a 4×4 pad for sampling and sample playback, a sequencer for notes and control, a mixer and rack of mastering effects. The emphasis is clearly on completing entire productions. In more lightweight form, it reflects some of the appeal of tools like Reason and FL Studio (particularly recalling, say, the simpler early releases of Fruity Loops). That’s not a totally new idea on iOS – Intua’s Beatmaker was an early entry for those wanting an integrated studio – but it’s an especially nice take here.

In control and sampling, NanoStudio looks really flexible. The virtual analog synth has extensive envelope and LFO controls, and input from X/Y controllers, pitch bend, and your iPhone accelerometer. You can even insert up for four independent synths. The sampler will work with the built in mic, it’ll bring in samples from your PC or Mac, and – best of all – you can resample from NanoStudio.

All in all, it looks like NanoStudio could be the more comprehensive production studio on iOS yet, without sacrificing simplicity and large, readable interfaces. You can buy it now on the App store for GBP8.99, and there’s a free trial of a development version for Windows and Mac (minus the touch features) so you can see if you like it first.

Full details at the developer site: http://www.blipinteractive.co.uk/index.php, or follow on Twitter

In other news, IK Multimedia’s AmpliTube package of virtual guitar amp/effects/tools is now available for iPad. In a basic version, it’s actually free, with three stompboxes, one amp/cabinet, and two mics. The idea is to get you hooked, and either collect additional tools via a la carte downloads, or get the full collection for US$19.99. Without external hardware, AmpliTube isn’t much use, but you can buy interfaces from IK and other vendors. (You can also use an existing class-compliant USB audio interface with the iPad.) Consensus from readers is that these mobile guitar tools would be best as on-the-go practice tools. As opposed to the iPhone, the iPad gets a big, gorgeous, readable interface. It’s still not a stage tool – not until Apple finds a way to perfect iPad input with your feet. (Hey, that may not stop someone from stripping their socks off, putting their iPod on the floor, and using this with their toes.) But as a practice tool, it’s another option.

iRig for iPad Information [IK Multimedia]

It’s still not shipping, but one of IK’s rivals has fleshed out their website since I covered them last; see AmpKit. And you will, incidentally, be able to mix and match apps and interfaces, meaning even IK fans may want to keep an eye out.

Previously: Virtual Reality: Guitar Notation, Amps, and Effects Appear on Apple Mobiles

Like well-stocked studios of hardware, software has become personal, idiosyncratic, and stuffed with functionality. Computer producers are passionate as always about what works. And that has made FL Studio a kind of subculture all its own. Image-Line has a unique way of encouraging loyalty: while the company still peddles new add-ons to its existing customer base, the expansive functionality of the FL Studio program and all its major instruments and effects are included in lifetime free upgrades. FL Studio is a program you buy once that keeps getting better, without the usual upgrade purchase treadmill.

So, when we talk about everything that’s new in FL Studio 9, or FL Studio 9.1, released last week, those improvements are free to existing users.

You can read my review of FL Studio 9 for Keyboard Magazine:

It’s a strange thing that the word “toy” has come to have negative connotations in music tech. Apparently, we want our music tools to be big and powerful, like a chainsaw, ideally emitting manly gasoline fumes. But when we talk about music, we use the word “play.” FL Studio is nothing if not a toybox. But it’s a toybox in the best sense.

FL Studio 9 Review

FL Studio 9 introduces a number of improvements, including a Riff Machine (pictured above), which can dynamically generate musical ideas if you’re stuck for inspiration. Perhaps more importantly, the upgrade also delivers more intelligent routing and MIDI control, and a really gorgeous vocoder. (Yes, Reason, Live, and FL Studio now all have vocoders; what’s interesting to me is that they’re each quite different, true to the personalities of the three developers.)

FL Studio 9.1 adds still more, as you can see in the video above. There’s a brand-new drum modeling engine called Drumpad, which should couple perfectly with FL’s sequencing features. (It’d even go nicely with that aforementioned Riff Machine, for some complex, generative patterns. Ah, I think I know what I’m doing with my Saturday night now.) There’s also a real-time convolution plug-in, which sounds like a fun feature to abuse.

There are lots of additional videos on the FL forum, though true to form, I find this isn’t necessarily how everyone uses the program:

FL Studio Guru

Tips for Getting Started, with Jim Aikin

Jim Aikin has long been one of my favorite writers in this field; you can find his work in Electronic Musician, Keyboard, and others, including the lesser-known but superb Virtual Instruments. But, since working with him as the technical editor – slash – life coach on my book, I’ve also gotten to enjoy Jim’s emails, which are frequently themselves packed with knowledge, musical ideas, and perspective. Jim is a cellist, and as someone with a classical and compositional background myself, I appreciate that slant on things. (It’s certainly not what people typically associate with FL Studio.)

FL Studio is a deep tool – deeper than I think a lot of people appreciate. But it’s not always clear where to begin. Jim shares his own take on how to get started with the tool, creatively.

He writes:

My #1 tip would be this: Assign every Generator to its own mixer channel. (And name the mixer channels, so as to avoid confusion.) Then automate your levels by right-clicking the mixer faders and creating automation clips. (After selecting the part of the song where you want the gain change, of course.) The reason to do it this way is because then you can use the volume knob next to the Generator itself for _global_ changes in the level of that instrument. You never have to mess with re-editing tons of automation data in order to make a global gain change from one end of the song to the other.

Here’s another tip, which I learned by posting a message on an FL forum: By default, FL does not patch your mod wheel moves or aftertouch through to the 3rd-party Generators (softsynths). If you’ve selected a patch that uses mod wheel or aftertouch and you actually want to play an expressive line, this is annoying. But there’s an easy fix: Open the instrument’s edit window and select Browse Parameters from the menu in the upper left corner of the window. This opens the Browser, with a complete list of parameters. Scroll down. At the bottom of the list you’ll find all 128 MIDI CC’s, and also aftertouch. (The MIDI CC list does not appear with built-in plug-ins such as Sytrus and Slayer.) Right-click on the knob icon beside the mod wheel, select Link To Controller, and wiggle the wheel. Now the plug-in will respond the way you want it to.

Here’s another one: You can create your own quantization templates. Record a bar of regular 16th notes (or whatever) to a piano-roll, edit it to taste, Open up the piano-roll window’s File menu, and choose Save Score As. Save it in FL Studio > Data > Patches > Scores > Quantization. Now here’s the bonus tip: There’s already a long list in that folder. So that you won’t have to scroll down to find one of yours every time you want to use one, start your file names with an underscore (such as _Shuffle16th_32.fsc). They will appear at the top of the file dialog when you access it from the Quantize box.

And another: Learn the QWERTY key equivalents. When you hover the mouse over a tool button, the key command equivalent is shown as a dark gray (almost invisible) letter at the right end of the info bar, under the word HELP. I’m constantly switching back and forth from Select (E) to Draw (P). Then there’s the scroll lock key (important) and the fact that left Alt is not the same as right Alt.

Jim also shares a bit of how he uses FL in his own workflow:

I clone patterns a lot. But then, I’m a composer, not a loopin’ beatbox guy, if you see what I mean. I lay down a pattern that I like, and then I start to think, “Hmm … I need an extra hi-hat hit on the last beat in every other bar.” So I clone the pattern, delete the hi-hats from version 1 and everything else from version 2, then I put the hi-hat pattern in its own lane in the Playlist and clone it so I can alternate Hat #1 with Hat #2 in the Playlist. That would be a simple example.

The “Jump to next empty” command in the step sequencer is also indispensable, I find. When you’re in song mode and want to record something new, you almost always need to use that command before recording.

The grouping function in the step sequencer is nice. I usually group all of the percussion channels together, just to get them out of the way visually.

After adding a generator, go to the Channel Settings box and give it its own mixer channel routing (“FX”). This is a good habit to get into. With multi-channel VST plug-ins, the MIDI Out generator is absolutely essential — if you can’t figure out how to make this work, let me know, as it’s a little twisty.

Be sure to check out Slicex. It’s a killer plug-in for any type of sampled beat loop. A number of other plug-ins … just go down the Generators list and try them all. Beepmap is cool (it’s a postage-stamp-sized version of [visual/image-based synthesis tool] Metasynth), Slayer rocks, the Drumsynth is stupidly good for analog percussion, Wave Traveller is great for programming scratches, and you can do some fun stuff with the Speech Synthesizer as well. Oh, and SynthMaker … a complete programmable synth, under the hood. Some of the synths that ship with it aren’t that inspired, but SynthMaker is capable of doing many of the kinds of patches that Reaktor does.

The live mode features are not as extensive as those in Live, but they’re usable, I think. Check ‘em out.

And have fun — FL, in my experience, seems to make music fun again.

FL users, got tips we missed?

Has anyone created something with the included version of SynthMaker they’d like to share?

Other questions?

Let us know. And yes, we’ll keep calling it Fruity Loops.

“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

Welcome to the alt-DAW scene. Last week, not only did Renoise continue its rebirth of the forgotten “tracker” genre of music making software with ReWire support, but we saw a big new version of REAPER, the beloved lightweight audio production tool from the original creator of Winamp.

What makes an “alt DAW”, or “indie” production software? To me, it’s:

• small development teams of a few people
• tightly-integrated communities directly involved in feature requests
• trusting users instead of adding significant DRM, returning to the traditional “shareware” business model of old
• affordable pricing

That’s not to take away from some of the bigger players – I was struck this week with the (unsurprising) ubiquity of Ableton Live at MUTEK; it’s a real testament to what they have accomplished. But choice is essential, and looking at the history of music technology, it’s in the periods of real choice that the most interesting things have happened. It makes everything better when developers really have to compete.

Cockos REAPER has spread almost virally as an underground DAW, partly because you can download the thing and get started with without any restrictions, then buy it for as little as US$60 for personal use.

http://www.reaper.fm/index.php

It’s not just for Windows people any more, either – the Mac version is now officially supported. You can run on Windows 7 or Windows 2000 or even 98 (with limited support). You can run on 10.4 Macs, or even PowerPC (though Intel is recommended). You can even run on Linux with official WINE support, though I’d still like to see a native Linux version, especially as Linux on netbooks is getting so lovely.

Version 3.0 came out this week. There are a huge number of improvements:

• MIDI editing with inline editing, event filtering, Sysex, controller automation – finally, REAPER is getting as good with MIDI as it is with audio
• Automation lanes
• Unlimited folder nesting
• Multichannel audio support
• User-created track and mixer control panels and macros
• Game controller support, including joysticks and even Guitar Hero controllers, which you can integrate with existing MIDI and macro facilities
• New graphics engine, new theming

And that’s just a few examples; see the full changelog:

http://www.reaper.fm/whatsnew-300.txt

You can script your own audio and MIDI plug-ins using JS, and use 64-bit plug-ins included with the package. And all of this is a 4MB download. And there’s no DRM.

While some software increases memory and resource consumption with new versions, REAPER reverses the trend: it’s getting more lightweight and faster as it develops. That’s something we need more of; it’s absolutely possible with the right development approach, and is a welcome change from the “get fatter as computers get faster” approach that infected decades of software development.

Upgrades are $149 if you bought Reaper after September 1, $199 otherwise, or EUR249 for Europe, or $99 if your favorite color is blue, or $123.5 * PI / 2 if you had LE, or $999 for REAPER Suite, or $699 for a Grande REAPERccino Latte, unless you don’t want all the plug-ins, in which case you can get Tall as an upgrade for $119.3587 plus a $150 fuel surcharge, unless you bought your license on a full moon…

Oh, okay, actually, upgrades are free for two major upgrades – meaning if you buy now, you’re covered through 4.99. And there’s one version, called REAPER, which includes… REAPER.

You’re seeing what this hype is about, right? And, if you’re like me, you’re wondering why, you know, other things can’t be a little more like this?

Updated: Sorry, I lost my mind and wrote “JavaScript” instead of the unrelated scripting language JS. Here’s a good explanation from the JS Programming Reference to what this is.

JS is a scripting language which is compiled on the fly and allows you to modify and/or generate audio and MIDI, as well as draw custom vector based UI and analysis displays.
JS effects are simple text files, which when loaded in REAPER become full featured plug-ins. You can try loading existing JS effects and since they are distributed in source form, you can also edit existing effects to suit your needs (we recommend if editing an existing effect you save it as something with a new name–if you do not you may lose your changes when upgrading REAPER).

JS Programming Guide

There’s also an extensions SDK in C++ and an LGPL-licensed SDK for control surfaces. You can contrast this with Ableton, which will charge extra for its Max for Live runtime and has no officially supported or documented API for control surfaces, which means that support for more exotic devices routinely breaks, and trying it yourself is harder.