Okay, in the above capture, you can see the procedural controls for BS2. On the right, you see the controls for the VCA section. In the lower right-hand corner of each knob, there is a value display. Is the text too small?

My own opinion is thus: people don't really use the value displays. Sometimes we have them, and sometimes we don't. (Depends on the product, really.) I mean, you're not gonna set the attack of each gate to a millisecond value you magically came up with using advanced math. You're gonna twist the knob until it sounds right, aren't you? So the value is really eye candy more than anything. In that vein, I think that as long as it's there, the three people that actually need the real value can actually look at it and see it.

I'm leaning towards thinking I can get away with text this small in this particular context, but I'll put the subject up for discussion, as I plan to use this knob format in at least the next two products.

Interestingly, the US dollar has ceased to be a third-world currency in the last 40 days or so, and is now back to pretty much where it was before all this ridiculousness happened. In fact, relative to the pound, it is actually ahead of the game by about twenty cents per. But lo and behold, the prices of imported gear have not changed at all. I'm completely and utterly shocked by this. (Cue sarcastic music.)

Now, on the one hand, I understand that it's much easier to raise prices than to lower them. But on the other, I'm curious. I would assume that US retailers pay for imported gear in the originating country's currency. Since the originating country's money fell in relation to ours almost universally, that means the difference between last year's prices and this year's is being pocketed by the retailers at our expense.

I'm perfectly aware that there isn't a large profit margin involved in selling music equipment. (Accessories are a different matter entirely, with 300% to 1000% markups the norm.) But even so, why are American consumers being punished for fluctuations in global currency markets that are in our favor for a change?

On Saturday, I climbed a mountain. It was a smallish mountain, but even so. And it was the best, clearest, warmest November day I think Oregon has ever seen. From the summit of this smallish mountain, I was able to see every peak of the Cascades from Rainier down to the Three Sisters. (And if you're from here, you know that's a fairly large chunk of real-estate.)

This week will be fairly productive, as well. Adam has a pretty big chunk (we'll go ahead and say "all the hard shit") of BigSeq2 done. I imagine we'll have a fully working alpha of the Windows VST by Friday, as all that remains is shit we know pretty well. While he's doing that, I'll be doing the UI for the following product, which will come out fairly quickly.

So, I guess this is an open thread. On a hike earlier in the week, which took place in the rain, I stopped to rest for fifteen minutes, and was reveling in the ambience of the forest. With the nearly-rhythmic rain drops, and the general sound of distant streams, wind in the trees, and the like, I was thinking that if somebody figured out a way to stamp this audio vibe on a CD and give it a nice name, it'd be a hit. It has actually be percolating in my brain for several days now, and I'm going to attempt a musical analogy in my copious free time.

So my question for the day is thus: have you heard things out in the Real World of a non-musical nature that inspired your writing? If so, is it something you attempt to repeat on purpose? Or, like in my little story above, is it largely accidental?

I just spent the afternoon fooling about with the Guzheng sample-set from Sonic Couture. This is, along with the Hang Drum, Gamelan, and Bowed Piano sets that came out earlier this year, one of those sample sets you didn't know you needed, but once you have it you can hear a lot of uses for it.

I was using the Kontakt version, which has their usual skript-fu, in the form of a strum (controlled by the mod wheel), a note bend (controlled by aftertouch), and a tremolo (which is keyswitched.) This sample set will work in all the major samplers, and versions are included for Live Sampler and ESX24, but frankly, like all Sonic Couture products, you're gonna get the most out of it with Kontakt.

The Guzheng itself is a typical oriental zither. In fact, it is kind of the Ur-Zither, at least on the Orient side of things, one of the oldest known examples of this family of instruments. It has a very plaintive, boxy sound to it, like a banjo with more meat (and the music gods will strike me dead on the spot for that statement.) There are three complete sample sets: a right-hand plectrum, a left-hand finger pick, and right-hand picked harmonics. The sounds are switched with key switches on the top octave. The keyswitch for the tremelo is also there. This actually works out really well for a lefty, and I find it kind of nice as most Sonic Couture scripts are kind of righty-centric.

All three sets can be tuned to the instrument's essentially unusable oriental scale, or to Western chromatic. In spending a bit of quality time with this sample set, which is easily on par with the best Sonic Couture has done, sound quality-wise (actually, it is very clear; I find the hang drum to be a bit gummy sometimes, but this doesn't have that problem at all), I will make the following qualified statement: if your works requires you to do soundtracks, this is the World's Best Leitmotif Instrument. It cuts right through everything in the right-hand plectrum mode. I think that the other two sample sets would be interesting to people that make ambient or IDM, as they are very nice, extremely organic lead sounds that would take the place of, say, an FM bell kind of tone.

As far as actually playing the sample set as it is supposed to be played, I can't really speak to that; I have neither the ear nor the chops to pull that off. I found that just improvising on a minor scale was quite satisfying, though. Another home run for Sonic Couture, and well worth the asking price. There are two movies on the product page; the first one is a must-see. It is enjoyable to watch anyone that has a true mastery of an instrument, and that woman wtfpwns the Guzhang, no lie.

Something I was reading today got me wondering the following: how many people make music entirely procedurally now? By "procedurally" I mean with software only, no hardware.

I was pondering this as I was recording a MachineDrum track. When you get right down to it, the MachineDrum (and MonoMachine) could be entirely duplicated as plug-ins, as their sound generation methods are completely digital. I was thinking to myself "self, what the fuck is the point of this $1500 box?" I mean, there isn't a single sound in it I can't create entirely inside the computer. I'll grant that taking the time to make a kick drum patch in Operator or whatever would be tedious in the extreme, and completely ruin my workflow, whereas it's a matter of a couple seconds to dial up something appropriate on the MachineDrum.

I suppose that using Live a lot lately has informed my opinions in this matter. Live has a very obvious reflection of Robert Henke's tastes in creation, and I am of the firm belief that it has so many included noisemakers now simply because he got tired of programming his Synclavier. Making music procedurally in Live definitely results in a particular sound to things; you are, in effect, using Live as an instrument rather than a recording device, and as a result, it (like all instruments) gives everything that results a signature sound.

I personally am on a hardware kick lately. The last half dozen tracks I've started (but have inexplicably been unable to finish) are entirely hardware. But I could just as easily flip that around, and go to an entirely software paradigm. In fact, it would be an interesting exercise to do half of an album with hardware and half with software, rather than combining the two per song.

Rambling aside, do you find yourself using software synthesis entirely? Or are you still a knobs-and-cables guy? Why do you prefer your method? What is lacking in software that ruins the immediacy for you? (Or vice-versa.)

I was ecstatic to find a reputable reverb that I've heard from a few people and websites. I purchased your Reverence reverb last night and was very dismayed when, after trying to get your plugin running for an hour, I read that your plugs don't work with Protools? Id on't really understand why not, given all the little people out there do use Protools. Granted they are a big fat corporate conglomerate machine, but it doesn't seem fitting that you couldn't get your plugs running with PT. Massey plugs work flawlessly. Perhaps I'm missing something deeper and explaining other than, "WE PROVIDE ABSOLUTELY NO SUPPORT WHATSOEVER." Though you may be biased and have harsh opinions about a certain company, I am sorry to see sucj judgemental behavior coming from what I thought was a great little company with a great reputation. Isn't this the way the big out of touch corporate companies get their start? What sez you?

enjoy things, XXXXXXX

Since you're no doubt curious, here is my reply I sent, verbatim:

Well, I had a long-winded retort to this letter, but the simple fact of the matter can be laid out in a plain metaphor. You drive a diesel car, and you tried to put unleaded gas in to it. Welcome to the music industry. I'll issue you a refund.

Chris Randall
Audio Damage, Inc.

I assume this isn't the only music industry blog you read, and thus I assume that you already know about Synplant's existence. What I find intriguing is that I am sadly in the minority as far as people that understood right away what it was. I'll grant two things that are almost certainly true: first, I suppose it isn't readily obvious outside of a context, and second, I make user interfaces for a living, for all intents and purposes, so it would theoretically stand to reason that I would be able to figure out an interface better than someone that didn't do that very thing. (Actually, that latter statement is demonstrably untrue, so we can let it slide for now.)

The reason I bring this up is that I was lately pondering a similar thing. Not what Magnus did exactly, but a different mousetrap to essentially catch the same mouse. And the response to his product makes me a little nervous. I mean, if a synth doesn't look like this, is it doomed to failure? One could make the argument that after 1970, the Minimoog topology was the most logical way to lay out a synth, or maybe the most accepted. But that doesn't immediately obviate all other methods of programming, does it?

One could also make the argument that there are way more D-50s in the world than there are Minimoogs, but I counter with the following: nobody that didn't have an editor/librarian or hardware programmer has ever done more than touch up the factory sounds in a D-50. The JD-800 is, for all intents and purposes, a D-50 with a hardware programmer, and look how much fun that isn't.

Now, all that nonsense aside, I've spent a couple hours with the Synplant, and it really comes down to the same problem all products of this sort have. Ultimately, you can diddle around for hours, but you can't just think up a sound and program it. Anyone that spends two hours with a Minimoog can make a bass sound, a lead, a brass fart, pretty much anything the Mini is capable of, within a minute or two, which is the beauty of the box in the first place. But with this, I'll be god damned if I'm gonna say "I need a resonant bass register pad" and whip it up. There is a fair amount of luck involved in getting a sound that is usable, in my opinion, which is interesting, since the synth engine itself is perfectly capable of doing the sound I thought of.

So, it really comes down to the interface, as always. So tell me: could you tell what this did the second you saw it? Or did you think it was a device for making generative music like Wire To The Ear did? Or can you not tell what the fuck is going on at all? And maybe a sub-question: is it useful at all to have what is for all intents and purposes an unprogrammable synth with a sophisticated randomizer?

(And yes, I know individual sounds can be gussied up with the "DNA" thing, but that is just a pretty face on a big slab of D-50-style programming.)

(Click the image for the full-sized screenshot...)

We're moving at a punk-rock clip on BigSeq2. I've got the UI about 95% of the way there, and Adam has the sequencer sections 95% done and some of the DSP done. You'll start to see the normal barrage of screencaps and audio samples Real Soon Now. While Adam is doing his bits that don't require my involvement (beyond the occasional grunt of affirmation) I'm working on the UI for the following release, which I'll show you fairly soon.

Here's a fantastic process video of The Subliminal Kid doing some minimal jamming on a (white, natch) Macbeth M5, TR909, and some various other jank, made by Ruben Broman. This video calls to mind the cool video that Alex Tyson made a few months back of Charles Cohen rockin' the Buchla Music Easel. Quality shit like this is why Vimeo is about 30,000 times better than YouTube. Follow the movie link to watch it in full screen HD.

(I kited this off of Wire To The Ear.)

First up, MAKE is selling the SX-150 domestically now, so all you indie-rock hipsters can go grab one, and pretend you're in Sea And Cake for the afternoon. I might get one myself, even though I'm neither indie rock nor hipster.

Next, obviously, we have a new president, and I'm not going to apologize to the dozens of people that have written me complaining about my admixture of music and politics on this site. There are very few disparate subjects that fit together as well as music and politics, and it is one of our jobs, as musicians, to conflate the culture and ideas that are prevalent at our time. We provide a prism through which our compatriots can view the world of our day, and a lens by which our time can be viewed by future generations, and it is our responsibility to color that view with our own ideas and desires. We do this better than virtually any other source of posterity, and it is a damn shame when we can't see it.