wire to the ear

Out with the old, in with the new. When Ableton released Live 7 they simplified the way to bring in audio and midi from an external device such as a hardware synthesizer or drum machine. If you use external hardware and your not using the Live’s new External Instrument Device read on.

So let’s take a look at the old way of bringing an external instrument into Live. You would have to create an audio channel, select it’s input and arm monitoring. You would also have to create a separate Midi channel, choose then Midi Interface (Midi To) and Midi Channel.

Now for the new imporved method. Go to the Live Device browser (upper left side of the interface) and under Intruments drag an External Instrument device to a Midi track. On the device you can choose all the parameters that were previously spread over two channels: Midi To, Midi Channel and Audio Input. You also have the additional Latency parameter which is usefull if you notice your hardware synth or drum machine notes are coming in a little late. The best part of the External Instrument Device is now that you set it up you can save the preset and your now one click away from adding any hardware you have into your current song. I have seperate presets for all my hardware synths and drum machines.

This week a few blogs have mentioned Denon’s ridiculously priced $499 Ethernet cable. In fact one of my favorite cartoon strips User Friendly did a take on the subject: click here to read it Don’t we all know by now not to pay large sums of money for cables?

Made from high purity copper wire and high performance connection parts, the AK-DL1 will bring out all the nuances in digital audio reproduction from any of our Denon DVD players with the Denon Link feature. - www.usa.denon.com

This reminds me of the recent test at audioholics.com which pit a $60 Monster 1000 Cable vs a coat hanger. Guess which won?

The test was conducted. After 5 tests, none could determine which was the Monster 1000 cable or the coat hanger wire. Further, when music was played through the coat hanger wire, we were asked if what we heard sounded good to us. All agreed that what was heard sounded excellent, however, when A-B tests occured, it was impossible to determine which sounded best the majority of the time and which wire was in use. - audioholics.com

If you really want to improve your sound check out Machina Dynamica’s Brilliant Pebbles. These cost $129 but actually do make a real difference in your audio quality. You can see what they look like in the top photo of this post. Highly recommended.

A guy named Andrew from the band Creaky Boards is making a claim that Coldplay ripped off his song. The song was then used in an iTunes commercial. This video has subtitles that explains the controversy.

So what do you think?

If your a song writer you probably write hundreds or maybe thousands of songs over your lifetime. To avoid the Nickelback controversy it’s a good idea to arm yourself with an arsenal of tools and ideas to help yourself from self repetition. A good place to start is the beginning. How do you start your songs? What’s the first thing the listener will hear? Here’s five different ways you can kick it off:

1. Solo vocal. The human voice is the most powerful instrument of all. If you have a strong opening line having it solo will focus the listener on your message. You can even start with the chorus. Example: Killing me Softly by Roberta Flack.

2. Record the count in. One. Two. Three. Four. Say it. Say it in German. Put some guitar feedback behind it. Click the drumsticks four times. Record four finger snaps. Record your voice staying, “Start the tape!”. Example: Showroom Dummies by Kraftwerk

3. 16 bars of beats. If your music is headed for the dance floor is a nice thing to help the DJ out. How? Give him at least 16 bars of steady drums to help him mix in your song. In fact, by doing so your increasing the chances of your song being played at all.

4. Fade in. This is an unusual way to start a song especially in modern times. Before hard disc recording you heard this more often as producers would ride faders up in a song that was already in progress. Do you remember my related post titled “Bring back the song fade out.“?

5. Full on. A lot of times I start my songs by adding in one or two instruments at a time. Sometimes thats a sign of the amateur. Many songs just start off with most of the instruments and even the vocal already going. Load up an old song you did and just chop the intro off. Maybe it works better that way?

What’s your favorite what to start a song?

photo credit: Jon_Marshall

The Kurzweil K2000 is a classic synthesizer/sampler workstation. Everyone I know who ever owned one still has it in their studio hooked up and running. Every few months I hear someone and talk about it’s magic sound and abilities. One interesting tidbit you may not know is that the synth division of Kurzweil is owned by a Korean parent company. You could say Kurzweil is like the Hyundai of the keyboard world.

The K2000 uses V.A.S.T. (Variable Architecture Synthesis Technology) which allows you to take any multi-sample, noise or waveform and process it using just about any synthesis technique. The source of these multi-samples are from the 8MB of ROM which hold tons of authentic and superb quality samples. The internal processing is 32-bit with 18-bit DACs. The K2000 uses 31 sound-shaping algorithms to provide a variety of resonant filters, EQs, continuous panning, amplitude modulation, crossfade, distortion, digital wrap, waveshaper, pulse width modulation, high frequency enhancement, low frequency oscillators, hard sync oscillators and mixing oscillators, all with real-time MIDI control. - www.vintagesynth.com

Ray Kurzweil is also a well known futurist with a pretty interesting track record. This week the NYTimes ran an article about Kurzweil’s latest predictions titled, “The Future Is Now? Pretty Soon, at Least“. Kurzweil says we will soon have the magic eat whatever you want and don’t get fat pill, cheap solar energy and within a decade we will fuse with technology and live forever. He calls that last bit “the Singularity”. Check out his book, “The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology”: click here.

About 20 years ago he predicted blind people would be able to read anything by using a mobile device. knfbReading Technologies, Inc. in partnership with Kurzweil now sells such a product. Check it out here: www.knfbreader.com

So a name we all associate with a special synth is jumping around in the future. Do you own a Kurzweil workstation keyboard? Do you like them? Did you own one and miss it now?

Kurzweil on ebay: click here
Photo by Michael Lutch. Courtesy of Kurzweil Technologies, Inc.

This morning I had a message on Facebook from a friend of mine George GábriÅ¡. The message said. “Yo I found this to be quiet bizzare.” and there was a link to the video above. Apparently someone figured out you can use the magnetic strip of a drivers license as a mini ribbon controller for Ableton Live.

Using the magnetic strip on the back of my driver’s license to make a ribbon controller which then controls Autofilter in Live 6 via MIDI. - db3l

He has some other cool videos up including an Ableton controller made of Popsicle sticks and pennies and a controller printed on a regular piece of paper.

By the way you can friend me on Facebook too: click here

Cycling ‘74 is a San Fransisco software company that makes a semi visual development environment for music, video and controller applications. An all new highly anticipated version five was released last week. I’ve never used the software directly but in the past some of the applications people created with it have peaked my interest. For example the Hypno VTheramin.

Now that there is a new version, updated tutorials and lots of videos I think its a good time to jump in and see why artists like Aphex Twin, Radiohead, Daft Punk, Autechre and Jamie Lidel all use it. Also remember that Ableton has announce a strategic relationship with Cycling ‘74 which is another good reason to understand the product.

In use for over twenty years by performers, composers, artists, scientists, teachers, and students, Max is the way to make your computer do things that reflect your individual ideas and dreams. Version 5 is a dramatic transformation of Max that begins a new chapter in the program’s history. - cycling74.com

People are using this software to create synthesizers, samplers, control Monomes and lighting rigs. Some people compare it to Native Instrument’s Reaktor but I think Max goes further? Jitter is the video and matrix processing component which I believe there is no counter in Reaktor. Correct me if I am wrong as I am learning.

Here are some more links worth checking out. I will be re-reading these pages until I jump into the actually software and start designing my own toys:

Visit the Cycling ‘74 website: click here
The Cycling ‘74 page on YouTube: click here
Create Digital Music - Max 5 Preview: click here

So do you use Max/MSP/Jitter? Please let me know in the comments what your doing with it.

Being an expat living in Berlin I remind myself of NYC by reading a photo blog aptly titled “New York Daily Photo“. When I read today’s post I knew I has to mention it here. Apparently last Friday night in Union Square there was a silent rave! First off, you know someone is old and out of touch when they use the word rave but that’s what everyone is calling it so I will play along.

Friday’s silent rave was organized by Jonnie Wesson, an 18 year old exchange student from Britain, attending the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn. Silent raves are popular in London and Europe - large scale silent discos with thousands of participants have taken place in the U.K. “The basic premise is that a hundred or a thousand or a few thousand people all turn up in a public place, turn on their own headphones and dance” says Wesson. “It’s always fantastic and weird to see thousands of people dancing silently. It’s always in a public space, but it’s not meant to cause disruption, but only because it’s the last place you’d expect that sort of thing.” The rave at Union Square was organized by Wesson through a Facebook site. It was scheduled to start at 6:17 PM. “It’s a random time that fits in with the ethos of the flash mob.” - newyorkdailyphoto.blogspot.com

I have to say this is majorly spastic. In my last post I said to go to a circuit bending festival is worth is even if your girlfriend laughs at you. If you go to a silent rave you deserve to be laughed at! Then again, the weather is nice and it’s more fun than the television.

By the way I have my own daily photo blog from Berlin. Everyday I put a photo up so come and take a look:
http://theberlinimage.blogspot.com/

The photo you see above is from: A. Seraphin
More photos from the Silent Rave on The Village Voice’s website: click here

Here’s a scenario I run into all the time. I have a new release ready for my record label. I need to make 30 second previews of each song. I make the shorter clips in Ableton Live. Live doesn’t not export as MP3. I drag the rendered previews into iTunes, convert then drag the MP3s out. Lastly, I need to select all the previews in iTunes, click delete, send to trash and then empty the trash. Thats really stupid so I was thrilled to see one of my favorite companies release an audio converter for Mac.

I know there are some other audio converters but Techspansion makes one of the hottest Mac Apps called Visual Hub. Visual Hub is a video converter that is the de facto standard. Its ultra fast and works on any video type. I also like that Visual Hub uses Sparkle and so does AudialHub. What’s the Sparkle? When a new version of an application is ready from a developer you get a notification the next time you launch the app and with one click it updates itself. This is an important feature for programs that do conversions because the developer can update and add new files types often. So heres some details for AudialHub:

• Conversion from dozens of audio types to popular formats like AAC, MP3, WMA, AIFF, WAV, Apple Lossless, 3G (cell phones), Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, and even Audio and MP3 CDs!
• Audio tracks inside video files can also be converted!
• Common tags (Artist, Album, etc) are automatically passed when applicable.
• Up to 16 hours of audio can be converted to a single MP3 CD.
• Easy-to-use Trim capabilities to narrow down short segments of audio.
• Quick Preview capability to check out compression quality and Trim settings before a full conversion.
• Dynamic file queue, allowing mid-conversion changes or additions, Pause/Resume, and an “always ready” Assembly Line Mode!
• Run multiple simultaneous conversions in separate queues with separate settings.
• Growl notifications, Dock progress indicator, and AppleScripting automation support!
• Normalization, audio track selection, multiple decoder options, and direct access to add custom low-level command-line settings!
• Detailed Users Guide and Help Center.

There is another bit of excellent news here in that AudialHub uses the Lame encoder for MP3s. Certain digital download stores like Trackitdown (big for dance music in the UK) only accept MP3’s encoded using Lame. Itunes does not use the Lame encoder. In fact, audio previews will play back at the wrong speed if you do not use Lame.

AudialHub is $19. If you already own VisualHub you get it for $15
www.techspansion.com/audialhub/

I’ve been very pleased with the amount of readers that are coming to this blog each day. In fact so many of you are showing up that several times my ISP/server took the site down. One way around this is to install a WordPress plug-in called WP-Cache. I’ve been putting off installing it because I knew a major new version of WordPress was about to be released. Well WordPress did get it’s new update (2.5) about two weeks ago and I let the dust settle and tonight upgraded. As far as I can tell you as a reader can not notice any difference. I however see tons of changes in the admin and post writing area. Over the weekend I will install WP-cache.

So what about some changes for you? First off some of the advertising on this site will change. I never decided to blog for money but I was really curious to see if any cash could be made. You will notice some changes in that area as I tweak things, get rid of crap that isn’t paying. I really do appreciate anyone who clicks a link here and then buys something from a sponsor or affiliate link. It pays for my hosting and buys me the coffee needed to type away each morning. As far as real content I want to add more video features. There is an amazing new piece of screencast software for the Mac called ScreenFlow I am going to start using. The video presentations should be a bit more snazzy. I also think it’s time I get my mug in front of the screen and talk to you face to face. I’m a little hestitant but so far everything here has been really cool. And of course I can always delete any bad comments (haha)! I think I need to buy a new light and maybe a greenscreen.

So this test post and update to seemed to work. Thanks for your continued visits. More electronic sequencer analog digital bleep drone data on the way!