I guess I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Project 5 2.5 update has been bequeathed upon us.

I’m reserving judgment until I’ve lived with it for a while, but early reactions seem fairly positive. Save of course the usual “Why didn’t they include this?” some of which are valid points. And VST naming is just outright broken - I mean, it’s great they integrated the plugin integration tool but to put in the Plugin Manager and then not turn it fully on is huge pain in the fuckin’ ass. I have a lot of plugins, and device chains only go so far into allowing you to load up what you need. There’s a 3rd party solution in the works but frankly I’m up to my neck in 3rd party solutions and updates right now, and if this works in Sonar it should work here. (I suspect the culprit is the custom synth and fx menus and they probably need to be rewritten in order to work.)

Also, the Project5.com website is still fallow. I mean, it doesn’t even have anything about the update. It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. But I’m hoping that with this update, beyond the benefits of the improvements, shows that Cakewalk has plans for Project 5 and will bring it to at least one more version.

  Let’s face it, for home studios, drummers are increasingly irrelevant. And I say this as a long-frustrated drummer; seriously, if I had the resources at that time when I picked up the guitar I would have been a drummer. By the time I cobbled together a kit I’d already been playing guitar and without a car to drive said kit around I didn’t really have the opportunity to play with anyone else. But I’ve always maintained that a band lives or dies on the quality of their drummer. I’ve seen what would be great bands just be “eh” because the drummer wasn’t inspired, and I’ve seen otherwise mediocre bands redeemed because their drummer was so good. (Case in point, blink-182. Sure the songs are catchy, if you can stand the vocals, but the drumming takes it to whole different level.)

Even today one of my favorite parts of working with digital audio is rolling the drum parts, be it breaks, unnatural and curious rhythms, or straight-up drum parts. And for people like me, where an actual drum set just isn’t a practical option, things like BFD and, apparently, Jamstix just produce results markedly better than anything I could achieve myself. And users are spoiled for choices right now; the drum software market is incredibly saturated.

Jamstix, the product, has been on my radar for a while, but since I’d already developed a suitable way of working with my current tools - “jamming” with the BFD groove engine is pretty amazing as is - I hadn’t looked thoroughly at it. Watch the videos; it’s very, very slick. For a song-writer, especially a keyboardist, I can’t imagine a better tool.

In any case, right now Rayzoon are running a group buy where the end price could go as low as $69. I do love group-buys: they seem to be a great way for developers to snag new customers, and customers not only get to support a developer but get a great buy. It’s best to look at the cost in the same way you look at a rebate: it would be great if it happens but you should budget like it won’t. And as of this writing you’re looking at a $118 price point which is certainly reasonable. And that’s for all the expansion packs and a free upgrade to version 2 in a month or so. So we’ve got until 05/13/07 to get in on this. It requires a commitment of $69 off the bat which certainly seems reasonable. I need to figure out the budget on this one, so I may not be the guy to help drive the initial price down, but I’ll be surprised if I don’t get in on this in the next week.

But still, how will we know when the stage is tilted?

Over at SonicState.com you can watch a running videocast about the The Top 20 Synths of All Time. It’s well worth the time. Aside from being chock full of top notch vintage gear porn, it’s well-produced and quite funny.

Now, I’m in no way qualified to comment on the particulars of the list and whether it represents anything, but I’ll trust the producers and people interviewed know what they’re talking about. It’s very British, in as much as that means anything, but it means lots of very dry, slightly absurd humor, of which I’m all in favor. The host is a one Professor Marc Norris (I’m guessing not a real professor), who is not only natural and deadpan but actually seems to know about synths. And so far the series has covered a lot of territory outside of the list itself.

Which one do I lust after the most? Probably VCS3 (The Putney) which seems a weird little monosynth and do a lot of cool stuff that would be different than working with software. Watching this latest episode where the DX7 comes in a number 4, I wondered if anyone has ever circuit-bent one of these?

I lived in New York back when the mecca of Other Music was founded. Hell, I remember the guys when they managed the music department at Kim’s on Bleeker during the 90s pre-alt-rock boom. Walk in there with 40 bucks and you’d be sure to find something worth listening to, or, let’s be honest, something that looked cool in your collection. So when they had the balls to open across the street from Tower downtown, a store known for a pretty decent selection, you had to wonder how long it would last. (The rent on that place must be nuts!) And doing it by catering almost exclusively to independent, import and otherwise hard to find music. Spot on.

We all know the joke about record store clerks with attitude. But I think Other Music has survived in part because the folks who run it seem genuinely interested in discovering and sharing music that might otherwise be overlooked.

Anyway, they’ve gone live with a digital music store. And now you can have that “Wow, who are all these bands?” experience without leaving home. No DRM, reasonable prices, and a pretty no-bullshit virtual store front (the server seems a little laggy as of this writing but I’m sure they’ll sort that out over the next couple of weeks). The catalog may not be vast but they are carrying Vice Records so all your Block Party and Bordoms needs are pretty well covered.

Once again people, support independent music and entrepreneurship.

Obviously, I’m not your go-to guy when it comes to discovering new products. As I’ve probably said, I have mixed feelings about trying to keep up on whatever is vying for whatever money you have left after managing your debt, and there are sites that do it far better than I ever could.

Nevertheless, no digital lofi musician isn’t aware of the constant barrage of new products/crap released every month (especially during/around the seasonal trade shows). But here’s some of the stuff that’s done more than just blip across my radar, and some of which I will try to budget myself.

Since I’ve already spoken highly of Zebra2 as a near must-have for any computer musician with a modest budget, the new Zebra2-Transmission seems like a no-brainer. I’ll admit that attempting to program Zebra2 leaves me a little baffled (although it’s a tweaker’s dream) and this seems to fill in a lot of blanks that were, frankly, left out of the release version (so-far). I’m no Wendy Carlos but I know the importance of multi-stage envelops especially when coupled with Zebra2’s extensive routing options, so that there’s not already a folder full of multi-stage envelopes seems a bit of an oversight. Anyway, this seems to provide a lot of the building blocks that Zebra2 allows for but doesn’t necessarily provide out of the box. $30. (digital-lofi price index: Probably not over-priced by any means, but just enough so I won’t automatically download it.)

Speaking of u-he, he’s released his next creation, More Feedback Machine V2.0, as a public beta. It’s a super-powerful, sexy delay/modulation plug that will look great running in Ableton Live. I’m rather lousy with delay-based effects, and this will take a good amount of time to really come to grips with, but why not try it out while it’s free. $199. (digital lofi price index: Certainly a steal for what it is, but, like I said, I’m not hurting for delay/modulation options and this thing is way overkill for me.)

The French freaks (in the best possible sense) over at OhmForce have released there latest plugin. It appears to be an advanced distortion unit, though that’s probably selling it short. It seems like they’ve continued to reconcile the Funky/Classic GUI battle, and this certainly looks slick. I can’t image it sounds less than amazing. Whether I really need another distortion unit is the question; I’m leaning towards no. 79.00 Euro. Which is like, what, $250? (digital lofi price rating: Perhaps if there is some upgrade path/discount for current Predatohm license holders.)

Sample House Zero-G has begun releasing a lot of their back-catalog, including some hard to find/out of print titles, through a download web-shop. The prices seem quite reasonable with the more popular titles tipping closer to the $75.00 budget range. My problem with these things is that, well, they’re so popular. It’s nice to have a lot of loops to play with and ideally we’d all mangle and spindle them, but really I’d really rather learn to write my own loop libraries of original material. But these appear to be raw samples, no front-end player restrictions, and there appears to be a lot of useful/cool sounds here. (digital lofi price index: For loop libraries you could do a lot worse and who doesn’t love to download sample packs.)

Speaking of loop libraries Angular Momentum has released their free Rex2 packs as an-already converted StylusRMX library. Now, I did this on my own a while ago but if it’s already done for you to just bung in there, why not. I will attest to the fact that this is a great collection of loops. They definitely lean to the more electronic/dance but in combination with the chaos engine of StylusRMX, yeah great fun. Expect to be hearing these sounds around a lot. (digital lofi price index: Duh.)

Hey, if you’re putting together a new DAW than you should definitely talk to the fellow over at samplebytes. Out of my price-range/needs-at-hand, but a much-better deal than anything you’d get from brand-name DAW, easily configurable, no-bullshit, and you’re dealing with a real computer builder not some guys in a warehouse. When the time comes he is definitely building my next DAW. (Also note: the logo on the site was done by your humble poster. I’m hoping to get a bit of a price break when the time comes.)

Anway, that some of the budget stuff that’s now on the market. I would buy it all if I could; some of it I may well invest in. Keep in mind that BFD 2.0 is now on the horizon, and since they are apparently writing the program from the, erm, ground up it will not be a free update. (And aren’t fxpansion releasing a synth as well?) And GMedia have their string machine coming out as well. Do I need a string machine? I’m not so sure but if the impOSCar is anything to go by this thing will be the shit.

Note: I started responding to this thread but though better of it, so I’m dumping it here for no particular reason other than this is shit I think about a lot.

Okay, I should probably stay the hell out of this, but, come on people. I know we’re all enthusiasts in one form or another but… Hey, look, it’s my navel!

If you are actively using a different sequencer/host(s), then, really, why are you denigrating P5 for features that you have elsewhere? Um, don’t you have that? There must be something in P5 that keeps you using, something that you are unable to use in said other program(s). Are you berating those users for those things that P5 offers that you are unable to get in that program? Do people really frequent multiple boards and compare/complain perceived shortcomings of competitors? Hey, I’ll drop by the ableton forum and gripe about MIDI editing for a while then go over to Cakewalk and rag on [insert name of bug/feature request]. Really, are you using a tool to do a job or just playing with software?

If it’s a tool, then you figure out how to make it work for you. There are sure to be work-around, and things that make you roll your eyes, but you figure out how to do what you need and hope for the best. If not, you begin looking for a tool that is more to your liking. If you’re a carpenter and your belt-sander doesn’t have X feature you figure out how to get your hands on a belt-sander that does. It doesn’t mean your present belt-sander doesn’t still sand, just that your perceived wants/needs have changed. Granted, this is an imperfect analogy, but, really, who wants to hang out a hardware store and argue with other belt-sander users about the differences between Black & Decker &… uh, some other belt-sander?

Tool or toy. Seems to me it pretty much depends on the user.

Of course, if you’ve invested a lot of time in developing in P5 and have hit the wall with it’s resources, well, yeah, kinda sucks. But it doesn’t really mean Project 5 has become less useful just that your needs have changed. And chances are they have changed because of the steep curve of technology. But Four Tet composed his first 3 albums on ACID, like, 2.0; N. Cook used an Atari for most (all?) of his composing/sequencing; Sgt. Pepper was recorded on 8 track tape machines; et cetera. You think these people didn’t have cludgy work-arounds? (For me, half the fun is trying to get it to do one thing and finding something completely different.)

Absolutely P5 can be improved upon, and there are things that are commonly agreed to be broken. I don’t think anyone bothering to post would argue otherwise. But, likewise, there are a lot of dudes (let’s be honest, we’re all boys here) using P5 to do some creative work, or at least stop us from watching so much TV. I like to think that the up-coming update shows a certain degree of good faith on the behalf Cakewalk that they plan to continue development. Ultimately, we can all speculate about what Cake should do and when but as I’ve said before, it’s all just speculation. Really we have no idea.

Anyway, blah blah… oh, there’s my navel again.

Heh, heh… I said “tool.”