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Computer Music 156, October issue – on sale now!

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

CLICK HERE TO BUY THIS ISSUE NOW

COVER FEATURE
The CM Guide to Reason 5 + full review
• Get inside the ultimate music production studio with our massive guide to Kong, Blocks, sampling, Dr. Octo Rex, and Record 1.5′s Neptune. Then read our full review!

ON THE 7.6GB DISC
• Time+Space samples: 1249 royalty-free hits, loops, basslines, pads, FX, vocals, constructions kits and more!
• 2001 24-bit drum ‘n’ bass samples
• Producer Masterclass tutorial and video: DJ Fresh


IN THE MAG
• Jamming in Live: How to use Ableton’s performance DAW for improvisational masterpieces
• Pushing the envelope: Breathe new rhythmic life into your synth patches
• Make it funky: Our guide to the fine details of mixing a funk band
• CM Focus: Go Eastern with our how-to on Goa trance
• Interview: Lorn
• Reviews: Propellerhead Reason 5 – Propellerhead Record 1.5 – Steinberg HALion Sonic – Slate Digital FG-X – Cakewalk V-Studio 20 – Softube Tube-Tech PE 1C – Expert Sleepers Spectral Conquest – Roger Linn Adrenalinn Sync v2 – Artificial Audio Quartz – EastWest/Quantum Leap Hollywood Strings – and more

…AND MUCH MORE!


cm156 is on sale now in the UK. Overseas dates are roughly: USA + 4 weeks after UK / Australia +8 weeks / Europe +2 weeks / South Africa +6 weeks / Canada +4 weeks. Alternatively, order online at www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk

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Computer Music 156, October issue – on sale now!

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Vigier Excalibur Kaos

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

Vigier is continental Europe’s leading answer to high-end American custom brands such as Tyler, Tom Anderson and Suhr. Each variation on the theme of the company’s Excalibur might feature a flash of flamed maple, a fancy finish and much more besides.

This new model, the concept of which initially came from Vigier UK’s Ben Whatsley, boasts several new features and is, among other things, the company’s first reverse headstock electric.

“If you want sounds that mix traditional power with an uncommon transparency, this is for you.”

“This is a stripped-back Excalibur,” says Whatsley. “We’re offering it just in black to keep the price below that of the fancier Excaliburs, but the Kaos is about performance – shredders will love it!”

It’s not often that we begin a review with a focus on a guitar’s headstock but the reverse option here also features two unusual string retainers. Vigier refers to them as Flex-retainers, they resemble a guitar string’s ball-end and they’re secured by skinny wires fed through the maple. They work well.

The tuners are over-sized Vigier locking types that are stiff and a little cumbersome in use. The 10/90 carbon/maple neck is super smooth with a tactile, addictive ‘D’ profile.

As is the norm for Vigier, the ‘board includes a zero fret, taking the total to 25. The fingerboard itself is rosewood and is naked save for side dots and the Kaos dots inlaid at the 12th fret.

Pickups are from German maker Amber, an Alnico V-loaded Custom Hot in the bridge and a Classic Rock, based around an Alnico II magnet, in the neck. As well as a five-way lever selector switch and volume and tone controls, there’s a killswitch – taken from Ron Thal’s Bfoot Signature – sited just below the bridge pickup, which is included as a result of customer requests.

There’s a transparency and sparkle to all five selections that, at lower gain amp settings, can tend towards sterility so take care with treble and presence settings. That character comes into its own with higher gain, however.

Positions two and four are respectively a solo bridge and neck single coil, with the third position mixing both singles in parallel. A measured level of overdrive gives that beautifully strident Audley Freed-style tone. It’s tonally fat, but demonstrates a likeable glassy edge that’s tricky to replicate; add a little more gain and presence and you’re into smoother blues territory.

Increasing the amp overdrive yet further enables the bridge humbucker’s throat to add a dollop of warmth to classic rock-style riffs. The Alnico V gives the upper-mids plenty of grunt, while the neck position Classic Rock rounds off the edges, bite and indeed lives up its name very well indeed.

When used with harder rock and metal gain settings, Vigier’s tonal stamp comes through. The treble gives plenty of cut and drive to allow super-fast lead lines to come to the fore, but it’s not at the expense of musicality and articulacy as some rock guitars suffer.

The killswitch is great fun to play with and its location means that you can pull off some unusual effects. Rubbing your thumbnail over the switch as fast as you can gives a reasonable impression of a machine gun. It’s hard to see, but once you know it’s there, it’s also hard to resist.

The Kaos stays in tune well, even after upping the string gauge to 0.010s, with playability up to Vigier’s slick standards. The two-point bridge, too, gives way more whammy than any non-locker has a right to.

Reverse pegheads are always a bit of a faff if you’re new to them, so on-the-fly tuning tweaks will take some practise!

Vigier’s Excaliburs aren’t the most common guitars out there, but the brand deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as ‘sexier’ US marques. The Kaos offers the same excellent quality playing experience, and what you lose in posh looks you gain in a comparative reduction in price with the standard Excalibur ranges.

The atypical palette of tones has both positive and negative aspects. If you’re on the lookout for guitar sounds that mix traditional power with an uncommon transparency, then this is for you. The £1,703 price is a hefty investment, albeit good value alongside similarly spec’d USA made instruments.

The zero fret and stripped-back look are Marmite features – love them or hate them – but all power to Vigier for being unique. Seriously, try one – it’s right up there with the very best.



Continued here:
Vigier Excalibur Kaos

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Schecter C-1 Standard

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

Even a cursory glance at Schecter’s website reveals a huge choice of guitars. Indeed, as a player in the market for a new rock guitar it can be confusing to nail down a specific model when browsing.

The USA-based company is clearly aware of this and the two guitars in the new C-1 family represent the first move towards streamlining and standardising the range, without necessarily deleting current models that may not fit into the new order.

Three body shapes, the C-1, the offset double-cut Tempest, and LP-style single-cutaway Solo-6, will now be available in either Standard or Custom configurations. An additional choice is the Hellraiser Series, whose distinction is based on spec rather than body-shape: each associated model features an EMG pickup set and Schecter locking tuners (unless loaded with a double-locking Floyd Rose vibrato) and, if finished in trans black cherry, a quilted maple top.

What remains above all is the brand’s build quality, value for money and versatility – facets that the new C-1 models possess in spades.

A fundamental difference with the C-1 Standard, compared to its custom counterpart, are its lower-cost Duncan Designed pickups manufactured in Korea under Seymour Duncan’s guidelines and based on the stalwarts of the American range. The layout and function of the controls, however, remains the same.

It’s a slightly arched design that offers a nod in the direction of the classic Jackson Soloist as far as vibe is concerned and is top-edge bound in cream plastic. There’s a belly contour, but no forearm carve and the cutaways, although not as expansive as those featured on an Ibanez JEM, give excellent access to all 24 medium-sized frets.

Maple is used for the top and if you opt for a trans finish rather than the black we have on test, the grade of flamed maple used is testament to Schecter’s continuing desire to provide guitars of a lavish appearance that belies their asking price.

The neck is made from three pieces of maple and the feel and profile is just as described above. The fingerboard, however, is rosewood and features ivoroid dots. The tuners are chrome-plated Grover Rotomatics.

Powering comes from a master tone that doubles as a push/pull coil split.

Sounds

Compared directly to its sibling the C-1 Custom model, the Standard lacks the impressive high-end and subsequently comes across sounding a little muffled. But on its own, however, the Standard ticks many of the tonal boxes we’d expect at this price point.

With a restrained rock setting, the bridge pickup gives adequate depth that remains as the amp’s gain is increased but for more extreme tones, we’d suggest adding a tad more treble to the amp to allow it cut sufficiently.

For broader, more classic styles though, this is a true rock player’s guitar. At the competitive figure of £549, the Standard plays as nicely as it’s flashier sibling and, as such, is still a rewarding guitar. The phrase ‘workhorse’ can sometimes be negatively construed as meaning as ‘bog standard’: the C-1 Standard shouldn’t be lumped into such a dour category.

Both guitars in the C-1 range are impressive to play and provide a good selection of tones. There’s no doubt that the Custom represents the more preferable purchase option of the two but, to be honest, either guitar would suit both a beginner looking for their first serious electric or the needs of a more experienced player on a tight budget. It’s nice to have a difficult choice on occasion, especially when neither option is the wrong one.

Related Stories



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Schecter C-1 Standard

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Free Weekend: Creative Commons Workout, Moby, Samples, Inspiration, More

Friday, July 2nd, 2010

keep cool on the swimming pool

Yeah, for a lot of the northern hemisphere, one of these kinds of weekends. Photo (CC-BY) Frenchman Julien Haler. (Oh yeah, we really don’t say it enough – thanks, France! In fact, jeez, double thanks!)

Summer days and evenings for a lot of us are a perfect time for buying new records, listening to new mixes, exploring new sounds and samples and production techniques. And yes, while pundits worry about the failing value of music, I personally manage to stock up on free downloads and wind up overspending my budget on records, too. It’s good to be an enthusiast.

Here’s just the latest of what’s hit my inbox, for your enjoyment.

Moby recalls the 90s in his “old-school rave mix” for our friends over at XLR8R. It’s good, clean fun, a musical beach book perfect for a retro-tinged, rave-recalling holiday weekend here in the US.

Percussion Lab is a source of endless, fantastic musical mixes, so it’s hard to know whether to begin. For an Atlanta-style take on what summer is about, Sorted prepares an electro/club-style mix. Concept Audio’s Scafolder goes on a headier, ambient-er journey called “Rain Man,” tinged with pianos and Idhren and Lusine textures – good stuff, as well. And if it’s techno you want, that’s covered, too. Check out the full set lineup on Percussion Lab’s immaculately-designed site.

If certain shirtless werewolfs are starting to make you feel like you need to hit the gym, there’s good news. After Australia decided to hike fitness class music licensing by a whopping 1500%, the good folks at WFMU’s Beware of the Blog prepared a nicely-curated set of Creative Commons-licensed, indie music from Dan Deacon to Mochipet. It’s nice listening, too, perhaps as much of a cure to bad music allergies at the gym as it is bad licensing policy.

Speaking of the Free Music Archive, if you’re in the mood for something a little synthy and dreamy, there’s an excellent mix by Tori y Moi live on dublab.

From Spain, various sonic goodies. Want to catch up on what you missed at SONAR? BBC has a graphical, clickable map of all the artists. Need a little dancefloor-friendly techno, and want it from a high-quality netlabel founder? Thomas Raukamp notes the latest work from Madrid-based Dessben and his Offaudio netlabel, and celebrates their move to SoundCloud.

Downloads for Producers

So, that’s some good poolside barbecue and workout fodder for you… but what if you’re looking for tracks to inspire your producer side? (Working on tracks can be a great way to cool off.)

Ambienteer, whose excellent work I covered last month, has been experimenting with contact mics. Learn about how he made music with an electric toothbrush and plastic wrap and hear the results:
Ambienteer blog

Explore some nice new ambient and minimal tracks from East Peoria, USA-based John Koch-Northrup.

SoundCloud has become a hive of free and Creative Commons-licensed samples, from musical tidbits to hardware and software. You could use it to grab new content and decide whether you really need ElecTribe on an iPad, all at the same time. (Make friends! Grab samples!)

SoundCloud themselves have a nice guide to what’s out there – a badly-needed reference, given that SoundCloud has become so busy, it can be downright overwhelming to the uninitiated.
Sample time! [SoundCloud blog]

Via groups and users, there are full, oddball sample collections, like this pool:

Sample Collections / Instruments / Loops

IMG_2086

Tim Exile, working the mic live, (CC-BY) Keylight Photography / Jonathon Dow.

And there are artists like the wonderful Tim Exile, who live samples his crowds at his shows and uses SoundCloud to gather snippets from fans in advance of gigs. I think it’s my favorite set of this post; have a listen to some of his interactive, sample-generated work:

2006 – Tim Exile’s Nuisance Gabbaret Lounge by timexile

What are you listening to / sampling this weekend? Let us know in comments.

And since far be it from me to be accused of saying all music wants to be free, I hope to follow up soon with albums worth buying this summer. Nominations open … now.

Have a great weekend, and happy 4th of July, USA. (Hey, England’s over it, too — the Queen is visiting my neighborhood this week, celebrating the long history of the English here in NYC, and the great ties between our countries.)

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Free Weekend: Creative Commons Workout, Moby, Samples, Inspiration, More

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Aether 1.5 review: a deep reverb

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

I just found my favorite reverb plugin. In fact, Aether 1.5 (OS X and Windows, AU, VST, and soon RTAS plug-in, no PPC version) may be my favorite reverb period (with the possible exception of the spring reverb in my old Roland Space Echo (R.I.P.), but that’s another story). Generally, I don’t like software reverbs. I find they tend to sound metallic, harsh, or unnatural. In the case of certain Convolution Reverbs, having to wait for them to recalculate after I change important parameters is a total buzzkill that can ruin a creative flow. This effect is especially pronounced when I have a paying client in a vocal booth waiting for me to find or create a useful patch. Aether exhibits neither of these shortcomings.

2CAudio has succeeded in producing an incredibly deep algorithmic reverb plug-in with an intuitive user interface and workflow. This combination produces immense immediate gratification for the grab and go engineer, but allows for nuanced and sophisticated processing if the user is so inclined.

Architecture
Much of the usability of Aether can be attributed to a large, well designed GUI. Big knobs, buttons, and fonts make navigation a breeze. Parameters are grouped by position and color to outline the different zones on the main page. Finally, within any section size is used to denote the relative importance of the parameters on the overall sound, e.g. the Time knob is the largest.

Aether has an ever-present navigation bar that allows the user to handle global preset and file needs (such as selecting or saving) and to quickly switch between the 3 pages of the plug-in as follows:

  1. Main: All plug-in parameters
  2. Browser: Browse and Easy Mode controls
  3. Info: Preferences, Quality Settings, and Karma Boost (aka Authorization)

The navigation bar is fairly self explanatory, but has one feature I’d like to note, the Active State buttons. These buttons store 2 patches which can be toggled between for comparison with a single click, such as when you have an effect you like, but want to search for an alternative. This feature should be on every plugin. Much of the mixing process involves making a series of quick comparison judgements, so to be able to do this rapidly is a boon to efficiency.

The Main page offers the deepest level of editing. It is parsed into 3 main sections as outlined below:
1. Early Reflections (ER)(Green, Left Side)
2. Input/Master Section (IN)(Orange, Center Low)
3. Late Reflections (LR)(Blue, Center High and Right Side)

Early Reflections
Space is the most important element of the ER section. 2C provides a library of virtual spaces that form the foundation of any patch. It’s important to note that these are not merely combinations of the other visible settings, but are instead complex mathematical models of the given spaces conveniently disguised as a pretty picture and a short description. The additional editable parameters allow you to shape the sound to your specific application, but more often than not, finding the correct Space is the first step in creating your patch.

Input/Master
In addition to the requisite metering, input gain, and mix control, the Input/Master section contains a overall Low EQ and Hi EQ to tailor the entire sound. Each filter can be a shelf or cut filter depending on the settings, and the range extends from 8Hz all the way to 32,768Hz. Astute readers will notice that this range extends both below and above the thresholds of normal human hearing. This size helps minimize the phase shifts and other filter distortions that occur near the cutoff frequencies. I almost always have to insert an EQ after other reverb plugins to clear up the low end or soften the higher frequencies. In most cases I found Aether’s Master EQ to be sufficient or better than my previous approach.
Certain parameters can be locked to facilitate preset browsing without having to reset known invariable parameters after every selection. For example, because they are essential to the sound for each preset, the Input Gain and Mix vary dramatically between presets. If you’d like to use Aether in “Send Mode” (e.g. using and auxiliary send to route part of a channel’s signal to a bus, then inserting the effect on the bus), you can lock the Mix at %100 and the Input Gain at +6 or +12dB (recommended for maximum wet/dry range).

Late Reflections
In conjunction with the Space, the Late Reflection engine can have some of the most dramatic effects on your sound. The most powerful parameters here are the Time and Size controls. Once these are dialed in, Attack and Sustain can be used to shape the amplitude envelope of the late reflections within those constraints. Aether provides frequency dependent decay filters that permit different reverb decay times for 3 frequency bands, Low, Mid, and High. After you set the crossover points to define the 3 bands, you can adjust the Low, Mid, and High knobs to multiply the reverb time for each band. By de-emphasizing the reverb time in for the prominent frequencies of my dry signals, I used these filters apply indulgent reverb while maintaining clarity in my tracks. They are also helpful for things such as preventing the reverb from emphasizing sibilants in a vocal track, or allowing you to apply reverb liberally to a stereo drum mix without low frequency reverberations from the kick taking over.

The FREQ display graphically represents the frequency response of all the filters. In addition to providing a useful visual summary, this section allows you to select from a library of Freq Profiles to apply to the other elements of your preset. Freq profiles are savable as well, so you can create and label your own as needed.

The Link buttons were not immediately obvious but understanding them allowed me to explore this plug-in efficiently without getting lost in the process. 2CAudio has suggested ER and LR settings for each Space that are good starting points for your customization. If the Space link for ER, LR, or Both is selected, then choosing a new Space will automatically set the other sections accordingly. As such you can browse dramatically different Spaces without having to readjust all the ER and LR settings for every space. Likewise, there is a Freq Profile Link button that allows you to select which other section(s) of the plug-in are affected when you switch between different Freq Profiles.

Finally, the Info Page offers preferences for plug-in appearance and quality settings. Aether allows separate sets of quality settings for realtime and offline performance. By tweaking these settings, I was able to reduce latency substantially and/or increase my plug-in count for realtime recording. After deciding on particular settings for my tracks, I could render in offline mode at the highest quality. I want to be clear that even at the “lowest” settings, Aether performed admirably, and better than many other reverbs I’ve tried.

Performance
I performed my tests on a 2Ghz Core 2 Duo Macbook running Logic Pro 9.1.1 in 32 bit mode on OS X 10.5.8. I inserted single instances of Aether on individual channels on whose tracks I placed stereo apple loops. I was able to use 9 instances of the plugin before I received an overload message.
Realtime recording was less forgiving. With an i/o buffer size of 128 samples (about the highest I can stand for software monitoring, and even that’s pushing it), I could only have 3 instances of Aether on 3 tracks (one per track) before I exceeded the capabilities of the machine. Reducing the realtime modulation quality setting from Ultra Smooth to Balanced helped ease the processor strain a bit, but not enough for another instance. The activity meter showed that only 1 core was being utilized, however, so the instance count could be doubled if I figure out how to force the computer to use both cores. Normally, as long as plugins are on separate channel strips, Logic will split the loads between cores as needed. This behavior warrants further exploration. In any event, using Aether on a Bus via a Send is a way to get around this limitation for tracking. If you require different reverb settings for each track in your final mix, you can insert separate instances directly on the channels as needed, since playback performance is much greater.

Positioning
Aether includes some advanced tools for controlling the width of and position within the stereo field. While they have an involved section entitled “Understanding Cross and Width” in the manual, I found the real life applications of these techniques to be less than obvious. Of these controls width was the most useful, and did come in handy for enhancing perceived width without an obvious “Chorus/Ensemble” effect, as might be provided by other plug-ins that purport to do something similar. The Stereo Modes could be documented more effectively as well. I couldn’t ever quite get a grasp on the M-S setting. I hope these sections will be covered more thoroughly in the final version of the manual (UPDATE: here you find the just released final version of the manual).

Automation
I was initially excited that many important parameters respond to realtime changes very smoothly (without zipping) when you move them with the mouse. Some of the most important ones such as Time can be automated (an option not available on a certain convolution reverb of note). Sadly, size is not an option. More frustrating, however, was the fact that Time responded very coarsely to automation within Logic, which completely defeated my ability to make this parameter change smoothly through the course of a track. I’d like to know how Aether responds to automation in other hosts.

Conclusion
Whether it was used for tracking, standard mixing tasks, or as a sound design tool, the plug-in was a joy to use, and, like a good synth, encourages and rewards exploration. It has sped up my workflow by putting an easily navigable library of reverbs at my fingertips. When I needed to go beyond the available settings, I was able to achieve satisfying results quickly. I especially enjoyed pushing its boundaries (a 250 ft. tall telephone booth sounds very interesting). The plug-in accomplishes the hat trick of creating stunningly lush atmospheres while retaining clarity in tracks, and doing so with enough efficiency to be useful in tracking as well as mixing.

Price
$249 USD. Serial number protected, no dongle required.
A demo version is available. Click on your OS to download (Windows or Mac OS X)

…stunningly lush atmospheres while retaining clarity…

Product page

PROS

  • Amazing sound that rivals top shelf hardware
  • Excels at standard mixing duties as well as beyond-reality rooms and SFX
  • Ample presets, additional libraries priced reasonably
  • Distills complex parameters into inviting and intuitive UI for both browsing and editing
  • Realtime/offline quality settings allow for use during tracking as well as high precision mixdowns.

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

  • So much fun to explore and create new sounds that you may not get any mixes finished.
  • Serious risk of inspiring you to do the 3 DVD soundscape concept album you’ve been thinking about all these years.

CONS

  • Deeper parameters require some reading, existing explanations can be obtuse
  • Doesn’t run on PPC
  • Requires significant horsepower for use during multitrack tracking
  • RTAS no supported as of this writing, though it’s in the final stages of development
  • Automation of parameters can be very coarse.

by Jesse Gay
Jesse is a musician, engineer, and Apple Certified Logic Pro Trainer in Portland, OR, USA. You can reach him here

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Aether 1.5 review: a deep reverb

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Dreams of a Musical Future: Digitópia Winners’ Wondrous Creations; One Will Be Real

Sunday, June 6th, 2010

What if you could have any musical technology you wanted – if you had only to imagine something, and it appeared? That was the somewhat insane notion behind the Dreams Competition CDM organized with Rui Penha of Casa Da Musica’s Digitópia research and education program in Porto, Portugal. Earlier this week, Rui and I sat down on the banks of Porto’s famed Douro River with Paulo Maria Rodrigues to pour through stacks of imaginary instruments. Some proposals read like wish lists composed to Santa Claus. Others included exquisite renderings, mock-ups, and even video that made them into serious, near-finished product designs. In the end, we attempted to choose the ideas that seemed the most surprising and original, including a winner that – with some limitation of its scope – would be feasible to actually build.

Far from just being idle fantasy, the winner will be realized by a team of developers as an open-source, free project. And I suspect some of the other entries may yield real tools, too. The line-up offers plenty of indications of what matters to people, and what’s possible. Here are some of our favorite entries out of an impressively high-quality bunch, plus, of course, our winners and the grand-prize selection that will inspire a real project.

Winner: Dream Synthesizer, Andreas Paleologos

The “Dream Synthesizer” lives up to its name: it embodies a laundry list of ideas about how to make a more interesting synth. Building the whole instrument would be wildly impractical for this project. But one central concept caught our eye as both practical and innovative. The idea is, touch interaction with an array of LEDs creates envelopes that provide a single metaphor for all sound design. Those envelopes aren’t just one paradigm among others: every sound parameter is accessed with gestures.

To realize this idea, we’re directing the Digitopia team we’re assembling for this project to focus on the LED array itself, and working with software to produce sounds. The very limitations of the LED display itself have some appeal, even in this age of multi-touch displays. Furthermore, the constructed physical object should produce a reusable part that other people interested in building their own hardware can reuse. Mapping different software synthesis methods, all built in free software, to touch gestures means the sound side should be reusable, too.

Making a project “free and open source” isn’t just about a license; it’s about choosing something that could be a building block for a wide range of ideas, and making that building block as usable and friendly – from engineering to documentation – as possible. Here’s how Andreas describes his concept, the spark that most inspired us:

My Dream Synthesizer has 3 sound modules that together generate the sound.
Digital Sound Module.
Physical Sound Module.
Vocal Sound Module.
They’re high-quality software modules with a lot of identity. The sound is constantly routed through all three
sound modules, whether generating sound or silent.
It has a big Low Resolution LED screen, covered with a transparent high resolution multi touch film for on
screen interaction with support for up to 3 fingers.
Draw the waveform on the screen and get instant control of the sound.
Use one finger to manipulate the Digital Sound Module.
Use two fingers to manipulate the Physical Sound Module.
Use three fingers to manipulate the Vocal Sound Module.
The envelope is basically ADSR, but with looping sustain. Draw your envelope curve.
You can record and automate all waveform and envelope changes making really complex sounding sounds
with just a finger stroke, recording your particular timing.
Select whether all automation should be triggered once or whether it should loop.

There are more details in the proposal we’ll share soon. And since the project is open, it’s one I hope that we’ll share with the CDM community on an ongoing basis, including getting reactions and ideas as the project is implemented.

By the way, check out Swedish-born, Norwegian-resident Andreas’ artist site, Cuckoo — cool stuff:
http://cuckoo.no/

First Runner-Up: Odu, Nicole Weber

Nicole Weber’s (Germany) Odu was probably the most stunning design work in the lot, including a full physical mock-up and UI design concepts. It’s an unusual combination of physical interface and Web-based sonic engine. On the Web side, users find sample content through a browser interface. On the physical side, a handheld interface turns those samples into tangible objects for manipulation and performance.

Nicole describes her “modular” project thusly:

programmer

  • With the programmer the user is able to program the controller with samples
  • Ships with a sample archive, e.g. created in collaboration with freesound.org or similar
  • The user is able to archive and search own samples
  • Optional community feature like competitions are provided via the software interface

base

  • The base has all the basic features like USB connection, volume and connection ports for effects or other modules
  • Integration of sensors in the controller body, e.g. tilt sensor or accelerometer

See her full proposal:
http://topotropic.de/odu

Honorable Mention: Fabric Ghost Controllers, Tycho

Tycho (Germany) sent what was perhaps the most evocative idea. It’s one I hope actually will be realized, but I think one that involves very specific skills. (Our friends the Grant Sisters of felted signal processing have been working on this very problem.) Tycho writes:

I have a dream.
I imagine when playing electronic music live I have sort of a display beside keyboard and computer where seven colored silk scarves are hanging. The cloths are maybe half a meter long, they are square and fixed with their center at a pole or something, their four corners loosely hanging down. It looks remotely like seven ghosts in a row. You get the picture?

These are the scarf ghosts controllers! Blowing against the scarves or touching them of fanning at them, maybe even squeezing them for extreme results shows that all seven of them control parameters of the actual sound(s) playing.

I do sleep concerts with very very low volume electronic music in Berlin, Germany. I believe such a “silk scarf ghost controller” would be perfect to accompany my music. During my nocturnal seven hour concert (plus some wake up music) I refer to (and sort of musically render) the seven chakras––so I would choose the number seven and the six rainbow colors plus white for the “ghost controller”.

But can a cloth be a controller? I learned of a Doepfer device that transforms a signal of 0 to 5 volts into the MIDI range. Unfortunately I have no idea how to make a scarf turn out volts when blown at or touched or squeezed. Could you work in a metal wire or something? Plug in little invisble batteries?

I had the idea just a few days ago when I heard of your competition. Maybe you would like such a beautiful and subtle “ghost controller” as well. I had even the vision of using it as sort of wind chimes: hang it in a breeze with my equipment rigged up in nature and let it produce generative sounds.

Its main purpose is being a live controller though that maybe look like decoration at first but turns out to affect the sounds and music. (As such it’s naturally highly lightweight and portable: Just fold the scarves.) They maybe even interact when one scarf touches another.

And imagine taking the pole into your hand and swinging it gently all seven the scarves flapping in the air! What a finale!

More Terrific Ideas

There are really too many interesting proposals to list here, but just to give you a taste:

The Wheel Array and the Ball Array, Stefan Blixt (Sweden): Blixt proposed a kinetic interface involving physical wheels. The idea is novel and a tangible contrast for the increasingly-minimal digital interfaces in our world.

Vitus, Michael Oneppo (USA): Vitus is a “controller” suite of connected, wireless objects.

each performer has a foot panel that controls expression, recording, looping, and effects for his or her performance. through the panel, the performer can enable or disable effects, modulate parameters of the effects, and mix up to four loopable performance clips on the fly.
a number of different wireless connections are provided that allow any microphone, guitar, keyboard controller, or other instrument to be wirelessly connected to the system. in addition, these interfaces provide a one button control for activating the instrument for recording and looping with the foot panel.
finally, a main controller panel is available for the controllerist/mixer of the group. this unit provides a master view of all performers’ clips and settings, and also allows the performer to manipulate these clips to make unique mixes. the interface is an array of hybrid button knobs, which present the performer with endless possibilities and configurations. the panel instantly slices any clip into eighth notes segments that can be triggered in monome-style phrasing across the button/knob grid.
all devices are truly wireless, eliminating any messy cords and freeing the performers. being battery powered, each unit recharges inductively through a storage case that can plug into any outlet.

Boulier, Yann Girard (France): Boulier has an ingenious take on how to maximize musical functionality in an array of encoders: use color to denote pitch. Someone may have thought of this before, but the execution is lovely.

LUM from Alfredo Duarte on Vimeo.

LUM, Alfredo A. Duarte Jorquera (Chile) is already, in this mock-up video, a compelling demonstration of the use of the Sony PS3 Move controller for music. Max Mathews, maker of the Radio Baton, would be proud. I hope Alfredo continues with this project, because I think he’s got a clear vision of how it could work.

And the rest…

Jacob Adler (USA) easily wins the honorary Luigi Russolo Award for craziest idea. I think you can agree from the first line:

I want to turn a mountain into a giant organ.
In the millennia-old tradition of organ building, I propose to develop a new kind of instrument – one constructed from powerful train horns and heard in an open desert space. The performer of such an instrument will actuate the valves of multiple air compressors remotely through a digital signal processing program and midi keyboard controller (when an E is pressed, the corresponding horn will sound). The harmonic richness of train horns are beautiful and I believe they can be used to create a new kind of music in
vast spaces. The instrument will be mobile and may be installed in any natural, open space for a series of concerts. One ideal location for this instrument is the south face of Papago mountain in Phoenix, AZ – the
mountain itself is visually beautiful and the park is acoustically ideal.
With a rank of 48 horns (corresponding to four musical octaves), free community concerts of new and old music will be performed. Every stage of the project should be documented through digital video, audio, and photos.
Throughout the organ-building process there will be many issues that will need to be resolved such as power/air-pressure requirements, acoustics in relation to topography, tuning, scaling, voicing, shape of the pipe/horn body, aesthetics of the organ case (if any), and design of the overall instrument. I have a background in working with pipe organs (performing and maintaining), and I would love to work in close collaboration with engineers and musicians. Visually, I would like to base the design of the instrument
after a famous antique organ case in Alkmaar (Netherlands) – the Schnitger Organ in St.
Laurenskerk<http://makehiphop.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/46b405c498organ.jpg.jpg>.
However, the design and materials used will harmonize organically with the desert landscape.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Steppophonic Looperformer, Per Boysen (Sweden) is a very practical-looking approach to step sequencing, and is labeled “please steal this!” It’s well within the range of things readers here could accomplish, so perhaps take the creator’s invitation — write back with the results!

Other ideas, like an OSC sequencer or modular musical/MIDI hardware seem like things that are destined to happen, even if this isn’t quite the forum for those problems.

A big thanks to everyone for compelling, creative contributions. If you have any more ideas or questions, if you missed this round and want to continue the conversation, the grand project of dreaming up the future of music tech is an unending one.

See the article here:
Dreams of a Musical Future: Digitópia Winners’ Wondrous Creations; One Will Be Real

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Gibson Les Paul Junior Satin

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Since it was first introduced way back in 1954, the Les Paul Junior has been in and out of the Gibson catalogue on numerous occasions and has been missing from Gibson’s production range, certainly in this more vintage-like spec, for some time. This Junior celebrates the original single-cut stylings seen before it changed to the more familiar double-cut in 1958.

It isn’t meant to be an exact replica (you’ll find examples of this from the Custom Shop priced at over a grand more) but it’s still a £599 USA-made Gibson.

The 45mm body is a two-piece slab of mahogany, with a tighter edge radius than the original. The neck is one-piece mahogany and, unlike the original model’s neck, which fitted into the body leaving a thin edge in the treble cutaway, this one – like the Les Paul Standard – is flush and indicates a different style of joint.

Quoted as having a “rounded” profile, the neck is a very comfortable full ‘C’ shape – 20.5mm at the first fret, 22.5mm at the 12th. Only a ridge where the fingerboard edge has been masked during finishing slightly ruins the fun. As you’d expect at this price point, there’s no binding on the Junior, so the 12-inch radiused ‘board – a light brown rosewood with acrylic dots and 22 medium frets with slightly sharp ends – is dead simple.

As seen before on guitars such as the Melody Maker, the satin finish is left quite open-grained – it’s a simpler sunburst than the yellow-centred original (it’s also not cellulose), more like a Cremona sunburst, but it captures the old vibe nicely and is clearly very thin.

The wrap-over stud bridge has intonation ridges (as seen on later period guitars, although here it’s correctly intonated for a wound third) unlike the plain humped design of the original. Tuners are the more modern individual white-buttoned units, not three-on-strip as per the original.

The crucial ingredient is the dog-ear P-90, plus just volume and tone (with black bonnet knobs). What more do you need?

Sounds

Does £599 of USA Gibson cut the mustard? Most definitely. There’s plenty of cut from the pickup and a fair bit of poke too – cleaner on-the-edge-of-gain sounds need some high-end taming from either guitar or amp, but you’re right there in a brash fifties/sixties style – so the garage door is open.

Hear the Gibson P-90 single-coil in action:

Up the gain and there’s always a sweet spot where a good Junior – and this one is okay – achieves a perfect balance of power, juice, smoothness and clarity.

The volume control is again quite slow in its taper, unlike the original ’57 Junior, which cleans up much more easily. It sounds a little thinner too with the volume reduced, but it’s the ring and good neck shape that create the fun, even with some higher-gain, more modern rock-type amp tones. So long as you can control the hum, squeal and feedback, it’s a unique sound and this new one gets close – certainly close enough at this price – to the classic Junior’s stomping ground as a great balls-to-the-wall rock/blues machine.



See original here:
Gibson Les Paul Junior Satin

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Egnater Rebel 30 1 x 12 combo

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

The Egnater brand may not be so well known here, but in the USA, Bruce Egnater is rightly recognised as one of an elite handful of designers who’ve had a profound impact on the electric guitar’s sonic development.

Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Egnater grew up learning guitar with the music of the local bands of his era, including Alice Cooper, Grand Funk Railroad and Bob Seger. His frustration at not being able to find an amp that did what he wanted it to led to Bruce designing and building one of the first cascaded gain lead channel guitar amps.

Ever since then, for three and a half decades, he’s run his own custom amplification shop and worked with some of the world’s top players, including Kirk Hammett, Steve Vai and Dimebag Darrell, as well as Randall and Rocktron.

Besides licensing his modular concept to Randall for the MTS series, Egnater hand-builds his own custom amps in Berkeley, Michigan and also has a range of Chinese-made products – including the Rebel 30 1 x 12 combo – which have been out for a couple of years, but only recently made it to the UK.

Hear the Egnater Rebel 30 in action in the following audio demo:

It may be a Rebel, but it’s a smartly dressed one, with a suit of two-tone cream and black vinyl that’s much thicker than we’re used to seeing on Chinese products. The Rebel 30′s cabinet is compact and deeper than you’d expect, making it very nearly a cube, but is easy to carry single-handed.

The electronics are contained inside a tough ‘L’-shaped steel chassis, mostly on two large high quality printed circuit boards, one mounted vertically for the preamp stuff and one mounted horizontally for the output stage. These hold nearly everything, including the valve bases – the output valves hang upside down from the bottom of the chassis, while the four preamp valves are mounted horizontally and accessed through a removable grille, nearer to the top of the cabinet.

Egnater rebel 30

The colour scheme carries on to the control panel, where the Egnater’s boutique heritage becomes clear. Channel one, the clean channel, features volume, bass and treble; channel two handles overdrive with a familiar layout of gain, master volume and three-band EQ.

Both channels feature sub-miniature toggle switches to operate Egnater’s ‘bright’ and ‘tight’ functions, making it easy to add a little extra snap to a Les Paul or girth to the low-end of a Strat or Tele.

(3 pages; go to page: 2 3)



Visit link:
Egnater Rebel 30 1 x 12 combo

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Computer Music 152, June issue – on sale now!

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010


Computer Music 152, June issue – on sale now!

COVER FEATURE
The Beginners’ Guide to Mixing
• From balance and pan to EQ and compression, we take you through everything you need to know to get your tracks sounding great.

ON THE 7.8GB DISC
• Time+Space UVI Soundstation: 1.1GB of professional loops and hits in a powerful sample playback plug-in for PC and Mac!
• 2045 24-bit CM Dark Dub samples
• Producer Masterclass tutorial and video: Bonobo

IN THE MAG
• Tricks with time: Use odd time signatures, syncopation and beat placement to maximum effect
• …And the kitchen sink: Foley sound techniques applied to audio design
• Linear recording in FL Studio: Take Image-Line’s DAW out of its loop-based comfort zone
• CM Focus: Jungle breaks
• Interview: ILS
• Reviews: Vengeance-Sound Metrum • SoundToys SoundToys v4 • DMG Audio EQuality • Loomer String • Image-Line Drumaxx • Sonnox Restore • Studio Units Software Studio Units plugin collection • Stillwell Audio Bombardier • and more

…AND MUCH MORE!

CM152 is on sale now in the UK. Overseas dates are roughly: USA + 4 weeks after UK / Australia +8 weeks / Europe +2 weeks / South Africa +6 weeks / Canada +4 weeks. Alternatively, order online at www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk

Get the cover image for your desktop here.

Read more here:
Computer Music 152, June issue – on sale now!

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