Connecting stuff is one of the things musicians naturally do with gear. So, there’s really no reason that musical gear shouldn’t network as easily as Web servers. And yet a basic protocol, built largely on existing standards, meets with responses like this:

“We’ll support OSC when there’s hardware out there.” “Name one piece of hardware that supports OSC other than the Lemur.”

OSC has some major advantages as a network protocol, as a way of connecting software with software, software with hardware, and yes, even hardware with hardware. It doesn’t have to “compete” with MIDI – you can even send MIDI message data over OSC, thus taking advantage of features OSC has that MIDI doesn’t (like time stamps, which your tools could use to calculate latency even if you don’t use them directly). Yet I’ve been listening to this argument for years now. “Any computer” counts as an OSC device, but even when tens of millions of iPhones and iPod touch devices hit the market (not to mention other mobiles), software developers were still pointing to a (completely absurd) “lack of hardware.” How tens of millions of gadgets can count as “nothing,” I don’t know, but maybe it’s because a lot of them were phones, not music devices.

Well, here’s a combination that ought to get someone’s attention. With the iPad about to launch next month – likely to be followed by more multitouch devices running Android, Linux, and Windows – we’re not just talking phones any more. And the folks at Symbolic Sound, makers of the insanely-powerful sound generation Kyma environment, are adding a proper OSC implementation. Even if you have no interest in the (wonderful) Kyma, now available in more-affordable Paca(rana) devices, this is one to watch.

What you can do:

Use OSC directly, via a direct connection and even onboard Ethernet on the Paca(rana). That opens up the use of devices like Lemur, and, yes, iPad.

Use MIDI over OSC from your existing MIDI devices and software. Explanation (again, worth reading even if you aren’t in the market for a Kyma):
http://www.symbolicsound.com/Learn/BidirectionalMIDIStreamsOverOSC

In this case, the OSC connection acts as a virtual MIDI devices, with three merged inputs and one output. The same is possible on other devices, too, however, meaning that combining OSC and MIDI doesn’t have to be a chore.

Details on the software update:

OSC-enabled Kyma X.74 is a free software update for registered Kyma X owners. OSC communication requires the Paca or Pacarana sound engine. Kyma X.74 also comes with additional features, including an 11-times speedup in the Virtual Control Surface, support for the MOTU Ultra Lite Hybrid mk3, TC Electronic Impact Twin, and Prism Audio Orpheus converters, track-pad compatible menus, refinements to the Tau resynthesis, and more.

Open Sound Control (OSC) for Kyma: Bidirectional communication between Kyma, iPad, Lemur, and other OSC-enabled devices & software

And if you’re using Max and Max for Live, you can use a custom external for MIDI over OSC in that environment, as well. (That said, control of Live could be more intuitive if Ableton were to evaluate native OSC control support in Live, as currently exists in nearly all mainstream live visual applications. There’s an unofficial method that demonstrates just how powerful this can be — see comments.)

Max and Kyma

Kyma is still a high-end solution, but at least the entry-level Paca – still absurdly powerful – is now down below US$3000. If I had $3 grand handy, I’d certainly consider buying one. I don’t, so I think of it as that Steinway grand I can’t afford or fit in my apartment. That doesn’t mean I can’t pay attention to what it does – and, indeed, OSC implementation like this could apply as well to a $5 or open source app, to mainstream hardware or DIY solutions, as much as the Kyma.

The phrase is overused in the media and culture today, but I think it’s appropriate here:
“Just sayin’.”

Thanks to Lowell Pickett, Martin Wheeler, and others who sent this in.

ScatterTunes‚ the company that is revolutionizing music through its innovative and interactive V-Album technology, has teamed up with Experience Hendrix, LLC to present five Jimi Hendrix V-Album releases –Valleys of Neptune, Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold As Love, Electric Ladyland and First Rays Of The New Rising Sun– on March 9, 2010. Included in these V-Albums are bonus features such as documentary videos, revised liner notes, photos, scans of handwritten lyrics and more (see below for full listing). ScatterTunes.comis the only place that fans can go to get these features in the exclusive V-Album format.

Janie Hendrix, President and CEO of Experience Hendrix says, “We’re delighted that ScatterTunes is offering Hendrix fans an enhanced ‘experience’ in connection with these V-Albums. The additional content reflects the spirit of my brother’s multi-dimensional presence that has been a touchstone for five generations of music lovers. This will be a real treat for Jimi Hendrix fans, both young and seasoned.”

The Valleys of Neptune V-Album offers more than 60 minutes of previously unreleased Jimi Hendrix music, originally recorded and newly mixed by Hendrix’s longtime engineer Eddie Kramer, who first worked with the guitarist on his smash 1967 debut Are You Experienced. Are You Experienced will also receive the V-Album treatment, along with its legendary follow-up Axis: Bold As Love,the epictour de forceElectric Ladyland, and Jimi’s final masterpiece First Rays Of The New Rising Sun.

Valleys Of Neptune contains:
12 High-Quality MP3 Tracks (Including Seven Previously Unreleased Recordings)
Lyrics to All 12 Tracks
Digital Images of Select Handwritten Lyrics
Hi-Res Digital Photos
Digital CD Booklet
Links to Hendrix Merchandise
Video Links

Are You Experienced contains:
17 High-Quality MP3 Tracks
Lyrics to All 17 Tracks
Digital Images of Select Handwritten Lyrics
Hi-Res Digital Photos
Digital CD Booklet
Links to Hendrix Merchandise
17-Min. Documentary Video

Axis: Bold As Love contains:
13 High-Quality MP3 Tracks
Lyrics to All 13 Tracks
Digital Images of Select Handwritten Lyrics
Hi-Res Digital Photos
Digital CD Booklet
Links to Hendrix Merchandise
17-Min. Documentary Video

Electric Ladyland contains:
16 High-Quality MP3 Tracks
Lyrics to All 16 Tracks
Digital Images of Select Handwritten Lyrics
Hi-Res Digital Photos
Digital CD Booklet
Links to Hendrix Merchandise
12-Min. Documentary Video

First Rays Of The New Rising Sun contains:
17 High-Quality MP3 Tracks
Lyrics to All 17 Tracks
Digital Images of Select Handwritten Lyrics
Hi-Res Digital Photos
Digital CD Booklet
Links to Hendrix Merchandise
16-Min. Documentary Video

Additionally, Hendrix fans visiting this year’s Red House Tour, a traveling multimedia museum of the guitar god’s memorabilia, can purchase V-Album versions of all the albums in the Hendrix catalog on site and walk away with a CD for immediate listening pleasure. At the same time, they’ll receive an email code to access all of the ScatterTunes features once they return to their own computers.

Utilizing ScatterTunes’ proprietary iBoard software, V-Albums are intuitive, simple and user-friendly. The high-quality (320kb), non-DRM MP3 songs can be played within ScatterTunes, or exported into any MP3 player currently on the market (including an auto import feature to iTunes/iPod/iPhone). The iBoard also has an artist-branded concierge store, which displays products from multiple retailers as well as ticketing outlets. Finally, each V-Abum provides customized, multimedia e-postcards for sending recommendations to friends and family.

Other star artists recently receiving the V-Album treatment include John Mayer (Battle Studies), Dierks Bentley (Feel That Fire), Katy Perry (One of the Boys), Darius Rucker (Learn to Live), Trace Adkins (X)and more. Grammy-winning artist Sheryl Crow also recently issued the Deluxe Edition of her smash 1993 debut, Tuesday Night Music Club, as a V-Album through ScatterTunes and conveniently available for purchase on her Facebook profile. Crow says of the company, “We’re so excited to be working with ScatterTunes, who have found a way to present my music in a way that matters to true fans and music lovers.” With A-list talent such as Crow, Mayer and Hendrix, ScatterTunes is poised to bring back the album format in all its large-scale glory, along with all the latest in multimedia digital technology.

http://scattertunes.com/

We already knew that one Next Big Thing for the Lemur – the specialized multimedia multi-touch controller – would be Ableton Live integration. Having teased that coming functionality, JazzMutant has now revealed the name (“Mu”), as well as a video showing what the features look like. What’s funny to me is that the result is a bit like what I’d imagine Live itself might look like if it were designed for multi-touch screens. That’s a real consideration for all music software UIs, given the direction of computer hardware. But in the meantime, with choices in multi-touch laptops scarce (makers like HP and Lenovo make a handful of models) and quality scarce, the Lemur hangs onto its niche. It comes with a solid set of tools for users to make their own layouts, it has the reliability of wires (which the iPad will lack, since it has no Ethernet port), and dedicated OSC functionality. While it may come to a surprise to those eagerly anticipated the iPad’s arrival next month, the Lemur’s fans are largely unswayed.

One reason is that, cool as Mu is, it isn’t alone. Musicians keep making fascinating control layouts for the Lemur, ones worth noting even if you don’t plan to buy a Lemur for yourself. For instance, Mat of music-interface.com sends along tips from his own work and beyond.

Rick Hawkins goes a different direction entirely from Mu, with a sequencer that’s esoteric enough to have “esoteric” in its name:

The EsoWave sequencer is a project for the Jazzmutant Lemur. It is a esoteric/generative midi sequencer that sends midi notes according to the positions of 32 nodes in a 2D plane. The nodes are connected along an elastic string and can be additionally controlled by two waveforms that drive the X and Y coordinates.

More info on the blog: ILL GOTTEN GAINS: The EsoWave Sequencer

Esoteric Sequencer Prototype – Ambient Session from Rick Hawkins on Vimeo.

For his part, Mat’s own work on the Sequencomat is full of ideas, with track-independent humanization and tempo, a roll pad X/Y marked by rhythmic subdivision, step sequencers, controllers, and more. Mat’s work shows part of the appeal of the Lemur, which has evolved beyond being a simple controller to be a generator of sequencing data. Just like the old days of hooking up a sequencer modular to a bay of analog synths via patch cords, the Lemur becomes the sequencer and software like Ableton Live simply the sound source.

http://www.tonvibration.de/extra/SequencomatV2.html

If you’re wondering why the Lemur fans have remained loyal, this gives you some answers. It proves that a device’s longevity can matter, in an age when (thanks, I’ll admit, to blogs like mine) newness and buzz tends to trump what lasts. While the Lemur may be old news to some, that’s part of the point: it’s taken some time for people to really work out what to do with it. And whether your future is in the Lemur or another device, I always find inspiration in what the Lemur community is doing, thinking more generally about how touch can be used with music. Sometimes my reaction is, honestly “yeah, but jeez, I’d never want to do that” – but then, that’s always why it’s interesting to see other people’s work. And sometimes, it’s just fun to watch.

Side note: if you get fatigued of all this talk of integrating with Ableton Live, fret not. I think we’ll see a lot of ideas around a lot of tools; just to take today’s news as a jumping-off point, note that the Renoise team are still working on their own, friendly API for customization with native OSC control (something Live still lacks). And variety is the spice of life, or at least, of blogs.

“It looks alien at first, it looks scary … [but] it’s like, here’s your paper; be creative.” “A tracker basically turns your computer an instrument.” -Dac Chartrand, Renoise, trying to explain Renoise to those who haven’t yet gotten religion

Renoise 2.5 is here, for real – not a beta, a nice, golden, final release. The modern take on a tracker now introduces a set of features that takes it to a new level of usability:

• The Pattern Matrix finally combines the inside-out precision of tracker arrangement with a big, birds-eye view of your music – and some people are already hacking it into a live performance instrument.
• Smarter signal routing across tracks and through “meta devices,” along with clever inventions like the “Signal Follower,” give you sidechaining and more.
• Render Plug-ins to instruments, samples – the resource-saving advantages of freezing tracks, but without sacrificing any playability.
• Enhanced MIDI mapping, internal effects, more.

None of these additions is like to make Renoise a mainstream hit, but then, that’s not the point. What it could do is expand Renoise’s already passionately-loyal user base to a new crowd, and encourage users to find expressive new ways of producing music with computers at a time when some of those processes have become stale. Thanks to its recent support for ReWire (plus JACK on Linux), it also doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice what you love about your host of choice; it can be part of your existing workflow.

For more on what’s new, check out Neil Bufkin’s terrific video interview for CDM with Renoise’s Dac from NAMM, seen at top. That interview was popular enough to become an “electric acid jungle test” demo by Hitori Tori, below, sampling Dac’s initial quote before ripping into controlling Renoise with a clever mapping for the Livid Ohm 64. (Check out more Renoise-on-Ohm action on Hitori’s channel.)

Full feature list:
http://www.renoise.com/about/what-s-new-2-5/

Ready to dive in this weekend and start learning Renoise 2.5, for instance, making use of its fully-functioning demo? There’s a full set of revised beginners’ tutorials for 2.5, and they don’t assume any previous knowledge of trackers. (Hey, it’s okay — I sure didn’t own an Amiga.)

http://tutorials.renoise.com/wiki/Main_Page

This isn’t the end of the story with Renoise, however. Dac confirms to CDM that they are working on support for OSC and easy extension of Renoise’s capabilities through Lua scripting — even without any official promises, that’s exciting news. It could make Renoise easier and more powerful for control and customization.

http://www.renoise.com/

Previously: Renoise 2.5: A Matrix for Everything, Modulate Everything; Full Scripting, OSC Coming