Been doing a little testing and preset design for the FAW guys for their new synth, Circle.
I have to say it’s been a delight to use. Very intuitive and lovely sounding with some very unique features that make getting oddness out of this synth a breeze.
Came up with this track in a few evenings and it’s 100% Circle. The only other bits are a touch of Reverence (Audio Damage reverb plug in) and the built in Ableton Live compressors and EQs.
I love this photo. Only drum machine geeks need apply mind as that’s Roger Linn.
Blatantly nicked from Create Digital Music
A post from long time tech writer Jim Aikin on Create Digital Music contains this interesting ine of text…
As a huge fan of the software this seemed like one of two things. The article was written last year, or there really is a new version of Live on the way as I can’t see a book being written about Live 6 LE.
Even if it’s a while away I’m looking forward to the next version as I’m one of those tech musicians who thrive on learning new features and the ideas that spring from them to make my music.
Monday evening update. PICs are in and the core board powered up
Success! For a while there I couldn’t work out if it was working or not as I am using the pre-burned PICs that have MIOS installed already so it just sits there waiting after one tiny SysEx message. I used the MIOS studio application to upload a sample application and those lovely random CC messages started flowing up the screen.
These are generated by the fact the analogue inputs have no grounding or pots attached but that means in theory we are go!
The relief is without measure.
Finally had an evening spare to start building my midibox kits from SmashTV’s store. Spent a bit of time setting up my high tech, top end work area (aka my kitchen table) and making sure all the parts and equipment are to hand before I start. First up was the Core which is the main brain of the controller.
Most important on the table was the laptop pointing at the layout for the Core on Smash’s website which has handy diagrams and info about all the parts and where they go.
Starting with the resistors I used the resistor layout guide at the foot of the Core layout page then double checked with my multi-meter before soldering to the board. These boards are different from the kits I’d put together before as the holes for the component legs have very small solder pads on the bottom of the board but are tinned right through to the front so you fill the holes with solder rather than build up huge blobs on the back (with any luck). After the first few I seemed to get the knack for this and I’m by no means a soldering expert.
Using a small pair of pointed nose pliers I pre-bent the resistor legs so they had a clean 90 degree bend so they sit nice and low on the board. I then place then in situ in groups of two or three, flip the board and use the weight of the board to hold them in place while soldering.
I then moved on to the diode (I’m hoping I got it the right way round!) and the other low level components. Once all the smaller components were in I soldered in the mounts for the ICs, the DIL headers (the upright pins that connect the other circuit boards), the largest capacitor and finally the midi sockets.
Quick tip for those of us without fancy multi arm PCB and component holders… To get the IC mounts and the DIL headers on flush to the board is to grab a small amount of solder on the end of your iron, hold the mount in the right position then dap the iron to a corner leg on the back. That will grab the mount and enable you to turn the board over solder all the other pins easily and finish up cleaning up the dab of solder you used on the first leg.
All in all it took me about two hours from sitting down to having the finished board (without ICs) and pouring my self a nice glass of white beer my colleague Chris very kindly brought me back from his trip to Germany.
It was very welcome after the solder fumes and I can only hope when I finally plug it all in it works.. I would have done it that night but totally forgot to get a power supply which is pretty typical.
So the 40h has gone but the monomes have released details of the future.
Different form factors and the exciting bit for me? Monome Kits
I’ve arrived in SF and it’s 3:35am local time which due to the time difference is about half past the eleven in the morning according to my body clock and I can’t sleep. I tried my usual trick of staying up until as late as I can the first day and sleeping through but something woke me up about an hour ago and now I can’t get back to sleep. I’ll try again tomorrow night I guess.
Thought I’d sketch out how my Midibox will work and be laid out (currently).
As you read through you’ll be able to tell I’ve been thinking about this for ages and I think that the initial planning is crucial when designing a controller for yourself. I’ve been using an MPD24 in the short term to prototype out the Live layout to check that what I dreamt up actually works when you are in front of a crowd and this final controller layout is the end result of months of testing.
The basic Ableton Live document will comprise of 4 channels bussed to one ‘group’ channel for the drums and percussion and 4 channels for the musical elements. Each channel will have three pots (level, and two other functions TBC) and three buttons (‘channel on/off’, start clip and stop clip) on the controller. Both group channels will have a ‘channel on/off’ button and two knobs for functions TBC. The 5th knob will control the Q of all the filters in the layout.
The three buttons under the group section will control scene up/down and scene start so I can build the tune using individual clips but also launch entire scenes if I need to.
The end line of controls is set up to control the send effect, probably a delay (a dubstation probably) so it’ll be mapped to feedback, speed and highpass. The buttons below will be things like the Loop, Sync buttons on the dubstation.
The two groups of 12 buttons under each group is the fun stuff and is is applied individually to the drum and the music group.
The first 6 of each side will control beat repeat in Live. I have it set up (and working with my MPD24 and Midipipe at the moment) so each button does two things. The first is common to all 6 buttons and the is the ‘repeat’ button in the Beat Repeat plugin. The second function is to change the speed of the repeat. This allows me to ‘play’ the repeat in a more musical way rather than relying on the random functions to create variation.
These buttons also are linked to the synced speed of an AutoPan set up as a square wave tremolo with it’s on/off button set to one of the second group of 6 buttons. This allows me to chop off the second half of the repeats to create a much more stuttery effect. It also allows me to choose a speed of trem and just engage that without doing an actual repeat.
The remaining 5 buttons will enable a further 5 effects (either momentary or toggle depending). Including the Audio Buffer glitch plogue groups I’ve made available below and probably something along the lines of a flanger / phaser and a couple of Crazy Ivan settings I’ve knocked up that do some oddness.
All the buttons are illuminated and I will use the Midi Feedback functions in Live to enable things like clip playback status, effect on/off status and things like the Trem button will flash to let me know what speed it’s currently running at etc.
One final thing that isn’t on the layout is a ‘visual click’ which will be 6 LEDs on the box somewhere that will tick from one to the next on each beat providing me with a silent reference beat when all the delays, glitch and madness that will be going on throws my internal clock. The reason it’s six is it will cover most of the time signatures I can think of in a vaguely meaningful way.
In short, whilst I’d love a monome, the limitations of that controller are what made me decide to go for a custom controller. The thing I took from the monome is that visual feedback on the controller is paramount if you want to avoid the “Checking My Email” problem.
After months of faffing I’ve finally got round to prepping, testing and uploading my first efx pack. 8 .bgrp files for Plogue Bidule users everywhere check out.
[sg_efx] Buffer Scratch
An LFO based audio buffer effect. Audio goes in, weird scratchy and odd sounds come out. The LFO speed is tempo locked with presets for a few different tempo divisions. Needs to be synced for it to work.
[sg_efx] BuffScatter
As above but weirder and less controllable. Needs to be synced for it to work.
[sg_efx] Stereo Triple LFO Buffer
An extension of Buffer Scratch. This time three non synced LFOs get busy with your buffer. Needs to be synced for it to work.
[sg_efx] S&H Filter+Comb
2 tempo locked sample and hold LFOs mess with a low pass filter and a delay unit to create filtered comb filter type effects. Needs to be synced for it to work.
[sg_efx] Stereo 6-12db Filter
Boring and bog standard, but pretty handy none the less.
[sg_mod] Log Slider
This isn’t an effect just a handy group. The slider value displayed is converted into a Log shape curve on output. Handy for filters and the like.
[sg_mod] Sync LFO
Another module, this time the Synced LFO used in the effects above. Needs to be synced for it to work.
[sg_mod] Sync S&H
A synced Sample and Hold LFO, as used in the S&H Filter+Comb group and handy to have stand alone. Needs to be synced for it to work.
Download the .zip file linked above and expand. Drag the ‘[sg_bidule] Pack One’ folder to the Bidule groups folder. Start Bidule and with any luck it will tell you that there are 8 new groups.
There will be a new folder in your palette at the bottom called [sg]. All the new groups are in there.
Feel free to open them up and improve / hack them as they are the result of late night noodling rather than concerted clean coding so they may be a bit unpredictable, but I like that when it comes to music.
If you use them in a track please let me know.. I’d love to hear what you’ve done.
Obviously these are provided as is, no warranty etc. If you break something, lose work, blow your speakers, whatever it really isn’t my problem OK?
Sold Out. Finito. 500 units gone into the world. The beautiful, logo-less, indie made musical interface has sold out.
I always held out hope that one day the money would be there and available and I could get in touch with the guys at monome and order my very own but fate has dictated that one will not be mine.
By the time the $500 dollar price tag + shipping + VAT + Import Duty was totted up there was no chance of it being affordable.
So congratulations to the monomons (or whatever they are called) for a successful run and here’s looking to the upcoming 100h (256 buttons!) for more geek musician pron fodder.
I dread to think what a 40h would fetch on ebay in the next few months…