Andrew Rossa of Cakewalk posted a link on their public forum pointing to the new Cakewalk Studio Instruments. These seem to be based on the Dimension/Rapture paradigm, with a custom GUI that allows for easy control over the multisamples. $49. Priced to move obviously. Do I need any? Well, the bass is tempting just because it makes it easy to just keep a bass track in the pocket if you’re just knocking out loops, and it looks like it has some nice tricks up its sleeve; let’s face it, Trilogy is too damn expensive. Really, I’d just like to be a better bass player. But these are cross-platform, easy on the eye, and cheap. And judging from the quality of the Dimension samples, these probably sound great.

But I applaud Cakewalk for moving into a download-distribution model with a sensible pricing scheme. I just hope their web team is up to the task.

Even with the new movement on the Project5 front, I find the actual appearance of energyXT2 very appealing. It seemingly offers a lot of what I want P5 to do, and brings some pretty nice features to the table as a sequencer/host. I haven’t yet tried the demo, but the seemingly nice integration of REX2, presets, and VSTs is impressive, as is the modular nature of it all. (Check out the Comps view: nice.) I’m sort of loath to give up the Groove Matrix as a way to quickly develop tracks, but this seems to offer a lot of integration, and is hugely forward-looking for something that seems more a labor of love than a business proposition.

As you can see from the new website, Cakewalk have updated their recent Project5 2.5 update. This mostly augments a lot of the features that were introduced with v.2.5, squashes some bugs, and give them a reason to roll-out the new website and the store, making it a download-centric product with a very competitive price point ($99!). Good stuff indeed.

That said, just work-flow wise, for how I want to use P5, there are still some shortcomings. I’m not even talking about multi-core support. (And why are some of the people that are complaining about this most loudly aren’t even running duel-core systems?) There are definitely clunky work-arounds involved in using P5 as a live composition tool as opposed to a more traditional sequencer. I’ve got Sonar if I want to record a song or sequence more complicated MIDI parts. What P5 is great at is trying ideas on the fly and using what works and assembling them into a track. And yes you can use P5 soup to nuts, but chances are you’re going to want something more flexible when you go to record/edit audio & mix.

A lot of the features from the upgrade are hugely welcome and enhance to program greatly; a lot feel halfway there or marginally useful. No custom VST organization? Multi in/outs only serve to make it yet more tiresome to reWire (if you have a multi-out card). Multi-out instruments are still cumbersome, esp. with a control surface.

And, though I’m apparently alone with this, think that ditching Cyclone is too bad. I don’t know how other people doing it, but chopping up loops and playing the results with a control surface isn’t possible in the same way as with Cyclone; sure it was a little long in the tooth but it was a fairly economical interface, pretty easy to get to grips with, and can be used in conjunction with the Groove Matrix for really complete control of your “beat” creation. Hell, give it REX support, the ability to audition loops & chop non-acidized audio, along with some further drag-n-drop flexibility and it could easily compete with any of Cake’s current offerings. RIP Cyclone.

Don’t get me wrong, I find the two recent updates encouraging and exciting. To me it shows that Cake believes there is a future for Project5. That is, beyond the cult of users that have stuck with the program; cause, let’s face it a couple of thousand users, of which a 100 or so are vocal advocates, is not enough to support the software development costs for a company like Cake. The $99 price-point is also a shrewd move and will hopefully bring some new advocates into the fold.

I’m not a Live user myself, but will P5 ever be a “Live killer”? No, and the reason (hee hee) is very simple: cross-platform support. But as a very capable alternative for Windows users at this point it is hard to beat.

  Okay, I gave in.

A couple of months ago, CR posted about buying a new Dave Smith evolver. Being that for all outward appearances I’m some sort of sycophant I eventually began looking for a good deal on one. Really, I was only vaguely aware of the unit and its very reasonable price-tag. An analog synth that I could afford and wouldn’t require expensive restoration? Sign me up! I really would love a Moog but I’m not there yet in those terms of cost justification.

Turns out CR’s not a big fan of his. So, yeah, it sucks.

No, I’m loving my new evolver. I just used as it the synth bass in a new project, the analog osc. panned mostly to the left, the digital osc. to the right, which I doubled on bass guitar (it’s not a complicated part). It’s sounds really thick with a good attack.

It’s a great first hardware synth for me: rather than just plinking out stupid melodies while randomly twisting virtual knobs (I exaggerate), it sort of forces me to really get to grips with how it works. Of course the soundtower editor is pretty much essential, but I’m really trying not to rely on it. But it’s pretty easy to tweak the sequencer, at least in a basic way, and find useful stuff.

Apparently, there’s the opinion that the presets kinda suck. This is surprising to me. Yeah, a lot only are useful only for hearing “oh, it can do that sound.” But there’s some really amazing programming in there. There’s one in there that is this gentle lapping melody of soft bell-tones that I can listen to for hours. What slays me is that the sequence itself is pretty simple and it’s mostly built on, from what I can tell, PWM.

And that I can send audio through it is just icing.

Anyway, if someone is looking to further their understanding of synth programming definitely contact Chris, or keep your eye on ebay. I can see how it might not be the most useful tool for someone who already has a lot of experience with hardware sequencing and/or synths, but for a project studio jockey who mostly traffics in software, it’s not only a steal it’s pretty much unrivaled.

  Recently, through a friend, I brokered the placement of some of my music as the theme for a podcast his company was producing. You can see the result here: bschooltalk: June 08, 2007.

Not bad for 10-seconds of music. And I will admit, it was cool to see the end result of my years of tinkering be used for something, however small.

(I’ve updated my fledgling production page so it is the first piece that plays in the clips jukebox. But enjoy the variations on the theme. These were all written & recorded with a friend I do music with on and off, though I’m not sure how he want to be credited at present. He’s playing a lot if not most of the guitar & bass.)

Anyway, in my excitement I made a post over at analogindustries.com in an open thread. So amid a lot of intelligent talk of hardware MIDI-timing and audio interfaces, I made some poorly punctuated piece about my small accomplishment. It contributed nothing. I thought about posting a follow up when I was again at my computer but by then people had moved on. It was pathetic enough on its own.

There was a reason I went to Analog Industries to post, and it was because when I chopped up the small pieces of the work I used as the bed for the 10-sec masterpiece, I used all 3 of my Audio Damage plugins: 914 Fixed Frequency Filter, Discord 2, and Replicant.

The 914 is on the burbly synth line that might be lost in the transition from MP3. Replicant, using the very tight Drum Loop Thickener preset, tweaked slightly, is on those massive drum hits. But most notably is that Discord 2, gave me the sonic hook that ended up shaping all the drafts I made for this. That opening bell like sound, is the memory buffer of Discord releasing when I bounced out an early draft. It’s not a bug: I know exactly what caused “the problem”. But it’s one of those happy accidents and acts of musical Providence that makes up a lot of what I do with my in the box production. But the sample I was able to grab from that and paste into the subsequent versions really made the difference.

Seriously, these are great plugs.

Written in response to this stupid thread in which some presumably licensed user was griping about non-ACID-ized not playing back at project tempo when you auditioned them. I’m posting it here in case I’m tempted to get into one of these discussions again. I can just check back and see I already wrote it:

You know, this thread typifies why people slag off Sonar users.

The OP has a valid point and reasonable request, however awkwardly worded. Instantly it’s “real men don’t use loops” chortle guffaw.

So, let’s hash it out again. Yes, anyone with a reasonable amount of ambition can bang together a decent sounding track with a few well chosen loop packs. But, really, it’s not as easy as it seems. Just go to acidplanet.com and listen to some remix competition submissions: there’s a lot - a lot - of crap, and a few really good tracks. At the same time, go out to your local live music venue (provided your area still has one) on mid-week night for a month, see a few bands & singer/songwriters. Yes, lots of crap: poor musicianship, un-inspired songs, and bad drummers (shudder - is there no musician more poisonous than a poor drummer?). Then you see a band that has its act together, maybe not changing the face of popular music, but tight and enthusiastic and they’re having a good time. Just like every once and a while you hear an amazing track that is obviously making use of loops.

If you can’t hear challenging, interesting and exciting electronic music than methinks your disdain is misplaced. If you’re only using samples to replace instruments you can’t afford/can’t play then don’t cast aspersions as to a failure of imagination.

I can hear masterful musical creation in big band era jazz, 1940/50s rock ‘n’ roll & R&B & jump blues, 60s future pop, 70s punk, trad & alt country, and blah, blah, blah. I can also hear it in breakbeat, trip-hop, glitch, whatever obscure genre CM is talking about 3 months too late. And, you know what? I’m hardly the exception. Yes, everyone has predilections but as we move further and further into remix culture those we’ll continue to erode. And to the listening/licensing public it really matters very little: if it sounds good, has a good hook and is not actionable (i.e. no lawsuits are going to come from using it) than it is good. Whether you or I responded to it is immaterial; it served some function for someone somewhere.

Sonar is a multi-track, digital audio workstation, right? Define that for me. Tell me how I’m supposed to use this software.

As the kids (used to?) say, Pu-leese.

Yes, “programming” your own beats is satisfying and by and large fun. But beat creation can take on many forms, and assembling & editing a few MIDI patterns in an ez-drummer track is no more or less creative than using a few loops “out of the box.” And once you get into chopping and reprocessing pre-recorded samples, well that’s really a whole different game. What matters is the end result. If you don’t like pop, hip-hop, electronic music so be it. You’re needs are well catered to. But to denigrate those that do is at best the crassest form of snobbery, and at worst elitist, closed-minded and vaguely racist.*

Though it doesn’t rate very high on my list of work-flow wants, auditioning un-ACID-ized wav files as groove clips (note to self: is this really true?) is a genuine feature request. I have every confidence that we’ll see audition/browser improvements in the next version, and maybe even some audio management features. But, for the time being, ReWiring or batching converting is the best option.

*Okay, here I’m talking about the overall tone of the hip-hop/rap/pop sucks crowd on music forums in general.