Sound from a Virtual Planet

I love drum machines. This particular infatuation began when I got my the original Roland Dr Rhythm as an antidote for the hours I spent playing with drummers who had more interest in fills and rolls than keeping time. It kept me honest. There’s something hypnotic about the unrelenting dependability of drum machines, and the best of them have very intuitive ways of programming rhythm patterns that inspire exploration and even performance. As I got more into using computers, sequencing programs and samplers replaced Dr Rhythm, offering a near infinite pallet of sounds and programming flexibility, but somehow they lacking the immediacy and convenience.

Enter the iPhone. I got mine the day after it was first released (2007 – iPhone Classic). When version 2 of the operating system was released earlier this year, the most intriguing new feature was support for 3rd party applications. While I didn’t expect to see versions or Reason or Live on my phone – yet, I was curious to see if music applications would be toys or useful mobile tools. So, what are the coolest apps I’ve found? Drum machines, and there are three winners I’ve come across so far.

Some of my all-time favorite drum machines were made by Roland. Dr Rhythm’s big brothers all turned out to be classics. While the TR-808 has developed the most cache, The TR-707, and TR-909 were more than worthy successors. The IR-909 from Roventskij literally puts a TR-909 on your iPhone. This first version does a great job of capturing most of the features from the original, while adding five additional sample sets from classics like the TR-606, and the TR-808. So how does a classic drum machine take advantage of some of the iPhone’s unique features? Try changing tempo. You hold the tempo button and tilt the phone forward to raise the tempo, tilt back to slow it down. Cool… With this, I’ve re-kindled my drum machine flame, and the coolest thing is that anywhere I can bring my guitar, I can practice with a minimum of effort, just pull out my phone.

 
The IR-909

While the IR-909 can store four patterns, there’s no provision for chaining them together to lay out a song form. This was a powerful feature of the original and essential if you were a songwriter. The iDrum from iZotope has the answer with a really cool system of colorful squares that represent patterns. These are easily chained and rearranged by touching and dragging these icons. Tap a square, and you’ll be able to edit the pattern with each instrument represented by it’s own square, each with sixteen steps with programmable dynamics. The iDrum was originally a desktop Mac application that designed to offer an intuitive drum programming tool for GarageBand, or any other Audio Unit compatible sequencer. iZotope has done a great job porting the original app to the iPhone, taking advantage of the multi-touch interface. Both the desktop and mobile versions of the iDrum can work together, sharing data, and saving songs as ringtones. Given iZotope’s track record of developing powerful DSP applications, we should see some interesting things for the iPhone from them in the future.

iDrum for iPhone

While both IR-909 and iDrum are drum machines in the strict sense of the word, Beatmaker, the "mobile music creation studio" from Intua, is a surprisingly full-featured application. Here, there are pages that allow the user to design their own kits, sequence and chain patterns, and even add a limited pallet of effects. Beatmaker is designed from the ground up to be integrated into the process of producing music by allowing the user to freely import and export data and samples. At 180 MB, the install itself is quite large for a mobile application, but includes a sizable collection of factory sample content, including signature kits from artists like Richard Devine. Both Beatmaker and iDrum come with on-screen help as well as PDF manuals.

Beatmaker

What these mobile apps really bring the to table is the ease with which you can do useful musical tasks. Part of the charm of a drum machine is that it’s a completely self contained device that does one thing, and does it really well. Drum machines were one of the first of a generation of electronic instruments, and likewise, it looks like they are leading the pack of mobile music applications.

At the AES convention in NYC last year I had a great conversation with a friend of mine at M-Audio. We were talking about what would be the killer lifestyle device for a musician. Gary, the iPhone is it.

OK, it’s a month later and people are still asking me about the coolest stuff I saw at the Winter NAMM 2008. So I guess I’ll have to come clean with my top 5. For those of us looking for big music technology news, trade shows are more or less sleepers. These days, fewer manufacturers time their release cycles to trade shows. Even Apple, who tries to set their trajectory in January with Steve Jobs’ MacWorld keynote, is more about getting products out the door as soon as they’re ready. So, for most music technology companies, major releases and announcements have already hit the street by January. There are some exceptions…

Although I got scooped on this one by my friend and fellow Berkleemusic blogger, Dave Franz, at the top of my list is Spectrasonics, who know a little something about drama. They skipped NAMM altogether last year while working on "something really big." The fruits of that labor saw the light of day at NAMM this year when patron saint of sound design Eric Persing rolled out Omnisphere.

Spectrasonics has been quite successful at creating powerful and evocative sampled instruments such as Atmosphere, Trilogy, and Stylus RMX. These were based on the UVI sound engine which essentially is a platform for sample playback. With the next generation of instruments, the company wanted to develop their own sound engine that would expand on sample playback and get much deeper into synthesis techniques such as granular, waveshaping, and FM. They came up with something they call the "Steam" engine. While the synthesis and modulation functions here are deep, Spectrasonics has made them immediately and easily accessible to any musician. The sound library itself is massive, comprised of the greatest hits of all their previous libraries along with a collection of new and unique samples. They showed one such sampling session for their demo where an upright piano was set on fire and carefully recorded as it went up in smoke. The sound quality was fabulous and the design was ingenious with things like a Farfisa organ graincloud sounding at once unique and familiar. The only downside of their demo was the September 15 release date. With such a build-up I didn’t meet anyone who didn’t want to leave the show with a copy tucked under their arm.

One of the biggest buzzes at the show this year was the Euphonix MC line of hardware DAW controllers. While primarily known for their high end digital consoles, Euphonix is coming out with a more modest line of products that uses their Ethernet-based EuCon DAW control protocol.

These new surfaces, the MC Mix and MC Control, are aimed at the project studio user with 999.00 and 1495.00 price tags, respectively. Currently, their main competition will be the Mackie Control units. However, a sleek, compact design, well-designed functionality, as well as the responsiveness of their high-speed control will make these units serious contenders.

Next on my list is Access. While it took a couple of years to perfect the technology behind the Access TI (totally integrated) line of Virus synthesizers, these instruments have become one the must-haves in current electronic arsenals. This year Access introduced an entry-level, stand-alone module version of the Virus TI called the Snow. To top things off, Richard Devine spent the weekend holding court at their booth, evangelizing the Virus and the newly released Atomizer companion software.

The software works alongside the Virus OS to beat slice audio input coming into the Virus, map the slices across the keyboard and provide addition processing controlled by the mod wheel and pitch bend. In the capable hands of Richard Devine this became a powerful, real-time performance tool. It looks like Access is pushing the envelope of what we can expect from a hardware synthesizer to include functions that we’d normally associate with custom laptop performance software. Atomizer will be free to all Virus TI users.

Korg had one of the coolest gadgets I saw at the show, and the closest thing to what one might call a glitch instrument. The new Kaossilator Dynamic Phrase Synthesizer takes a small Kaos pad controller and adds 100 different sounds and phrases.

An internal sequencer allows the user to assemble simple melodic/rhythmic fragments and manipulate them with the pad. The device itself is pocket sized, and while it offers little in the way of connectivity or pro features, it’s really fun to play, and downright addictive.

Somehow NAMM brings out the guitar player in everyone, and this year, Mackie’s new HotWire guitar amp was what did it for me. Legendary designer Greg Mackie reputedly spent years on this design, and the result is a remarkable combination of high and low tech in a great sounding amp. At the heart of this is analog tube circuitry. Not just one circuit, but a number of them, so that in fact, when switching between the various amp modes, the actual circuit routing changes, along with the selection of tubes used. Think of it like having a collection of tube amps at your disposal, where you can easily switch between them. In addition, the amp comes with a collection of creature comforts from a tuner and metronome, to on-board digital effects. The amp sells for 1500.00 and is expected to be available in March.

Winter NAMM 2008 Top Five Roundup.

1. Spectrasonics Atmosphere
2. Euphonix MC Controllers
3. Access Virus Snow and Atomizer software
3. Korg Kaossilator
5. Mackie HotWire Guitar amp