I don't want to count my chickens before they've hatched or anything, but I have the distinct impression that I scooped both CDM and Matrixsynth on this item, unless my memory (which, I'll grant, is getting a bit sketchy in my advanced years) is totally out of whack.

This is the Shruti-1 by Mutable Instruments, a DIY kit that isn't for sale yet, but soon will be, according to the website. The digital oscillators, envelopes, MIDI I/O, and front panel are controlled by an AVR chip of the sort you'd find in an Arduino, and the filter and VCAs are honest-to-god analog in the form of a CEM3379.

The page is a bit sparse at the moment, but there are three sound samples up. Two of them in particular intrigue me to no end, as this little thing definitely seems to have an unique personality that appeals to me.

I really like that FM, and there are several different oscillator modes to choose from. This kit seems to be eminently hackable, and I predict, should he be able to bring it to market, it will do exceedingly well. That's a big "if" though, and as we all know, it's vapor until we have it in our sweaty hands. (Note that Adam found this; I missed it entirely, which is entirely unlike me.)

Believe it or not, I was able to get that CP80B in to my office. Had to take out a lot of shit, but it was shit I obviously needed in here less than a CP80B.

For the morbidly curious, I've tuned the center three octaves so far. The entire piano, aside from being fairly out of tune with itself, was a half step flat, so it's a pretty tedious process. I'm going to end up doing it twice, because being so flat, tuning up the outside is going to drag the middle down pretty drastically, and I don't know enough about piano tuning to actually preempt this event. Luckily, there are only two strings per note where a "real" piano would have three, so that's a bit of a time saver. It also makes it really easy to adjust the richness of the individual notes. Once all is said and done, I'm tuning one of the strings about two beats per second flat against the first, which should give a nice meaty chorusing.

Probably.

Anyhow, this bad boy didn't come with a power supply, so I had to whittle one; luckily, they can run off a simple wall wart, so it's not that hard a chore. It sounds fantastical good, though, and I'm pretty pleased to have it.

For some reason, this auction house that trafficked mainly in broken tools and headless dolls had a Yamaha CP80B electric grand piano. I know, right? The case (which, in this instance also comprises the body of the piano) was pretty beat up. Tolex ripped in a couple spots, and very dirty, like it sat in someone's barn for a decade or so. However, inside, it was brand new.

If you've never gone, a real auction works just like an eBay one, except it happens much faster, and the people you're bidding against are standing right there next to you, which (if you're used to the Intardwebs) is a little odd.

Anyhow, after a seemingly endless parade of beer signs and cans of nails, our lot came up. He started the bidding at a thousand bucks. No bids. Dropped it to a hundred. No bids. Dropped it to $50. I bid.

And that was that.

So, 10 minutes later, we were on the way back to Phoenix with a CP80B in the back of my SUV, $50 lighter in the wallet. I've now got it set up in my garage, and other than a couple little issues as a result of sitting idle for so long, this thing is perfect. I'll put up a ton of pictures and samples once I get out of traction. (Mike helped me get it in the SUV, but I got it out and set it up on my own.)

This is from some old "Synths Are Frakkin' Awesome" video of the sort that crop up now and again. Dude's name is Don Muro, and he's got a Korg DS-8 and something I can't quite make out under it, and the whole rig is set up like a dual manual organ with foot pedals. He obviously puts the rig to the test with one of the harder fugues in the Bach cannon (see what I did there? Double pun!), The Gigue Fugue.

I'm a passable keyboard player, but seeing this sort of thing makes me feel like I just started to toddle about. (To preempt the obvious comments that are about to be typed, yeah, it's 80s-tastic. Yeah, we all looked like tards back then. Yeah, the synth sounds are weak. Deal with it.)

EDIT: Interestingly, the video was removed due to the fact that it said "Played in the style of Wendy Carlos" in the description. Serendip, LLC, which is the company that controls Carlos' copyrights, is extremely aggressive in sending out takedown notices to YouTube, eBay, et al, as a simple Google search of their name will show.

As I mentioned in the comments, while I certainly understand aggressively protecting your copyright, as that's your prerogative as a creator, this company (although I think "company" may be a loose term, as it appears to be either Carlos alone, or one dude that works for her) is completely ludicrous in some of its actions. It seems that any mention in the description of a video of her name is grounds for a takedown notice, which is simply silly at best, and at worst a complete and total misunderstanding of what copyright actually means.

In any event, that's why the video is gone, as far as I can tell. They never contacted me, and honestly, I'd just ignore them if they did, as I'm not the sort that is going to go running to the hills from a stupid nastygram that has no legal basis, but I'm just curious as to what end this serves. It seems to defy logic, as far as I can tell.

With the feedback, cross-feedback, and Chaos all amped, you can get some truly bizarre shit happening with this. With Chaos at its lowest setting, the granular pitch shifter functions like the other two shifters that you already know and love from the existing Discord2. Other than the addition of that engine and the entirely new UI (which will be carried over to some of our other products as we rev the whole line) the operation should be exactly the same. We changed the filter model a bit to better fit the context, so some settings you're used to in Discord2 might sound a bit different, but otherwise, it's all there.

Anyhow, we're in the home stretch now. Just tying everything together at this point; I'll put up a video when everything is working so you can see (and hear) the granular engine doing its thing.

Being me, you can guess what side of the argument I'm on. As long as there isn't an unnecessary use of CPU cycles, I'm all for it. The current windmill I'm tilting away at is a real-time animated waveform display for Discord 3. As you all know, Discord is a pitch-shifter, so there's no earthly reason to have a waveform display in the UI. It would impart no information whatsoever that has anything to do with the plug-in.

Now, that fact in and of itself doesn't bother me, as I've frequently been known to make UI design decisions based upon aesthetics alone. (The 3/4 view of the original Dubstation would be a good example of such.) I'm of the considered opinion that if something looks interesting, it has a direct effect on the creativity pathways of the brain, and thus is a Good Thing.

Adam, being Adam, disagrees. Normally, I can just do what I want and he'll eventually come around, but this is an interesting case. Making an animated waveform display is a fairly complex process, and we'd have to devote a week or more of dev time to adding it. The main thing to consider is that once we've hacked the underlying framework in to shape, we'll have the waveform display for other plug-ins that might actually make use of such a thing, so it's not wasted development time really. It's just wasted on this particular plug-in that has no need for such a thing.

So, I put it to you, dear friends. Is a quixotic pursuit like this worth the dev time, overall? Do you find that you're more likely to go to a plug-in that has bells and whistles in the UI? Or do you just want the fucking thing to do its job and not do the Macarana every time you open its editor?

Anyhow, we're mostly almost entirely somewhat back to normal now, and Progress is being made on various Projects. Adam just purchased the 64-bit dev box that he needed, and Discord 3 has a UI, although it's still missing some key ingredients that would allow me to show it to you (mainly a big bit in the middle, but everything around the edges is done.)

Phoenix, aside from what appears to be a rather dismal local music scene, seems to be a pretty slick city, too. I don't want to say that the old saw "if you're bored, you're boring" applies, but I'm finding plenty of cool little shops and restaurants. They're a bit hard to see because they're always behind a Chili's or a Circle K, but they're here. I will say the following: if you like pawn shops or yard sales (and I very much do) then this city is made of pure motherfucking win. I have a feeling I'm going to be sending a lot of records up to PDX for Jeremy's shop.

(Brief commercial interlude: Jeremy, the other half of RT60, a band you've never heard but know a lot about, has a record store now. Go shop there. Facebook page or Google maps link. Needless to say, it is in PDX, so fat lot of good it'll do you elsewhere.)

Anyhow, that's where we're at. I'll have a D3 UI to show off by the end of the weekend, but otherwise, science marches on.

You can enjoy a video demonstration of the result here, and the complete write-up is here.

Just for the record, this is the sort of thing Adam does for fun and relaxation, which should give you a general idea of the AD working environment. It's a good thing we don't share an office, else he'd push that modular over on me the 3,000th time I played Killing Joke's "Extremities..." album. And crush me.

I've got a lot more room here in the new joint than I did in our apartment in PDX, so I was able to drag some old boxes from storage back in to the light of day. Since they're all just marked "Studio (Fragile)" and obviously it's shit I didn't actually need at any point, I have no idea whatsoever what's in them, and opening them is like a combination of a somewhat dusty Christmas and a trip down an equally dusty memory lane.

The contents of one box are shown above. There are two rolls of exposed but undeveloped film, four mysteriously labeled DAT tapes, five cassette tapes, two of which are labeled with old SMG board roughs, four 5.25" floppies, three of which have Syntauri-related software on them, an original Gameboy, two Lomo cameras, boxed copies of the first AD product (Mayhem), iSynth, Pluggo, and Mode, a Windows XP full install, a copy of Cubasis AV, a battered SM58, and a Swiss Army watch.

And I have the temerity to call Adam a pack-rat. God only knows what's in these other boxes. Time to find out.

All that aside, things have actually been moving along, despite my intermittent attention to this particular publishing medium, and the various hectic things going on elsewhere in my life. Discord 3 now has a granular shifting engine that Adam spent the last couple weeks building. Once we decide on the final UI, I'll unveil it here. Discord 3 will be a paid upgrade to Discord owners, and will be, I'm sorry to say, Intel-only for Mac users. Depending on how things go with something we don't fully understand at this point, it'll also be 64-bit, and will provide the base model for how the rest of the line is upgraded during the course of the year.

Also, too, the RT60 album is nearing completion. We have one last song to finish, and some incidental material, and we'll have ourselves a record. We haven't decided exactly how to proceed with that, but this thing is an analog-lover's wet dream (as frequent readers will no doubt know). Musically, well, you'll be able to be the judge of that sooner rather than later.

Otherwise, same as it ever was. I hope to report on Tuesday evening that I have finally moved in to our new house in entirety, and everything is back to normal. Thanks for your patience, if you're an AD customer or rabid AI reader. I did, in fact, manage to get my Computer Music column done in time for the deadline, so there won't be any pause in my missives on that front.

Please note: heavy sarcasm.

We rolled in to Phoenix, went to the new place, and immediately proceeded to scream "FML" at the top of our collective lungs. I was hoodwinked but good on the rental, which is doublePlusBad because I usually have a good bullshit detector for that kind of nonsense. Long story short, we can't live in that joint, and the repairs to make it habitable would far outstrip its value. So, move along. Nothing to see here. (Sorry you unloaded the truck, Jeremy! I just loaded it again.)

In any event, we've found a couple new options that we're trying to expedite so we aren't, like, homeless and stuff. My wife is trying her hardest not to murder me (and mostly succeeding). In short, it's a cluster-fuck of pretty epic proportions, but the end is in sight. The crux of all this is that I'm still Out Of The Office, or even worse, as I don't yet have an Office to be Out Of. We're getting it sorted, though, and will hopefully be back to normal by the weekend.

As you have no doubt guessed by this juncture, there is a direct correlation between my lack of posting and the fact that we are moving on Saturday.

Point of order: while we joke about "let's just throw everything out and start fresh" when we're in the midst of a move, once you get of a certain age, and acquire a corresponding amount of shit, that's actually a fairly attractive option, and I half considered it for a minute.

Anyhow, long story short, don't expect anything from me for the next week. I may post intermittently, but it's unlikely, and I'm just warning you now. When I'm doing something like this, I don't really care what new blinkenlites were released, or whether Taylor Swift could conceivably be more banal if she really applied herself. (For the record, I believe there are unplumbed depths to her banality which we've only begun to explore.)

Anyhow, this is an open thread. The subject, at least at the start until we digress in an appropriately Salinger-esque fashion, is thus: what distracts you from making music, and why don't you beat whatever it is with a 9-iron?

Things I Should Mention, In No Particular Order:

1. I totally forgot that Beatserv put up a new set last week or so. This is Detroit, and despite the name, isn't heavily compressed and slightly saturated 909 and 303 patterns, but is rather actual sounds of actual shit in actual Detroit. Interesting and inexpensive = purchase, in my book.

2. There is an extremely comprehensive shoot-out between Tattoo, AudioRealism ADM, and muTonic on Plughugger. He really took the time to get in to the nitty gritty of each product, and if you're still on the fence with respect to Tattoo, this may help you make your decision. My feeling, after reading the whole thing, was that you essentially need all three. Or I do, anyhow.

3. And finally, we are currently working on the final feature set for the Discord 3 update. We've decided on the general path, but Adam has to code up a couple of the blocks before we can make a final decision about what it's going to have in it. Suffice to say that I think most D2 owners will be extremely satisfied with this update, which is major, and will result in a Discord that is different from 2 as 2 was from 1. I'm working on the UI now, so here's where you come in. In the comments of this post, please put a link to your favorite UI, and a line or two as to why it's your favorite.

This Canadian fellow, DJ Vespers, has quite a few tutorial videos on YouTube that are fairly instructive. One of them in particular interests me. The above is part 3 of a four-part series, where he makes a pretty interesting delay chain using Dubstation, Replicant, Ricochet, and a couple built-in effects in Live.

Note that we didn't have anything whatsoever to do with this; I just came across it in my normal daily travels of YouTube. The one on YouTube's site is in 720P, so I recommend going there if you want to be able to see what he's doing. The first two videos are instructive if you want to learn about non-destructive editing of audio files in Live, and the fourth one is about mastering. He's also got a few others in his channel that follow the same format.

We have many, many things to deal with in the upcoming months with respect to Audio Damage. We have to touch our entire product line, and in the process we're going to be updating some products significantly, combining others in to single entities, and leave yet others pretty much alone except for the necessary 64-bit jank.

One of the things we've been discussing as we build a roadmap for this process is whether it makes business sense to continue to build PPC versions of our products. Obviously, there are no more PPC computers being made, so that's a point in favor of deprecation. There will never be a 64-bit version of OS X for PPC computers, and Apple, with the current version of Logic 9, has basically said they're done with PPC, at least as far as pro music users are concerned.

There are technical reasons for preferring to build Intel only; it's kind of tricky to make Universal Binary plugs, but obviously we do it, so it's not that tricky. But we can't really use the specialized instructions available for the x86 family of processors either. Obviously, the main technical hurdle to overcome is the fact that we'll be adding two new builds to the four we already have for Macs, versus adding one to the one we have on the PC side of things.

Obviously, I'm not bitching. If it was easy, everyone would do it, and I'd have to pay my rent by blanching fries or selling Meow Meow or something. I'm just looking at it from a resource allocation viewpoint. If we don't have to make and support PPC, we can concentrate on getting the Intel side of things really tight, and utilize the special instruction sets that are available for the Intel processors to improve CPU usage and do Fancy Things. (And the number of times I have to see "FUCKING APPLE!" in my Adium window on days Adam is building Mac shit will go down by at least half, theoretically.)

Many hosts are Intel only now, and obviously this is only going to be moreso in the future, as the current power of Intel machines diverges further from the final power of PPC machines. (This double-core MacBook Pro I'm writing this on absolutely smokes the most powerful G5s that were made, and it's only 3 years later. Obviously those G5s have a lot more I/O possibilities, but their days are numbered.)

Anyhow, if someone here can make a convincing argument for continuing to make PPC versions of our products, I'm interested to hear it, and we'll take it in to consideration, but for now we're strongly leaning towards killing PPC support (and anything prior to 10.5) as we move forward.

What they wanted: a MacBook Pro with no keyboard for $799.

What they got: a big fucking iPod Touch for $499.

OMGWTFBQQ!!!!1111!! HOW COULD HE DO THAT TO US? OUR BELOVED STEVE!??!

Now, anyone who could possibly mistake me for an Apple apologist obviously doesn't know me or read anything I've written in the last... oh... 5 years. There is absolutely no way I will defend that company, in any way, shape, or form. But that said, I think that the iPad is exactly what it is advertised to be: a big fucking iPod touch. In that context, if you need a big fucking iPod touch, you're in good shape, because there is one now. If you don't, believe it or not, you don't have to buy one. There's no law that says you do.

For what I do, which is make music, and make software to make music, the iPad is pretty fucking cool, bordering on heaven-sent. I can easily think of about 20 ways this will be handy for me, and if you gave me a little time to think about it, I could come up with dozens more. For the times I'm not making music or making software to make music, I'm either sitting outside or sitting on my couch, staring at the tiny screen of my iPhone as I play games. This will be a nice replacement for that.

I'm not going to try to read anything else in to it. It's just a big fucking iPod. Peter Kirn would have you believe that the Sky Is Falling, but he obviously doesn't recall the original Mac, which was as closed as a computer can be, yet beget a fairly robust line of products. Besides, we've heard that story before.

How different would the stories be today if they had just called it the iPod Pro?

As one of the business's worst-kept secrets, virtually everyone knows that Apple will announce a tablet computer tomorrow. Virtually everyone also knows that there won't be too many surprises. It's going to be, for all intents and purposes, an iPod Touch with a 10.1" screen, despite all the wishing for Amazing Things. (And, for the record, I'm fully prepared to redact this post the minute the announcement is made, and monkeys ride unicorns right over the rainbow that is shooting out of Steve Jobs' ass.)

Why am I posting this? Well, in addition to Apple, virtually every major computer manufacturer is releasing a tablet in the next two quarters. Acer, Dell, HP, Asus, and a slew of OEMs all have keyboard-less tablets of some form planned, ranging in size from 7" to 12". This form factor is going to be the Next Big Thing for the next year or so. I, for one, am fairly pleased with this event as I believe it is a useful form factor, both for music and real life.

We don't get to witness many major sea changes in the computer business (which is, for all intents and purposes, the music business these days). The original Mac, Windows XP, OSX 10.3, the iPhone, and that's about it. All else are variations on a theme. (One could make the argument that this tablet is just a variation on the iPhone theme, and thus a continuation of that theme.) When these things occur, they change the way we think about computing, and thus the way we think about making music. Of course, a guitar and an amp and a fair amount of time alone in your bedroom to practice will still get you the furthest in this business, but we all know that.

Anyhow, we're going to see some exciting shit in the next year, as all the tech companies take advantage of this new form factor. I predict that Jazz Mutant needs to port their shit promptly or they're gonna go out of business. I also predict that we'll see the mid-size music software companies taking the most advantage of this new form factor. But what I hope to see are some really intriguing new ways to make music on what is, for all intents and purposes, a new instrument that nobody knows how to play yet. I'm no Apple Fanboi. I generally like their computers and dislike their software. But in this one instance, I'm going to make an exception, because their ability to push the entire industry in a certain direction is going to lead to some exciting new shit for us as musicians.

EDIT: Matrix has an interesting bit about this very same subject on his site. There are polls and stuff. You can go there, then click to get back here, and thus enter a circular world of gear wankery.

The coming couple of weeks will be fairly hectic, so don't expect me to put any lengthy missives up here unless the mood seriously strikes. We're moving from PDX to PHX on Valentine's day, and as any of you that have moved even a small home rig know, moving a set-in-place studio isn't an easy task, never mind all the other shit one accumulates in normal existence.

Luckily, I never truly un-packed from the last move, which was only a year ago. Plus, out of long habit and necessity, I have a fairly portable rig, so while it isn't quite as simple as slapping the covers on the racks and throwing them in the truck, it isn't that much more complex. Our home in Phoenix is a rental as well, where we'll be staying while we look at homes to purchase, so another temporary setup is in my immediate future.

Anyhow, a couple things are getting pitched, so if you want them and you're in the area, you're welcome to come and get them. The first is a Roland RD-250s digital piano. This is a fairly hefty beast, and would make a pretty good controller for someone (besides me.) Don't need it, don't want it, free to a good home, you carry it. It works fine.

Also headed out the door is a CME UF6 MIDI controller. This works fine but it is pretty beat up from use. Also, I don't have the wall wart any more, so you'll have to come up with one of those. (It uses a reverse-polarity 9V, so you can just do some surgery on any BOSS pedal adapter by cutting the wire and reversing the leads and you'll be good to go.)

Anyhow, both of those are free to the first person that can get over here and get 'em. I won't ship 'em so don't bother asking.

1. Flamming when changing patterns, fixed.

2. The reset note for MIDI Note Sync mode wasn't working correctly, now fixed.

3. Digital distortion from the cymbal sound for some Logic users, fixed.

4. General stability and CPU usage issues addressed.

This update is now available for download from your Audio Damage account, and is recommended for all Tattoo users.