Hands on/Hands off

One nice thing about being a hobbyist with music creation is that your productivity levels aren't that constrained. Common wisdom states that you should take the time to master a few instruments and focus your time and effort there. When trying to make a living or meet deadlines, good advice!

Since I am doing neither musically, safely ignored! I can instead keep my musical A.D.D. and flit from tool to tool or technique to technique. My most recent set of conflicting interests involve generative music and performance.

On the generative side, I've been writing about Mixtikl and Noatikl which are basically AI engines for music creation. I've been playing with these tools to create algorithmically produced music that sounds "human-like". I intend to do much more here in creating classical and/or jazz pieces that follow an evolving ruleset.

On the other hand, I have also been playing with my new EWI-USB MIDI wind instrument. This is a MIDI device that uses breath and fingerings to produce music. When I first got interested in electronic music, it was the Wave-table synthesis of the Creative Labs AWE-32 (see earlier blogpost) that managed to make some instruments sound almost real. At least on the computer of the mid-90s, they were recognizable if not expressive. Real sounding instruments with MIDI or electronic keyboards has remained somewhat elusive.

This is getting closer and closer to attainable though as technology continues to evolve. With the EWI-USB, there are two types of sound generators I've been using. The more traditional approach is with high quality samples. If you have a multi-sampling instrument such as Logic's ESX24, you can get "real sounding" sounds if you meticulously associate breath control (CC #2 in MIDI speak) with the appropriate amplifiers, envelopes and filters. More interesting is the approach taken by Wollander in their WIVI band offering (a light version of their WIVI orchestra). These sounds are software-modeled which is a fancy term for additive synthesis.

Many sine waves are combined algorithmically to simulate the sonic frequencies emitted by actual analog instruments. I find the results suprisingly good. This sort of instrument also reacts more to the performer. If you are using high quality samples, you tend to sound like the performer who recorded them. The software method, however, reacts to your own nuances of play and breathtone which makes the performance more personal.

I also have used the EWI-USB in non-traditional ways to control analog synthesizers with breath control. In the piece below, I have the WIVI trumpet along with the Arturia MiniMoog. Both are played on the EWI. I also include an electric piano and bass performed on the more traditional keyboard.




Its an early effort for me but I think it has promise. I find the breath control brings much more expressive even to electronic instruments and will be using this quite  a bit more.

In my arsenal for breath-controlled instruments now, I have:

• Garritan's Aria that came with the EWI - mediocre samples but they can be layered up into groups
• Wivi Band - The best quality and realistic sounding instruments I have for the EWI
• Korg M1 patches from Patchmanmusic.com - patches for the Korg legacy synth optimized for EWI
• Moog Modular/MiniMoog - Its easy to create my own patches for this using breath control
• Synth1 - Likewise, I have a set of patches to react to CC #2 breath control
• Madrona Aalto synth - Another soft synth that lets you patch breath control to any filter or effect you wish.

For many of my single voice sounds in the future, I will probably make heavy use of the EWI-USB. 

After several months with my new Akai EWI-USB MIDI wind instrument, I finally got a piece out. I am nowhere near mastering this beast yet, but here is my first effort:



The EWI-USB is a great addition to my gear in that it merges my ancient wind instrument memories (trumpet) with my electronic MIDI studio setup. I am pushing 50 and don't really have the chops anymore to push out trumpet pieces. The EWI lets me use breath control and wind/fingerings to perform any and all software instruments that I have in my collection - literally 100s.

The only catch is that you have to configure the synths or software to respond to breath control (MIDI CC#2) and/or to aftertouch. The device itself, as I have already blogged is round $240 street price but as always, that is sort of the tip of the iceberg.

The EWI comes with a set of Garriton samples that are mediocre at best and allow you to play samples that to paraphrase Douglas Adams, sound almost, but not entirely unlike the real instruments they portray.

After mucking for awhile with the EWI, I decided that I needed a better trumpet sound and went with Wollander's WIVI band (as I also blogged earlier). This product is a set of software-modeled instruments which is a fancy way of saying, it sounds REAL and doesn't use samples! A very difficult feat!

The piece above, however, is using 1980s sample technology in the Korg M1 legacy synth. In this piece I am using Korg patches that have been created specifically for wind instruments by Patchman Music. These are modifications that use aftertouch (since the Korg does not directly use breath control) to affect the volume and timbre of the sounds. The sounds aren't entirely real, but they do blend together well and support breath control extremely well.

This is where the EWI leads to more purchases. The patches for the M1 were another investment but well worthwhile. I now have several very interesting ways to use the wind controller:

• Wivi Band - this gives me very realistic sounding trumpets, trombones, tenor saxes, oboes, tubas etc.
• My old ESX24 sampler in Logic - if you set up the CC#2 (breath control) in the modulation matrix to control relative volume, sample selection and cutoff, you can make sampled instruments in Logic 9 sound very realistic.
• Aalto synth - this is a Buchla inspired synth that you can "wire up" to use breath control which can be routed to anything. Sounds "synthy" but its great to use with the EWI.
• Synth1 - The ubiquitous freeware synth has some nice patches set up for breath control as well.

The EWI so far is fantastic. I can play trumpet parts once again as well as sax or any other wind based interments and it also adds expressive possibilities to my software synths that aren't possible with just a keyboard.

Is that art???

Every once in awhile, I find myself in a classical mood and one thing I notice is that I start thinking of the composer I want to listen to. This is very different than anything with jazz or popular music. With minor exceptions, classical music is always associated with its composer rather than the performer. Rarely am I thinking, I want to hear the Philadelphia symphony or London philharmonic - I'm thinking Mozart or Bach.

There are a few exceptions such as a particular singer or performer such as Yo yo Ma or other virtuoso, but usually its much more about the composition than the artist's interpretation. When it comes to other forms of music, it is mostly about the performer rather than the song writer. Interesting stuff. Few, however would question the artistry of a great composer nor of a performer.

So, with electronic music... There are many ways to create compositions. There are keyboard based synths that are "played". There are trackers or sequencers that can be edited manually and there are other ways to create musical compositions. Usually, the process involves playing midi type controllers into a DAW of some sort that records the events in individual tracks for more editing.

In the case of trackers (Sunvox, iSequence, Renoise etc), the events can also be manually entered via QUERTY keyboards or pecked out a note at a time with a midi keyboard. So, is this still art if it is more an engineering process rather than performing? I think most would argue yes since it is a bit more in the vein of composing - not to compare my electronic "noise" directly with Beethoven, but you get the point.

Taken one step further, there is generative music. This style of composition abstracts the process one step further and has the composer giving various voices and parts a set of musical "rules" to follow in a piece. Rather than banging in exact notes and meters, the composer creates a set of rules and guidelines to put into an algorithm that in turn generates the sounds. This is analogous to a jazz musician sketching  out a piece, telling the musicians which keys to noodle around in and then letting them improvise.

I've written before a bit about Intermorphic's Mixtikl program and recently I've purchased the "big brother" version called Noatikl. I haven't found any generative music software quite so deep or approachable, though to be sure, there is a steep learning curve!

Mixtikl was the first product I used - initially on the iPad but I also bought the desktop version. Mixtikl emphasizes the "mixing" process and allows you to combine standard waves or loops along with generative elements that evolve their sounds according to the rules provides. There are many tiklpaks available with pre-built generative (and non-generative) sounds but you can also create your own.

The internal sounds generated by Mixtikl use a built-in modular synth called Partikl which is very powerful though somewhat thin sounding. I have made many of my pieces on SoundCloud with pieces of mixtikl or even entirely in mixtikl. The limiting factor, in my opinion, is that the internal synth isn't all that rich sounding. The features are great, but the sounds themselves and filters, are sort of meh - not surprising considering that they have to run on less powerful CPUS.

Enter Noatikl - This product can also create sounds and run them through the built-in Partikl synth. More impressive though, you can just pump out MIDI on channels and put the MIDI stream directly into your DAW and use any synth or software instrument you have! When paired with Logic 9, this allows me to generate music in any instrument I have on my desktop (I have hundreds if not more!).

The creative process here starts with a Logic 9 template with 16 tracks - one for each MIDI channel. Using Noatikl, you can wire any of its voices to MIDI channels - even having multiple voices per channel if you want polyphony. Within the Noatikl environment, I set up the "rules" for the piece including:

• What key and scale type should the piece play in
• For each voice - should it create single notes or chords?
• For the chords - should it use keyed harmonies or offsets to pitches?
• For rhythmic voices - fast, moderate or slow - dotted notes or only regular notes - what percentage/probability for each note duration?
• For patterns - what rhythms should be used? What note velocities or pitches - what is the probability of each one

The list goes on from there. You can set rules for MIDI CC events and almost anything you can think of. Noatikl and Mixtikl are basically artificial intelligence agents for creating sounds. 

Once the rules are in place, I hit play in my Logic DAW and listen to the tracks. When I find a combination that works, hit record and all of those MIDI events are recorded in Logic 9. At this point, I disconnect the piece from Noatikl and pick up work in the DAW. I might want to remix, add effects or mute/unmute certain sections. 

Once completed, you end up with a generated piece that you can then mix/master or mangle as you see fit. This too is only the surface of these powerful programs. They also offer a scripting language, can act as "hyperinstruments" (they listen to what you play into them and then harmonize with what you are doing) etc. I will write more as I learn more but I am using Noatikl and Mixtikl extensively in my modest works.

This MIDI controller blows!

I've added many new tools to both my iPad and my desktop setup recently. The most interesting addition is the Akai EWI-USB Wind MIDI instrument. This is the coolest thing I've added to my gear setup in a long time.

In my more "analog" days growing up I played trumpet, so this really brings more into my music making. I can now use my breath to bend or adjust volume in anything I'm playing. There are two versions of the Akai EWI - the 4000S and the USB version. I opted for the cheaper (naturally!) at around $230 shipped. The "big brother" version contains a full synthesizer in the device itself whereas the USB version has to be plugged into a computer both for power and to use a soft synth. The cool part is that ANY soft synth or sample library can be used.

I can now play sax, trumpet, strings or any synth using breath controls which come in as MIDI CC#2 events. Any synth that can react to this can be set up to do almost anything with the breath. The Akai also provides a nice vibrato if you bite down on the mouthpiece lightly.

There is a learning curve somewhat larger than some expect so you can find many of these on Ebay! The bad news is that they seem to go for very close to the "new" price so I just ordered a new one. The samples that come with the AKAI are sort of "meh", but they are sufficient to get you started at least for learning the tool and you can layer the Garritan samples that come with it to get decent (if not realistic) sounds.

After playing with these for awhile I did indulge myself and bought the WIVI band modeled instruments (another $112 unfortunately). The instruments are modeled using additive synthesis and sound fantastic! Trumpets sound suspiciously like trumpets for a change with any combination of mutes available.

I've also found out how to map the CC#2 to the Logic synths including their sampler so even with the Logic sampled instruments, I can make them sound credible.

Interestingly enough, for sax sounds I still tend to prefer my Korg M1 legacy edition even though it is 80s tech. They sound amazing even after all these years.

The AKIA USB offers several fingering methods and thankfully, one is based on trumpet or brass fingerings so I don't have to learn sax fingerings or deal with all those keys! The EVI method uses brass fingerings with the right hand and the left hand helps with 1/2 octave transitions (lifting the index finger between G and A flat does it). There are rollers that the left thumb rolls over to change octaves.

All in all this takes some getting used to, but it is familiar. One odd thing is that for all octaves, you have to use a trumpet "lower octave" fingering which is a little unnatural. C# is 123 and D is 13 always regardless of octave.

I am still in "practice mode". I've made a few simple walking baseline and drum loops that I practice soloing to. I hope to have something created with this in a few weeks. I like this much more than noodling on my keyboard!

Trackers again

I definitely take an engineering approach to making music in my compositions. I am usually working through patterns, tweaking sounds, oscillators and mucking with software so I find the numerical approach to music making appealing. Enter the old school trackers.

AHX Tracker on Amiga

Tracker music software uses the 'other' keyboard when creating music. Using a vertically scrolling window of notes and hex numbers instead of the more traditional piano roll makes the process much more scientific. The trackers first appeared in early Commodore computers and took advantage of samples and the limited CPUs and user interfaces of that time. Since trackers make very good use of limited CPUs, the iPad is a good candidate for theses types of DAWs despite the limited keyboard.

My first exposure to trackers was the excellent Sunvox app on the iPad which also has many other versions for almost any computer or cell phone out there. I downloaded the free version for my iMac as well and use that for final mix down and mastering.

I think this gave me a bit of a skewed view on trackers since SunVox is in many ways unique among trackers. Rather than relying primarily (or solely) on samples, SunVox includes a very flexible and powerful modular synthesizer. It is optimized for light CPU usage so some of the sounds reflect that but you have an extremely rich set of building blocks to craft your own sounds with it.

I was simultaneously enamored of the concept and confused by the interface which is odd - typical of cross-platform tools. While I tried to figure SunVox out, I took a look at another option on the iPad called iSequence by BeepStreet.

BeepStreet took the traditional tracker concepts and built an interface ideal for touch screens and the iPad in particular. The iSequence "tracking" occurs atypically left to right on the iPad which better suits the landscape screen. Also, more like older trackers, iSequence depends on samples and offers hundreds free and still more available as in app purchases - most at $2 per pack - pretty reasonable overall. The program also lets you bring in your own loops and samples, so it is very flexible.

At the same time, BeepStreet has some limitations which make it run well on iOS CPUs. There are only 8 tracks available. Not only that, but each voice takes one track - for example a chord takes 3 tracks. There are some nice ways around this such as bouncing groups of tracks to loops, using chorded samples or drum loops, but it does require you to keep things sort of simple. Added to the old school tracker interface is a fairly modern effects processing chain which lets you route any tracks through whatever effects bus you want. Automation is done by recording live button movements rather than banging in and interpolating hex codes. All in all, iSequence is a hybrid - part tracker and part modern and I think it is probably the best tracker option in terms of user interface on the iPad.

I eventually gave SunVox more of a try and created a few nice tracks with it. In terms of sheer power, it has it and seems to be updating new features every month. I think this is the most fun tracker I own. While it is not a perfect fit on the iPad interface, it is very nice to be able to move my work back and forth between the iPad and iMac. This is the only tool I own that makes that so simple to do. Garageband is a one way trip "up" and NanoStudio is a bit flaky with their desktop versions.



I have gotten so used to the trackers on the iPad that I am evaluating another sort of "hybrid" tracker that is extremely powerful on the desktop called Renoise. Renoise is much closer to the traditional trackers in its look and feel but also allows for effects processing and supports VSTs and AU plugins - so while it also uses samples quite a bit, there is a great way to incorporate soft synths in it. Renoise is not free but is reasonable for a desktop DAW at $78. I am still on the test drive version but may spring for it at some point. Might be a great addition when I don't want to use Logic 9.

It Figures

Its been awhile since I posted. I've been working with a few tools including iSequence HD with this tune:



I am enjoying both Sunvox and iSequence tracker interfaces. It sort of fits my lack of keyboarding talent! I can plug notes into time and focus on the construction of the piece rather than on the performance. The two apps share the tracker style interface but are under the hood, very different.

Sunvox is actually a modular synthesizer that you can then control via a tracker interface. ISequence is more iPad like with a better interface but it works solely off samples - either from their rich library or samples that you create yourself. Both are very cool programs and I will be using them extensively in the future.

But the coolest and maybe most controversial tool out recently is Propellerhead's Figure. This tool was very highly hyped and was touted as being "Reason" for iOS. The delivered application is far from that, but at all of one dollar, its a no-brainer to add to your collection.

Some Propellerhead history with iOS

In the early dark days of iOS, Propellerhead saw an opportunity to resurrect their old ReBirth as an iOS application. Since iOS was new to them, they subcontracted a company (Retronyms), to do the programming and they delivered ReBirth for the iPhone/iPod. This was a great proof of concept, but on such a small screen, rather difficult to use. The follow-up for the iPad, however, in my opinion was a home run. On the larger screen, being able to twiddle all the 303, 808 and 909 knobs with a touch interface was better than their circa-2000 PC/Mac app ever was. 

As good as ReBirth was/is, everyone was clamoring for "Reason" for iOS and expecting Figure to be just that. Good news and bad news - Figure does use some of the Reason sounds and has an innovative interface. Bad news - it only records 2 bars and there is no way internally to save them (workaround below). 

If you really want "iOS Reason", there is one alternative. Remember Retronyms? Well, they went on to create their own program, Tabletop that is similar in many ways to Reason though I think the sound quality is way behind. I have finally gotten around to using Tabletop on the new iPad and with sufficient CPU power (beyond the iPad 1), it really is pretty cool. Every knob tweak or movement is recordable and you can make some wild sounds with all of its instruments and effects. They do charge for every add-on as in-app purchases, so the price can get a bit high but overall I like it.

Back to Figure

Since figure does not allow for any kind of native recording, it is often written off as a toy. I think it will evolve and that future releases will make recording much easier. 

In the meantime, there are some cumbersome ways to record:

1. Use the headphone jack out and into your computer. This usually adds some noise so if you record into your DAW, you should use low levels and maybe a de-esser or noise gate to remove the artifacts. Nonetheless this is easy and it works with no latency.
2. Use a dock such as the Alesis. I don't have one, but if you have the hardware, you can dock an iPad and go through better cabling again with little or no latency.
3. Software solution - the one I use!
1. I happen to have Airfoil from Rogue Amoeba that allows my Mac to act as an "Airplay" device much like the Apple TV. With this software I can play back my Figure or any other sound and route the digital, lossless audio to the computer.
2. I also have Audio Hijack Pro from Rogue Amoeba which will "capture" audio from any device on the computer and save it as AIFF, WAV, MP3 or whatever. Using this to "audio capture" the Airfoil speakers allows me to record anything digitally that I play on my iPad or iPod.

The downside of the software approach is cost (both are commercial products) and latency. The cost for me is not an issue since I already had the tools - they do much much more than simply record iOS music so they are worth investigating. The latency on the wireless playback is anywhere from 1 second to 1.5 seconds. Not an issue to play back recorded items but if you want to record a performance on the iPad, this doesn't work.

At any rate, Figure is innovative enough that I am going to keep using it and will probably include snippets of its sounds in future compositions. 

New iPad impressions (musical)

I usually skip a generation with hardware and the iPad was no exception. I limped my original iPad 1 along all during the iPad 2 years and finally bought a replacement the iPad (sort of 3). My biggest use for the iPad is music making so the incredible retina screen is 2nd on my list of features. The biggest bump for me musically was the processor speed. I believe this is near the same speed as the iPad 2 but from the iPad 1, the change is very welcome.

Garageband is now a pleasure to use since it isn't constantly mixing down the tracks to conserve memory. I've also finally rediscovered Retronyms Tabletop which really didn't run at all well on the original iPad. Tabletop is pretty much a Reason knock-off for the iPad and is a very good "virtual studio" approach although it does nickel and dime you to death with in app purchases.

Something about it must be appealing because I keep trying it out. I'll probably get a song out of it shortly and I do love that every knob and button can be recorded.

Another recent accomplishment, I finally put out a small piece with Sunvox. This is an old-school tracker with very odd user interface but I am impressed by how powerful it is. If you have the patience, you can pull off almost anything with this tool. It includes a very modular synthesizer and runs on every platform imaginable. Its easy to move your work from device to device. I must say that the iPad interface is a bit cumbersome - it was sort of made for either stylus or mouse use but it does work.

Here's my recent effort with it:



My other favorites also work more or less unchanged with the new iPad. I've been working quite a bit with Garageband now that it supports note editing and is almost a complete DAW!