My experiments with the TouchOSC app for both the iPad and iPhone have brought me back around to Cycling74 MaxMSP 5. Of all of the methods of controlling Reason and Record via open sound control, routing OSC messages directly into the MaxMSP rewire object have proven to be most responsive. This process uses MaxMSP as a Rewire host application with Record or Reason launched in Rewire Slave Mode. OSC messages are then routed directly rather than being converted to MIDI messages which are routed through the system back into the applications.

The archive contains templates for both the iPad and iPhone which can be installed using the TouchOSC editor. These templates have a 16 button interface with a MPC pad style layout with a velocity slider. These are included in the following archive:

TouchOSCReason-RecordRewire.zip

The TouchOSC templates are designed to work specifically with either of the two Rewire host patches, TouchOSC-ReasonRWHost.mxf for Reason and TouchOSC-RecordRWHost.mxf for Record. These patches require the free MaxMSP runtime that you can download from from Cycling74’s Website: http://cycling74.com/downloads/

The patch is fairly self-explanatory: there are fields for setting the local host port (typically 8000 for TouchOSC), the iPhone/iPad IP address and Port (typ. 9000). These should be set according to your network configuration and TouchOSC settings. A basic implementation of bidirectional data is incorporated in the patch, so all settings are important.

A numeric field for entering the song tempo, and rudimentary transport controls for playback. The “zero” button sets the transport back to the start position. Finally a button labelled “Propellerhead Reason” (or Record), when pressed, will set the display on the iPad or iPhone.

The patch cannot be customized in the way you can with OSCulator. The 16 buttons and velocity slider generate note messages which are sent directly to the rewire object. It’s designed for speed, not for flexibility, so there are several drawbacks to this configuration. The note mappings cannot be modified. The patch controls the tempo and defeats the songs native tempo as well as any tempo automation. Tempo and port settings cannot be saved. Despite these issues, the response is very fast and more suitable for real time midi event input.

I’ve tested this on MacOS, but not the Windows runtime. I would appreciate any feedback from Windows users. If this runs as expected, then you should be able to bypass MIDI Yoke. Once I get everything worked out flawlessly, i’ll post the maxpat files.

Over the next few days, Propellerheads are unveiling the new features of Reason 5 and Record 1.5! The first announcement is an upgrade of the Dr.REX Loop Player. Now called the Dr. OctoRex which allows you to trigger and control multiple loops on the fly. The loop switching and mangling possibilities are amazing, and you can now reverse slices!

http://www.propellerheads.se/reason5/

Mac Reason Users: check out the system requirements. This update will be intel only….

Mac OS X
Intel Mac (multiple cores highly recommended)
1 GB RAM or more
DVD drive
2 GB free hard disk space (program may use up to 20 GB scratch disk space)
Mac OS X 10.4 or higher
Monitor with at least 1024×768 resolution
CoreAudio compliant audio interface or built-in audio hardware

Windows
Intel P4 / AMD Athlon XP at 2GHz or better (multiple cores highly recommended)
1 GB RAM or more
DVD drive
2 GB free hard disk space (program may use up to 20 GB scratch disk space)
Windows XP (SP3), Vista or Windows 7
Monitor with at least 1024×768 resolution
Audio Interface with ASIO driver

The files are the templates and session used in the video I posted a few weeks ago that demonstrates using the iPad and TouchOSC as a pad controller with Propellerhead Record. Naturally you will need an iPad as well as the TouchOSC app. Please note that this is not a small investment considering that the technology is still in an experimental stage. Your results can vary. The record session included in the archive is configured with remote override mappings, so no further programming is necessary.

Warning: The Delete Clip button is mapped to the “Delete/Backspace Key” and will perform a destructive process to the frontmost application!

The archive includes the ‘Record Pads.touchosc’ file which you can transfer to the iPad using the editor application from osculator.net

Also included is the ‘RecordRedrumBank.record’ session file with the various controls mapped to the osculator settings.

Download: iPadRecordRedrum.zip

I recommend reading the documentation on for TouchOSC and OSCulator to gain some familiarity with establishing a network connection between the devices.

Configuring Record MIDI Preferences

Before TouchOSC can communicate through OSCulator to Record, you must add a Keyboard Controller configuration in your preferences. This must be established manually. Like anything in Record, this is pretty easy. Click on the images for a full size view.

1. Launch OSCulator first, and then launch Record.

2. Open the Record Preferences, and select the “Keyboard and Control Surfaces” prefs.

3. Click on the “Add” button, and an editing pane will appear.

The Auto Detect Surfaces feature will not automatically find OSCulator.

4. Under the Manufacturer drop down menu, select “Other”.

5. Under the Model drop down menu, select “MIDI Control Keyboard”. This configuration sends MIDI notes as well as continuous controller (CC) messages, so the MIDI Control Keyboard is the appropriate choice. The MIDI Control Surface does not receive MIDI Notes, and the the MIDI Keyboard option does not receive CC messages.

6. On the MIDI Input menu, select “OSCulator Out.” If OSCulator does not appear in the menu, you might need to start over and make sure you first launch OSCulator before you launch Record. Otherwise, you can establish a network connection between TouchOSC and using the ‘redrum pads exp.oscd’ template, send MIDI messages to Record. Click on the “Find” button and OSCulator Out should appear.

7. Optionally you can name the Control Surface setting. This is recommended if you have multiple alternate controllers. Simply replace the text in the field. In this case I’ve typed in “iPad OSCulator”.

8. Click OK and the editing pane will close.

9. If you are uncertain about using multiple controllers in Reason or Record, I recommend that you make the iPad the master keyboard. Disable the other surfaces, and set the “iPad OSCulator” as your master keyboard.

10. Close the preferences and then proceed by opening the “RecordRedrumBank.record” session file. The control messages are pre-mapped in this session, so you will not need to program any override mappings.

Again, please be aware that the “Delete Clip” button on the TouchOSC interface is a keyboard mapping of the Delete/Backspace key. This will delete anything on the frontmost application. The idea behind this mapping is to deal with a real time deletion while recording a MIDI clip on a sequencer track/lane, so the sequencer lane is usually in focus before the delete clip button is pressed. If this proves to be a problem, simply disable (uncheck the box) the routing in the OSCulator mappings where it appears as:

/1/TNDelete Keycode Key 51

It’s amazing to see the software that started the revolution make a comeback in a slightly different format, the iPhone OS. So… I’m not exactly sure what to say about this. Playing with the ReBirth app for a little while has made me quite nostalgic and has brought back a lot memories. ReBirth and the Propellerheads have been such an important part of my life for over a decade; this website probably would not be here and I would probably be going down a different path in life. Ok, I shall stop before I get too sentimental. I’m not sure if ReBirth will have the same life changing effect on your life, but you can try for yourself!

ReBirth app on the iTunes Store

Groove3 just announced that their audio and production tutorials are now available for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Anyone who subscribes or purchases Music Production with Reason 4.0 can now stream the tutorials onto your iPad! It’s pretty cool.

Seeing some of the html5 implementation on the iPad has been inspiring, and it would be great to have text, video, and graphic content all delivered on a tablet device. The device could then launch a file server on the local network, and transfer example files and patches to a workstation. The potential for some very cool tutorials is quite amazing.

Here’s a YouTube video demonstrating the use of the iPad as an MPC style drum pad device / MIDI control surface. This configuration uses a customized TouchOSC drum pad interface, and the iPad pads triggers a Redrum Drum Machine in Record+Reason. Buttons are also assigned for transport control and effect sends. TouchOSC sends open sound control messages through the wifi network to the host machine. Also running on the host machine is OSCulator, which acts as the OSC server and converts the messages to MIDI. Thanks to KB for the KIKBAK’s RAW MPC@+4dBv Vol.2 samples used in the Redrum.

I’m toying with a full mixer control template using the TouchOSC editor. The picture shows a rough concept layout of the SSL EQ section. Tabs are set for the input, dynamics, fx sends, insert, fader/pan, and master section. Here’s another video which uses TouchOSC as fader bank to control the Record Main Mixer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWQO0CVsS5I

Preordering an iPad was a no brainer for me. I will admit that I had heard rumors about certain issues which made me a little nervous about being an early adopter, but the fanboy-slash-tech geek in me could not resist. I’ve had a few days to play with apple’s “magical” new device, and I will say that once it’s been customized, it is an incredible device.

First thing out of the box, I noticed that it operates much faster compared to the iPhone 3GS: navigation, launching apps and web browsing are blazing fast. The first app i downloaded was iBooks to see how the store and reader functioned. I tried reading in one of my favorite positions - laying on my back. The weight of the iPad isn’t bad, but holding on to the frame while fully reclined is difficult. In order to support the iPad, I have to hold my thumb over the touch screen which sends errant commands to flip or foldover the page in the application. Finally i discovered a way to position my thumb along the bottom and my index finger on the left edge. In any seated position, it works great, but laying back, it’s a two handed process. One nice feature is the position lock switch which keeps the display in either the portrait or landscape mode - this is needed on the iPhone.

It is indeed true that the published content is still limited, but this will change and I look forward to subscribing to some periodicals so that I don’t have to archive or dispose of old issues of magazines. I really like the BBC News App which has thoughtful navigation and quicktime implementation of the video. Along the same lines, Pandora has made great use of the increased screen area by displaying song and artist information for your stations.

One of the main reasons I wanted a portable reader was to have a way to carry around PDFs. Rather than store these files in emails, a couple of commercial apps are available. PDFReader HD works ok… So far it’s the only one that will open the Record Manual without a problem. Another one that I like is MobileStudio which operates as a little file system on the iPad and you can transfer any type of document via an FTP client. The transfer speeds into Mobile Studio are blazing fast, and some transfers cruised as high as 3,000 kbps. However, MobileStudio has problems opening extremely large PDF files like the Record manual.

I also installed the iWork applications to see if the device could be used in some productive fashion. I do find the abbreviated keyboard annoying. Even after a few days it’s still hard for me to find any comfort touch typing on the panel. They keys are about the same size and spacing as a normal keyboard, but the right hand punctuation keys are missing, and the [return] button is placed where the [;] key normally sits. Also, I find it difficult not to rest my fingers on the keyboard, so I’ve resigned to the tradition hunt ‘n peckr method. The external keyboard option is something to consider.

The other day, I was out and did not have internet access on the iPad, and started to realize that the device is certainly lacks without a highspeed wifi connection. I would say that it’s half useless without some kind of network connection. If you have a lot of apps, books, music, and video loaded then it’s a fairly complete system.

So as far as music application go, I think we all know how powerful this device will be. I’ve done some early tests with TouchOSC as MIDI control surface and have been extremely surprised by the responsiveness over a wifi network. A couple of fun apps that have yet to be ported to the iPad format are technoBox and Jasuto. You can zoom in on iPhone/iPod Touch apps and take advantage of the increased screen real estate, but the graphics are aliased. However, find that even with the low res graphics, the usability of these music apps is greatly increased with the speed and larger interface - especially for those of us who have fat fingers

Is the iPad worth it? If iPhone Safari had flash it would definitely be worth it to everyone because watching video is really great on the iPad. It’s unfortunate that we can’t log into hulu and catch up on some tv shows. As a stand alone version, the iPad is more of an entertainment unit rather than a productivity device, so you will have to shell out some money for apps and books to make it really appealing. For those of us who are seeking some application for the device other than surfing and emailing, the touch screen technology is certainly worth the price of admission. I’m 93.14159% sure that I will upgrade to the 3G iPad, because the experience is much better with some kind of connectivity.

I haven’t sorted out the format for the clinic, so I’ll play it by ear for part of it. Beat Making? Synth Programming? CV/Gating? REXting? High Level Tweakiness? I’ll also drop in my presentation on the signal path through Record.

For more details, please visit Easy Music Center’s Website

Propellerhead Reason + Record Clinic
Thursday, April 1, 2010. 4:30pm
Easy Music Center
1314 South King Street
Honolulu, HI 96814
808-591-0999

CycleOn is a real-time playback system for ReCycle REX loops. This combinator based instrument patch is designed to create live performance and DJ Style effects using Propellerhead Software Record + Reason 4.0 (both applications are required).

Many thanks to my friends who contributed to this package. The logo and graphics have been created by the team at Bitplant, and the loop library includes content from Loopmasters, GW Childs, Goh Nakamura, and drummer, Tim Bulkley.

The main features of CycleOn include Tempo Synchronized Loop Playback; crossfading between two loops; auto-synchronized start and stop; loop start re-triggering effects; delay based audio juggling; a dual stage beat repeater effect; and one-click effect initiator buttons. The controls are programmed for use in a live situation, and when used in conjunction with a control surface, CycleOn patches form the foundation of a compelling performance piece.

YouTube Video Demonstration

Control Overview

The CycleOn combinator is a formatted around the same general controls, which are described in detail below:

Button 1 - Loop On: When the Record transport is playing, this button enables and disables loop playback. When the button is enabled, the loop will start at the beginning of the next measure. When the button is disabled, the loop will stop at the end of the current measure.

Button 2 - Delay/Juggle: For patches designated as “delay,” this button switches a fixed delay in and out of the circuit. The delay can be toggled on and off quickly to generate beat shifting effects. With the “Juggle” assignment, the button is a momentary control that initiates the delay for a set period. One-Click effect juggling initiates regardless of the button on/off state.

Button 3 - x Step Repeat: This is a One-Click effect initiator, which enables the beat repeat for a defined period. It does not matter if the button is on or off, the effect will be initiated once it has been clicked. Most of the patches are programmed for a 4 Step Repeat effect which is enabled precisely at a quarter note division.

Button 4 - MS - Steps: This controls the beat repeater resolution. With “BR5” patches, this button switches between two sets of delays - one delay pair is set to millisecond mode and the other pair is set to step mode. “BR4” patches will switch the unit mode on a single delay pair.

Rotary 1 - Fader/Fader-Morph: Level control that crossfades between audio signals from the two loop sources. When designated with the label “Fader-Morph”, the rotary controls a pitch modulation between the two REX loops which adds the illusion of the loop speed increasing or decreasing.

Rotary 2 - Trigger Pattern: A selector control that changes the re-trigger pattern driver. Zero setting is the standard single trigger position. The patches have 9 different patterns which increase in complexity as the selector value increases.

Rotary 3 - Beat Repeat: This control can be used to manually fade in a beat repeat effect. The best result is achieved by quickly raising the value from 0 to 127. This control is modulated by the momentary button matrix assigned to Button 3: Step Repeat.

Rotary 4 - Repeat Interval: Controls the duration of the Beat Repeater segment depending on the state of Button 4 MS - Steps. In MS mode the Beat Repeater time is a value between 20 ms and 256 ms (range varies). In “Steps” mode, the beat repeater is synchronized to the tempo and ranges from 1 to 4 steps. One step is a 1/16th note.

Pitch Bend: Pitch Wheel modulation of the Dr. REX Loop players.

Mod Wheel: Alternative control for the crossfader, except with Filter patches.

Keyboard: Notes in the Range of C-2 to C0 transpose the Dr.REX loop players.

CycleOn Templates

Included in the Refill package are templates for customizing your own CycleOn patches. The documentation details the differences between each of the templates and includes some tips and tricks for programming. These are quite easy to use. All that is necessary is to open the combi patch and load Recycle loops into each of the REX Loop players.

There is also a CycleOn Audio Track combinator which is configured to process two external stereo audio sources like Record Audio Tracks. This allows you to apply synchronized muting, juggling and beat repeat effects to recorded or even live audio tracks.

Rotary CV System combinators are also located in the CycleOn Templates folder. These are CV generator patches which can be used as general CV unipolar sources which can be used to route a single rotary control to multiple destinations. For example, one rotary control can be used to modulate the crossfader of multiple CycleOn patches. An example Record Session file and documentation are provided in the package.

Download

The Peff 035 - CycleOn Combinator Refill is available for free to all Propellerhead Record+Reason users through the Propellerhead Software website.

CycleOn Documentation Download

CycleOn for Reason

The Peff 035x - CycleOn Combinator for Reason Refill is a smaller version with fewer loops and presets. Please note that the Bitplant backdrop graphic does not work perfectly in Reason because of the text rendering contrast. Also, the patches use several instances of Thor which may tax an older PowerPC system. CycleOn works fine on a dual-core intel, but may not work on a G4 or G5. If you are interested in acquiring a license (single-user, multi-user, or developer distribution license) for the CycleOn for Reason refill, please see this page.

I’ll probably be down in the lower haight most of the day, and there’s no charge!

Robotspeak SF Storefront
589 1/2 haight st. @ steiner
San Francisco, CA 94117
ph 415.554.1977

Last year, I posted a few items on using Reason CV/Gates to control analog synths through a MOTU audio interface, and recently, I’ve received an unusual amount of email inquiring about the concept of controlling analog synths via Record. I figured it’s about time that I should post this, a Record session file with a MIDI to CV/Gate/Mod converter that works ‘volta’-style to control a minimoog voyager. This patch is calibrated to work with a MOTU 896HD firewire interface and will probably not be tuned with anything else. To use this session you need Record + Reason 4, a MOTU 896HD, a Minimoog Voyager, and the proper cables. Surprisingly I’m not alone with this setup!

The connections between the 896HD and the Minimoog voyager are made using XLR to TRS cables with the Ring contact lifted and with XLR pin 3 shorted to ground. XLR Pin 2 corresponds to the TRS jack’s tip contact. Three cables are used. One cable connects from an audio channel to the Minimoog gate trigger input. One connects to the pitch modulation input, and the third connects into the filter modulation input. This configuration has not been tested with a VX-352 CV Expander or the rack mount voyager.

Three audio outputs from the Thor embedded in the Combinator are the source of the control voltage signals which are then routed to the MOTU audio interface. Audio Output 1 is the Pitch CV; Audio Output 3 is the Filter Mod CV; and Audio Output 4 is the Gate CV. Three spiders situated between the combinator and the Record Hardware device are used as open patch points. This is done as a safety precaution (for those who really shouldn’t open the file) so you will need to manually make connections between the Spider Audio Merger outputs and the Spider Audio Merger inputs. Just draw a jumper cable between the Merge Output (L) and the Split Input A (L) on each of the 3 devices, labelled Pitch CV, Filter CV, and Gate CV

On the Minimoog Voyager, switch the Envelope mode to ON/External. Also, press Middle C to set the base pitch. The incoming CV value merges with the instrument keyboard value, so press middle C to inhibit any transposition.

Tuning is tricky because it involves finding both the proper intervals as well as the correct pitch. This requires some tweaking to get it right. First open up the combinator patch and access the Thor Programming matrix. On a keyboard controller, play octave intervals into the combinator, and adjust the MOD Destination Amount settings on bus 1 and bus 2 until the intervals sound like full octaves. For this patch, Mod Dest Amt 1 is 99 and Mod Dest Amt 2 is 33. This seems (for my setup) to yield very tight octave tuning over 5 octaves.

You can route audio from the minimoog voyager back into a Record Audio Track, and monitor the pitch using the input channel tuner. You might run into a problem of the track focus closing the tuner when you switch the sequencer track. To keep the tuner active, arm the audio track for recording, and then set the focus on the MIDI track which should also be armed for sequencing.

Watch the tuner and start dialing in the exact pitch. Once the octave interval tuning is set or even close, use the Thor Rotary 1 to introduce a gross tuning offset. As the pitch gets close, use the Mod Dest Amt 4 parameter to control a fine tuning. You can also use the minimoog voyager fine tune control. Again use octave intervals on C, E, G, B to make sure the interval scaling is correct, then go back and make fine tuning adjustments on the Mod Dest Amt 4 parameter.

Once the key scaling is set and the the tuning aligned, then you can sequence the minimoog voyager as you would any of the Reason synthesizers. You can also connect a Matrix Pattern Sequencer or RPG-8 Arpeggiator to the Combi patch and drive the synth as you would one of Reason’s virtual instruments. After the arrangement is complete, you can then Record the minimoog voyager track in Record.

Download Peff-Record_to_MMVoyager.record.zip

The base development of the CycleOn combinator is pretty much finished. Since this is simply a single combinator that relies on REX loops, I’ve been working on a small library to complement the patches. After digging through some old files, I stumbled across some test session files from the time I tracked Goh Nakamura’s Ulysses album. Tim Bulkley had managed to borrow an amazing vintage Gretsch kit, and we tracked a few minutes of him jamming.

I’ve imported the audio tracks into Record, and started mixing them for use as REX loops in the CycleOn refill. I’ve decided to share a small portion of the MP3 above in a Record Session. You can get an idea of how we tried to get a certain feel by only using a a kick drum mic, a mono overhead and some room mics.

Download TimBulkleyWarmupHangar.record.zip

Record Tip: In the Main Mixer, you will see two overhead tracks, [AKG D-19 R47], [AKG D-19 R47 Copy]. The ‘Copy’ track is just a duplicate of the original track, however the mixer settings are different. The filters are tuned to isolate the snare drum which then ‘keys’ the noise gate so that mainly snare hits pass through, and this reinforces the snare in the mix.

Because the final audio is intended for loops, I’ve pushed the bass a little to beef things up.

Here’s a preview of the CycleOn combinator i’m working on. This is basically a loop player system that also includes several different effects and control systems into one patch, and the functionality makes it possible to create live mixing effects and tempo synchronized changes in real time. When paired with a control surface, you can create some compelling live sets. I’ve actually made similar systems in the past, including patches like REXSelector in the factory soundbank, but CycleOn is really a step ahead thanks to the features of Thor and the multiprocessor support of Propellerhead Software Record.

This patch works only with Record+Reason. I honestly believe that working in Record is far superior than working in Reason alone - even as a rewire slave. Again, if you want to try this out using Reason 3 or Reason 4, examples can be found in the factory soundbank!

I’ve set a target Release date: 2010.3.03

Ok, now you can go back and read about the iPad

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Peff/6585872380

I had to leave Anaheim last night and will miss the show today, but I’ll be back down at the convention on Saturday and Sunday.