vvvv, the free-for-non-commercial-use patching environment on Windows, already has a cult following among visualists. Now, it’s looking more interesting for music, too, with the 4.0 beta 17 release.
VST plug-in support for adding audio/music instruments and effects
Multichannel waveplayer
eCue Lighting Control Support
In case you haven’t worked this out yet, what this means is that you can now add powerful visual interaction with a VST plug-in. That could be a huge boon to audiovisual shows. Max and Pd (among others) have had this ability for some time, so it’s not revolutionary as an idea – but it is nice to get this feature in this powerful, eye-candylicious app. (Thanks to Bjorn from vvvv for the heads-up.)
I may have to try out , since Kore runs easily as a VST and hosts other instruments / effects in a way that can work live. could be interesting, too, for the same reason – and, like vvvv, has a solid following as a Windows exclusive.
Details:
vvvv also recently added the ability to (“nodes” in vvvv speak). Development looks unusually easy, with baked-in C# support, so there’s good stuff happening in vvvv-land in general.
Show us your sets: The clips / channels layout of Live is pretty simple. But that doesn’t mean people use it the same way. So we’ve decided to do a non-scientific visual survey to find out how live laptop performance with Live is evolving. And we need your help.
Lots of people play violins. If you pick up a violin for the first time – whether it was an expensive instrument or not – it’ll sound really awful. So, given that music played on laptops is still music, it seems reasonable to assume that it’ll take practice, and that not everyone will do things the same way. There are technicalities to learn, of course – just as with a violin. But there’s also a combination of repetitive effort with originality. Your computer software may not be nearly as elegant a design as a centuries-old acoustic instrument, but some of this surely still applies.
Go out to clubs or concert halls now, and you’ll find musicians and DJs from a broad variety of genres playing live with software. Often, they’ll use Ableton Live, the one product that suggests live performance right in its name. Live is a good place to start, because its Session View is a kind of meta-view of music itself, with patterns, scenes, and interaction. Those clip slots can be played like a “sampling instrument,” and additional instruments can be added to channels. Playing the software requires a combination of performance and composition, even for DJs.
But the one elusive thing about Live is just how to deal with that Session View. There’s plenty of talk in the manual about how everything works, but not what that means musically. You can store clips in channels, but you can only play one clip per channel at once. How do you keep the number of resulting channels manageable? How do you control different musical changes? How do you avoid touching the mouse or squinting at the screen? And, at the simplest level, how do you manage the complexity of clips and channels so that you can perform a set from beginning to end and have a good time?
Bjorn Vayner is one of the world’s leading Live gurus and a master of Live tutorial writing. He’s been tackling this very problem on the . (Read parts , , .) It’s a good start, but it raises as many questions and answers, and by the third part he’s already reevaluating his whole approach. So while he sorts out his tutorial, I’ve been thinking.
I’ve spent a lot of time looking over people’s shoulders as they use Live, back to Live 1 when I first started using it. I’ve stood behind the much-hyped Sasha set back when he was still dragging a whole iMac around (before the Intel laptops), and I’ve also seen experimental violinists and modern dance performances. Part of what excites me about Live and what it means for music is that no one seems to use it the same way. There are tightly-organized sets of clips, particularly in DJ sets. There are DJs who drag clips in and out onstage. There are musicians who use Live more or less for backing tracks, or just as an effects hosts. There are people who can make a whole set out of one clip or one instrument rack. Some people have even grown frustrated with Session View and augmented it with an MPC or custom Reaktor patches – but then, that sort of makes all of this all the more interesting. We’ve even seen Live used for on our sister site, Create Digital Motion.
A Call to Action
Maybe there is no Ultimate Tutorial – or maybe, what we need before anyone can write that, is a look at the range of how people use the software in the real world, assembled in one place. In that spirit, I’d like to ask you for some help.
Live users, how do you use Live — live? Take a screenshot of one set that you feel best represents the way you work in performance or DJ sets. No need to be shy; part of the idea is to see how a range of people work in the real world, so it doesn’t have to be perfect.
Send it to us one of two ways:
1. Add it to our Flickr group, (Apply a Creative Commons license if you know how to do that, so it can be easily shared. Short videos are welcome, too, if you’re that ambitious!)
2. Email an image (JPG or PNG, please) to pictures (at) createdigitalmusic.com. (By doing so, you give us permission to reuse it.)
Most of these will be Session View, I imagine, but if you use Arrange View, send us a shot of that. If you do rely on a custom Max, Pd, Reaktor patch, etc. in conjunction with Live, go ahead and send us that, too. If you make use of Live’s new drum and instrument/effect racks, make sure you can see at least one of them in the shot. If you can, write a sentence or two describing how it works. And feel free to raise criticisms – we’re doing this independently of Ableton, so say whatever you like. Feel free to include a link back to your music site; I imagine your fellow readers would love to hear what others are doing.
You also might also take a look at the work that has done, not only with their live-oriented sets but also the performance features of their drum machines and the like.
Now, I realize not everyone uses Live. I’ve recently been building sets in Kore, not only because we’re working on the Kore minisite but because, personally, I wanted to try breaking some habits I’ve acquired with Live. It lets me play without Live, but it also makes me a better Live user. Still, Live seems as good a place to start as any. (If this goes well and we survive, we’ll have to follow it up with a look at other tools.)
I’ll be very curious to see the results. Stay tuned, and we’ll do a roundup within a couple of weeks to see what you’ve shared.
Mathieu Garci of Intua answers some questions we had about features in BeatMaker.
CDM: What about MIDI export? A lot of us want to be able to compose something on the road, then save MIDI patterns for use on our main computer.
Mathieu: BeatMaker v1.0.0 (current AppStore release) does not supports MIDI. We have v1.0.1 almost ready which adds small features and some bug fixes. BeatMaker v1.0.2 will certainly includes MIDI export. Our audio framework is actually using MIDI [data], we’re just not saving them [at the moment]. Exporting the MIDI files will be done with BeatPack (coming very soon).
CDM: Would it be possible to add audio input / mic recording, to truly make this a sampler?
Mathieu: Audio recording is not yet possible. The only concern right now is the very poor quality of the iPhone microphone.
Mics out there?
Mathieu did add that he had seen some DIY mic and line connectors in the dock port. Anyone tried this on your own? How well does it work? It’d be great to see this added to iPhone apps – and I imagine if you pull it off nicely, it could compel Intua to release this feature.
We’ll keep you posted on any developments.
Video review
iSmashPhone must have really been excited about this app, as they’ve posted a full review and video hands-on today:
You can see how elegant the design of the interface really is in a way screenshots don’t do justice. You can also, on the downside, see that touchscreens don’t always work as well as physical faders. Then again, I’m guessing you don’t have pockets large enough to carry step sequencers, drum pads, and effects units. (Well, maybe if you wear overalls or lederhosen or something.)
Nonetheless, the app really does look well done. It’s worth a look, if nothing else, to see how UIs are evolving for touchscreens, which we’re likely to see on notebook computers, too. Thanks to Mathieu and Intua for this!
I’m not an E3 so I’ll have to rely on others for coverage, but Nintendo has announced the long-awaited Wii Music at their press conference today. Now, of course, a number of readers here are already making Wii Music of their own, using custom software to turn Wii remotes into controllers. (Finally got my Balance Board working, by the way; more on that soon.) But it’s great to see mainstream games giving players more freedom; the new game promises to allow you to improvise freely instead of just time pre-determined reactions as in conventional music rhythm games.
I expect will be updated; see also their joint Engadget .
More on this soon.
In other news, it looks like Nintendo is adding still more sensors to its Wiimote, in the form of the Wii MotionPlus add-on. Sounds like the Wii hackers will have more to do – and that the Wiimote will remain gestural computing’s most excellent bargain input device.
Intua is the first to get a full-fledged music creation app on the iTunes App Store, with an MPC-style sampler and step sequencer, plus effects, for the iPhone and iPod Touch. This isn’t just a toy for triggering sounds or a useful utility like a guitar tuner; it’s an actual music app on which you can produce whole songs. As with any mobile app, there are tradeoffs versus a desktop tool – but its simplicity is likely to be part of its appeal. US$19.99.
Most importantly, it’s available now.
The basic features:
16-pad sample triggering. Drum kits and other samples, with “auto chop,” pitch, tuning, reverse, mute, and even a nice wave editor for touch-selecting where you want sample start and end points.
Step and song sequencer: Create patterns with a touchable step sequencer, then arrange them into bigger songs using a multitrack editor.
Live performance support: Pattern triggering and recording is live, so you could use this as a performance tool.
Sync with desktop audio: Apple doesn’t provide music apps with easy ways of getting files in and out, so Intua has built one: a synchronization tool that lets you load in new audio kits and samples, and export audio back to your machine.
We can certainly see some of the strengths of the platform. The app looks absolutely gorgeous in screen shots; elements are big and friendly and don’t appear to strain the eyes. The touch capability works beautifully for pad triggering and step sequencing – there’s even a nice, draggable velocity and “groove” graph for the step sequencer.
So how does BeatMaker stand up to the competition, at least on paper?
On the upside, you get a fast, friendly, fun interface, and one that has looks befitting Apple’s beautiful gadget. And, notably, this is an official app you can use without hacking your device. But some power users may still opt for gaming devices for more advanced mobile editing and synthesis. BeatMaker lacks any synthesis features, as on tools like or the upcoming . (Perhaps we will see some in the future, though, since they got effects working – a bassline synth, perhaps?) You also don’t get wireless MIDI control and sequencing, as on the Nintendo DS’ , so you can’t connect BeatMaker to a computer studio in the way you can with NitroTracker on DS or the touch controllers and on the iPhone/Touch.
BeatMaker’s real nearest rival may be on the PSP. I’ll be interested to hear whether BeatMaker’s audio engine stands up to PSP Rhythm’s on quality. BeatMaker has its lovely interface and touch capabilities, but PSP Rhythm has a synth (bassline and a general purpose wave synth) and a hardware-style interface some may prefer.
These aren’t criticisms – on the contrary, I think differentiation is a good thing. I’ve been having a number of conversations with developers, and part of what I’m hearing is that certain platform features continue to direct developers to different mobile platforms. Not everyone is migrating to Apple – meaning Intua has a chance to stake out a real niche here.
BeatMaker is the serious music creation app the platform has been , and it app gives you way more power for your dollar than a lot of what I’ve seen on the iPhone. It’s real, worthy, powerful app. If you’ve got an iPod Touch or iPhone and would like to test drive the app for CDM and write up a review / video a review, !
(Thanks to everyone who sent this in! That’s always a good indication there’s excitement in the digital musician community around the device and this specific app.)
Update:
Mathieu has some more details: MIDI export is coming very soon. (Mic recording could be possible if there’s a better input solution.)
And one site already has a video hands-on (though CDMers, I’m sure you can do even better – we’ll have one or two of you on this soon).
Labels and artists are only now catching on to the idea of letting fans remix their music, and are even slower to give those fans access to individual stems. But where musicians have embraced this idea, they’ve gotten surprisingly big outpourings of support — thank a culture that’s gotten savvy with digital music tools and consumes more music than ever.
While that change continues to spread slowly, though, audiovisual remixing could already have a jump start.
Radiohead: Big news for fans of data visualization, the coding tool Processing, and Creative Commons: Radiohead have "shot" their latest video using only 3D scanning devices in place of cameras, and they’ve made source code and the data (in friendly CSV files) free. The whole thing is released under a non-commercial / ShareAlike , which is well-suited to remixes in general. So, to anyone who was disappointed that Radiohead didn’t use a Creative Commons license for their , now you’ve gotten something you didn’t even ask for — three-dimensional, animated data of Tom Yorke’s face. And because this is essentially raw data, it’s unusually open to interpretation.
Visual stems? By total coincidence, Create Digital Motion’s Jaymis wonders aloud if the entire A/V scene couldn’t be given a jump start by two obvious (but strangely elusive) decisions: 1. release video "stems" for music videos to give people free access to them, and 2. go get a real visualist. Some artists have done #1, of course, but there wasn’t a specific name given to the result, and they’ve more often than not released full videos — so here you go.
Both stories are covered today on Create Digital Motion:
But I think it’s well worth asking readers here on CDMusic, too. Music sampling and even remixing may be old news — even if copyright protection remains the norm. But could opening up visual remixes and free visual interpretation re-energize how people think about music?
Of course, this isn’t just for the sake of doing it. Jaymis launched his discussion partly because he wanted something more expressive at a performance, and Radiohead’s CC decision allows them to take an experience that would be pretty limited (a few minutes of cool video) and make it far less so (live data and code remixed by especially-savvy fans). Likewise, the CC license is essential in the latter case; there’s far less incentive to fans to code their own visual software if they can’t share ownership of the result, or — just as importantly — share the resulting code with each other. (The tool the band’s video used, too, wouldn’t even exist without the open source community that created it.)
So, what’s next — particularly if you’re not as famous as Radiohead?
, you will find some useful music apps in the iTunes App Store – you can at least get some fine tuners. ( was excited on Twitter that one of them helps him tune his ukulele, thanks to four string support!) We do expect more hefty music tools in the coming months, and via the jailbroken platform.
But some of the real stars on the iPhone – or whatever your favorite smart mobile device may be – have to do with simply storing ideas and keeping your life together. That means one of the best downloads so far for the iPhone is . As writes in comments on CDM:
The app I’m most excited about for music is Evernote. You can record voice notes, text notes, and it even recognizes the text in iPhone pictures. So next time you write a killer hook on a bar napkin, snap a picture and sync it. Cool.
I’m a huge user of Evernote on my desktops and, via its web browser, on my Blackberry. The iPhone app looks especially great, though; I’m jealous.
My friend Francis Preve has written a whole set of useful tips for DJs that apply to any gigging musician / artist (which he’s been refining since the first iPod, in fact):
[Beatportal]
Some highlights:
Keeping email templates for gig announcements on your device so you can send them quickly. (Recognize this scenario? “Hey, what’s new?” “I’m playing Friday.” “Oh, really?”)
Mapping: Some providers require you to enable mapping capabilities on your device. Do it. Both the “real” GPS (via a dedicated radio) and the assisted GPS can be lifesavers if you travel at all. (The iPhone 2.0 update adds this feature, in the assisted form.)
Rescue tracks: The iPhone is a capable music player, so it can, um, save you when your laptop dies or someone . It even has video out capability, for you readers.
And the fact is, you can easily apply these ideas to whatever phone / smart device is your favorite. These could also put you over the top as far as cameras with phones – not because you’ll necessarily be taking attractive photos (dedicated cameras are a must for that) but because they can aid visual memory. (Airport parking spot? Check!)
I especially like Fran’s idea of logging creative time. Invoicing aside, I find that it’s so often a fight to get time to yourself that I really like the idea of keeping track of that time, whether it’s in the studio or just sitting in the park thinking about a new song. It could help give you some positive reinforcement for setting aside some working time or even badly-needed quiet time.
Going back to my first Palm (the PalmPilot Professional, no less), I’ve always found even simple mobile devices can help reduce stress, particularly on the road. And that to me is priceless.
Other ideas that boost your productivity, in terms of gigging, travel, and creativity? Let us know.
Previously:
(which, surprisingly, isn’t all that outdated by the App Store launch – we expect bigger announcements in the coming weeks)
PSPSeq, the latest release of this powerful sequencer with real-time synthesis and sample playback on Sony’s handheld game console, is now available in version 3.0. (We but it’s now actually available for download.) In this release:
Synthesizer presets
7 MB sample memory
FM feedback with configurable routing (nice)
Shortcuts and workflow improvements
Randomization with various controls (range, etc.)
Looping improvements
Now, if anyone has smart ideas about how to buy up used PSPs, I’m all ears…
8-bit and robots and odd Max and Reaktor patches and custom visual software and visualizations of data packets and sound made from plants and mutant trumpets and gloves for DJing and laptop music – we’ve got quite a lineup here in New York this week.
Friday night, a live audiovisual lineup from the worlds of createdigitalmusic.com / createdigitalmotion.com invades the , aka Hackers on Planet Earth, the three day-long convergence of tech hacking. $10, open to all, 11-2a Friday July 18 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York. It’s a live digital, technological variety show in a with an audience of famous and infamous hackers. (Think Kevin Mitnick and MythBusters’ Adam Savage and Steven Levy, .)
; also on
Here’s a look at the performers and projects. If you can’t be in New York, this should give you a little taste of the range of work people are doing here and in our community in general, and I hope to have more coverage after the event.
from on .
from on .
Michael Una’s live-looping, robot-drumming, circuit-bending experience
CDM contributor, Circuit Bending Challenge coordinator and sage of all things DIY and sound art Michael joins the ensemble with robotic assistance:
I will be using custom-built interface devices, acoustic and circuit-bent instruments, and a robot drummer to create a rhythmic, textured and melodic sonic experience on the fly.
(Hey, does anyone know why Renee and Michael’s site is being blocked by Google? Was it the beat bike or the prayer wheel? What gives?)
from on .
Joshue Ott / superDraw (visuals)
Ezekiel Honig (music)
Ott is the creator of superDraw, a home-made software application which manipulates simple line drawings to create something beautiful and far removed from the original input.
A New York City native, and founder/label manager for the Anticipate and Microcosm labels, Ezekiel Honig concentrates on his idiosyncratic brand of emotively warm electronic-acoustic music. Using the loop as more of a tool than a rule, Honig paints outside the lines, nestling into a comfortable space between techno, house and ambient - using them as reference points from which to stray, rather than as steadfast frameworks. Drawing on the rich history of musique concrete, Honig looks to incorporate a material nature into his music by imbuing it with a host of field recording/found-sound sources in the search for a balance between digital software innovation and the physicality of the world around us. His music is one of contrast and contradiction, combining minimal, abstract tendencies with a core of timeless harmonics - pairing fuzzy chords with clunky and dirty "mishaps."
Ben Neill’s mutantrumpet.
Ben Neill will present a new set of music for Neill’s newly redesigned original instrument, the mutantrumpet. Dubbed “the mad scientist of dancefloor jazz” by CMJ Magazine, Neill’s music “masterfully blurs the lines between electronic dance music and jazz sounds” (Billboard). This new set of future dub jazz is the most recent chapter in Neill’s musical evolution which has included the CDs Green Machine (Astralwerks), Triptycal and Goldbug (Verve) and Automotive (Six Degrees). Neill has also recently created a new version of his unique electro-acoustic instrument, the mutantrumpet, thanks to a residency at the STEIM studios in Amsterdam.
We’ll have visuals with Ben’s work, too; final confirmation of the visualist soon.
Bill Jones, visuals
Bill Jones, Neill’s longtime visual collaborator, has created a new set of interactive video for the set. The imagery is primarily black and white and evokes a late-night urban vibe inspired by sci-fi noir films such as Godard’s Alphaville. The video and music are created as one hybrid form of expression, and the new capabilities of the mutantrumpet make it possible for the visual and sonic elements to be seamlessly integrated in real time.
Neill and Jones are continuing to explore ways in which the dynamics and improvisation of live musical performance can be translated across the boundaries of sound and vision. Their past projects have included the Pulse series of sound/light sculptures, widely exhibited in the 1990’s, MIDI controlled slide projector shows for Neill’s Sci-Fi Lounge tour with DJ Spooky, and Palladio, a VJ movie based on the novel of the same name by Jonathan Dee.
Todd Thille, with Duncan Laurie and … houseplants.
Custom circuitry with an Arduino base will acquire electromagnetic signals from plants and use them to influence generative audio and video inside Max/MSP and Jitter.
from on .
Paris: Digital Visuals
Paris Treantafeles (aka Voltage Controlled) is an open source software expert and live visualist, regularly associated with the local 8-bit scene. He builds custom visual software for 8-bit game systems.
Don Miller / No Carrier
Don is another DIY software visualist, writing his own visual tools for NES, Commodore 64, and most recently Game Boy (yes, even in black and white!)
Animalstyle
Animalstyle (aka Joey Mariano) has a different twist on 8-bit music: he’s a guitarist, but routes his instrument through 8-bit fuzz pedal, uses a Game Boy foot controller, and mixes guitar and 8-bit sounds.
vade and Mary Ann Benedetto
vade (aka Anton Marini) performs visuals on . He’s doing something mysterious involving data packet sniffing visualization and joining our VJ/visualist crew for the evening. He’s also a contributor and tipster for Create Digital Motion.
will also be visualizing and reinterpreting geeky things, likely including munging the Linux kernel visually. Expect some visual surprises – and source releases on CDM for a couple of those visual tools!
Roger Tsai
[Groovy Hand] allows DJ to use hand gesture & head shaking to manipulate music. These gestures visualize how DJ play music, and also ask for sound from audience to generate interactive entertaining experience.
In a great music performance, musician are usually encouraged to express themselves with body language and do all kinds of gestures to enhance entertaining effect (such as exaggerated move of guitarist). However, unlike other performer, DJ doesn’t have many chances to use gestures because most of the DJ instrument are not helping him showing gestures, they’re just knobs and buttons.
Also, audience doesn’t get a clue how how a DJ produce music because there are only limited visual information from DJ’s movement and gestures. Base on these observation and interview, I created [Groovy Hand], that allows DJ have fun with innovative way to manipulate music. At the same time, visual and verbal interaction between DJ and audience brings audience a new experience of DJ show.
from on .
Peter Kirn
I have no idea who this person is, but he kept tagging around, so we had to include him.
Okay, it’s me. I’ll be doing a live music set with keyboard and laptop with some custom Reaktor / Kore music tools, plus the debut of a rig for working with Nintendo’s Wii Balance Board.
I may jump in on visuals, as well.
PETER KIRN is a composer, digital musician, and media artist/visualist. Classically trained, he has extended his work into experimental music for acoustic instruments, historic instruments, and digital sound and visual technology. The Boston Globe describes his music and live visuals as "poetic" and "delicate." He has been a Digital Fellow at Dance Theater Workshop with collaborator Christopher Williams, and has taught music, interactive visuals, and technology at Harvestworks, 3rd Ward, Massachusetts College of Art, CUNY, and Sarah Lawrence. He is completing a PhD in music composition at the City University of New York Graduate Center.
Be there
Where: The Hotel Pennsylvania, New York City (); head to the main door, on your left is the entrance to Penn Pavilion and you should see a table there.
When: Friday, July 18 2008 – performances run 11pm – 2am
Cost: US$10 at the door. First come, first served. (free if you have a conference badge; if you need a press badge)
Image credits (top): Michael Una by ; plant installation by Todd Thille; Roger Tsai by ; mutantrumpet designed by Ben Neill; Peter Kirn by Todd Thille; screenshot of visuals by Anton Marini; Don Miller (no carrier) by ; cover from Ezekiel Honig’s “”; screenshot of superDraw by Joshue Ott; the Hotel Pennsylvania by ; screenshot of visuals by Paris.
From musician Jeremy Linzee and Ethan Vogt comes this lovely fusion of re-cut educational film with music. Ethan and Jeremy work together live, with Ethan recutting the video on the fly. It’s a really terrific way for this filmmaker and musician to work together. Normally we run this sort of thing over on Create Digital Motion, but since it’s by definition a 50/50 collaboration, I thought I’d spread the love and kick off the weekend with a moody reinterpretation of human biology. (Warning: mild, biology-class nudity appears briefly.)
Hopefully we’ll have Jeremy and Ethan together for one of our future events here in New York soon.
