Saturday night wasn’t too crazy, but i’m feeling the effects of old age combined with loud music, disrespectful punks, and junk food. Even with the triple shot espresso beverage my brain isn’t quite working yet, so this entry is going to rely more on the pictures rather than the words. I took a lot of photos…of gear :-p anyways, this was started sunday morning, but i’m finishing up today.

Another vintage analog synthesizer plug-in from Arturia is something quite exciting. It’s a combined Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 and Prophet VS synth. Most people are probably familiar with the 5, but the VS is a wavetable synth with analog filters with vector control - meaning there are four oscillators which are balanced using a joystick control. You can access one or the other, or create hybrid patches. I’m looking forward to seeing this one when it’s released.

MOTU introduced an interesting new virtual instrument plug-in called “Ethno” which contains a virtual cornucopia of world instruments. I didn’t have a close look, but it had some very cool exotic sounds for those who want to add that exotic spice to their productions. You never know when you need a bazouki riff on that epic trance remix.

While cruising through the guitar section, I stumbled across a little theremin device from Hiwatt. I found the interface interesting as it uses a dome antenna rather than an arial. There’s only one conductor which controls the pitch, and when you move your hand away the sound diminishes. It has an interesting twist however: They’ve added a little delay circuit to create reverberant vintage sci-fi effects.

I’ve seen the Roland V-Synth XT before, and this piece really caught my attention because it uses the Variphrase Technology. Besides the analysis and resynthesis features, it has all of the bells and whistles including the D-50 soundset. This unit has a cool hybrid look with a futuristic touch panel interface embedded into a hefty vintage looking chasis with knob and button controls.

Another interesting unit from Roland is the SH-201 with a look reminicent of the old SH-Synths, the TB-303, and the old Junos, and yes, it has an arpeggiator. The heart of the unit is an analog modelling synth complete with 303ish knobs and SHish sliders and bank and patch select buttons that control all of the synthesis parameters. The layout is basically the same as a typical vintage Roland synth, but there’s more. You can route external audio through the filters. The SH-201 is also a MIDI control surface as well as a MIDI interface that connects via USB to your computer. The USB connection also provides audio routing to and from your computer. Yes, the keyboard itself also acts as an audio interface with inputs and outputs. There’s also a plug-in which controls all of the synth parameters and drives a second instance of the synth engine. In other words, the synth engine allows you to have one patch live on the keyboard and second patch running from the sequencer. The $700 price tag seems more than fair considering you get a keyboard controller, an audio interface, a MIDI interface, and a synth all in one package.

Forat Music based in Los Angeles, also had a few customized Roland pieces showcased in the Roland pavillion. Pictured is the tricked out MV-8000 in fire-engine red. They also customized an MC-909 with a black powder coat finish and added a vintage touch with oak side panels. A perfect match for your old Oberheim units!

Analogue Haven’s display down in the “Dungeon” of the convention center always attracts a lot of attention from synthesis fanatics. This year, they had an abundance of step sequencers on display which i found quite interesting. Pictured is the the Infection Music Zeit Sequencer. A monster system with interesting features like LFO that can modulate values for each step.

The Manikin Electronics Schrittmacher is a MIDI/CV step sequencer with a digital programming interface.

Also from Manikin is the “Memotron”, a digital version of the mellotron…when you really don’t want to deal with tape racks and still want to look cool.

Electro-Acoustic Reasearch Modular system comprised of their Livewire and PlanB modules.

The Macbeth M5 looks like an Arp on Steroids.

Sequentix P3 Step Sequencer has step buttons that remind one of the 909, and even has programming features for 909 like swing and shuffle.

Out of all of the modular systems, the one that really caught my eye was the Modcan Modular synthesizer.

The modcan step sequencer has slider controls like the old arp step sequencer. A simple difference from the standard type of knob interface, but this feature makes it very easy to visualize the sequence and CV levels.

This is one of those devices that people constantly think about, especially for those who use several pedal effects in the signal chain for tweaky processing of whatever. Mpathx displayed the “Smart Rack” a power distribution system that provides both AC and DC voltages for a variety of applications. For studios and musicians the system can replace those pesky wall warts that not only clutter up a power strip, but can induce pesky EM. The voltage settings are set using software that sends the information via a USB connection.

I’m not sure if i caught the Musicpole at previous shows, but this is a cool little MIDI controller that uses touch sensitive contacts intuitively placed around a shaft. The placement is based on the circle of 5ths, and provides an interesting way to visualize intervals.

Opensys, makers of the Eko introduced his little sister, the Niko. Niko has a 3 octave keyboard with two customizable expansion panels and the cool touch screen interface.

The booth next to opensys featured a unique looking instrument called the Keytar, a stringed instrument with a metal body and a funky keyboard mechanism fastened to the chasis. you simply hold down a chord and strum. It was a little odd looking, but you have to give the guy kudos for trying to come up with something unique.

Walking by the Sony booth, i saw an interesting little recording system. The PCM-D1 is A portable digital audio recorder with coincident XY mics. It records 24bit audio @ 96kHz and looks extremely expensive - about $2k.

Apogee Electronics introduced their “Ensemble” 24/192 Firewire interface for MacOS X core Audio. The device is specifically designed for Apple DAWs using Logic & Final Cut Pro. The 8×8 interface includes four mic pres and the standard apogee bells and whistles.

At the end of the day, GW Childs, one of the Reason 3.0 sound designers, presented a demonstration of sound design techniques he used on various video games using Propellerheads Reason. For those who know, GW works for a famous company owned by a guy named George, who makes films about Jedi.

I don’t know why, but the Swedes really enjoy going to Red Robin. It’s become a tradition to make the trek down Harbor Blvd. to enjoy a greasy burger and bottomless fries. The weather has been rather cold this week, and the crew, despite being acclimatized to cold weather, were all freezing in the Southern California.

After a long day on our feet, and taking the 1.5 km trek, Ulrika, Marcus, Magnus, & Patrik sit in the waiting area.

Louis, Mikke, Tage, and Ulrika relaxing after ingesting various meat products.

An unusual shot of Marcus with his eyes open. He claims that he always closes his eyes when someone takes a photo of him. After several attempts i finally managed to catch him off guard.

There are certainly more people at NAMM on this year than the previous years. This probably explains why I had such a hard time securing a hotel room. The first couple of days have seen fairly large crowds, making it really difficult to leisurely go around to the different booths. My first real day the show started with a little visit over to FXpansionto see GURU. I haven’t really had the chance to check out this little drum machine plug, but it has some really nice features. It has the basic sample based triggers, but it also functions a bit like recycle in that you can extract slices and grooves and assign them to pads.

I managed to catch a bit of the Cakewalk Dimension Pro and Rapture demo’s presented by Mike Prager. Everyone knows that I’m a mac guy, so I rarely pay attention to most of cakewalk’s products…until now. These plugs are now mac compatible! Rapture is really cool. It’s a wavetable synth with the ultimate in Ring Mod routing possibilities…and well… I’m a sucker for a ring modulator.

Ableton is positioned right next to the Cakewalk booth (right where the props were previously), and my friend/editor of my book, Jim Aiken, was presenting a demo on using macros with Live 5. Jim had some really cool techniques for setting up tweaky effects in Live…and he even put on a bit of show with his dance moves… don’t let the scholarly appearance fool you

Anyone doing electronic music struggles with acoustic instrument samples, but I’ve been amazed at the complexity of the new sample systems on display at this show. One of these was the “Real Guitar” plugin from Music Lab. The strumming, plucking, muting, and various timbral artifacts are nicely captured and mapped to the keyboard in a way that allows you to using a MIDI keyboard to input a fret and strum combination.

Another interesting system was the Vienna InstrumentsLibrary and performance interface system. The demonstration was a solo violin sample instrument that (in the noisy conditions of the exhibit hall) seemed very expressive. The performance interface measures the time between notes and selects a different sample group depending on the duration.

On the other end of the sonic spectrum there was Metasonix’s new S-1000 Wretch Machine! Eric has created a Vacuum Tube based synthesizer that features his multimode filter and the waveshaper with patch points and CV control… perfect for the analoghead… yeah, i want one too!

Another interesting little piece of tube gear was the Z.Vex Nano Amp. A teeny tiny vacuum tube amp head. Zachary Vex also offers a line level valve power amplifier called the iMPAMP designed for the discerning iPod user who wants to have a portable tube hi-fi.

So if you’re a fan of the old keyboard plug-ins and samples, then Korg has provided the obvious next choice to complement your FM7 and D-50 samples: The M1 le plug-in. Back in the day that’s what everyone had (present company included). I don’t know… I guess it would be handy if you’re doing some retro house tracks and really needed that M1 piano sound, or that organ bass… like i said… I don’t know…

On the other hand, Korg has introduced another cool control surface called the padKONTROL, and it has some MPC-like features including the “Roll” button and a TR like “Flam” button. It functions like the keypads on the K49, but also includes a XY touchpad for KAOSS type of control. This surface along with Reason might make me sell the old MPC… but probably not.

Moog Music’s complete ensemble of pedals including the the Bass MuRF and the new delay pedal.

GW playing a new track for Jimmy who might do a remix. Everyone got into sharing some tunes off their iPods

GW playing with the Access TI. It’s a nice keyboard with a great feel…I went through the set of patches, and the sound set is really geared towards a certain central and northern european genre of electronic music. :-p

And here’s my long answer: Forget the booty…This is far more interesting! The Euphonix MC Media Application Controller. It’s an amazing control surface for Nuendo, Pro Tools, Logic, etc, and integrates a keyboard along with a touch screen and 56 programmable soft buttons. The soft buttons are really cool-Each button has a little LCD display so the icons and button name are changed by software. There are also four motorized faders and eight rotary encoders…now i need to get the props to develop remote drivers for this baby!

At the end of the day, Tage gives his thanks to the crew before we head out for Dinner. We went out to some steak house type of establishment before returning to Hilton party thing. I’m getting too old for that “scene” with drunk rockers. So I called it a night pretty early — this explains how i managed to get this entry finished this morning.

Yes, it’s once again that time! Winter NAMM 2006. I’ve arrived fashionably late this year, leaving me with only a few hours to see the show on the first day. The first interesting change is the new Propellerheads booth which no longer sits in the highly coveted software row. The new booth is situated to the south in what i call “Limbo”. It’s a space between Hall A and the Arena. The new booth is a cozy bar room setting. The old disco lounge feel has grown up!

Of course, i had the chance to catch up with my old friends and meet the new crew from Sweden along with the people from Line 6. Magnus Lidström of Sonic Charge maker of the µTonic and developer of the Malström has also come. I was one of the few lucky recipients of the new Tin Tonic edition of the µTonic plug-in which comes packaged in a cool little can. Packaging designed (naturally) by Bitplant.

I took a quick stroll around and ran into Mike Prager, author of the Reason 3.0 Power! book, who is now working for cakewalk. I didn’t have the chance to take a look at the new products, so I’ll head back over today to take a look at Rapture (yet another bitplant GUI). Mike introduced to me his publisher at Thompson who happened to be checking out a demo, who extended an offer for future projects. So maybe another book might be in my future…who knows.

The day ended with a few drinks at the Electronic Musician Magazine Party. Ben from Camel Audio and Magnus were trading tips on how to deal with Software Piracy. Both guys are basically one man operations who develop software and manage their businesses simultaneously. They don’t have massive profits, nor do they have the budget to contract protection systems, so piracy has had a serious impact on their businesses.

We finished the night off with our regular tradition with the Merkles at this italian restaurant, “Bella Marri” with a Pizza Napolitano: Anchovies, Capers, and Black Olives. Yes it’s really tasty, but only for the gastronomically adventurous

Well I’m off to the show again.

I have these two MP3 files online for a few weeks, but haven’t had the chance to explain what these tracks are all about. Cirobiq is something that took me months to work on. I started working on it while writing back in July 2005. I had the idea of coming up with a strange melodic track that I would mangle using an Oval-ish CD skipping technique. First I tried destroying the CD-R with a magic marker, but the results would cause the error correction to shut the cd player down. I found an old CD player that I was experimenting with and located a few contact points that would induce skipping. I also tweaked with the tracking fine tune controls which led to some interesting results, but nothing was consistent. In the end it was a fun distraction, but led nowhere. Eventually i rendered the clean version and processed it with some analog stuff, but it was not what i had in mind.

Right after I finished writing the Discovering Reason article (on the props site), I started toying with a method of fading between a dry mix of the track and a processed signal. I incorporated an old combi effect patch (that I contributed to Factory Soundbank 3.0) called “Freeze Stutter”, and customized the settings to match the tempo. This added a some but not all of the effect ornaments that I originally had in mind. Then I added yet another effect layer which was also blended using the equal power crossfade technique using a sample and hold combinator patch i devised. The effect is nothing new or spectacular. If one were working in Pro Tools, you would simply copy and paste the audio for several adjacent beats, but with the fader and combi effect, this beat repeating effect is applied in real-time.

Random Reasons also uses the beat repeating effect, but the entire track, including the effect is driven by a series of random LFO curves. For even more tweakhead results, I bumped up the tempo to 480 BPM so the repetitive artifacts shaped into new timbres themselves. This experiment only took a few hours to finish

Both tracks also use special self-modulating equalizer effects that change the frequency response of passing signals to boost the low frequencies and add some warmth and character. These patches are based around the MClass equalizer, and work in a manner similar to the Vintage RDK with input signal levels inducing subtle changes to the eq center frequencies for an inconsistent/unpredictable “analogish” sound.

Cirobiq.mp3

Random Reasons.mp3

I’m going to work on these patches a bit more and eventually post them.

The attenuation characteristics of both the ReMix and MicroMix mixer pan pots is not linear like the crossfade example above, instead the pan pots have a scaled attenuation rate called constant-power or equal-power. The output level of the two panned signals is constant between the left and right channels. The scaled attenuation of the pan pots can be used to create an Equal Power Crossfader.

Follow the link below to read the tutorial and download the example files:

Discovering Reason Article on Building a Crossfader

Yes, I’ve been strangely absent from the site, which normally means I’m working on a project. Unfortunately, a seemingly endless series of personal tragedies has occurred. This entry goes a bit off the theme of this site, but I just needed to get this off my chest.

A family friend tragically lost a battle with cancer right before Christmas, and the first few days of the New Year was spent at the hospital as my Grand Uncle George faded. I was busy helping my Grand Aunt and her family work out the details for the services held on Monday night. Now I’m in the 808 State for a couple of days for the funeral of another close family friend who passed away last week.

This is not exactly the way I’ve planned to spend my New Year. So I apologize if I haven’t been able to reply to messages or emails. I’ve just been a little too busy to play technical support.

My Holiday did have a nice moment: I had a really great New Years Eve with my family and friends. Everyone cleaned themselves up, and we went out to enjoy a really lovely dinner and rang in the new years together. It was a great opportunity to become better acquainted with my cousin Jasmine’s new “friend”, Chris. So i did enjoy a few moments of 2006.

the UK version of Amazon has the incorrect book title listed for my book. It says “Power Tools Reason” and inadvertently omitted the “for”. People searching Amazon UK are given an error. If you’re looking “for” the item, it can be found here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0879308613/

For those who placed orders with Amazon.com, it looks like orders have started shipping. Again, I’m sorry for the delay, and I hope people will not be disappointed with the second edition of Power Tools for Reason. The amazon page does not provide all of the accurate information. Pictured here is the actual cover. The number of pages is 294-not including the index which brings the total to 312 pages). Please remember, that my book is NOT INTENDED FOR ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS!

Commonly asked questions fielded my way are “what’s different from the previous edition?” and “is it worth it to pick up another copy?” The short answer is probably not. If you’ve managed to fully grasp the concepts in PTR-2.5, then programming the Combinator should be second nature to you by now.

Most of the projects were merely updated to adopt the Combinator Modulation routings instead of using Control Voltages. For example, the ‘Screamin Filterbank’ project is now a combinator project rather than an overwhelming rack of devices in a song. Naturally there were a few modifications which use the MClass compressor and limiter.

The only aspects which may benefit people who read PTR-2.5 are the new chapter on Mastering, and perhaps the rewritten Dynamics, Synthesizer and Sampler programming chapters.

The chapter on Dynamics is revised to explain the principles of compressors better as well as examples on how to use the features of the MClass compressor and Maximizer. The COMP-01 is still a handy devices and a brief example is included to explain when to use it instead of MClass comp.

The Synthesizer and Sampler chapters now include step-by-step projects which explain how to manipulate parameters to create different timbres from the basic walkthroughs of programming subtractive synthesis patches to FM and Phase Diff on the Subtractor, to creating lush stereo Malström patches. It’s a lot slower paced than the chapter in the first edition, and breaks down the different parameters and how they affect the resulting sound from the Subtractor and Malström. It’s not an exhaustive discussion, but the projects are pretty detailed. The same concept is applied to the Sampler Chapter as well, so that people who have very little experience with samplers can grasp the concepts behind creating a multi-sampled NN-XT patch.

I spent the weekend adapting an excerpt from the book to be published on the Propellerhead Software Website as part of the “Discovering Reason” series. Like the previous article “Filter Up” (misspelled in the reference in the book), published with the release of the first edition, the new article is a bit different with another bonus project not printed in the book. Unlike the book that only provides the procedures for creating the project, the article will have Reason Song files with the completed examples.

If you’re on broadband, please visit the PT-Reason site to see even more examples, and check out the credits for all of the people who contributed to the samples and material included on the CD-Rom. The desktop wallpapers created by my cousin, Miles, are really cool, and are available on the download section of PT-Reason.com.

Oh, and if you’re in San Francisco, you can pick up a copy at Robotspeak!

Cirque du Soleil has become somewhat of a holiday tradition. Some people do the nutcracker, but for my friend, Michela, and me, heading over to the pacbell park parking lot is the ticket. This year’s visiting production, “Corteo” was definitely not a disappointment. Despite the subject matter being the death of a clown, the music and tone was anything but somber.

There were some interesting musical highlights to this performance. One scene featured musical water glasses as part of the arrangement. When amplified through the tent the water glass tones created this fantastic ambient texture. The other impressive performance was a whistling virtuoso whose range rivaled a soprano playing the role of Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte. It was quite amazing to see someone whistle at such a high pitch with such control over dynamics.

This kind of performance is about spectacle, but it would be trite without the interesting musical compositions. I’m not one of those people who will go on raving about the music, playing the CD all of the time, but in the context of performance, it really is fantastic. As a gift at the end of the show, we were given copies of the “Delirium” Dance Remix CD which features cirque compositions remixed by the greats like Lil Louie Vega, Roger S, Sasha & Tiësto! It’s quite good.

I met up with my friend, Goh Nakamura to give him a hand on a project he’s working on. It would be rather indecorous to reveal any details, but it’s quite an exciting opportunity for him. Goh helped me and John Hinson out with a demo track featured on REDD47.com. Since January when we recorded the tracks, I’ve been messing with the mix and editing the raw tracks into something a bit more polished than the demo track on the Revolution Recording Equipment site.

Goh was asked to submit a track for a compilation CD released by the Kearny Street Workshop, and he selected the version of ‘Surrogate Valentine’ that I produced. He gave me a copy of the CD, and I was surprised to hear that it was copied almost verbatim from the mastered file i delivered. Usually a track is tweaked and equalized to fit with the rest of the album, so i thought it would sound a bit different than the original.

No, i didn’t use Reason’s MClass effects. The rendered mix was imported into logic and processed through my old manley tube compressors which were tracked back digitally into logic pro. With all of the analog gear used to record and master the track, you can hear some noise in the background, but it gives the track a nice character.

I caught the last evening of the Propellerheads North America Tour at the Apple Store in San Jose. It was nice to meet up with Hayden again and see his presentation. Apple Stores are normally outfitted with a presentation area with a large projector and sound system, making these locations an ideal place to do product demos. Hayden told me that these were pretty painless gigs in terms of setup, since Apple provided just about everything.

I was quite impressed with the presentation. Two Hours seemed to sail right by with a lot of time was spent explaining the combinator as well as the other new features of R3. Pictured: Hayden is showing patches from Lizard’s FSB-01 Workstation Replacement Refill

Following the presentation, a few of us were chatting, and I met this one guy, Zolt, who is working on a Max/MSP patch for ReBirth. It’s an editor that will edit 303 patterns and send them to ReBirth as MIDI events. It was also nice to meet other Reason users and talk shop.

Afterwards, Hayden and I went to dinner along with a new acquaintance, Dan, who is out here for the holidays from Tennessee. As usual, when you get a group of music guys together talking about electronic music stuff, we overstayed our welcome at the restaurant and shut the place down

The final version of the Vintage RDK combi Refill is now available on the Propellerhead Software website. There were a few bugs in the Release Candidates which were fixed and a selection of over 40 REX Loops have been included in the archive.

Originally I planned to do a separate REX Loop only archive, but apparently this would have violated the license agreement for RDK. In other words, people cannot use the Reason Drum Kits refill in order to produce drum loops for sample libraries-commercial or otherwise. With their permission, I’ve been allowed to produce a number of loops which are all included in this one ReFill.

The Combinators are structured from the producer kit template included in the RDK2.0 Refill.

Vintage RDK Controls

PRESSURE controls the aux return input on the primary mixer which adds a compressed kick, tom and ambience signal back into the main mix creating a fuller low end.

TUBE PHASE CXL is tone control created using phase cancellation. The Aux 2 bus is routed through a scream 4 set to the Tube Distortion algorithm which induces a slight phase offset. Sweeping this control causes certain frequencies especially in the treble range to filter out.

AMB & VERB LVL controls the amount of ambience and reverb in the final mix.

FIDELITY CV primarily controls the gain of the high shelf eq on the MClass Equalizer. This control is driven by the Gain Reduction control voltage of the MClass Compressor and the optimum setting is around 63. The rotary control also modulates decay release, pitch bend, and PEQ-2 equalizer parameters which creates real-time variations based on the loudness of the mix.

BASS BOOST enables a low frequency parametric equalizer section on output MClass EQ.

TUBE BIAS switches the bias settings on the Scream 4 Distortion which induces the phase shift for the TUBE PHASE CXL control.

AMB & VERB MONO switches the stereo spread of the ambient microphone signals and the reverb outputs to mono.

SHELF EQ MOD enables the Hi Shelf EQ section modulated by the Fidelity CV control. Disabling this button will only switch off the high frequency contouring. The pitch bend, envelope, and PEQ-2 Equalizer modulation routings are not affected.