Early Stribe Prototype Music

This is a prototype of Josh Boughey's stribe project. I'm attempting to write some software to turn the hardware into a musical instrument.

After a few nights of communicating with the firmware to light up LEDs in a meaningful manner, I switched gears and created a quick application that would hopefully result in a musical statement, albeit without the LED feedback I'm looking for. I'm still working on this.

In addition to the stribe, I'm using a foot controller to adjust velocities, and a sustain pedal to... sustain notes. MachFive 2 is the sound source. The video is dark because I wanted to focus attention on the LEDs.

Download the Max patch here.

AHNE08

I can't believe this is the fifth year we've been doing AHNE - the annual nerd fest where we get together and share our analog goodies. This year, the date is April 26. You can't exactly walk into a guitar center and play a Buchla Music Easel or a Roland System 700, so this is a fun opportunity to see some rare, interesting gear.

There are lots of photos sets from past years (please check the official web page for links), but here is my flickr set from last year. It should give you a good idea of the kinds of things you'll see.

But, really, it is about the people. I spend 99% of my time talking with the cool people who attend and the remaining 1% fondling the gear.

Please come join us! Bringing analog gear is not a prerequisite to admission. All interested parties are welcome. Admission is free, but donations are welcome to help cover the costs of using the location.

Digital Performer 6 spotted

Anxious MOTU users got their first glimpse of the Digital Performer 6 redesign. These are photos taken from the projector at NAMM. I'm enjoying reading the reaction at Unicornation. While that thread is interesting, this prior thread is even better, especially Babz's authoritative-sounding theories of MOTU's UI design. *cough*

After the NAMM show, MOTU issued a press release containing an image of the Leveler and ProVerb plug-ins.

CueMix FX

CueMix FX is the third-generation the CueMix software, and by far the most sophisticated. I'm really happy with the way it turned out and I'm excited that people are finally getting their first glimpse at all this careful work.



Last night I read a review of the Focusrite Saffire Pro 26 in Feb 2008 issue of EM magazine. Now, the Saffire Pro's interface is fairly unique, and I admire them for the chance they took, and I appreciate the fact that it isn't a 'me-too' design. The reviewer crucified it. Even worse, one of the HUGE callouts was "Working with the SaffireControl Pro concole was downright clumsy." Wow. And they gave it a '2' out of 5 on ease of use. Ouch.

I sure hope CueMix FX goes over better.

Sonic Joy 2007

Audio News Room graced a selection of audio software and hardware products that came out in 2007 with their 'Sonic Joy' award. In the audio app category, they called attention to the 'collective intelligence' of the monome community, and singled out Brian Crabtree, Steve Duda and myself.

Livewire Audio Frequency Generator

I'm fairly jaded when it comes to music technology. It has been a long time since my jaw dropped watching a demo. As soon as Mike Brown of Livewire starts frequency modulating phase position, my credit card involuntarily leapt out of my wallet. Quite embarrassing.

It is like the precision and animation of digital FM, but with huge, pendulous, raw analog balls. I wonder what two sound like together.

Oh, and the look Mike gives the camera at exactly 7:30 is the best thing I've seen at a NAMM show, ever.

monome 64 sells out in two minutes

I don't think this was a matter of underestimated demand. As a small organization, monome is limited by how many units they can produce at a time, and only allows enough orders to fill a pre-determined window of time (100/four weeks).

I'm not at all surprised they sold out so quickly. The 64 is the sweet spot. It is the most-affordable, pre-assembled version.

Congrats on the crazy demand, monome!

Here is a real picture of a 64:

monome 64 orders start this Friday

If you've been aching for a monome, now is your chance. 8x8 production monomes have been unavailable since June 2007. Even then, they only produced 16 units - I'm unsure how long the gulf was between that and the previous run of 40h units. Come this Friday, you'll be able to place an order for the new '64'. They're $50 cheaper than the original 40h, and best of all, it has recently been revealed that they'll include an accelerometer like the $800 40h/se.

No pictures currently exist of the 64 - I hacked together a photoshopped version to satisfy my own curiosity some time ago.



Be on time, because these things have a habit of selling out rather quickly - like, within a day. This depends on how many 64s they're making in this batch, which is also unknown - at least to me. I expect 100-400. Also, as they ship in small batches every few days, how promptly you place an order makes a significant difference as to when you receive it. A delay of an hour or two can translate into weeks of waiting.

Below is a video of the 40h/se with accelerometer.

I can haz email client?

My wish came true. Apple finally uncrippled the iPod touch, albeit, at a $20 price tag for early adopters. I told you it wasn't in competition with the iPhone. Now iPod touch users can have mail, maps, stocks, weather and NOTES. Yay!

In related news, Elgato introduced eyetv 3 which, among other things, allows one to stream recorded video to your touch.

Google has updated their mobile applications for the iPhone (and iPod touch). Still can't edit documents in google docs though... However, I have notes now!

Finally, iTransmorgify allows you to play flash media accessed from Safari by routing through a bookmark. Cool!

"NAMM IT, JIM"

I'm not ignoring you. Really.

If you've written me, and not received a response, it is because it is the week before the NAMM show. I have a few days to accomplish several weeks of work, and, if I were to do it right, it would take several weeks more. But, I like limitations and challenges are stimulating. NAMM will bring interesting announcements, and even some of the projects I've been working on will get their public debut, so it is an exciting, but busy time.

In the mean time, enjoy this clever origami animation video from youtube.

OpenCourseWare

I'm easing up on my minimalist studio setup. I've finally caved and set up a modest set of speakers . My original monitors I put away because they consumed a lot of space, and I never got to use them since I can only work on music when the kids are asleep. Well, I'm discovering plenty of opportunities to have room-aduible audio that have nothing to do with critical monitoring. For example, the iTunes music store has a bunch of free MIT video lectures available for download.

This is one of those stumble upon a rabbit hole moments.

These MIT lectures are from the free online OpenCourseWare media. Go ahead. Click the link. It's a treasure. The materials here could easily spawn many lifetimes of direction. Looking at it makes me a little dizzy.

One of the available lectures is The Current Crisis in the Middle East by Noam Chomsky.

I realize that Noam Chomsky is a towering figure in linguistics. I've even made a feeble attempt to understand some of his contributions to the field, but this is sort of like a mouse trying to understand how a 747 is put together by reading a dictionary. Or something like that. Anyway. When Dr. Chomsky talks about media or politics, it is like I'm finally hearing Truth. He's an effortless and exceptional communicator.

Empyrean

On New Year's day, we (wife, kids and myself) trekked to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. While there, I had a chance to see Cliff Evans: Empyrean, a six minute video montage that reportedly took seven months to assemble. That is understandable, as each individual image needed to be knocked out of its background, a tedious, mind-numbing prospect. The results were composited and animated with something like Adobe After Effects to create the final product.

There is a clever detail: five HD projectors are used, rotated 90-degrees, creating an aggregate projected image of exceptionally high resolution.



The soundtrack seemed like a lost opportunity to me. The video is a montage of images, and the soundtrack is a collage of noises. Seems appropriate, but I feel it could have been more effective. Plus, if you're going to go through the trouble of playing five synced HD streams for a museum installation, why not also produce a mutli-channel sound track?

But still, the project looked like an enjoyable way to spend seven months. I started fantasizing about dedicating myself to a project for that amount of time. The idea is intoxicating. So, if anyone out there would like to subsidize my existence, I have an artistic to-do list that would take about 125 years to plow through. Call me.

Stuff For Sale

This summer I moved to an entirely Eurorack modular system. I put the Blacet modules in the closet to see if I would miss them. Well, six months later, I don't miss them. Also, there are a handful (well... two handfuls) of surplus Doepfer modules I really don't need, so those can go too. Finally, it is time for the Nord Modular G2 to go. I'm least sure about this final item, as it has saved my butt on a few occasions.

Blacet Miniwave
Blacet Time Machine
Blacet Quad VCA
Blacet Binary Zone
Wiard Noise Ring
Wiard Joystick
Encore Frequency Shifter
Frac Rack with power supply
Frac Rack with power distribution

Doepfer A-146 LFO2
Doepfer A-140 ADSR
Doepfer A-131 VCA (exp)
Doepfer A-115 audio divider
Doepfer A-120 LPF VCF
Doepfer A-114 ring modulator
Doepfer A-116 waveform processor
Doepfer A-110 VCO

Nord Modular G2 Keyboard

For those of you who can't get enough of my nerdy voice and effeminate wrists, I created three more auction-related youtube videos, the most involved of which is for the Nord Modular. I'm too lazy to do more than one take, so if something seems odd, I'll simply make fun of myself with subtitles.