As was guessed by several people when I recently touched upon this topic, we've trekked down in to the cobwebbed cellars of the Audio Damage IP Storage Bunker with the special low-illumination blue-beamed flashlights normally reserved for the spooky parts of X-Files and Law & Order: SVU episodes, and returned to the daylight with a dusty tome, on the leather-bound hand-tooled cover of which was written "Ronin: The Road To Madness."

The screenshot above (click for full size) shows the results of that quest. Like Lovecraft's Elder Gods, Ronin has returned from the blackest depths of the Cœlestial Æther to walk the Earth once more, sowing destruction in its wake. Changes? Many or not much. Depends on how you look at things, I suppose. Enumerated:

New UI. This is the most obvious change. I did an entirely new UI, and in doing so have hopefully made it much easier to figure out what the hell is going on. I've also inexplicably made it look like Mac OS 6. I can't explain that. It just ended up that way.

AU. Yes, there is an AudioUnits version. Ronin's undersides are now up to snuff with the rest of our product line, and this means full MIDI learn (VST) and AudioUnits.

DSP. Actually, this is worth mentioning inasmuch as it isn't changing at all. Period. The new Ronin will cross-load presets from the old Ronin, and instantiate in its place. Internally, it is as it ever was. Dare I use the word "vintage" to describe the sound engine? Yea and verily, I do so dare.

The Price. For the few (and I hope proud) that bought the original Ronin, this will be an entirely free upgrade. It will appear in your account in the AD store in place of the old one. For those brave souls willing to risk their sanity (and their tweeters), the new Ronin will be US$49.00, instead of its original price (which was, if you're curious, US$69.00.)

Now, before you Ronin nUbs get too excited, I should point out a couple things. If you're a more recent convert to Audio Damage, you might have a particular idea of the "sound" of our plug-ins. You might go so far as to say that we make things that are "rough around the edges," or "heavy-handed," or, if you're feeling salty, "Full Of Techno." Our more recent plug-ins are to Ronin as a new-born kitten is to a pit bull that has been beaten with a garden hose daily for a year straight. This plug-in is a dose of Heavy Duty.

For starters, you can route the output of any block to the input of any block, including itself. You also have full unhindered access to the feedback loop of the delays. The delays can do unity feedback, and they also have the same looping engine as Dubstation. (This plug-in is, in fact, the source of that looping engine.) As such, there is virtually no limit to how this plug-in can be routed. We normally build in limits to our plug-ins nowadays that inform how they'll be used, but in Ronin there are nonesuch, except that we're (reasonably) certain you won't set your speakers on fire.

So, final warning: it is pretty easy to get this plug-in in to an unstable configuration where it self-resonates/oscillates/gyrates/salivates. On the other hand, it's also really easy to make a simple tempo delay. But that's like using an Abrams Main Battle Tank to go pick up your Sunday paper and danish. If you're thinking to yourself "self, this has two tempo-synced delays and two filters, and panners and stuff! It's like 5 plug-ins in one! An audio toolbox!" Well... I'd reconsider that purchase if I were you.

But if you like looping, noise, feedback, or any combination thereof, filtered or not, this is your pony, right here. All you need to cover Merzbow's Greatest Hits is a little burst of noise to excite the delays and you're off to the races. I would submit that there isn't another plug-in out there that does what Ronin does. There's probably a good reason for that, now that I think on it...

Anyways, our status right now is that the Time is not quite Nigh. The Windows version is about 90% done (just missing the MIDI input, really), the Mac VST version is in more or less the same state, and the AU has been built but is missing presets. So it won't be very long. Next week at some point, I'd imagine.

Anyhows, I might have something pretty cool to show you later tonight. In the mean time, hey, look. Someone made a hardware version of Replicant. At least, that's what I thought until I figured out it was just an Arduino with some LEDs and buttons controlling a fairly simple Max/MSP buffer-fun patcher. Now, for the record, this isn't really a simple operation. But it's not Ultra Tough Guy Hi-Technical. It's just plain old-fashioned tough guy.

What do you do to recharge your songwriting batteries? These yearly trips for me out to the complete and utter desolation of the Oregon/Nevada border completely bleach my mind, and when I come back I'm Full Of Techno™ for months to come.

I do realize that everyone has different methods, and it's time to share. I won't be chiming in on this thread at all, as I'll be in a part of the state completely immune to the electromagnetic spectrum, so no cell phones, no internet, no Twitter, no Michael Jackson conspiracy theories. Just me and my Silvertone archtop and the sagebrush. So it's up to you guys to make it interesting. You know the drill. Type at you when I get back.

Speaking for myself, I'm getting things ready for RT60 rehearsals. This involves deciding on a final gear complement for our live shows. We'll actually have quite a bit of Analog Shiny on stage for the gear whores out there. Speaking just for myself, I'll have my MKS80 and CS5 for certain, as those two synths plus piano will be able to replicate almost all of my actual "played" parts on what we've done so far. What I do need, though, is a perfect working condition TX802 or TX81Z. If anyone has one they aren't using, I'd be more than happy to take it off your hands. Drop me a line if you have such a thing. There's a ton of 81Z action on eBay and it would stand to reason at least one of those people reads this site.

(To address the obvious first comment in that regard, no, I won't use FM8 or a different FM synth. All props to NI, and I'm a proud and frequent user of FM8, but RT60 is a soft-synth-free zone. And we can argue the semantics of "soft synth" when describing a digital box later. You know what I mean.)

And finally, this Crumar Performer. It's got a couple things wrong with it, and I'm debating whether to go Whole Hog like I did with the CS5. Mechanically, it needs all the sliders on the front panel replaced. Electronically, the resonance isn't working, but I think that's probably due to the slider. Cosmetically, the end cheeks need to be replaced. Still debating as to whether that's a good idea or not.

In other news, the RT60 "demo" is about finished, and we're going to begin shopping for labels and such in earnest. If you're a reader of this blog, and you work at or own a label that releases electronic music, and that label isn't run out of a Starbucks, feel free to drop me a line and I'll send you linkage to the material. In order to nip the inevitable "why don't you put it out on Positron?" question in the bud, we'd prefer to concentrate on the music and the performance for this one. Marketing an album takes too much time and money away from where I'd like to aim it.

And finally, has anyone called the Moderat album "epic dubstep" yet? I think that's a good name for what they make.

One of the things that makes Jeremy a fun collaborator is his militant insistence on running virtually every sound through his seemingly bottomless arsenal of analog effects. If it can alter a sound and doesn't have AES/EBU I/O, he owns at least one example, if not a pair. Stereo, doncha know...

The only way in which he and I really differ in this regard is in the means with which we apply effects, not the quantity, although quantity has a quality all its own, of course. He likes to print his analog effects, while I'm more of a "let's insert an H8000 or Lexicon 300, or some of my ten million plug-ins while it's coming off the tape" kind of guy. (Point of order: RT60 instrumentation is 100% "real," and our recording medium is analog tape, but when we're mixing, we're alowed to use plug-ins and digital effects.) One of our early arguments was based around the fact that I'm not a fan of phasers, while he most definitely is. I won that one, only barely, and I think he still slips in the occasional pass with the SPH-323 when my attention is elsewhere. Fair enough. As long as we don't end up sounding like ELO, I can live with it.

But those differences aside, we do see eye to eye on this: every sound is more better with a heaping shovelful of effects on it. Obviously, my opinion in how those effects should be applied is heavily biased, as is his, but we agree that nothing should survive to the final mixdown unscathed by compression, modulation, delay, filtering, and reverb. We tracked a 303 for a song yesterday, and were quite pleased with ourselves when we decided to only compress it.

Me: "Man, it's really in your face when it's dry and loud like that."

Jeremy: "Oh, hell yeah!"

Me: "I think a little Dimension D might make it really pop..."

I think the only reason the 303 sounded so present was that everything else in the song was burbling away in a stew of analog delay and spring reverb.

Anyhow, my Secret Effects Weapon is, of course, the H8000. It isn't such a secret, really, but by virtue of the fact that Eventide has only made 600 or so of them, I'm one of only 600 or so people in the world to have one, which makes it the next best thing to secret in this day and age. But I'm of the over-arching opinion that, since electronic instruments are all essentially identical, the occasional circuit-bent Furby notwithstanding, effects make the sound. What's your Secret Effects Weapon? Do you leave everything chained all the time? Or do you "design" each sound individually? Is "too much effects" like "too much Chopin?" That is to say, a physical impossibility?

Purple Audio hooked a brother up with some custom-machined aluminum knobs for the World's Most Expensive CS5. Much thanks to Andrew + Ed, and now the little feller (the which definitely needs a name by now) has controls befitting its status. The only thing left is the pitch bend wheel, and this little piggy will be done.

Flash forward to today. As in right now. My PC is tied up for the next several hours as it renders a 3DS Max file out in to a 30-second MOV of the RT60 staging, with music, moving lights, and the backing video playing. The only thing missing are little polygon flavored versions of Jeremy and I. (And really, I'm not any good at character modeling or animation, or I'd probably have done that too.)

I'd show it to you guys once it has rendered, but (a) it would spoil the surprise, now, wouldn't it? And (b) it's a pie-in-the-sky production idea that probably won't survive a meeting with my American Express card, nor the dives we'll likely end up in. But a boy can dream.

In any event, am I the only one that does this? Obviously the laptop jockeys don't really get to play in this particular party, as there's not much to grabbing a cocktail table and putting your MacBook Pro on it. But for those of you with bands, do you pre-visualize your stage show in some way? If not, why not?

Now, I'm a big believer in the theory that any sound can be made interesting, no matter how banal, if you just keep slapping effects on it. BRIZBOMB is a fellow traveller on that road, although one could make the argument that he's reached the event horizon, as far as effects go.

Pictured above is his instrument, a timeline of the creation of which you can see here. You might look at that and say "what, does this dude own a pawn shop or some shit?" The answer would be "yes." In any event, there are some fairly rare pieces in that rack, including something I've never, ever seen before, a Musitronics Digital Delay. Didn't even know there was such a thing.

BRIZBOMB makes, unsurprisingly, noise, and is based in Vancouver, WA, which is just like Vancouver, BC, except actually not so much. There is a YouTube channel here if you want to get your noise on. I gotta say that I do like his style.

EDIT: Bah. This is why I don't do gear posts any more. Matrix beat me to the punch on this by like 4 months. But on the bright side, you guys have short memories.

1. Full tested compatibility with the FXpansion VST/RTAS wrapper on OSX and Windows.

2. The click apparent when the Infinite button was engaged has been reduced.

3. The volume gain when the Infinite button was engaged has been eliminated.

4. The Infinite function correctly disengages when the filters are changed. The button state was not reflecting this change; that has been fixed.

Grab the installer, pop it in, and let me know soonest if anything drastic is wrong. Assuming this fix for the FXpansion wrapper is all good (I have no reason to think it wouldn't be, as we tested it on a PPC Mac with HD/Accell and PT 7, an Intel Mac with PT M-Powered, and an Intel Mac with PT 8 and HD3) then we'll roll it in to all the products that have problems, as the time presents itself.

I would like to submit the following statement for discussion: the ability to record and create interesting sounds through the craft of engineering and production trumps instrumental virtuosity, at least in the context of the "electronica" most readers of this blog make.

I would never say I was an excellent musician, to anyone, at any time. I can get by on guitar and bass, and I'm an okay keyboard player (if you're one of the sorts that confuses "fast" with "good") but my own personal skill-set involves getting sounds, and putting them together in a way that resembles music. Also, I'd like to mention that I'm not a tweaky sort; that is to say that I don't spend hours and hours programming synths or minutely adjusting effects.

I'm willing to be wrong here, and I'll easily grant that in certain contexts virtuosity is much to be desired. Tori Amos, although I can stomach her music for about 18 seconds, is a good example of someone that is both good at getting interesting sounds, and exhibiting virtuosity. And any guitar rock needs a guitarist that knows his shit. One could also make the argument that the electronic artist exhibits a different sort of virtuosity. For example, Beardyman owns the Korg KP3 better than just about anyone else, I would imagine. Certainly anyone I've seen that owns one.

So I suppose the question is this: is the ability to control Ableton Live in such a manner to get the crowd moving virtuosity, in the same vein as a pianist that can play the Rach 3 or, say, Yo-Yo Ma?

1. PT Users Rejoice. Through Adam's diligent trouble shooting and my boyish naiveté we have found the Source of all the recent Troubles with our product line and the FXpansion wrapper. Come to find out it wasn't FXpansion's fault (although it must be said that the wrapper isn't as up-to-date as it could be) and it wasn't Steinberg's fault. It was, in fact, our fault, because we got bad advice regarding an unrelated issue and we took it. That advice turned out to be very bad indeed. We've got Eos working in PT with the exception of one little bug that will be fixed tomorrow. We will then roll in the other fixes relating to the Infinite button, and then release a new installer. So expect that this week. After that, we'll gradually work our way through the whole catalog until every damn thing works.

2. MKS-80 + UE-405 = that white stuff in the middle of a Cadbury egg. That shit is creamy. Highly recommended.

3. Today I heard (well, read, actually) just about the dumbest thing I've ever seen (or heard, for that matter) about musicians with respect to "getting paid." I won't repeat it here, but you can revel in the knowledge that I take the intellectual body blows so you don't have to. All part of the service. But suffice to say, apparently we should complain more, because that'll do the trick. Following that line of logic, Metallica would be millionaires, instead of the meek beggars that Napster turned them in to. Oh, wait...

4. I love a rainy night. I love a rainy night. I love to hear the thunder, watch the lightning as it lights up the sky. You know it makes me feel good.

Anyhow, back to work. Tuesday is the new Monday. Get used to it.

In my post about making a MIDI controller the other day, I used an Ibanez UE-405 multi-effect unit as an example of something that would make a good "fake" controller. Lo and behold, I have one now, courtesy of the fine folks at Craigslist.

I won't, however, be turning this one in to a MIDI controller, as it is minty-fresh. It isn't exactly new-in-the-box, as the previous (and original) owner definitely had it out to play with it. Maybe twice? But it is about as new as you're going to find a 25+ year old analog effect. Which is fun.

Since I had rather snobbishly avoided these boxes for some time, I wasn't really aware of how fucking nice the chorus is. It's also got a not-bad compressor, a pretty good delay, and an interesting EQ. But put 'em all in a row (re-routable, natch) and you've got a fucking nice all-analog effect. Not really capable of anything weird, and the only unique thing about it is the chorus, but a really nice collection, especially for the price I paid.

Not a bad way to start the week, anyhow.

1. The Next Big Thing: Work has started on the next AD release, which will be a return to our traditional family values. And that's all that I'll say on the subject until we've verified we can build the fucking thing at all. But that's not my department. My department is making it look pretty. Once I've done that, I'm going to skate sideways a bit and re-do the interface for RRP because, let's face it, it's butt ugly.

2. Eos Moving Like Hotcakes: Eos is officially AD's fastest-selling product ever, even outpacing Automaton. Replicant and Dubstation are still the best-selling products, and will be for some time, as the others have a ways to go to get in to that lofty airstream.

3. RT60 Record-A-Thon: The usual Saturday session for RT60 will take place in a bit. We have two songs mixed now, and are about to do the tape transfer on the third. Moving right along. It's almost a Demo!

4. And Finally... Hey, look! Kenton has suddenly discovered it is 2009! Check it! That bottom one actually might work out for me, as it is essentially what I was gonna build, plus a joystick.

Just got back from the day's RT60 session, the first in which we used the Yamaha CS5. Yes, that Yamaha CS5.

For those not hip to the story, a couple years ago an AI reader in Seattle gave me this CS5. (I'm extremely embarrassed to admit that I can't remember whom. Please present yourself in the comments.) To say it was broken is to do a gross injustice to the word "broken." It was absolutely in throw-away condition. There were no end-pieces at all, everything was disconnected, several of the pots had failed, the metalwork (including the face panel) was bent all to hell, several of the ICs unique to the CS5 were burnt out, and worst of all, the main board, the actual synth itself, was broken, and many of the traces had failed.

When he gave me this synth, I was like "hmmm, maybe I'll have it rack-mounted or turned in to a desktop unit or some such." I just stuck the bag (of broken parts) on a shelf, and forgot about it. A year or so later (last April) I came across it again, and thought I should throw it out or sell it for parts or something. Then I got to thinking that would be a damn shame. I hate to see something irreplaceable leave this mortal coil. So I started casting about for someone that was willing to work on it.

Several places laughed at me outright when they saw pictures of the condition it was in. Two places here in Oregon absolutely refused to do it, for any amount of money. Most everyone I contacted thought it was a stupid proposition to do what needed to be done to such a simple synth. (The CS5 has only one EG and one OSC. Not, I'll note, entirely unlike the 303.)

But Stephen at Synthwood saw a challenge where others saw impossibilities. He took it under his wing, and after many false starts, a herculean search for the chips with no modern equivalent, and some fairly clever work-around action, it has returned to my loving embrace, only 13 short months after we embarked on this journey.

I won't go in to great detail on everything he had to do to get this thing in even barely working condition, never mind what it's at now, because we just don't have that kind of time. Highlights include dark walnut end-cheeks (and he had to fashion these en situ, as we didn't have the originals to work from), fixing all the metalwork and the frame, full cleaning, replacement of all the busted parts, repairing the broken circuit board, replacing the power supply, swapping out the fixed power connector with an IEC jack, and giving it MIDI.

We were going to add one of the clear DSI modwheels to it, in the normal Synthwood style, but we had to back out of that for technical reasons. But the slot the pitch bend goes in is now wheel-sized, should I decide to go down that garden path again.

Right now it isn't that much more (if at all) than a normal CS5 would go for. Plus it's unique, and I get the satisfaction of bringing back something that was absolutely destined for the dump. I'm getting custom-machined knobs made for it (in for a penny, in for a pound, right? Those chickenheads are just until I get 'em...) so that'll probably put me over the top. But otherwise, I'm extremely satisfied with Stephan's work, and very happy to get a new Shiny, and in better-than-new condition, at that. Stephen even used his CS15 as a donor for some of the parts to speed the process along, and for that I'm truly thankful. So much props to Synthwood for a repair job that was way above and beyond any reasonable expectations.

I'm starting to think about my live rig for the imminent inaugural performance (and, one would hope, subsequent but not as inaugural performances) of RT60. One aspect of this is that I'm going to have a custom MIDI controller to tweak my effects (which will be AD products and plugs custom built according to the needs of the situation running in Live).

I was briefly entranced with what my friend Gustavo made for Thomas Dolby. Essentially, it's some old mil-spec electronic gee-gaw with the guts ripped out, the pots replaced, and a Doepfer Pocket Electronic acting as the brains of the operation. This is very cool, and Mr. Dolby has several pieces like that one that he uses live. (Pictured above is one such.) On the other hand, it's Mr. Dolby's schtick, and I'd forever have to put up with "oh, you did that just like Thomas Dolby" snobbery from the too-many-synths-for-their-own-good crowd. To quote Winston Churchill, that is something "up with which I will not put."

So, my next thought was to pull a fast one, and use something like an Ibanez UE-405, if I could find one broken or cheap. This would amuse me to no end, as the gear spotters would be, like, "shit, man, he's tweaking the hell out of that 405 but it's really subtle and shit! I don't hear it. Must be modded!" Oh, it'd be modded all right. The insides would be removed entirely. But it'd be a bit sad to trash a good piece of gear like that for starters, plus that's fairly cold, a real slap in the face to the gear spotters. (And let's just say the UE-405 wouldn't be my first choice. My hypocrisy has no limits in that regard.)

So I'm gonna go the prim and proper modern route and get a panel made from Schaeffer and do it like that. So I'm trying to find the best cost-to-features ratio for the brains of the operation. The Doepfer Pocket Electronic has 16 inputs, which is perfect, as I think at this point my ideal complement is 11 pots and 4 switches. But it's only 7 bit A to D, and people that Know about such things have assured me that 7 bit is 3 bits shy of something approaching accurate in this context. So, I'm looking at other options. I think right now the MidiTron is what I'm looking for. 10-bit A to D, 10 analog inputs and 20 digital inputs. Has anyone here used one of these? Pitfalls? Praise?

(The first person that mentions the hideously complex MIDIbox system is getting bounced, that much I can promise you. I'd be all over that if I didn't have, like, a life and stuff.)

I made an interesting discovery today. I'll state right from the outset that I haven't done exhaustive research by any means, so you can take all this with a grain of salt if you'd like. With that out of the way...

I am working on a track that has really tiny, ticky drums, and I was using my MKS-80 as the source for some of these drums. I recorded a couple passes, then edited the sounds in to the pattern I wanted. I just used the built-in EQ in Cubase to roll off the bottom (quite a bit of it, to around 3K), and after about 3 minutes, I had the most intense headache. I could hear what sounded very much like my blood pounding after a hard bike ride, but it was perfectly in time with the track.

I'm like "I think that's low end coming through the Cubase EQ" which irked me. So I went through every EQ and filter capable of some sort of high pass I have installed on this machine, which is quite a few. They all (and I mean all, including the H8000) let this low end through, including, I'm embarrassed to say, all the AD products that have a HPF of some sort. If you click on the image above, you can see it manifest as a fairly severe tone that is kicking somewhere in the neighborhood of 18Hz.

Now, never mind the reason it occurred in the first place. What I'm interested in knowing is why no filters I own will get rid of it. Now, I won't even pretend that I'm well schooled in the recording arts, especially the science part of things. All of my knowledge is hands-on, acquired in the studio. This has me stumped. Anyone?

(P.S.: This should in no way be construed as a diss on FabFilter, who are cool guys that make excellent products. Simplon just happened to be the last one I tried.)

EDIT: It appears that what I'm seeing on Cubase's scope and what I'm hearing are two unconnected things. What I'm hearing is over-pressure in my ear canal, due to listening to close-backed headphones at a high volume. When the transient occurs (in this case, the drum sound was nothing but transient) it builds up pressure in the ear canal which the eardrum perceives as low end. Since there's no other sound there, I can actually "hear" the pressure before it has time to bleed off through the seal between my head and the headphone cup.

What I'm seeing in the scope is completely unrelated, and mostly due to the inaccuracy of Steinberg's scope plug-in.

As the title says, Eos is now available for purchase in the AD store. Whack the image to go forth...

Okay, we're getting close on Eos now. As some of you have no doubt noticed, the product page at the AD store is now live, with a couple samples and some bullet points. We've got all the bugs we know about tamed, all the OSX porting is done (that screenshot is of the AU running in Live 8) and I'm taking time away from writing presets to pen this particular missive.

The only thing left to do is the wide beta test and the (gasp, choke) Pro Tools nonsense. If I was a gambling man, I'd put my money on Friday release.