Vimeo has released their free iPhone app, which no self-respecting vimeo user should be without. In some ways, it is even better than the web front end. For example, viewing your videos gives you endless scroll instead of cycling through pages. The mobile app makes the 'watch later' feature even more useful and relevant.
The app can also capture and upload video, even on a 3GS. Theoretically, one of my escape philosophy piano ambient tracks is included. This allows you to add a dreamy soundtrack to any video you capture with your phone, which fulfills how I envisioned creative commons working.
I received a production-run arc4 with the final firmware on Friday. This signaled a mad scramble to update my work for that and the latest serialosc with arc support so it'll be ready when people start receiving their units in a few days. So what do I do on Saturday? Make a new app, of course. Sure, that totally sounds like the responsible thing to do.
After receiving the arc4, I thought it might be a good idea to produce an example that demonstrates a 'bank' of encoder values that you can switch between. That gave birth to an application idea involving triggering modal notes from a pool of probabilities across three octaves of scale degrees. There is a separate bank of pitches depending on clockwise or counterclockwise rotation so you can shift the harmony with a simple gesture. The weighting of scale degrees is programmable and editable in real time on screen or with a MIDI controller. This allows for a more controlled structuring of compositional development over longer periods of time. The speed of the rotation determines how often a note is triggered, and can also be used as a modulation parameter for the FM synthesis engine.
Relevant synthesis parameters are also editable on the arc as the notes are triggered. The state of these parameters is overlaid on the LEDs, so interesting patterns emerge when this mode is engaged. There was a really awesome bug where switching editing modes also transposed the output modally, so I built in a score feature that allows you to advance a programmed chord progression with a button push.
A sit-the-arc-in-your-lap-and-doodle app has been on my mind a lot and I have at least three good starts in this area, but other priorities have often pushed these out of the way. The prototype arc2 I had lacked the mounting bracket for the USB cable and the logic board was floating free inside the enclosure, so I always had to use it (carefully) on a stationary, flat surface. It is really nice to have an arc that can be moved around or used in the lap. My cat disagrees.
I recorded this video, holocene, as a demonstration of this app, which I'm calling electric dharma wheels. This is the raw output from the electric dharma wheels, with some Eos reverb added after the fact.
The audio is posted at soundcloud and can be downloaded (click the little arrow in the widget)
The photo, music and video are all creative commons attribution only license. You're free to use, edit and remix or post in your blog or tumblr, tumblr as long as you (ahem) provide attribution, and preferably a back link.
I'm not into rehashing worn musical territory, but at the same time, I can't hide my influences. It should be clear to people who listen deeply within my music that two prominent influences are Vince Clarke and Mike Oldfield. Each appear in recent BBC documentaries dedicated to British 'prog rock' and 'synth' music. I re-watched these recently and felt it was worth pointing out a couple choice quotes, as they relate to my own interest in music production.
This is about as honest and emotional as I've seen Vince talk about anything. Here he expresses his intense drive to be in the studio, which I can really relate to. (the video will jump to the proper time, so you don't have to play the whole thing (if it doesn't, skip to 8:36)
I don't believe I've ever heard or seen Mike Oldfield in an interview before. It was his work that drove home the idea that it is possible for a single person to build a complex, layered piece of music.(6:50)
Yesterday my son told me about his research into the industrial revolution. I asked him what it was and it replied "It was a big change." After peppering him with questions about the industrial revolution, I informed him we're in the midst of a similar revolution, but with information.
Each major advance in information distribution technology, brings a corresponding period where we haven't built the proper defenses to sort out the nonsense from the real. We've all heard that you shouldn't believe everything you read, but there is an undeniable additional weight of authority from the printed word. After all, if you're going to go through the trouble of producing something on a printing press, the information better be important, if not true. By the 21st century, we've built up some healthy skepticism. We know just because something is printed, it isn't necessarily true, and, yes, there may be forces at work trying to manipulate us. In some cases, the memes are designed to exploit a hole in our psyche and the result becomes difficult or impossible to eradicate.
(image from http://kryz.tumblr.com/post/3787659677)
I sometimes worry about the kinds of defenses my kids haven't built to television advertising. They grew up in a post-tivo household, and we don't have cable, so it basically records stuff from our local WGBH station. We like the tivo as a parenting tool because it allows us to precisely control media dosage. A few months ago, my son came to me with a slight edge of panic in his voice and he informed me "DAD, THE TV HAS GONE ALL WEIRD." This was the first time he saw a commercial.
A few weeks ago, we went to the Museum of Science where, in the gift shop, we saw a video loop of a product they were selling, a kind of furry snake on a nearly invisible string that you can make appear as if it is threading through your fingers. Of course, the video avoids revealing the 'trick' to the product, but this was not apparent to my son, who desperately wanted to buy the product.
Radio, and television were hugely influential in the 20th century, but the distribution of content was centralized. In the 21st century, the internet is clearly the most dominant mechanism for information dispersal, but distribution is decentralized. Again, we're moving though a period where we're exposed and relatively defenseless to a new breed of information hacks and hoaxes.
Information is a virus, and we are the host. Speed of propagation is accelerated by technology. Skepticism is a defense, but can be circumvented by by appeals to greed (419 scams), or other mechanisms such as bootstrapping onto an existing belief system. The first step to protecting yourself is to understand we're all more or less as defenseless as my son watching the wiggly snake.
Improvisation on piano and monome. I'm using a hand-built arc prototype, generously on loan from tehn, who is very busy building and shipping monomes, dealing with the transition to serialosc required by the new edition and finalizing the arc firmware. I'm sure he'd prefer to be playing with the arc himself.
The software is grainstorm, which I'll upload to the monome wiki when arcs start shipping.
This video is a brief introduction to grainstorm, my granular synthesis application for the monome arc. Please take my enthusiasm as genuine, and not some marketing ploy by monome. They don't operate that way. I'm not trying to talk anyone into buying one. Quite the opposite as I think the initial production quantity is small enough benefit from a lower profile release to keep as many possible units out of the hands of people who wish to profit from the scarcity.
The arc isn't for everyone. Also consider the software available at launch: very little. My advice to those on the fence: wait. Also, don't base an arc purchasing decision on grainstorm.
Speech is a rather poor example, and in retrospect, maybe it wasn't a great choice, but I figured I had the soome video to show the more musical side. A more typical result:
Grainstorm has four independent buffers that can be controlled with the arc. Primarily, you use the arc to scroll through the buffer. A push turn gesture on the same encoder widens the window from which grains are drawn. This isn't really evident in the video. A snapshot of various playback parameters can be stored on the grid monome where the it can be played like an instrument or sequenced with the on board sequencer. You can record live audio into the buffer, or load audio from disk. I'm just trying to provide a taste of what is possible with the arc. I've only had my hands on the thing since mid-Fed and I have a half dozen unfinished apps for it. Each new idea spawns two others. Grainstorm just happens to be the most baked at this moment. Meaningful support for the arc4 would be fairly easy.
I like to work with my hands. This is one reason why I enjoy working on the modular. The monome arc advances the ideal of touching sound, to be able to meaningfully improvise with audio in real-time, to sculpt like clay. Using the arc, I've thought a lot about Jeff Noon's Needle in the Groove.
and down
further down
not slow, but like poison to the beat
jody juggles another disc onto the decks
incisions of bootleg guitar, choked off
real familiar, scraped from the grooves like magic
it's the deep-down motherlode, it really is a ton of work to be done, for sure but donna's singing, all that slow tragic honey dripping out, word by word, dropped between the beats
and the dj's crazy tactics on the samples and scratches
I mean, if this is three months' work, I'm amazed
but mostly, oh most of all, the drumming
this 2spot guy can play
you hear him now, splicing the third verse open with scattershot blasts
and down
down flat
funky / holding / holding / making some splinter,
making some blow
deep jesus in the groove
have I been waiting for this like all my life, seems that way
through all the cul-de-sac affairs, the dead-end gigs
the slimeball singers and the junkyard songs
the lousy-arse contracts
all the drugs and the booze and the subhuman blues
all the thrash-happy merchants of the traps and the kit
all that shit
at last, at last some proper goddamn loving on the skins at last,
for me to drop the bass injection
listen to it
off-kilter cuts from the shine of a cymbal
alive with sparks
and a criminal tension that jody's scratching caught, and threw back
own in the cellar, on the other side of town, just this tripwire of sound
twisted space
and all the flavours of noise
gliding away
and throughout the whole song
that stupid cat
gallagher his name
that scruffball just slept on top of the amp, like soaking up the music, every last ounce
one last funky fuck flow-down falling and gone
crackle of silence
I have a bit of trepidation about something monome related appearing on music technology blogs because the reactions I've seen recently have gone non-linear. In other words, there are people that are not capable of judging something monome-related on its merits, rather, they are reacting out of existing prejudice. Of course, this isn't the exclusive domain of monome, some people will have something against ANYTHING out there, whether it comes from Avid, Behringer or myself, but the problem seems particularly acute with the monome.
I believe the issue with the monome is overexposure. The rise of monome coincides with the rise of online video. The 40h was out for about 18 months before it started to take off. The monome provided an interesting visual element to an electronic music performance, and capturing a performance with video and uploading it became the thing to do. There was a period where the music tech blogs would unquestioningly post any monome video and it became a blight. Hyperbolic blog titles don't help. ("This monome video will Charlie Sheen your face RIGHT OFF!") Cue the backlash. In this context, the reaction is understandable.
Interestingly, none of this has anything to do with monome (the company) themselves. They don't do facebook or twitter, they don't advertise. All the 'hype' monome generates is a grass roots thing from the user base. (guilty as charged, but usually I'm trying to demo an application I've developed)
Some people can't see past the bill of materials of a product. Some people have no idea about of the cost of production or running a business. Returns. Packaging material. Development. If the arc isn't worth it to you, it isn't. If it is, it is. But reading specs on paper (err..LCD?) and actually using the device are two different things, and I've had the luxury of this experience. Remember this when someone claims a BCR2000 is just as good.
stutter island was the first idea I was thinking of to adapt to the arc and I worked on it for a while before I actually laid hands on one. Then it was pretty much a matter of hooking up the arc control to the application.
You can quantize the movement to metrically sensible values, so you're constantly shifting the beat around, but it is still playing in time (to a degree you can control). I think a maxforlive version of this would be quite powerful, you could simply drop it on a track and flick between instances, generating interesting remixes in real time. I have another version where one encoder specifies when the stutter happens within the specified bar(s) and the other specifies the portion of the buffer to stutter. There are quite a few fun directions this can be taken. I'll upload stutter island to the monome wiki when units begin shipping.
