wire to the ear

Musikmesse is one of the best music gear trade shows. It takes place in Frankfurt Germany this week. There are many websites covering Musikmesse down to the very last detail. I’d like to only list here what I personally think are the most interesting new products. So without further ado here is Wire to the Ear’s MusikMesse 2008 hot picks:

Korg DS-10. This is a Korg MS-10 synthesizer for the Nintendo DS! This is a fully sanctioned product from Korg itself. You use the DS’s touch screens to control parameters. There is a sequencer and you can sync several units together via WiFi. I am really looking forward to getting this and using it live! link

Melodyne Direct Note Access. This has to be on top of the list because it’s a revolution in the audio tech world. This fall when the next version of Melodyne is released you will be able to edit individual notes inside polyphonic sounds! There is no doubt about it, what Celemony has done is amazing. To grasp this concept head over to Celemony and watch the videos on their site. link

MFB Synth 3. Manfred Fricke from Berlin (MFB… get it?) has a new synth ready for 2008. I really like the MFB stuff because it’s affordable and sounds good. These units are a lot smaller than you think. You could throw everything MFB makes into a backpack easy and head to a gig. The new Synth 3 will make sound without you patching any cables into it. But of course the fun starts with wires! 3VCOs, full analog, 37 patch points, midi and CV for only 580 euros! link

Rob Papen RG. Dutch sound designer turned software developer Rob Papen makes really useful synths. I find myself turned to Blue quite often. His new release looks interesting and my guess is it will find it’s home in an unintended market. What do I mean? Well it’s a virtual rhythm guitar plug-in matched with Rob’s synth engine and sequencers. So will rock n rollers be using it? I doubt it, my guess is whatever sounds this thing churns out will be in dance clubs by October. link

Solid State Logic Matrix Superanalogue Mixer. When you think of 16 Channel mixers of the 8-bus type the you think of Mackie or Soundcraft maybe? Imagine a small sized console from SSL? Each channel strip would represent a boutique quality strip. You know the class-A vintage looking things you lust over? Now imagine that small SSL with a digital output for about $25k. Come on your car costs more than that right? This is the kind of gear monthly payments were made for. link

The Nord Lead Anniversary Model Ltd. Edition. The Nordlead really made me believe that software could emulate hardware in a convincing way. To top it off the Nordlead was built like a tank and had a wicked cool stone mod wheel and wood pitch bender. There’s nothing new feature wise on the Anniversary Model. It is essentially a Nordlead 2x but those reverse keys are pretty. There will be only 299 of these so run to Sweden now and get yours before it’s to late. link

OrangeVocoder 10th Anniversary. What? Anniversary edition software? Sure why not. I must have used Prosoniq’s vocoder on twenty songs or more over the years. The new version finally brings us an Audio Units, new sound modes, voiced/unvoiced detection linked with a noise synthesizer, a filterbank freeze option and a HF passthru mode. link

So what are your Musikmesse picks? Anything hot you think I missed? The show’s not over so by Monday I think I will update this post a little.

If your a musician of any type you should already own Melodyne and you should watch the video above. Being announced at Musikmesse this week Celemony presents “Direct Note Access“. The new feature which will be added to all versions of Melodyne allows you to now pick out and move notes inside chords!

• Access individual notes in chords and polyphonic audio: see them, grab them, edit, mute, stretch.
• Tonescale feature allows you to change the scale of chords by clicking in a palette of choices.
• Play polyphonic chords using a midi keyboard in real time.
• Imagine tuning a guitar after it was recorded!
• Your sample library now has new abilities. Any polyphonic sample can now be reached into and altered!

This new feature will start to show up in versions of Melodyne starting in the fall. I’m personally excited by this new feature. I can also now imagine a few more years down the road being able to load up a fully completed stereo song and reaching into it and changing notes of individual sounds.

Die Krupps are a pioneering synthesizer/EBM band from Germany. In 1982 they released what I think is a great album “Volle Kraft Voraus!“. The title translates somewhat into “Advance at full Power!”. About two months ago founding memeber Jürgen Engler sent me an email. He told me they were going to release “Volle Kraft Voraus!” with all new remixes and asked me if I would be interested in doing one. There was one song on the album that I really wanted to remix titled “Todd & Tuefel” and after a few emails back and forth we agreed that would be my choice.

The song has a nice electro style beat with a unique pattern, great verse chorus vocals and a superb bassline driving everything. I wanted to use the same notes as in the original bassline but with new synth sounds. After about an hour of trying to figure out the notes I realized this was going to be tricky. The original bassline was a Yamaha CS15 analog synth through a real analog sequencer. According to Jürgen:

The 16 step sequencer was the most outrageous thing, though… it had the seize of a cupboard! The guy who ran the studio had built it himself… it had a patchboard, kind of like a telephone switchboard… we couldn´t get sequencers in Germany at the time, so that was the only way to record our music.

This explained to me why the bassline sequence was so special. There were some subtle micro-tunings happening that I was unable to copy by ear using standard keyboard keys. So what do to? I realized I needed to take the solo bassline loop and run it through pitch to midi software. Luckily I own Celemony’s amazing Melodyne software and it has Read “Use Melodyne to extract the notes of synth lines.”