An update to Moog’s massively-popular Animoog synth now gives you Audiobus compatibility, if you purchase the Audiobus app. That means easier recording and processing, in combination with other compatible apps. Photo courtesy Audiobus.

iPad and iPhone owners got a nice gift recently. Over the Christmas holiday week, a whole slew of new iOS updates rolled in, perhaps caught in the holiday rush. Many of the improvements centered on Audiobus, a proprietary technology that, via a host app, allows iOS users to connect different apps for input, recording, and processing. And with those updates, the picture on Audiobus has become significantly clearer.

Magellan, Magellan, Jr. Since Moog and Korg get plenty of attention, let’s start with the dramatic improvements to Magellan. Earlier this month, Magellan’s industrial-strength iPad app got a hand-sized companion in the form of Magellan, Jr. If the idea of using an iPhone to play a synth doesn’t appeal, presets are compatible between the two versions, so you could create some sound designs on the go, then play with them on the iPad later. See Synthtopia’s write-up from mid-December.

In Version 2.0 of iPad app itself, Audiobus support joins numerous improvements, particularly around touch control (for built-in controls) and MIDI (for external playability). Watch:

Version 2.0 has arrived! Just when you thought we couldn’t add any more awesome features to Magellan… BAM! Our demo here shows off new 2.0 features including Audiobus, enhanced touch pad features (adjustable glide, note-snapping, new voice-control destinations), touch-sensitive velocity, expanded recording features (record a set number of measures for easy looping), new MIDI features (over 350 learnable MIDI CC destinations, UI animation), and more!

Check out our website for more info: http://www.yonac.com
Magellan on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/magellan/id544119998?mt=8

Animoog 2.0: Animoog adds Audiobus support, too, along with control and recording enhancements – whether or not you have Audiobus, this is a major update. And yes, it seems the developers at Moog heard user feedback.

• 3D tilt/accelerometer control for modulation.
• Note hold and scale lock.
• Load and save MIDI control maps.
• Audiocopy/Audiopaste integration (and yes, for some users, this will suit workflows just as well as Audiobus.
• “Holiday gift” 4-track Recorder with internal recording, iTunes Library import, split, loopy, copy, paste, and sharing of songs and clips, with SoundCloud integration.

Hurry: the 4 Track Recorder is free now through New Years’ Eve, but becomes a US$4.99 in-app purchase after that.

The price of the app if you don’t have it yet is now US$14.99 for iPad and US$4.99 for iPhone. Filtatron is also US$4.99.

KORG: The entire suite of popular apps from Korg has added support for Audiobus. (See this forum post if you have trouble seeing those apps.)

KORG has also brought other modern iOS music-making features to many of their apps:

• Virtual MIDI (iPolysix, iElectribe, iMS-20)
• Retina Display support (iMS-20, iElectribe)
• iKaossilator iPhone 5 display dimension support (to use the full size of its screen)
• iElectribe “Beat Flutter”
• iPolysix song sharing

And yes, their apps are on sale, too. See Sonicstate’s recent write-up.

Audiobus integrated all my iOS apps and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

And more important Audiobus updates: Compatibility with apps out of the gate was the biggest complaint from readers. Audiobus is only useful if your app adds explicit support – and, since many of you are loyal to certain apps, taht left some of you disappointed.

That said, a steady stream of new apps should start to remedy the situation. In addition to these, some of my favorite recent releases with Audiobus additions:

• PPG WaveGenerator
• AudioShare – significant as it’s a file manager, something sorely needed for music making and field recording and absent in iOS’ dumbed down sharing options (grumble, grumble)
• Grain Science (Well, because it’s cool)
• KAOSS-style effects, seen in a teaser on Synthtopia, should also be a big deal when that app arrives. The app was just submitted to Apple, so keep your eyes peeled.

If app compatibility still is lacking, though, here are two vital resources:

When will [insert favourite app name here] be getting Audiobus support? on the Audiobus forum answers your question.

And if you’re still not satisfied, here’s a hack/workaround for using non-compatible apps with Audiobus. Spoiler alert: it involves two devices and a recording cable, so, uh, you could also just record – interestingly, already the workflow for a lot of iOS users:

That said, looking at Audiobus, virtual and hard-line MIDI, and other enhancements, it’s terrific to see these apps mature. New and shiny is nice, but these are the sorts of updates that make tools more usable in actual production work.

Let us know which apps you’re using – and this should give you something to do on a New Years’ holiday. Skip the party, stay in and make music?

This isn’t like any Hurdy-Gurdy you’ve seen or heard before.

Derek Holzer’s optoelectronic Tonewheels Hurdy-Gurdy is a combination of mechanical, optical, and electronic elements, part sculpture and part instrument. It recalls vintage mechanical and optical instruments, but with a sound that is decidedly modern and strange.

In the translation, something wonderful happens: this becomes a serious punk instrument, producing surprising, hard-edged sounds. The wheels turn, and the gizmo rocks.

Combining disciplines in this sort of design also means merging different skill sets, so it’s telling that input for the instrument has come from other artists, including friend-of-the-site circuit designer Eric Archer, who has been involved in our Handmade Music series (now MusicMakers). Coming full circle (ahem), I’m thrilled that Mr. Holzer will be organizing MusicMakers at CTM here in Berlin. We have a call out now to participate in the hacklab for that event; I’ll share more details on that event here in the coming days.

I’m a great fan of Derek’s work; there’s plenty to explore below and I hope we cover more soon.

TONEWHEELS HURDY-GURDY(VIELLE A ROUE OPTOÉLECTRONIQUE) from macumbista on Vimeo.

This optoelectronic hurdy-gurdy was commission by the Acces(s) Festival, Pau France in October 2012.
TONEWHEELS is an experiment in converting graphical imagery to sound, inspired by some of the pioneering 20th Century electronic music inventions, such as the Light-Tone Organ (Edwin Emil Welte, 1936 Germany), the ANS Synthesizer (Evgeny Murzin, 1958 USSR), and the Oramics system (Daphne Oram, 1959 UK). Transparent tonewheels with repeating patterns are spun over light-sensitive electronic circuitry similar to that used in 16 & 35mm motion picture projectors to produce sound.
The TONEWHEELS Hurdy-Gurdy presented at Acces(s) is not an “interactive” artwork in the common sense. While it does not reward the impatient museum visitor with flashing lights and noises at the simple touch of the button, it does invite participation in the process of technological music creation. Although it first appears to be a very traditional instrument known to many folk-music cultures, it functions in a very different way which can only be discovered by playing it.
The artist would like to thank Tobias Traub of Oroborus Customs e.K. and Carlo Crovato for their invaluable assistance in creating this instrument. Circuits designed by Jessica Rylan and Eric Archer are also used within the system.
More information on this project can be found at macumbista.net/?p=3020

This is just one piece out of the Tonewheels project, all working with this medium of physical, optical discs. Here’s a beautiful video from another iteration:

cuT 30[draft]-TONEWHEELS filmed by Eyes_For_Ears from macumbista on Vimeo.

The over-arching project has its own page:
http://umatic.nl/tonewheels.html

The Hurdy-Gurdy is described on Derek’s blog:
http://macumbista.net/?p=3020

And lots of other projects, including his new Solstice Soundboxes, are detailed there, as well:
http://macumbista.net/

Hope some of you get to see Derek and me in person in Berlin next month, and for everyone else, we’ll see you on the Internet.

All photos courtesy the artist.

Windows PCs are from Mars, Macs are from Venus, Windows VST plug-ins won’t ever run on the Mac — wait, not so fast.

Ornament Uncle writes with a solution for running Windows VSTs on the Mac as if they were native plug-ins. The tutorial describes a fairly meticulous process – if you’re expecting this to be plug and play, don’t. You’ll want to read the steps thoroughly, and results may vary on different OS versions or with different plug-ins. (I feel obligated to say that as, even with free solutions, we sometimes hear readers complain when things don’t work easily on the first try; you should consider yourself a tester here and expect that things may not work!)

A little effort and time spent reading the tutorial, though, could easily pay off: it means opening up a world of previously Windows-only plug-ins to the Mac and having them work alongside your Mac plugs. Details:

Hi! I’ve described in detail on my blog a couple of years ago how to setup a wrapper called wacvst for Mac users to be able to use Win VST plugins. Very recently I’ve put together a better option and gave it a name, plugwire, my Wineskin setup. It’s all people need for Win VST plugins on Mac. Please check it out and if you think it’s any good maybe make a post for people to be made aware about it. Cheers!

Check it out, and let us know how it goes:

Add your face Win VST plugins to the mix [tips for your os x daw]

Image at top courtesy Ornament Uncle, showing a range of plugs in action.

Those snap-tight blocks have a clear appeal for prototypers. Oh, and they’re fun to play with. Photo (CC-BY) slackpics.

Snap, snap… LEGO bricks are at some point irresistible for making a synth housing. Our friends at DE:BUG point to a LEGO-built, circuit-bending synth. And the imaginary toy world of LEGO find their way into this instrumental housing. Creator freeformdelusion writes:

ClearTone Synth with LFO inside a nice lego project box with a house, dog, flowers, LEDs and a female figure drinking away to the synths excellent sound!

Cheers to that, yes!

But, with LEGO bricks here and there for the holidays (you know, for kids), I wondered: who out there is prototyping synths and the like with LEGO? Found useful applications for it? (Or, for that matter, for Mindstorms?) We’ve covered a few of these projects over the years, but never had a comprehensive discussion about what people are using. LEGO’s patents have expired, and the company has failed to protect the block design via other legal means, but that also means making compatible blocks with specific applications is possible, too. So, let us know how you’re using this toy – or if you prefer something else, and leave this to the kids.

(One serious case in point: Ableton used LEGO when prototyping their upcoming Push controller early on. I hope to get more details on that process soon.)

Nonstop from Iceland, the perfect soundtracks to your winter. Photo (CC-BY) James Cridland.

It’s easy to be bleak about new music releases, the vast quantities of new work spreading before you in their sameness like a blizzard – plenty of particles, but all a white wash. When feelings like that hit you – or the depressed mood that might strike during midwinter in the far reaches of the Northern Hemisphere – there’s a solution. You can warm yourself with good friends in intimate surroundings.

And that’s what Iceland’s Bedroom Community collective and label are all about. This group has literally assembled a group of close friends for “intimate” musical connections. Getting in on their releases feels accordingly like gathering with that circle, in beautiful, reflective, finely-crafted music that’s unafraid of drawing lines between electronic music, classical, and experimental traditions. And yes, that includes looking to acoustic instrumentation and concert music alongside digital and purely electronic media. The founders were originally Valgeir Sigurðsson, with Nico Muhly and Ben Frost, with a few additions since then.

December is the perfect time to catch up if you like what you here, as an exquisite new Yule mix is free with other records. Let’s listen to a few samples.

Have a Yule that’s cool. Sadly, no sweater is available. (Box set, please?)

This year, a new Yule compilation is an exclusive in December, complete with make-your-own gift CD kits. Yes, I’m a bit late for Christmas, but I’m ready to keep gift giving going. New Year’s. Orthodox Christmas. My birthday. All ahead in the next three weeks. Track listing:

00:00 Daníel Bjarnason – “Enn fagnar heimur” / Scanner Remix
04:50 Nico Muhly feat. Dawn Landes – “The Brown Girl” / Valgeir Sigurðsson Remix
10:57 Paul Corley – “Sidings”
16:38 Puzzle Muteson – “True Faith”
19:59 Ben Frost & Daníel Bjarnason – Theme From “Djúpið”
23:33 Nadia Sirota – “Twelve Days Of Christmas”
28:49 Sam Amidon – “The Sad Gnome” + “Prodigal Son 2007 Demo”
34:48 Ben Frost – “Bergþórugata 2006″
37:12 Nico Muhly – “Radio Bells”
41:28 Daníel Bjarnason – “Enn fagnar heimur”
43:48 Valgeir Sigurðsson – “Gleðilegt jóðl”

Yule is in the Air

From last year’s Yule mix, Sam Amidon with How Come That Blood (FM Belfast Remix) video, as featured on NME (PS, funny to run across Sam’s name, as I met Sam years ago in New York):

Another great sample is Daníel Bjarnason’s “Montauk in February Remix” off Spindrift:

But Yule aside, now’s as good a time as any to mention some wonderful recent Bedroom Community releases, each of which deserve our consideration as we look back over 2012.

There’s Nico Muhly’s “Drones”, the latest from this brilliant, boundary-pushing composer. Ignore the title: this is post-minimal virtuosity, sometimes rollicking in nods to the likes of Rzewski, sometimes static sculpture, sometimes rock-and-roll. It’s, vitally, never timid:

Paul Corley’s debut “Disquiet” is a masterpiece, sparse and unadorned without ever being austere, a chillingly-beautiful set of instrumental meditations:

Finally, “Architecture of Loss” by Valgeir Sigurðsson is an exquisite, often programmatic work in instrumental and digital processes. Built on a ballet, the sense of movement and gesture is intact even in its sparest moments.

Bedroom Community remains a label to track, so I’ll continue to do so. Enjoy:

http://www.bedroomcommunity.net/

Vienna in the snow, ca. 2008. Happy winter, Austria – this EP is a fitting soundtrack. Photo (CC-BY-SA) gego2605.

Call it experimental electro, ambient house… whatever the genre, Parque is smart, chilled-out music from Vienna. Full of cinematic cross-cuts and sharply-contrasted sound design, the EP “Amerika” is bathed in pleasantly-mellow melancholy. It’s only a debut, but an impressive one. The love and time put into production shines through. We’re pleased to introduce CDM reader Bene, aka Parque, to the site and listeners.

And the Bavarian-born, Vienna-based Bene has a nice benefit in mind as he makes his holiday-timed release:

All incoming proceeds until end of this year (minus Bandcamp and PayPal fees) will be forwarded to a Viennese homeless shelter called „Die Gruft“. They give bedrolls to them and have a kitchen where the homeless always get some warm food and tea.

Have a listen:

More on the charity (German-only):
http://www.gruft.at/

This holiday, take a holiday to another world, chip music style. An imagined NES dimension, here envisioned (CC-BY-SA) torley.

Whether you’re unwrapping presents or not, we’re spending these twenty four hours unwrapping some beautiful musical gifts: have a Yule that’s cool with fine, free/donationware releases. First in the queue…

If unimaginative holiday music on endless repeat has given you the winter blues, the fine folks of Toy Company have the cure. The Montreal-based collective and 8-bit/lo-fi techno party series have brought together a number of friends with original tunes and noise and digital-fuzz-laden covers of tunes like “Joy to the World” and “Silent Night.” Meticulously-rendered, quirky music is free to hear, or thank the artists by naming your own price as this crew works to bring more live music to town. The compilation is called “12​-​24​-​12,” and it’s a great introduction to the crew – out of this sampler, you’re likely to find some artist you appreciate.

A lot of these tracks are Creative Commons-licensed, as well. If that’s not enough chips for your mid-winter desert, see also their lovely compilation from last year:
Toy Company – PLAYROOM Vol​.​1

Not everything is retro-tinged lo-fidelity NES far. You might have noticed Dj CUTMAN’s work is decidedly not 8-bit. That project is, to my knowledge, the first to take on Nintendo’s brand new WiiU console. While these machines will find their way as pure entertainment devices under Christmas trees this year, there’s some comfort in knowing musicians continue to turn commodity gaming hardware into compositional platforms, appropriated musical instruments. Have a listen to that release:

For my part, I’m saving “12​-​24​-​12″ as a jetlag tonic as I hop over the Atlantic later this week; I hope you enjoy it in your neck of the woods.

At this time of year, we come together, hearts aglow, and celebrate the simple pleasure of how much fun field recording and sampling can be in sound design.

Or something like that. If you want a broader or more religious message, I’m sure you’ll find no shortage elsewhere.

Having successfully weathered Armageddon (whew!), our friend AfroDJMac is back with a set of Ableton Live synths sampled from a Charlie Brown Christmas tree snowglobe. And as in the classic television Charlie Brown show, a single branch becomes a lush, full tree with some love. No, really: this is a perfect demonstration of just how much mileage you can get out of a simple sample. The results sound lovely on their own, when close to the original music box sounds, but can also morph into various melodic synth sounds, some quite distant from the original but taking advantage of its harmonic content.

AfroDJMac writes us:

I am writing to share a special Christmas themed Free Ableton Live Pack. It’s the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree Synths! I sampled a music box snow globe that features Charlie Brown and Snoopy celebrating around their infamous Christmas tree. The entire package contains 3 synths that are capable of sounds similar to a traditional music box, but can be morphed into trippy instruments with reverse looping, glitchy delays and pseudo-granular-style synthesis. It’s a perfect free virtual stocking stuffer to treat yourself to!

Download it, grab some Egg Nog and a copy of Ableton Live (or, in other tools, just use the sounds to make your own samples), and enjoy:
FREE ABLETON LIVE PACK #69: CHARLIE BROWN X-MAS TREE SYNTHS

God bless us, every one, indeed.

Pinball Pianola from Lucas Abela on Vimeo.

The mechanical and kinetic collide – literally – with the sonic, in a devilishly-inventive hybrid instrument that cross-breeds a pinball table with a piano. Australian artist Lucas Abela is joining us next month as part of CTM Festival: The Golden Age. In the meantime, he shares this work.

I’ve devised a Frankenstein experiment, combining the greatest musical invention of all time, the Piano; with the coolest amusement machines ever conceived; Pinball, to create an interactive sound installation like no other; ‘Pinball Pianola’, a musical device constructed by replacing the keyboard, hammers and front paneling of an upright piano, with a pinball cabinet butted up perpendicular against its exposed strings. Embracing high and low culture this instrument allows virtuosos and wizards alike to pit their skills in a game where musical compositions are created as metallic balls jettisoned into the game clash with the pianos resonating wires. This experiment the first of in a series of individually crafted instruments I’m constructing at Artspace as part of my Australia Council music board project fellowship that introduce musical elements into the iconic game of pinball, making sound generation – not scoring – the games’ main objective.

As a pianist, I might actually hate the idea were the sounds of the resonating strings not so compelling. I hope we get to see more. Bio:

Initially classed as a turntablist, Lucas Abela’s work has rarely resembled anything in the field, early feats saw him stabb vinyl with Kruger style stylus gloves, bound on electro acoustic trampolines, drag race the pope across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, perform deaf defying duet duels with amplified samurai swords, hospitalised by high powered turntables constructed from sewing machine motors, record chance John Peel sessions with the Flaming Lips, become Otomo Yoshihides’ favourite entry into his Ground Zero remix competition; ‘Consummation’ (even though instead of sampling the CD he destroyed it using amplified skewers!).

Today these turntable roots have became almost unrecognisable, evolving into his infamous glass instrument, the shards being nothing more than a giant diamond tipped stylus you vibrate with your mouth. He has been perfecting the instrument since it’s invention in 2003, perfroming internationally as Justice Yeldham and with his glass/ drums/ piano trio, Rice Corpse.

Lucas has principally been a live audio artist, perfroming live since 1994 after Oren Ambarchi stumbled across his radio performances, and invited him to play the What is? Music Festival. However Recently he has begun dabbling in sound installation with works like Vinyl Rally, where remote control cars with styli attached are raced over a track made from a mass of disused vinyl records.

He also founded of the irreverent dualpLOVER organisation, promoting, touring and releasing stark music from Australia and Abroad.

More:
dualplover.com

A bare-bones UI belies a powerful engine – and a tool that could finally jump-start sound designers embracing an open format. Proprietary lock-in, no more.

“Free As In Free Me From Proprietary Formats.” If you’re ready to explore sounds – as a novice sampler user or as an advanced sound developer – SFZ brings tidings of great joy.

When they move from defining mere sounds or samples to describing whole instruments, sound designers need file formats. The problem has been that those formats tend to be particular to one sampler or another – just Kontakt, or just Logic’s EXS24, or just Gigastudio. Yes, there are converters, but because these samplers have different capabilities, converters cause problems. Being able to create instruments for these samplers is all fine and well, but sound designers badly needed a lingua franca.

Well, they’ve got it, in the form of a beautiful format called SFZ. Never heard of it? You should. And now, there’s a free (as-in-beer) player for Mac and Windows, plus some free samples to get you going. (Linux users will want to check out SFZ support in LinuxSampler, which is true free software.) This player is a great, ready-to-use option you can play with right now – and could likewise push the format for all compatible samplers. (See, for instance, Cakewalk and rgc:audio.)

The player, called sforzando, was released this week by master plug-in developer David Viens of Montreal:

• Bare-bones, SFZ 2.0-compatible sample player
• “Advanced sample hobbyists now have a powerful tool to experiment and share instruments without relying on proprietary formats.” (I’ve never heard anyone described as an “advanced sample hobbyist” – sounds like a good hobby to start!)
• One instrument slot – everything at the SFZ file level. (Hackers!)
• Engine shared with Garritan, Plogue Chipsounds
• RTAS, VST, AU, standalone
• Mac, Windows, 32-bit, 64-bit
• Drag-and-drop conversion to SFZ 2.0 from other file formats (SF2, DLS and acidized WAV files)

This all calls for some sounds, no? You’re in luck. This week, in addition to sforzando, various contributors released some 171 MB of great sounds for the engine – ready to load in sforzando.

• 11 Instruments from Garritan
• 14 Instruments from Digital Sound Factory
• CR-909 Electronic Drum Machine, thanks to Analog Industries
• Various Instruments from Patch Arena, Plogue and More!

Free Sounds for ARIA Engine [ariaengine.com]

Of course, the real hope is that this kick-starts sound designers using the SFZ format. We’d love to see that happen here at CDM Tower, too, so do let us know if you go after the format.

To get you started, you can drop SF2, DLS and acidized WAV files on the UI to get automatic conversion to SFZ 2.0. Drop, tweak, and publish.

A peek inside the file format reveals a very clean, easy-to-read, logical text description of the instruments. No need to fear. Images courtesy Plogue.

David shares his introduction with CDM, which makes nice reading on what this is all about even if you don’t plan to use the sforzando player specifically:

Back in 2005 when Gary Garritan gave me the task to design a complex sample playback engine, I obviously started with some homework. First question was obviously: “Is there already an instrument format that is open, powerful, flexible enough, and future proof”? YES! And its called SFZ!. Not only that, but I also found out it was invented by someone I both admired and respected, my old #musicdsp IRC buddy René Ceballos. The more I looked into it the more it was also obvious that René did his homework as well, since he made sure his SFZ 1.0 specification pretty much covered everything from SF2/DLS/GIG and other formats of the day.

His first implementation of the format was in the famous sfz.dll plugin, originally given for free on rgcaudio.com. After being acquired by Cakewalk – and for a good while later-, René pursued the development of his specification, this time with some help from Chad Beckwith, culminating with the SFZ 2.0 format as implemented in Cakewalk Dimension™ in 2005 and in Drop Zone™ a few years later.

Meanwhile at Plogue, we were just getting ready to ship the first product based on our new ARIA Engine: the Garritan Authorized Steinway Model D. Entirely SFZ based, this multi gigabyte sampled piano already utilized a few new SFZ opcodes that were submitted to René for review. Some of these were officially added to the specification, while others were still pending at the time René and Chad left Cakewalk. Simon Cann’s Cakewalk Synthesizers: from Presets to Power User 2nd Edition lists some of these new opcodes.

Fours years have passed, but of course we didn’t stop there! We kept designing new opcodes (the so called ‘ARIA-extensions’), to keep the specification up to date with what other – newer – contemporary sample formats offered. Each time we did this, we asked ourselves: “What would René do?” How would HE transform a specific feature request into one or a series of opcodes in such a way that would both make sense, and wouldn’t break existing compatibility? This is not a trivial task for a single implementer to achieve. So we did our best not to ‘pollute’ the spec too much and we hope as time goes by to disclose as much info as possible on our extensions with the new forum and wiki on ariaengine.com.

Today we present you Plogue sforzando, the new free, minimalistic SFZ 2.x player! It only has ONE instrument slot, no effects or mixers. Just the ability to load SFZ files and to play sounds from current ARIA-based products.

Of course we understand that editing text files to create sounds is not for everyone, but we’ve had too many requests for a product such as this not to pursue René’s tradition of giving away a simple player.

There’s also a tutorial video on the sforzando site. David cautions that he hopes to do a better video, but… since you’re likely to find it at the site, and since it’s public on YouTube, here it is. (When that better video gets done, we’ll publish it, too, David!)

And a quick video intro:

http://www.plogue.com/products/sforzando/

I can see exactly how this goes. Me. A Korg Poly800. One MIDI cable. A quiet moment in the studio. A completely ridiculous mis-interpretation of Mayan history that some have decided is the end of the world.

Let me just light some candles to set the mood.

“Hey there, Korg. So… this could be our last night on Earth.

I know this is my friend’s studio. But — who knows if the sun is going to come up tomorrow. Let me just find out where you’re connected in the patch bay.”

Actually, let me just stop there before I get carried away. This is a family site.

Yes, our friend AfroDJMac has come up with the perfect Ableton Live pack for the apocalypse, in collaboration with Mike Longo. It’s accompanied by an apocalypse EP, made entirely with the sounds in the collection. Description:

Get ready for the end! Announcing The Armageddon Pack, a large collection of Ableton Live Instruments for the Apocalypse! It’s comprised of multi-sampled instruments created with samples from the Korg Poly800 MKII analog synthesizer. These sounds are perfect for the post-apocalyptic world. It will be officially released on 12.21.12 at 12:21pm, but can currently be preordered for the reduced price of $12.21. The preorder includes an exclusive free instrument called “The Chosen One” to help you get ready for the end!

http://afrodjmac.com/2012/12/19/ableton-live-armageddon-pack/

And whether you want to go apocalyptic with Live or not, some music to hear:

AfroDJMac says that the Korg here was programmed to its “most apocalyptic sounds.” And so that raises a really crucial question: which synth would you want in an apocalypse? (MeeBlip for me, but for sentimental reasons.)

I can see exactly how this goes. Me. A Korg Poly800. One MIDI cable. A quiet moment in the studio. A completely ridiculous mis-interpretation of Mayan history that some have decided is the end of the world.

Let me just light some candles to set the mood.

“Hey there, Korg. So… this could be our last night on Earth.

I know this is my friend’s studio. But — who knows if the sun is going to come up tomorrow. Let me just find out where you’re connected in the patch bay.”

Actually, let me just stop there before I get carried away. This is a family site.

Yes, our friend AfroDJMac has come up with the perfect Ableton Live pack for the apocalypse, in collaboration with Mike Longo. It’s accompanied by an apocalypse EP, made entirely with the sounds in the collection. Description:

Get ready for the end! Announcing The Armageddon Pack, a large collection of Ableton Live Instruments for the Apocalypse! It’s comprised of multi-sampled instruments created with samples from the Korg Poly800 MKII analog synthesizer. These sounds are perfect for the post-apocalyptic world. It will be officially released on 12.21.12 at 12:21pm, but can currently be preordered for the reduced price of $12.21. The preorder includes an exclusive free instrument called “The Chosen One” to help you get ready for the end!

http://afrodjmac.com/2012/12/19/ableton-live-armageddon-pack/

And whether you want to go apocalyptic with Live or not, some music to hear:

AfroDJMac says that the Korg here was programmed to its “most apocalyptic sounds.” And so that raises a really crucial question: which synth would you want in an apocalypse? (MeeBlip for me, but for sentimental reasons.)