The most innovated music software in the past few years has not come from Ableton or Steinberg. It’s come on iOS from Smule and Khush. Although you may not make a full on slick track using these apps the technology and wowness behind LaDiDa, Ocarina, Magic Fiddle and Madpad is great. The video above explaining that the two companies are getting together is very nerdy. That nerd factor is good though because when nerds and art mix I’m happy. I hope they add pro features (midi, audio export) to all of their apps.
“Smule, makers of such fine musically-tuned iOS apps as Ocarina, Magic Piano, and I Am T-Pain, have just announced their intentions to acquire Khush, the equally music-minded company behind LaDiDa (you sing, it generates a beat) and Songify (you sing / talk / cough / howl, it bends the tune into a song). Wonder-Twin powers, activate!” – Techcrunch
Honestly this is almost the same reaction I have when I hear Dubstep.
“Dubstep rhythms are usually syncopated, and often shuffled or incorporating tuplets. The tempo is nearly always in the range of 138-142 beats per minute, with a clap or snare usually inserted every third beat in a bar.” – Wikipedia
I really love convolution reverbs. I don’t really use them with traditional space IRs (like a famous opera house). I have a collection of classic 80s hardware reverb IRs. Of course nothing is like having an actual Lexicon 480L or EMT plate but Altiverb gets you close enough. Altiverb 7 adds a very nice searchable IR photo browser, synthetic brightness add on (if wanted), drag & drop IR creation, chaos modulation and more. I can see using the drag & drop IR creation quite a lot. I would say 90% of my vocals are recorded with a convolution reverb on a send panned to the right a bit. $595 USD.
“Altiverb 7 is the industry standard convolution reverb plug-in. It uses top quality samples of real spaces to create reverb, ranging from Sydney Opera House to the cockpit of a Jumbo Jet. Altiverb 7 is efficient on the cpu, offers many parameters to tweak reverb, is total recall automatable, and has 64 bit support. Every month Altiverb 7 users receive new impulse responses for free.” audioease.com
I am very proud to announce the release of Joyless Pleasure Remixed. Haujobb, Frank Kvitta, Phil J, Tomas Tulpe, Millimetric, Cute Heels, Acrosome, Rumpelfilter, Steinkind, Miss Duckin, Miro Pajic, Humandroid, Raytrace, Mac Vaughn, People Theatre, Johann Afterglow, Dom Dumoulin, Angst and Stamba have all created remixes. Everyone did a fantastic job. It’s available today on iTunes, Amazon and the Andtroid Marketplace. Next week it will be available on Beatport. So do tell me which mixes you like the best. The best way to support Wire to the Ear is to buy some of my music and/or click over to the places this release is for sale and give it a nice review and rating. I wish I could still fit into that grey suit and orange turtleneck.
“Joyless Pleasure is like a jewelry piece but in electronic music.” – morganistik.com
Here’s the first Roland product that has peaked my interest in a while. R-Mix Tab for iPad lets you filter our areas from music. Watch the video above for a good demonstration. If it works well enough it should be a nice tool for remixers looking to get acapella versions of their favorite songs. $9.99 USD.
“View the instruments or components of the music which imported from your iPod library as color-coded clouds of energy and harmonic matter onscreen. You can lower the level, keep or move the panning position of the selected instrument on the screen. You can use R-Mix to easily create “minus-one” type play-along tracks. You can also isolate guitar sound, for example, and solo that phrases for study.” – Roland
Frank Kvitta is a well established german techno DJ and producer. I met Frank when I performed last summer in Spain at the Monegros Festival. He was in the same van traveling to the show from the hotel. We clicked, stayed in touch and next week we will release a monster techno EP called Electronic Pleasure. Frank knows everyone and was able to gather remixes from Ben Sims, DJ Rush, Patrick DSP, Dave the Drummer, Submerge, Alex Kvitta, Boris S, David Christop and more. To start the promotion here’s an interview to let you know a little but about who Frank is.
1. Let’s start with software. What DAW to you prefer and name three
plug-ins you can’t live without.
Hello Oliver, thank you for having me for your great blog. My favourite software for producing used to be fruity loops in the very beginning 10 years ago. After that i started using Reason for many years but i was never satisfied with the sound engine. Then i found Ableton Live and since i found it i use it the most or let´s say, only Ableton Live. I like the workflow and the functions. It´s superfast and easy to use and i can be very productive as i can just concentrate on making the beats and not concentrate how to make the beats. My Top plug ins i never want to miss anymore are the “Waves” of course, Nexus and the FM8 and some secret plug ins ;)
2. What is the oldest piece of hardware you have in your studio?
The oldest piece in my studio is my keyboard M-Audio Oxygen 8 hehe. I sold my old stuff long time ago already, as i just use digital software and some midi controllers and the Presonus digial mixer for productions.
3. When you have been working in the studio too long and you need to
take a 30 minute break what do you do?
Mostly i go outside (if it´s not too cold), have an espresso, do some phone calls, listen to different music (hip hop, rnb, 80´s) and then i go back to work. My ears need a break too, otherwise after too many hours you can´t concentrate anymore and everything sounds the same because ears get tired too.
4. Do you think DJing makes you a better producer? Do you grab loops
from records/tracks or always make your own beats?
I think without beeing a dj or performing in any other ways music, you can be a good producer too, but while you perform you have the chance to see reactions on specific sounds, breaks, melodys which inspire me again to do my next tracks. Also when you perform you have also a great feeling for music and beats which can be very usefull with producing too. It depends, sometimes i mash up loops and sample and cut things out to make new ones, sometimes i start all over and create my own sounds and loops. Really depends on which track i m doing and which style. And i have enough time for a track or not, deadlines are sometimes really tight hehe.
5. How many songs do you finish per month?
Well i can have days where i finish a whole track in about 3 hours from starting with the mainloop until the final arrangement. Sometimes it takes much longer, even days or weeks. IT depends always on the mood, creativity, ideas. If my head is full with ideas and i m in a great mood to produce i can be pretty fast. If those things are not given, thx god we can hit the save button and continue the next days.
6. If you found someone breaking into your music studio what would you
do to the person?
I would take him next to my side and show this person how much work and love and passion has been spent to create all these tracks on this computer and how hard it was to achieve a studio like this over all the years, then i would slap the shit out of him and call the police haha.
7. What is the best snack to have around while making music?
I always have a sandwhich with melted gouda cheese and a “BiFi Roll” and of course loads of drinks. I love snacks.
8. Do you think buying new gear and software helps with creativity
and/or inspiration?
Yes sure, always when i buy something new i get excited like a little kid and start playing around with the stuff and get always new ideas. I think everybody knows the feeling of getting something new and playing around with it.
9. If you were not a DJ/Producer what would be your profession?
hmmm good questions. to be honest i don´t really know. Probably still something with music. Sound engineering or selling hot dogs.
10. Tell us briefly what your master plan for world domination is in 2012.
I have many big plans for 2012. We plan enhanced music podcasts (which actually started already), alot of releases of other genres with new music partners (including you for example), expanding the bookings agency with more people, promote all of us more in the media again (videos, photos, tv) and many more which are my secrets and i can´t talk about them, otherwise this emails explodes and if you survive i have to kill you hehe…kidding…
IRCAMAX SuperVP is a set of 5 plug-ins for Ableton Max4Live. You really have to head to the Ircam website and watch the demo videos. Each of the plug-ins SimpleTransp, Transp, Scrub, Mover and SuperVPSynth allow for some serious audio rearranging, part transposing, formant manipluations, etc… My favorite is Mover. 139 Euro.
“Mover offers a different way to control time position and transposition performed by the SuperVP engine. It displays the sound on a big waveform on witch the user can move using the mouse, its MIDI controllers or a joystick. It can be easily use to improvise on the sound material thanks to its synchronized random motions capabilities.” – ircamax.ircam.fr
Lemur for iPad has arrived and interestingly it’s now from Liine (Gareth Williams, John Acquaviva, Richie Hawtin, etc…). There is a Mac/PC editor, scripting language, OSC & Midi over WiFi, CoreMidi, Camera Connection Kit support, 17 types of objects and a dose of the future. I can’t wait to see what people are going to do with this. Bring on touch screens of all sizes.
“Lemur is a professional iOS controller app that doesn’t cut any corners. It lets you control anything, any way you want. Total flexibility means it can go as deep as you need it to. Lemur can control DJ software, live electronic music performance software, studio production software (DAWs), VJ software, visual synthesis software, stage lighting and more.” – liine.net
This entry was written by Oliver Chesler, posted on December 7, 2011 at 6:25 am, filed under iPad and tagged iPad, Lemur, Liine. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post. This post currently has 1 comments.
There’s a long thread on Gearslutz about a video interview that came with a recent issue of Future Music magazine. Apparently the interviewee John Dahlback gladly showed off his computer screen to the FM cameras. The only problem is he was using cracked software and people were able to take screenshots from the DVD like the one you see above. He tried to smooth things over by releasing the statement below. If artists or business people can’t make a living doing what they are doing they will stop producing art and products. No one’s moral compass is always on straight but let’s try to do the right thing. Plug-ins are inexpensive and take a decent amount of effort to get into your hands. I don’t use cracks and either should you.
“Hey guys. Fun topic! Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know that I DO have the license for LennarDigital Sylenth obviously. But just like everyone else (I suppose), I want to try vst plugins out before I buy them, in case it’s ****. And when it comes to Sylenth, I bought the license straight after. Reason why I didn’t uninstall the previous version for the registered one is because I don’t know if my saved presets would stay or be deleted as well. Anyway, good discussion. I can’t speak for Avicii, but everything I use has a license. To be a producer and expect people to pay for my music and NOT pay for my gear would obviously be ****ed up. Anyway, hope everyone liked the video. The track in the video will never be released due to lack of quality in my opinion. Just wanted to show people my working technique.” – John Dahlback
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