Max Matthews 1926-2011

Sad news. One of the titans of electronic music passed away today. Max Matthew's influence can not be understated. Anyone who makes music with a computer owes him a deep debt. He pioneered the idea of using a computer and a digital analog convertor to generate sound. I had the good fortune of spending some time with Max on a number of occasions. He was a gifted speaker and spirited performer.

The music that lives within the spoken word fascinates me. There is the melody of the phrase, the natural rhythmic cadences and the pleasing harmonics of the individual sounds that form the basis of all music today. Natural selection has determined that verbal communication is pretty darn important to the survival of our species. As such, our ears are most sensitive, and centered around the frequencies dominated by human speech. We're hardwired to enjoy this stuff.

It isn't a fitting tribute, but I'll repost a track I made for Max called 'One of the most interesting kinds of sounds' It is a remix in the purest sense of the word. The composition is constructed entirely from digital audio culled from Max Matthew's 'Numerology' (1960), 'The Second Law' (1961) and 'Bicycle Built for Two' (1961) as well as Max's spoken lecture at Talcott. No other audio sources (synthesizers, microphones, other samples) were used.

Machfive Promo

This is one of the things I made early this year at home. At the time, I think I was just listening exclusively to Bach and especially Glenn Gould because everything else seemed to drive me out of my mind.

I needed something short, that would highlight the major dot points in a unique way, but not come across as a power point presentation. Usually you try to overcompensate with bombast, and I wondered what would happen if you took the opposite direction.

I ended up recording my own version of a Fugue 6 WTC Book II BWV 875 for this piece and set about animating the camera in a way to suggest it was dancing with the music. The music was mixed in surround, and I wanted to emphasise the contrast between the dry piano up front and the reverb-drenched supporting lines in the back. This mix will sound a little different from the standalone full version.

What is the role of synthesis?

Rembrandt is one of the greatest painters in history.

When I think of Rembrandt, I think of his amazingly-detailed, life-like, realistic portraits. There was a market for portrait artists in the 17th century because cameras were still a little down the road. Cameras did eventually affect the art of painting. We get to the late 19th century and suddenly, BAM! expressionism.



I believe sampling, and later, partial streaming of large sample instruments like gigasampler forever altered the role of synthesis. Libraries with scriptable actions like those for Kontakt offered unprecedented realism and expression, and are the tool of choice for orchestral or ensemble mockups. The massive disc, memory and CPU requirements, as well as tight DAW integration pretty much require that these instruments live in a studio computer. Closed, proprietary hardware simply can't compete. What sounds good today doesn't age well, but at least new sample libraries can be easily loaded into a computer.

For gigging musicians, there are many models of stage piano that can handle the sorts of tasks required for the role. You need a variety of pianos, organs, clavs, other types of keyboard instruments, and a selection of the greatest hits of useful synthesizer sounds from the last 30 years. What isn't needed is a accurate, modeled Ehru.

I've been fairly disappointed by acoustic modeling in synthesizers because the programability isn't there. You might end up with a realistic instrument sound, but the extent of editability usually turns out something like, "MAKE IT BIGGER" or "make it smaller." It is like the the more realism we strive for, the less editable it becomes. And why does the model need to live on the instrument anyway? It's just software. A one trick pony works better in the context of a specialized virtual instrument or sonic couture sample library.

When I see a new, expensive digital synthesizer, I ask myself, "how does this justify itself as hardware?" A powerful, editable synthesis architecture coupled to a compelling physical interface is, arguably, a recipe for a $4000 hardware, digital, non-workstation synthesizer. Eschewing physical controls for a small touchscreen isn't.

What I'm getting at is synthesis needs to move on to expressionism. Synthesists aren't clamoring for realism. The camera has won. Synthesis should be used to shape the future, not create cardboard cutouts of the past.

How to make iPhone ring tones

This isn't exactly hidden knowledge, but I'll detail the procedure here for posterity.

Take an audio file of any type (except FLAC HA HA) and import into iTunes. Easiest method is to simply drag it to the application.

Go to iTunes preferences and hit the import settings button. Set "import using" to "Apple Lossless"

Go to your iTunes library and locate the audio file you what to turn into a ringtone. control-click (or right mouse click, or however you invoke contextual menus on your machine) on the file and select "Create Apple Lossless version".

Contextually click on the newly created file and select "Show in finder"

Go to the finder and rename the files extension from .m4a to .m4r (r for ringtone)

Drag that file into iTunes. Now it appears under ringtones in the iTunes sidebar.