All Your Bits Are Belong To Us...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
(Click to embiggen.)
Coming soon, from deep in the heart of the Audio Damage Research Laboratories. What does it do? It fucks shit up. How does it do it? No fucking idea. Adam will speak to that point when he’s good and ready. He’s tried to explain it to me no less than three times, and I’m still mystified. Bits are involved. Of that much I’m certain.
When will it be available? No idea! How much will it be? We haven’t decided! Is there any information actually imparted in this post? Not really!
42 comments
But hey, we get to look at it!
Speaking of fucking shit up, the Cubase 7 Known Issues list mention that they are causing some errors for AD plugs. Do you guys have any info about which plugs are affected? The way they worded it made it sound like Steinberg caused the problem.
Jeff Laity (synthetic on this site) has written me to inform me of some issues. Steinberg has all our shit, and it must be said that when a new host comes along, it is _always_ their fault if it doesn't load plug-ins, especially ones that have been around for years.
As far as I'm aware, though, it's only with one particular plug, Kombinat Dva, and the issue is not a catastrophic one. They haven't written to us to ask us to change anything, and as you say, the way it's worded, they've already fixed it.
-CR
The bug was fixed in the last beta version I tested.
For some reason "swing" and "bit destruction" don't seem to go together. But maybe I need to write a track now to prove myself wrong.
Thanks Chris! I totally expected it was their fault, I was just curious as to whether I'd be affected. I figured it was very highly unlikely it was an across the board issue with all of your plugs, so I appreciate the info.
You sunk my battleship!
Release the Kraken!
Seems like the offspring of an unholy union of a Biscuit and a Roland x0x machine.
I think I want one.
The fact that Chris doesn't understand how it does what it does leaves me very encouraged.
What noisegeek said.
Which DAW is that?
I love effects that can be sequenced/synced so I'm psyched for this one. Interface looks great too.
Looks like Speak n' Spell-ish. Audio Damage and my Octatrack go well together =o]
That DAW is Studio One 2.5, my testbed of preference for VST3.
Adam made a valiant attempt at explaining how it works again to me this evening. I think I pretty much got it. I made a video of the conversation, which you can watch here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb9yu6dljAU
-CR
And then he smashed your skull in?
Yeah, that part sucked, but lesson learned!
-CR
Thanks for the info (x2). C7 is now back on my shopping list, as is Bitcom. Not that the latter was ever off it.
http://gifs.gifbin.com/1233928590_citizen%20kane%20clapping.gif
I hope it'll be ready before christmas.. I need another present for myself... ;)
It looks like it sequences per-step bit crushing?
When I was a kid, I remember playing with this game quite a bit. Mind you, I had no idea how to play it, I just liked playing with the grid and the colored pegs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastermind_ (board_game)
I'm sure this has subliminally set me up for digging on products that use grids, and thus, I'm already a fan.
Fantastic job on the UI. "Just enough" to give the eye a sense of where to go with things, but not too minimal to lack character. And Sean, don't read into that. Your products have plenty of character.
FFS, stupid wikipedia link with parens. Here's a better link to the game Mastermind:
http://ow.ly/fQszL
Regarding the UI, I picked up a copy of this book:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0811854426/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=analogindustr-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0811854426&adid=0H10RQGDNCMMGWMQXED7&;
...a couple months ago, and in it was a bunch of pictures of the main control panels of several different DEC minicomputers; I "borrowed" the UI for this from the KL-10, which is the main programming panel of the PDP-10. That old DEC stuff is fucking gorgeous; the next couple UIs I do for Audio Damage will be lifted from that series, most likely.
Any long-time reader/customer will know I tend to do the UI styles in sets of three: Phosphor, Discord3, and Replicant 1.5 are one style. Filterstation, Panstation, and Kombinat Dva are another, etc. etc. etc. So you're seeing the first of the next three.
-CR
I'm interested to hear this thing in action.
Bit toggling is rather a dicey effect with respect to musical sounds. The problem I found when I messed around with it in Reaktor is that bits are parts of numbers. The most significant bit makes a huge amplitude change, the least significant bit almost none at all. No matter what you do -- mask with AND/OR/XOR you end up with the MSB 4 bits drastically FSU and the LSB 4 bits not so much.
One fun thing is byte rotation, where the sign bit gets pushed out of place. Try modulating the # of bit rotations with another signal.
The sound of devices like the Bisquit has as much to do with considerations like analog circuitry and conversion hardware from/to Analog.
AND THAT'S WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS!!!! Adam has a very long straw that goes from the LSB to the MSB and SUCKS UP THE BITS!
Or something.
He figured it out, when I kept complaining that some of them didn't do anything. He made them do something. With a straw. I'm pretty sure.
-CR
CR is being entirely too modest, and/or he's trying to avoid blame by holding me solely responsible for this. It was mostly his idea in the beginning. What @chaircrusher describes was basically my objection, but CR kept dancing around and talking about 8-bit rainbows and unicorns and stuff, so I kept fiddling with it and yes, came up with something that's pretty cool in use. Also, while what @chaircrusher says about conversion and analog circuitry is certainly true, it's also true that what exactly you do to the bits is significant, no pun intended.
Meanwhile, I see that my Steinberg tax is due. If anyone knows whether Cubase 7 runs on XP, please tell me (either way). My work PC runs Windows 7 (soon to be 8) but my music PC is still cheerfully running XP. Upgrading from XP is gonna orphan my aged-but-rock-solid RME PCI card, so there are substantial hidden costs with this inevitable OS upgrade.
--Adam
System requirements for Cubase 7 is Windows 7 minimum. According to the Steinberg website. I gave up on Cubase after 5. Everything that I wanted to do that was difficult in Cubase was easy in Live, so Live 1. Cubase is the latest in a long line of sequencing/daw software I've given up on the first one being Voyetra something-or-other...
@chaircrusher: thanks, yeah, I was just doing some googling and apparently there's a fundamental change in Cubase 7 that makes it not work on XP. Oh well. Hopefully Bitcom will sell well so that I can afford a new audio interface.
(Yes, that was a hint.)
I'm on my half-dozenth or so attempt to come to terms with Live. My first attempt occurred with version 1.0. I'm about two studio sessions away from reverting to Cubase. Live continues to not fit my musical headspace, it seems.
--Adam
Is it just me or did Sonic Charge slip and fall and accidentally the WHOLE cover of the book that CR posted?
For permut8. Which I bought. Quickly. And would buy again if there were an AD styled version of a similar idea...
@Adam: Confirmed, I tried to install Cubase 7 on an XP machine and the installer says XP is not supported.
i've had arguments about "most/more unique" and "irregardless" that were totally absurd.
isn't aluminium just the Brits way of saying/spelling it? didn't they have it first? i think i googled it once but put the results out of my mind because i didn't like what i read.
also, i have a friend who is British and has traveled a ton and lives in USA for last several years but business requires him to communicate w/Brits, Canadians, Aussies etc so he constantly has to change his spellings of color/colour, humor/humour etc depending on who he's emailing to make sure he isn't appearing stupid. i think he gave up though and picked one way and sticks w/it.
I'm American through and through, but I have an extreme fondness for the extra u in colour, humour, etc. I don't know why, but it feels right.
I always thought "side by each" came from the old SNL Festrunk brothers bit when Steve Martin says, "We are two swinging Czech brothers, side by each!". But it's totally plausible that he got the phrase from Dan Akroyd, who's Canadian.
@DGillespie - sort of like how I've always preferred "grey" rather than "gray". It seems less saturated with the e.
--Adam
I tried "gray" on for size in a tweet the other day. It is, quite possibly, the first time I've ever written it that way. It made me physically uncomfortable, and left me wishing Twitter had an edit button. I won't be doing that again.
(It should be noted that I was going for the alliterative value-added-content, as the following word was "today." There was no other reason. See also: this comment.)
-CR
Oh, I'm with you on the grey vs. gray thing too. I had a friend in college with the last name Gray, and I could never shake the feeling that her name was spelled wrong.
Was her first name Dorian? If so, the spelling of the last name would be okay.
Okay, that was a stretch. Sorry. Bad morning.
--Adam
WOW, that looks super beautiful!!
Can't wait to hear it.
Adam is the Church of the Third Revelation.
Chris is an proud son of these hills.
I am happy to read this site simply because of the announcement of an audio plugin leading to tour stories of irreverent language FSU usage and boobs quotes on cave walls taken out of context. Beauty can be found anywhere. Even in pills.
I'm with boobs.
As an American living in the UK - I am constantly changing the spelling or phrasing/colloquialisms depending to whom I am speaking. It gets annoying.
Boobs- like your friend, I have pretty much stuck with my own way for informal stuff... but if it is anything official (particularly if I have to write something to or for a student) I use the British spellings.
New plugin looks pretty, can't wait to hear it.
Here's another, theater versus theatre. I've seen them both used here in the US but I've always used theater.
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