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Avid released Sibelius 7 yesterday. Highlights in the new version:
A new UI. The most apparent change is a new user interface with dockable, tabbed panels. The design borrows heavily from Microsoft’s Office Ribbon, though a more subdued appearance makes it look just as comfortable on the Mac. My guess is that power users may just hide the whole thing and stick to keyboard shortcuts, but it should do wonders for discoverability for new users or more casual users not comfortable with that.
There’s also a nice new inspector, which looks a lot more usable and less-clumsy than the previous version.
The best UI feature: real full-screen mode, including on the Mac. The mixer has also been redesigned.
Better sharing for text, graphics, and more: Direct PDF and EPS export is now built in, with new “publisher-quality typography and graphics import/export.” It’s the feature least likely to be immediately noticed, but it could well be the best reason to upgrade. There’s also the ability to “sync or import” notation with Pro Tools, and of course you can publish to the iPad notation tool we’ve covered previously. (Links below.)
MusicXML interchange. Speaking of sharing, full, built-in MusicXML interchange support makes it possible to share notation with other tools, including Finale. (Side note: I hope this puts some pressure on the free tool Lilypond to support MusicXML export; it’s really frustrating that that’s missing. The proprietary tools are now more compatible than the free tool.)
64-bit support. Sibelius is indeed the first major native 64-bit notation software (at least, other than open source options which can be compiled for 64-bit). I’m not sure what the real-world implications of performance would be in notation software – Sibelius was always plenty fast – but I’ll try to find out. It’s still a no-brainer.
More sounds. Sibelius has long included licensed samples, but now following the Avid acquisition, the Avid virtual instruments folks have added their own symphony, rock, pop, organ, and (via Sample Logic) even band and drum and bugle sounds. We’ll have to hear how they sound and how well-integrated they are with the notation tools.
What about notation? The one thing I sense may be missing from this version is improvements to notation capabilities themselves. Because of the breadth of scoring possibilities, there’s almost always room for enhancement, and this update, while it appears a worthy investment for many users, seems from the information I have now not to address the core scoring functionality. That said, hidden in the feature set is better support for fonts which could have the greatest impact on how your scores actually appear: improved OpenType support adds compatibility with “the latest OpenType fonts, including advanced features like ligatures, and employ them in text frames with full DTP-level capabilities.” The ability to do that is very important to engraving and layout.
I hope to learn more about what the implications are for Sibelius scoring in Pro Tools, and how this version has changed.
By the way, Sibelius has also improved their academic pricing. US$295 is the student/teacher price, but what’s best about this is that they’re including four years of free upgrades for students. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that (usually precisely the opposite, excluding academic customers from upgrades), and it’s a nice touch.
Previously, our coverage of Avid’s notation tool for iPad:
Not Quite Sibelius for iPad, but Avid Scorch Could Become an iTunes of Notation
Tablet Scores: Avid Answers Our Scorch Questions; Bluetooth Page Turners for iPad, Android
In the ongoing struggle to make a laptop into an instrument, there’s inevitably the scramble onstage (or even in a studio) to get everything primed and ready to play. You want to adjust settings, launch certain applications, and generally get your laptop ready for actual music making.
Wouldn’t it be nice to make all of that happen automatically, magically, instantly, and robotically? It is, after all, a machine. (They’re supposed to be working for us, I’m told, assuming they’re following the Three Laws.)
Martin Delaney, London-based Ableton Live trainer, has put together a nice tutorial for production education center Dubspot with one way of accomplishing that using Apple’s free Automator. I was always a fan of Automator, particularly in its use in the now-defunct Soundtrack Pro audio editor from Apple, but it seems like almost no one else (Apple included) seems to remember it’s there. So here’s a way to put it to some free, powerful use.
Of course, there are probably other ways of accomplishing this – shell scripts and the like – if anyone wants to suggest something. Automator has the advantage of some serious ease of use.
Have a look, and download this set of Automator actions free:
Video Tutorial: Simplify Your Ableton Workflow Using Apple’s Automator [Dubspot]
Machinedrum has been making music for over ten years now and it shows. Lavishly detailed, mind bending percussion and drums programmed so precisely that if music fails him, Travis Stewart could always tray a second career as a watchmaker. After a lengthy period of inactivity following the release of the remix leaning Mergerz & Acquisitionz in 2006, he recently re-appeared at the club ready to enter a party that was eager to engage with his stuttering ADD beats and myriad snippets of dance music's past glories as both Machinedrum and Sepalcure -his similar sounding project with Praveen.
With a slew of 12" releases on Luckyme, PlanetMu and others that discogs is yet to catch up with (I only know, because I've seen them in record shops) the question is why did Stewart decide to come back to releasing club music now? Or to put another way, has it taken until now for the landscape to mutate enough to finally be open to his particular brand of drum heavy bass music?
Channeling the spirit of John Carpenter on 'Now U Know Tha Deal 4 Real' for example, or smacked out autotune vocals on 'Youniverse', Room(s) is as a cohesive album as you could expect from someone who generally aims his weapons at the dance-floor. Commercial rave piano chords on 'Come1' stride atop beats that are nothing short of claustrophobic, wheezing in and out of the speakers and making me tense and excited - the jungle that Stewart plays in his DJ sets is a clear influence, but so is much of myriad styles of post-bass music.
There's plenty of producers following a similar path to Stewart at the moment and one slight criticism is that Room(s) is very fixed in the 'now' and although his production chops set him way above many of the (admittedly just starting out) young guns, he is no grizzled veteran - his light touch and ever so slight pop appeal means that this is machine music that girls can get down to when the boys are freaking out. However as an album, it is best appreciated in small doses for the full visceral effect.
Presenting artists from around Earth to viewers around Earth, a center in Beijing has found a way to do live performance for a sleepless world without waking the neighbors.
Let me start out by saying this: if you read CDM from China, say hello. We’re in the wrong language, we have no translation, and I seriously doubt our Texas data center is delivering this site with any speed (until we upgrade to an international CDN), but the only reason I still run CDM is in order to reach people, and to hear from a wider world that knows things I don’t, and imagines things I can’t. And if you’re not in China, we still get very nice, high-quality video streaming. Think about that for a second: we’re on a planet that has a circumference between poles of about 24,860 miles (40,000 km), and we can share video and recording as if we’re in the same room. That’s pretty ridiculous; almost more impressive than recording itself. (I had similar thoughts a few years ago, somewhere in the jetlag going from New York to its nearly-furthest point on the globe, Perth, Australia.)
Shan Studios is a platform for artist conversations, residency, audiovisual performance, and learning. If you’re in Beijing, China, this center is forging connections between European audiovisual practice and China — and it’s a place where you can go to learn tools like Ableton Live, SuperCollider, and Max/MSP/Jitter. But if you’re anywhere else in the world, tonight/today you can watch a performance of audiovisuals. (That’s 11:59p Beijing time, 4:59p London time, 11:59a New York time).
The best part of this: by broadcasting to the Web but being silent in person, the performance won’t disturb the neighbors.
Using an array of webcams, DIY synthesizers, medical equipment, projectors, busted radios, and many unconventional instruments, the performers will create a completely immersive audiovisual experience in the Shanstudios sound laboratory. But the actual performance space will be silent – as to not wake the neighbors and simultaneously experiment with the best distortion box ever created (the Internet!) – all sounds will be processed digitally and virtually. The event is entirely exploratory and will hopefully lead to greater investigation of the Internet as a viable medium for other such experimental performances.
Shan Studios is the brainchild of multimedia artist Sheng Jie (gogoj), who returned from studying in France with artists and education to share with young people in China.
That pattern is very familiar. In fact, it’s hard to imagine where we’d be now without international exchange. First, research centers exchanged knowledge and technology – think, for instance, American Miller Puckette visiting Paris’ IRCAM to go on to create what would become Max/MSP, but also investigations spanning Brazil, Japan, Australia, and so on. With more democratized access to technology (read: s*** gets cheaper), that’s gone beyond any centralized locations to knowledge and artistic ideas that cross all six populated continents.
Whereas this was once one-directional – even in the US, aspiring artists often headed to Europe – now I think the compass could spin in all directions.
Anyway, I should be quiet so you can go watch the video:
http://www.livestream.com/gigonline (something interesting happening there already, and I think they’re just warming up)
http://shan-studio.com/?lang=en [English Shan Studio info]
Side note: if anyone is interested in making a Mandarin-native site companion to CDM, do get in touch. We’re not, ahem, sponsored by Intel, but I can see what we can do. Hell, I’d be pleased to have one page, or content in English that does a better job of what’s going on on the other side(s) of the globe.
When it comes down to neo-rave, Berlin's own Alexander Ridha is clearly one of the most booked DJs on this planet. He's dropping the sort of techno that might not be very popular here in Germany, but therefore he's travelling a lot: he definitely spends more time at airports, venues and hotels than in his hometown.
For our readers in the television business, there have been recent developments in two proceedings about which we have written recently. Last week, we wrote about the extension of time to file reply comments on the CALM Act implementation Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, where the FCC is implementing a Congressional act to curb loud commercials. The extension on the reply comments was granted as the Advanced Television Systems Committee was about to announce new amendments to its protocol that is the standard proposed as the basis by which compliance with the act is measured. Given the importance of these standards, the FCC wanted to give interested parties at least a brief opportunity to comment on the revisions, thus warranting the extension. According to an FCC Public Notice, those revised standard have now been announced, and can be viewed on the ATSC website, here. Interestingly, as I write this article, the link to the Standards provided in the FCC Public Notice does not work, and the full report is not evident on the ATSC site. Hopefully, those issues will be short lived, as the Reply comments are due on August 1.
Another recent proceeding of interest to television operators is the recent Order of the FCC dealing with the digital conversion of LPTV stations, Class A TV stations and TV translators. We wrote about that proceeding here. That Order sets deadlines this year for stations still operating in the portions of the television band that have already been reclaimed for use by wireless companies (Channels 52 to 69). Any LPTV or TV translator still on these channels must file for a construction permit to move to the core television band by September 1 of this year. The Order further requires that these stations stop operating on their current channels by the end of this year. So that Channels 52 to 69 can be cleared on this very quick schedule, the FCC is expediting this proceeding, and has already published the Order in the Federal Register. While this publication triggers the effective date of the Order (August 26 except for the portions dealing with fees for ancillary and supplemental services, which will be set at a later date), it also signals the start of the period in which Petitions for Reconsideration or Court appeals can be filed. A not-so-fearless prediction - some sort of appeal will be filed, but it seems unlikely that it will be resolved by the September 1 filing deadline absent very unusual Court or Congressional intervention. But watch for the filings in any event but, if you operate one of these stations on any channel between 52 and 69, be prepared to vacate the channel if nothing unusual changes the FCC's collective mind between now and then.
Enter to win tickets for Escape to New York, otherwise known as a 3-day party, taking place Aug. 5-7 in The Hamptons. Yes, The Hamptons, which will be catered with food you’d normally eat at The Fat Raddish, enjoy art installations by Winkle & Blaktick, and take part in high-end camping (you know, “glamping”).
But let’s be real, you want these tickets for the music: Patti Smith, Of Montreal, Best Coast, Mates of State, The Psychedelic Furs and more. Not only will you be able to enjoy all their sets and then some, you’ll also win backstage passes to Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros!
Click to enter/win tickets and backstage passes for a weekend of partying in a top-notch location, The Hamptons.
Please note: Contest is for tickets and backstage passes only. Does not include transportation or lodging.
Click here for more info about Escape to New York.
Netherlands-stars and Culture Collide alumni, The Black Atlantic, are recording in the studio, and they've proved it. They have just released a video promoting an album that is in the works, and they need your help raising the money to make it.
The album will be called Darkling, I listen, and is set to be released on November 11, 2011 (get it? 11-11-11). All they want you to do is pre-order their approaching EP by clicking here, and in return you'll get bundles of good stuff. Watch below for details.
Also, download their debut album, Reverence For Fallen Trees, for free! Right here.
