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Pairing piano and electronic music comes naturally to Andras Toth. He releases his materials on a Detroit label for minimal house and techno, but there is always an echo of the classical music in his work. Toth has a jazz and classic piano background, but he became addicted to electronic music during his stay in London, after moving back he and Nora Naughty founded Polymorphin in 2004. Their debut was a huge success and landed them on the Berlin label Schnallschnelle.
It’s become something of a tradition here on CDM. Apple releases new OS. Music developers – one or more – release notes that suggest you might want to wait to upgrade. It happens every time, and so you should be cautious every time. This time, it may be even more serious: developers are describing symptoms that they say they haven’t seen in previous updates.
Native Instruments, often some of the first out of the gate with reported issues, has already flagged one significant set of problems that will likely dissuade their users from upgrading right away. (Think immediate crashes with 64-bit plug-ins.) But just because they’re the first to report something doesn’t mean that there won’t be other issues. Apple operating systems tend to change right up to release, and music developers have limited test resources, and music software is sensitive stuff. Do the math.
I’ve been told specifically that there are significant issues involving plug-in validation, which can go as far as causing DAWs to crash. (I have not confirmed that this is necessarily related to the symptom NI is describing; it’s better to look at it this way — stuff you rely on has changed and you may want to be patient.) Some of these issues may occur during Mac OS X testing, but because of the complexity of supporting things like Audio Units, I think it’s fair to give credit to music developers who say they may not be able to keep up with OS release timeframes. If there is a more significant long-term issue with compatibility, we’ll report it here.
Also, we have now multiple confirmed reports of significant crashes that should strongly dissuade all musicians from upgrading at this time, until there’s a timeframe for fixes. (I’m bolding that just in case anyone should miss this message.) Updated: these symptoms are reported in a variety of hosts.
Oddly, some of these regular posts by me have caused people to accuse me of being anti-Apple, which is like saying someone is anti-bicycle for suggesting you wear a helmet (or shoes).
Let me put it more clearly: if you like to test things yourself, and don’t mind an occasional problem, you should upgrade, at your own risk. (Just don’t complain if it doesn’t work.) If you prefer to let the companies you pay for your software do the testing, and you’ve got a system that’s running well, don’t. If you’re in the middle of a project or trying to finish an album or playing later tonight, you should take a deep breath and think about what you think is prudent.
If you’re the kind of person who never makes backups, there’s absolutely nothing anyone can do for you. May the computer gods have mercy upon your soul.
Here’s what NI has to say, though they tell CDM that they’re continuing to do tests and expect to have more information soon. I expect to hear from other developers, too – and, of course, what we’ll hear from some of them is that everything’s fine.
Native Instruments has conducted initial compatibility tests with pre-release versions of Mac OS X 10.7, and has found an issue that causes the 64-bit versions of NI applications to crash both when used stand-alone and as a plug-in.*
The cause of this issue has been successfully determined, and updates for the affected products are currently in development, with their respective release planned for September or earlier. In the meantime, users should utilize the 32-bit versions of the respective NI applications**, or consider to refrain from updating to Mac OS X 10.7 for the time being.
The following products have so far been updated with a 64-bit fix for Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion”:
BATTERY 3.2.2Native Instruments has observed no additional compatibility issues under Mac OS X 10.7 yet, but will conduct further systematic tests once it has access to the final release version of the operating system. New information will be provided on this page as it becomes available.
Full NI post:
Mac OS X Compatibility [updated regularly, so if you use a lot of NI stuff, bookmark!]
Apogee is also out of the gate with the first solid hardware compatibility. So far, they have confirmed compatibility with Duet 2, GiO, JAM
ONE, and Symphony I/O; ONE low-latency mixing compatibility is coming next month. Duet and Ensemble will be compatible soon; Symphony 64 for X-Series and Rosetta Series converters is listed as TBA.
More telling than that, though, is the advice Apogee gives about upgrading (remember what I said about backups?) –
Apogee Product Compatibility Overview: Mac OS X Lion
– and this advice: “If uninterrupted operation of your studio is critical, please wait for an official Lion OS compatibility message from Apogee.”
I’d just skip that last clause and apply it to everyone.
By the way, does anyone remember the days when SoundHack and SoundStudio were the only two apps you could run natively on Mac OS X? Ah, those were the days. I had that, Mail.app, a browser, and TextEdit.app, but someone had to be an early adopter…
Composing with rules instead of playing notes directly, composer Richard Garrett has built a series of generative, algorithmic, ambient note makers and processors in Ableton Live and the Max for Live add-on. (And yes, user-generated content continues to be a rationale for why many people would purchase Max for Live in addition to Live itself.)
With loads of useful controls for duration, start, and voicing – and the ability to feed events into anything you like – the results in your own work could sound very different than what you see hear. But whatever your musical aspirations, you can check out the work in action in a demo video (top) and tutorial on how to work with the interface (bottom). And – provided you own Max for Live – it’s all free.
In another interesting twist, this isn’t necessarily just for making self-generating music. The event generator also has an input, so it could accompany live playing or otherwise respond to events.
Here’s how creator Richard describes the work:
I just thought I’d let you know about nwdlbots, my suite of algorithmic (generative) devices for the composition of music within Ableton Live. They include event generators, pitch and velocity selectors and control devices for interaction with each other and with other MIDI tracks and input devices.
As well as generating events at random, nwdlbots can respond to activity on other MIDI tracks in Live, or to input from a MIDI instrument. In effect, nwdlbots control the density of a piece by reducing their activity when things get too busy. They also have some rudimentary ideas about harmony and can follow a chord sequence.
The first set of nwdlbots are available for free download at sundaydance.co.uk. Also on the site: documentation and videos
By the way, this and many other conversations are now happening on LinkedIn:
Ableton Live Users @ LinkedIn [invite group]
nwdlbots (“noodlebots”), free download at Sunday Dance Music
“Noodling” sounds like a great description – and I know many of us musicians do enjoy a good noodle.
Full disclosure: I love waves. Analog, digital, acoustic, we’re talking vibrations in sound (and other substances, as well — and light). I don’t think you get into this area without having a certain wave addiction. If you love waves, you could easily get lost in exploring videos of vibrating guitar strings and pondering the physics of the string.
This story begins not with how guitar strings actually vibrate, but a curious phenomenon when combining the regular oscillation of the string with the rolling shutter of a CMOS digital camera — namely, the iPhone’s. To accurately capture motion, you need to record an image all at once (or at least come close). Rolling shutter or line scan as exhibited in a CMOS camera sensor like the iPhone is a side effect of the capture being scanned from top to bottom, so the bottom portion of the image is saved later than the top. That causes motion to skew across the image. (Long before digital, people played around with the same effect in analog video and even using film photography – all you need is something moving and a way of capturing the image that moves gradually in a different direction.)
When the regular oscillation of the scanning combines with the oscillation of what you’re filming – as with a vibrating guitar string, or the rotating propeller on an airplane — the two frequencies effectively phase, causing some curious distortion. In the case of the guitar, this means seeing the appearance of standing waves that, while they can occur in nature, don’t occur on any conventional guitar. (You can also think of the basic effect as aliasing, as seen optically when video shutters capture the frequency of rotation of a rotating car wheel in such a way that it appears to move backwards.)
As with many concepts in physics, it’s all easier to see than explain, so I’ll turn it over to some terrific videos. I’ve contrasted two at the top of the story; here are more examples.
Below, a high-speed camera operating at 600 and 1200 frames per second, played back 20x and 40x, respectively, slower than you’d see with your naked eye.
And here’s another example of how that might appear on a camera like the iPhone:
Of course, that means – fodder for our sister site Create Digital Motion – potential for more creative abuse, beyond the mere novelty.
What’s also amusing is the heated discussion this triggered as the iPhone video went viral. Read some angry comments – and some solid science among them — at Reddit:
Guitar string oscillations captured on video [reddit.com]
I’m glad people don’t behave (yet) in person the way they do on the Internet.
In person: “Excuse me; I think your fly is open.”
On the Internet: “That guy’s fly is open. He doesn’t even know his fly is open. That’s bullshit. I mean, what kind of person leaves their pants just *(&$#ing open like that? Look, look, look at his open fly. I’m never talking to him again. I’m not even going to wear pants from now on.”
(Seriously, happily, many of the comments are perfectly polite and well-informed!)
School’s out for just about everyone, but I’m going to remember to file this away for the next time I have to explain sound vibration. Now, back to the beach, or wherever you’re relaxing.
Thanks to Alexander Chen, from whom I lifted this via Google+. (See his own work on CDM here and here. Alex is just the kind of person I want to see this, as he’s been working with the aesthetics of vibrating strings! So, hurrah, Google+…
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