This update also has a couple minor things addressed you wouldn't notice and one major thing you wouldn't notice. This update replaces VSTGUI3.5 with VSTGUI4, which we need to use for upcoming 64-bit janks. It shouldn't affect you in any way, shape, or form, but if you run in to anything graphics-related, be sure to drop me a line via the AD Info Line.

Next is the Axon multi-outs update, which Adam is gonna tackle tomorrow, and then the Replicant 1.5 update. I should be able to show you a design mock-up in a couple days, once I have it worth looking at.

In 1952, Philips Industries, those zany Dutchfolk that bring us fancy new TVs and lightbulbs every now and again, saw fit to make an electronic music studio in their main R&D facility in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. This studio, which was moved to the University Of Utrecht in 1960 as part of their new Sonology Studio, and again in 1972 to the Royal Conservatory Of Music (as pictured above), still exists today as Studio BEA-5 at the Institute Of Sonology, with most of the gear in that top image still in daily use.

(Click that image to go to a Flickr set taken in 2007. Note that it is the same room, and more or less the same angle, as the top photo.)

This is, for some reason, one of the lesser known of the old electronic music studios. Obviously, we're all familiar with the BBC's efforts in that department, and the famous electronic music studios in Paris and Cologne, but BEA-5 and its parents had a reasonably profound effect on the history of electronic music, and it also has the distinction of being the Last Man Standing of bespoke electronic studios from the '40s and '50s.

An interesting sidebar: it is where Varèse created Poème électronique while working with Le Corbusier on the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 World's Fair, and as such is the pivot point for the acceptance of electronic music as a valid form of musical expression, in my humble opinion.

This video is a trip. Although it's in Dutch, you get the general idea. This is the original studio at the Phillips labs before it was moved the first time, and gives a good overview of the techniques used to make music at this studio (and, indeed, the techniques in general use at the time in all the electronic music studios). The next time someone sends me a litany of "can you make Plugin X do task Y so I can spend more time with my vaporizer?" I'm just going to send them this video and say "now you have a vague inkling of an idea of how easy you have it."

Here's an interesting piece of music by Tom Dissevelt & Kid Baltan (the two dudes in the previous video), called Vibration that was also recorded at the Philips labs iteration of Sonology. That intro bit, well, slap a nice Machinedrum kick under it, and you've got yourself some minimal techno, plain and simple. Given the chronology of things, you can safely assume that the methods in the first video directly resulted in the music of the second video. Speaking of chronology, to put the age in perspective, the above track was recorded the year that Buddy Holly released Rave On. Either that, or it's on the new Autechre album. You be the judge.

Anyhow, I imagine at least one, if not several, of the daily readers of AI have visited BEA-5, and may have an anecdote or two to relate in that regard. If you'd like an excellent compilation of music recorded at the first locations of this studio, you could do far worse than to pick up Popular Electronics, which has virtually all the highlights.

Man, what a week. I've got about 85 things going on, and am trying to plow through it all. I had to get several of my photographs in to a state where they could be displayed for First Friday tonight, which involved drives to Mesa, several trips downtown, and haunting the aisles of Michael's looking for frames for some time. If you're in Phoenix, they're at the Just Breathe Gallery (and, not coincidentally, yoga studio. Every building in that area is Business XXX + Gallery, so it's not as strange as it sounds.)

That was a massive time suck, of course. I also had to go down to Chandler twice for things to do with our local Hackerspace, Heatsync Labs. This was a nerd-gasm of epic proportions, and the less said about it the better. But if you picture Phoenix as a person that is about 100 miles tall, we live around the eyebrows, and Chandler is that crust that grows on your feet if you spend too much time in a men's locker room.

Also too, somewhere in there I managed to get 90% of the UI make-over for Replicant 1.5 done. This is our first semi-major update to Replicant, and since this is our most popular product, we're rather reticent to add or remove any features. It won't be a huge make-over like the BS1-BS2 jump. The things I know it will have:

1. New UI. It will be losing its algae-colored knobfest and getting a UI that is in line with Axon and D3. The general layout will remain the same, though, so there will be no learning curve.

2. MIDI Note Trigger. We are making it so you can fire the events with MIDI notes instead of the sequencer, if you want. Still working on the mechanics for this, but it should make Replicant play much nicer with swung (swinged?) material.

3. In addition to the bitcrush thing, we'll be adding a sample rate reduction because, honestly, why wouldn't we?

That's about it for this update. The UI is the big part. It'll also get the 64-bit Windows treatment, and get all the current VSTGUI and AU tech so that the 64-bit OS X port won't be difficult when we're able to do that. It'll be a free update for all users.

1. Discord3 OS X update. There will be a minor update on the OS X side of Discord3 shortly; we've got some internal re-working, plus a minor bug fix. We have decided to not release 64-bit versions of OS X at this time, as the 64-bit port of AU is essentially impossible with our current working methods. We need to wait until the compatibility layer we used for Discord3 (and Axon) has been updated. We have successfully built a 64-bit OS X VST of Discord3, and we'll release as soon as Cubase 5 64-bit is stable and public on the OS X side.

2. Axon Update. We're adding multiple outs, counter reset on transport stop, and a couple other requested features to Axon, along with some minor bug fixes (mostly relating to Logic). This update will be both sides, and is a ways away.

3. The Next Product.

EDIT: Read the comments.

This isn't a new product per se, but rather a significant update that will combine and deprecate several old products. One of the problems with our relatively large product line is that doing line-wide updates is disagreeable in the extreme; our intention in that regard is to reduce the number of products we offer, so that we're able to better deal with the fairly regularly timed body blows emanating from Cupertino.

So, this product, as yet unnamed, will be a multi-effect consisting of the engines of Liquid, Fluid, Vapor, and Phase Two. You will be able to select any one of those engines per instance, and the whole will be lovingly wrapped in a stereo delay. In this regard, it will be similar to Discord3, in both layout and operation, but rather than three different pitch shifters, it will have four modulation effects. The delay will be routed slightly differently, more like a send effect than inline as it is in D3, but that's a design decision that is down the road a bit.

For purchasing, we haven't decided on a final price, but we will almost certainly hew to our current major effect price of $59. The way upgrading will work will be that for each of the four individual effects you own, you'll receive a $10 discount from the price. So if you only own, say, Liquid, your price for this plug-in will be $49. If you own Liquid and Fluid, your price will be $39, and so on. We will, as I mentioned, be deprecating the four plug-ins in question.

If you have any thoughts on this combo-platter, now's the time to make yourself heard; otherwise, we'll forge ahead.

Here's the second video in my 6-part "How To Run This Little Fucker" series. In this one, I show a little more in-depth about how to make connections, and the rhythms that result. I changed the format a bit to make it less wordy than the last one, which was apparently causing some problems.

Movin' right along around these parts. Various things, in no particular sequence:

1. In order to facilitate the 64-bit OS X versions, we apparently need to use the bleeding edge VSTGUI 4.0. I'm pleased to report that Adam has successfully built Discord 3 using VSTGUI 4, which required a lot of changes in our internal GUI code that took him the majority of last week. The only thing remaining is updating the compatibility layer we use to turn VSTs in to AudioUnits. This layer uses something called HIView, which is the Carbon API windowing system. We need to change it to something called NSView, which is the Cocoa windowing system, as there is no 64-bit Carbon. We don't know exactly how complex that's going to be, but we're sanguine about things at this juncture.

As soon as the 64-bit OS X versions of Discord 3 are out, we'll have a fairly rapid update to Axon, then turn our attention to the rest of the catalog. I'll update as is necessary.

2. A bit outside the purview of this site, but for those of you that find my photography explorations interesting, I opened a Deviant Art account, the which you can find here. I'm only putting my current run of "serious" works (my dip- and triptychs, basically) up there; the majority of my photographic output will still go in my Flickr account as always. Slightly related: I got one of these the other day, an example of which you can see above. Fun little camera, and a hoot at a party.

3. Yes, the other Axon videos are coming.

4. Musically, I'm mixing the last RT60 song this week (it is, in fact, open on my music PC right this minute.) This record needs to be released on vinyl, but due to the heavy front-loaded costs, we're exploring various options in that regard. One idea we've had is to have a separate Bandcamp item that gets the download, with a pre-order for the vinyl. If anyone has any different ideas in that regard, I'd love to hear about them. I've also got the next Micronaut EP, Capacitor, on deck (it's about half way done) and the Many Moons (Selections 1998 - 2008) LP, which contains new-mixed versions of several Micronaut tracks, plus some unreleased stuff from the early days, is nearing completion as well.

5. And finally, today is the 7th Anniversary of the founding of Audio Damage, Inc. Yay, us, and a huge thank-you to anyone that ever bought a plug-in from us!

Anyhow, I couldn't let this beauty slip by without a comment. It seems this fellow, using his Naim audiophile rig, can easily hear "greater low-level musical detail and presentational improvements in the soundstage and the ‘air’ around instruments."

Now, trying to talk sense to an audiophile is a quixotic task at best, but I'll give it a whirl.

Dear Mr. Steward:

Despite what you may think you heard, speaking as someone that is heavily involved in the technology (and physical act) of music creation, let me state for the record that it is physically impossible for the SATA cable that connects your hard drive to your motherboard to have any bearing whatsoever on the "air" or "soundstage" of the music you listen to, unless that cable has experienced catastrophic failure, in which event, you won't be hearing any music at all.

Mr. Steward, I'm sure you're a very nice guy, who is only trying to make a living writing about that which you love. In that, at least, you and I are the same. In this article, however, you're either lying outright, or you're demonstrating the old human foible of hearing what you want to hear at the expense of the truth. It is fundamentally the same as a Christian or Muslim professing faith. "It doesn't have to be true. It is enough that I believe it to be true."

Since you're obviously not clear on the technical details, your "music," which is in fact a data file, is not really "passing through metres of CAT-5." It's not a physical thing that has to travel from Point A to Point B, possibly in a tiny dump truck. Networks, hard drives, and data files don't work like that. It isn't like speaker wire, where one could conceivably make an argument for quality (when, as you and I both know full well, the only thing that really matters is size and conductivity.)

In short, there are too many variables, up to and including the barometric pressure and relative humidity in your house at the time of your listening, to make any quantifiable statements about "soundstage" and "air." All of these variables happen AFTER your D/A converter, though. Suffice to say that there is no possible way that an audio file streamed off a hard disk, assuming that everything is working correctly, can be affected by either the SATA or CAT-5 cables. It simply doesn't work that way. You can consider everything before your D/A converter as a constant in any equation.

In closing, Mr. Steward, I would like to thank you for taking the time to inform us of an exciting new product, but it would be wise to consider that your obviously vivid imagination is playing a role. Either that, or the company gave you either product or money to say that nonsense. In any event, this deeply flawed article has called in to question virtually everything you have published, unfortunately.

Sorry 'bout that.

EDIT: Stretta had something to say on this subject as well. 'Tis here.

The initial release hullabaloo of Axon has died down a bit, so things can start returning to normal. It's an interesting function of the division of labor in Audio Damage, Inc. that when I'm relatively idle, Adam is usually working hard, and vice versa. My busy times book-end the release cycle of the product (design and sales) while Adam's busy time is the couple weeks immediately prior to release.

For the first 24 hours of sales, Axon was our fourth most popular of the 30 plug-ins we've released. However, I think it's interesting to note that of our four most popular first-24-hour products (the Discord3 update, Automaton, Tattoo, and Axon, in order) the difference between first and fourth is only 10 units.

All of these four products have a long, long way to go before they'll catch either Replicant or Dubstation, so it's not necessarily time for a party, but the risk we took by releasing Axon seems to have been worth it, and for that, we're extremely thankful. For the record, on the list of all opening day sales, Dubstation is 24th, and Replicant is 7th. Just goes to show that the opening day has nothing to do with final adoption of the product in the production community's mass consciousness, but is more a function of our ability to build excitement and anticipation, I believe.

Anyhow, OS X 64-bit versions of D3 and Axon are next out the door (don't know how long that will take; our couple of half-hearted attempts at 64-bit OS X builds met with a lot of errors), along with an update to Axon with some bug fixes and various features requested like multiple outs. In my ubiquitous free time (what ever will I do with myself?) I'm piecing together a selection of tracks from the first decade of Micronaut, and mixing them again for more modern sound and technique, and releasing the whole to Bandcamp here in a few days. So watch out for that. Also, 2/6 of the Axon Video Series should be done and up today. And so on and so forth...

OH AND... There's a new free kit up at Beatserv, and they're having a back-to-school 20% off sale. Go forth.

Here is the first of the six tutorials I'll do for Axon. This one is a super fast overview of the Neuron Sequencer programming method, for people that want to see it in action. I'll go way more in depth in Pt. 2, showing how to make more predictable beats, multiple senders for fun and profit, and how to get the most out of external triggering.

Now, the problem with an ANN in a music context--and it has been tried; the pages of Computer Music Journal are rife with nasty-sounding examples--is twofold:

1. The context is generally not appropriate to the learning process that ANNs require.

2. The results, whether you're applying them to sequencing or sound design, are uniformly unlistenable.

I broached this subject with Adam as a possible path of exploration, picking an incredibly bad time to do this (we were in the middle of Tattoo's lengthy and frustrating troubleshooting process) and he was... uh... not excited. He pointed out Nos. 1 and 2 in short order, and that was that.

HOWEVER!!!

When I have an idea in my teeth, it won't be taken from me without a lot of slobber and jumping about, in a most dog-like fashion. The main hurdle to overcome to make an ANN full of techno is to make it so you don't have to teach the fucking thing. So I went to the basic idea of what an ANN node was; essentially, when you strip away all the academic bullshit, it's a few nested if/then/else statements. IF these conditions are met THEN fire a pulse, or ELSE figure out whether we need to change our IF to compensate for the outside world being a strange and wonderful place.

Now, Adam has a fascination with all things hexagonical, and in order to sell him on the idea, I knew hexes would have to be involved. I then opened up Pd and went to work, trying to come up with a hex-based system of counters that would allow user interaction but not need to be taught. I came across some interesting work done by some guy (which I can't find right now) that augmented my ideas in this regard, and tied the output to a whole mess of simple FM synths, and the result is as you see here:

This is, for all intents and purposes, Axon, except in Pd instead of a VST/AU, and without a shiny GUI. There are only six voices, as I didn't give the center timing node a voice, but the general idea is fundamentally the same. I actually prototyped the UI in TouchOSC to run it on my iPad, and the TouchOSC UI is, in layout anyhow, what you see in the Axon UI now.

Of course, this bears no relationship to an ANN any more. It is really just a set of interconnected counters. I called it the Retarded Neural Network, because it was a collection of simple neurons, which did operate in a network, and it was retarded, inasmuch as it couldn't be taught. Obviously, it would be in fairly poor taste to use this as a bullet point, but that's what it is in my mind.

An actual operating instrument that produced unique and interesting results and that was (sort of) easy to program, and furthermore (FURTHERMORE!) had a hexagon in it, well, it was just a matter of time before Adam caved. As soon as D3 was done we decided to make it, and after a spirited argument on the semantics of the words "artificial neural network," whereupon I agreed that it wasn't one, we were off to the races.

Now, to be clear: the goal of these sorts of things is not to replace the creative process, but rather to augment it by producing results that you fully control, while leading to things you wouldn't have thought of on your own. In this respect Automaton and Axon are two peas in the same pod. While Automaton has a fairly robust randomization feature set, it is, at its root, fully controllable and repeatable, just like Axon.