A Compact Controller-Interface for Traktor on iOS or Desktop (BY PETER KIRN)

About as compact as you can get, without compromises: the iPad (even mini) alongside Z1 gives you a full-blown DJ rig, complete with dedicated output, headphone cue, control. Image courtesy Native Instruments

Native Instruments – among other developers – has now given you a DJ app you can load onto an iPhone or iPad. But that mobility is only useful in a club situation if you can cue tracks through headphones and comfortably control your mix. Lug along a lot of hardware, and you might as well go back to your PC. (And, please, no one say the word “dock.”)

The Traktor Kontrol Z1, announced today, is NI’s answer to the problem. For controlling your mix, it gives you a conventional 2-channel set of faders and knobs, for hands-on access to fades, EQ, filters, and effects. For audio, you get both stereo (phono RCA) output to the club, and a dedicated headphone jack for cueuing. Solved.

Fortunately, this gadget doesn’t become useless when you connect it to your PC or Mac. There, it’s a standard MIDI controller and audio interface. It’s connected via USB, running on the same drivers as other NI gear, and supports Traktor Pro (or the included Traktor LE) – so, for instance, you can use your iPad as a backup for your MacBook or the other way round, in case one fails while you’re on the road.

Check out the video, and you can watch the iOS and desktop versions all running together in a rather nice rig (approaching live setups as well as DJ setups):

NI somewhat confusingly calls this the “world’s smallest professional mixer and audio interface.” By “mixer,” they don’t mean that it has inputs – it’s what most people I think would call a controller for Traktor. Note also “smallest” paired with “professional.” But it is reasonably compact: NI didn’t yet have figures on size and weight, but tells us that it’s similar to the Kontrol X1 and F1.

Whether you want such a thing really comes down to how excited you are about running Traktor on the iPad and its brethren. The big advantage of the Z1 is that it has a dock connector for native connections to iOS for control and audio cueuing. (Users of newer Apple hardware with the Lightning Adapter will need Apple’s own converter – though, if you haven’t bought one of those yet, I predict you will.) And, unfortunately, NI tells us you can only use these control and cueuing features with Traktor DJ on iOS, not other apps (though other apps will work with the audio output).

When you pair the Z1 with a Mac or Windows desktop, Traktor LE is the logical companion. It seems, though, that while NI isn’t pushing the feature, other apps should work with MIDI and audio just as on NI’s other products – though, of course, Traktor is the logical choice with this accessory.

I could imagine some DJs instead using Traktor DJ (or similar) on iOS for touch access to waveforms, and mixing with the output of a laptop through a mixer. But for portability, this duo would allow you to show up at a club with just an iPad. (iPod touch and iPhone work, too, but would seem too tiny to really be useful – though the mixer controls will help.)

The next step, it seems to me: a version of Traktor LE that will work with touch, with all the touch Windows laptops, ultrabooks, and full-blown Windows tablets we’re seeing.

And as a first DJ product, it’s tough to beat: you get the hardware and a copy of Traktor LE for US$199/199 €. Traktor DJ is US$19.99 for iPad, US$4.99 for iPhone.

To sweeten the deal, you even get a $50 / 50€ e-voucher once you register with NI for anything you like. (So, for instance, you could upgrade to Traktor Pro.)

Available from July 3. Just in time for a DJ rig for a Fourth of July BBQ in America – or Bastille Day in Paris.

www.native-instruments.com/traktorkontrolz1

FL Studio 11 | What's New?

FL Studio 11 is making a run for it check it out...



FL Studio 11 has arrived, hot on the heels of an impressive FL Studio Mobile release. The folks at Image Line have been intensely busy, but what strikes me is that you can now play FL Studio using almost anything, on almost any device. The Mobile version works on Android and touch Windows devices, not just iOS, when most folks target only Apple.
And the upgrade to FL Studio 11 is similarly flexible.

There’s a clip-triggering performance mode, which already supports a range of input methods: “mouse, touch screen, typing keyboard or MIDI controller. Supports APC20/40, Launchpad, Lemur, Block, Maschine/Mikro, padKONTROL, Traktor Kontrol (and more).”

Multi-touch support works in the UI. Microsoft’s gestures are supported.

Editing views have been tweaked all over the place, including lots of Playlist improvements.

And there are a number of new plug-ins, too, in typical Fruity Loops fashion:
BassDrum percussion synth with sample layering

GMS (Groove Machine Synth): “Multi-timbral hybrid synthesizer & FX channel lifted from Groove Machine.”

A “performance-oriented” Effector multi-effects unit: Distortion, Lo-Fi bit reduction, Flanging, Phasing, Filter (low/high pass), Delay, Reverb, Stereo panning & binaural effect, Gating, Granulizer, Vocal formant and Ring modulation effects.

Patcher is improved with voice effects and a new UI, for saving and recalling plug-in chains.

New key mapping works on live notes and Piano Roll editing to modify notes. (There’s a color mapper for the Piano Roll, too.

Introducing Traktor DJ for iPhone

Are you ready to start DJ-in on you iphone...? well Traktor believes you are.




Not long after its debut on the iPad, Traktor DJ is available for the iPhone and iPod touch. The surprise is that more or less all the functionality of the bigger iPad version is there, only reorganized visually for the smaller screen.
In fact, zoom in on a waveform and it’s the same height in your hand as it is on the iPad mini.
You get the same 3-band EQ and filter sections, waveform loop and cue points, time analysis, scrubbing, library browsing and management, and even the same eight effects. NI has been fairly clever fitting that onto a phone without things feeling crowded; you can easily slide out other interface options or get them out of the way and focus on mixing and waveform manipulation, comfortably looking at one waveform at a time or both.

Announcing Reason 7

Propellerhead Software proudly presents Reason 7. The latest incarnation of the world’s favorite music software brings a slew of enhancements to help you create more and better music—and have even more fun doing it.

Once again Propellerhead is put it down with the software just watch the video ....

New Software Gear Take a look at BitWig....

Bitwig; Video Reveals Features Up Close

Jun 6 2012 Mixing Knobs with iPad Touch: Line Grid + Livid Code Now Available

by Peter Kirn

Users of Ableton Live, among other tools, have a dilemma. A touch display like the iPad is really good at simple triggering and interactive displays – navigating Live’s grid of clips, for instance. It gives you visual feedback without having to hunch behind your laptop, and it makes seeing (and touching) clips far easier. But it gets fairly clumsy when it comes to manipulating mixer levels and effects: there’s no physical feedback for what you’re doing, and it’s too easy accidentally jump between values or bump the wrong mixer channel.

Physical knobs and other controls are perfect for mixing and effects, naturally suited to the task. But light-up grids of buttons don’t give you enough information about different clips, sending you back to the computer screen. (Hmmm… was the green rectangle three rectangles down from the other rectangle and next to the couple of rectangles in a row the one I wanted?)

If only you could combine the two, right? We’ve known Austin, TX hardware maker Livid Instruments and Berlin iOS software maker Liine were collaborating on doing just that. This week, that solution is available. You get hands-on, tactile control with Code hardware, and more options with Griid on the iPad, all via free scripts.

(If that doesn’t happen to interest you, you also get full Core MIDI support for Griid, which opens up lots of other possibilities.)

Apr 13 2012 Moldover vs. Traktor Kontrol F1, in Live Sampling-Mash Mayhem

Yeah for all my Gear Heads peep this... Controllerism is the word of the day

 


 Matt Moldover takes on Native Instruments’ Traktor Kontrol F1 in a hands-on demo; NI reportedly gave him a weekend to see if the “controllerism” advocate could do something interesting with their hardware/software combo. The resulting video really gives some insight into what controllerism is all about: the fundamental notion here, whatever you wish to call it, is relying more heavily on live sampling and real-time manipulation, to make this more of an instrumental performance and not just a DJ set. That’s part of what I admired about the direction of the F1 earlier on. And here, sampling in particular comes to the fore – all within what is essentially DJ software.

Apr 4 2012 Figure, Reason Sounds with Finger Control, Available Now on iOS [Video, Preview]

Figure, the iOS app that’s powered by Reason instruments and effects, is now available on the App Store for US$.99 cents. The sound is Reason on your phone – literally, with the Thor polysynth and Kong drum machine, plus the Master Bus Compressor and side-chaining from Reason in effects. But the user experience is quite different. Introduced as something you’d use on the bus, this is really more about playing drums and making melodic gestures with your fingers, then tweaking those sounds and musical elements via X/Y touchpads. It’s a little bit like Korg’s Kaossilator and Reason had a love child.

For beginning users, this could mean a friendly environment to play with your fingers. But for more advanced users, there’s still enough open-ended room to work so that actual music talent might yield a very different result.

Features:

Drums, bass, lead synth

X/Y pad controls melodic figures, constrained by key

Adjustable controls for key, rhythm, tempo

Tweak as the songs play

More information: propellerheads.se/figure

Propellerhead just drop the Bomb on everybody Reson 6.5 is that heat...

Propellerhead Rack Extensions, Figure for iPhone Video;

Renoise 2.8 is now 64-bit + New Pattern Matrix

64-bit for everybody (Mac and Windows in addition to existing Linux support), so you can access more than 4 GB RAM. A bridge plug-in lets you use 32-bit instruments and effects, and there’s 64-bit ReWire support.

Pattern Matrix now lets you alias and clone pattern slots. It’s a powerful arrangement feature that’s a bit different than similar block arrangement or clip launching features in other tools (both because of Renoise’s approach to patterns and clips, and this ability to use those aliases to create structure). Expect some follow-up.

Collapse tracks and groups (see image below), giving Renoise some of the screen economy that made trackers famous. Route those grouped tracks, and use pattern effects across grouped tracks (also something relatively technique).
DSP multitap delay. (Yes, there’s that, but also…)
DSP repeater (“stutter”) effect.
DSP Exciter.
New pattern effects: Tremolo, Auto Pan, Set Envelope Position. (That last one sounds like it could be pushed into some insane places.)

Meta Mixer lets you combine modulation signals. (It’s really a meta device – imagine combining what Ableton does with Devices and Reason does with Combinator and CV devices.) Improvements to other modules, as well, both aesthetically and in parameters.

Improved editing in Sample Editor, including destructively rendering slices to individual samples, and editing features typically associated with waveform editors rather than tools like this. My favorite: cross-fading loop creation, which previously required jumping out to another tool (Peak, SoundForge, etc.)


More performance: Hyper-threading on new Intel chips.

More spectral views and editing, more envelope editing views, Favorites for devices.

And there’s a lot more, as well.

Mar 14 2012 Remixing Via Colored Pads: NI Reveals New Kontrol F1 DJ Hardware and Remix Decks

by Peter Kirn

Native Instruments had already revealed that it would add new hands-on remixing capabilities to its flagship DJ hardware and software line. But today, we get to see precisely what form that will take, with a grid of light-up, colored pads that seek to make DJing with Traktor as much about remixing tracks as playing them.

Plenty of DJs and electronic musicians have been doing just that via a variety of methods. Some use samplers like the MPC, some hardware like Korg’s KAOSS line, some combine live and DJ sets in software like Ableton Live, and some even use custom creations built in tools like Max and NI’s own Reaktor. What sets Traktor Kontrol F1 apart is an approach that melds those sampling/remixing features with DJ-style decks, in something NI calls “Remix Decks.”

The function of the touch-sensitive, light-up LED colored pads is a bit different from similar offerings, as well. Any light-up grid of pads will recall hardware for Ableton Live and devices like the ground-breaking monome grid controller. As with the Ableton solutions, those F1 pads do indeed launch clips, as well as everything from full tracks to loops and one-shot samples (samples that play once without looping).

These triggers act as shortcuts, too, however, with settings like Punch mode, effects assignment, and sample muting mappable to the matrix of pads, too. There are 16 pads, as on iconic hardware like the MPC, but you can scroll through pages on an encoder. You can also trigger functions like Sync, Quantize, Sample Size, and Reverse. As such, the F1 is a bit like a compendium of everything we’ve seen in grid controllers. You could treat it like an MPC with more conventional samples, you could treat it like Ableton’s Session View of clips, or use it as a set of shortcut keys as we’ve seen in hardware like DJ Tech Tools’ MIDI Fighter – or some combination, or more than any of those things.

In case you don’t want to combine this with another controller – perhaps hoping to squeeze into cramped quarters in a DJ booth – there’s also a set of four volume faders and four filter knobs.

The release today is also about new functionality in Traktor Pro software itself. Delivered in the 2.5 release, the new build packs up to 64 slots for samples – much as you’d find in a sampler or something like Ableton Live – right in the DJ tool. These samples then play on up to four decks. The “Remix Deck” is differentiated from a normal “Deck” in that it adds beat grids, BPM, and key information associated with those samples – again, a bit as you’d find in looping software.

We won’t get shipping hardware until May 30, but I hope to talk to NI more about it before then. US$279 / 249 € is the full price. Given that comes with a full copy of Traktor Pro 2.5, I’m not sure if the software has become free or controllers are becoming standard dongles for software. There are also 4 GB of pre-remixed sound content to get you started. You existing users of the Pro hardware and software will get Traktor Pro 2.5 as a free update.

FL Studio Unveils Performance Mode Alpha; Live That Isn’t Like Ableton Live?

by Peter Kirn





If you’re looking for a way of triggering sounds in live performance, but you want to meld that notion with the sequencer rather than play a drum machine-style sampling instrument, your commercially-available options are limited. And it seems, in particular, new creations simply work the way Ableton Live’s Session View does. Bitwig, a new DAW, struck many observers (myself included) to be strikingly close to Ableton’s Session View. More recently, a homebrewed effort for the tracker Renoise also aped Ableton’s interface.

Today’s appearance of the much-anticipated (well, by FL Studio users, anyway) Performance Mode is something different. Seen in a new alpha of the Software Formerly Known as Fruity Loops, Performance Mode builds on FL’s existing metaphor for queuing up samples, the Playlist. A few observations:

You can go directly from FL’s Playlist into this performance triggering mode. There isn’t a separate interface metaphor; instead, choosing Performance Mode unlocks new interactive playback options.

The triggering and position options aren’t quite like what we’ve seen before. Ableton Live provides the ability to quantize triggers and has long allowed interactive clip behaviors so that clips trigger other clips (Follow Actions). But FL has some new options. Triggering – first getting a clip playing – and position – have independent quantization options, for more complex rhythmic options. “Motion” options let you play through and then stop and perform other behaviors.

By the time the Novation Launchpad is controlling the action, FL resembles mlr and its descendants, the unique family of Max patches originated by Brian Crabtree on his monome project, more than they do Ableton Live. Now, arguably, you could rotate your head ninety degrees and look at Ableton, so that clips in Session view proceeded in time from left to right rather than top to bottom. But because all of this lives in FL’s Playlist, the workflow certainly feels different, and that detail of moving from left to right is pretty fundamental. While the results here seem very much like the monome, I could also imagine someone using the same features to go in a different direction. And all of this looks very, very fast.

The push to escape the shadow of Ableton Live – and even the monome – seems to be a difficult one. What’s your take: is this a new direction, or more of the same? Die-hard FL Studio users, are you interested? And will this interest anyone who isn’t a die-hard FL fan?

Midi Fighter 3D Controller from DJ TechTools

Beautiful Optical Turntables Generate Spinning Rhythms

by Peter Kirn

Soundmachines from The Product on Vimeo.

Music is deeply tied up with motion; seeing that in a machine is somehow satisfying. Soundmachines, from the enigmatically-titled Berlin studio TheProduct*, is an interactive physical installation made from optical turntables. By moving the “tone arm” – really in this case an optical sensor attached to an extended mount – you can change rhythms and sound sweeps.

We’ve naturally seen many visualizations, tangible and digital, that make loops into wheels. But it’s worth noting the particular connection to a kinetic experiment by The Books’ Nick Zammuto from the film earlier this week. In fact, my one criticism of this piece is that the rhythms are so regular. Some syncopation in a machine like this would be not only pleasing, but immediately visible to the eye and therefore understandable.

Arturia’s $550 Minibrute Analog Monosynth

Arturia’s new Minibrute analog monosynth, from the virtual analog software company, seen here blazing away in the apocalyptic moments just before Hell freezes over.

The features from Arturia:

Monophonic synthesizer
100% Analog Audio Signal Path
Steiner-Parker Multimode Filter (LP, BP, HP and Notch)
Voltage Controlled Oscillator with Sub-Osc
Oscillator Mixer (Sub, Sawtooth, Square, Triangle, White Noise, Audio In)
LFO1 with 6 waveforms and bi-polar modulation destinations
LFO2 with 3 vibrato modes
Brute Factor™ delivering saturation and rich harmonics
Ultrasaw generating shimmering sawtooth waveforms
Metalizer bringing extreme triangle harmonics
Two ADSR Envelope Generators
25 note Keyboard with Aftertouch
Rugged Aluminium Enclosure
External Analog Audio Input
External Analog Audio Input
CV In/Out controls: Pitch, Gate, Filter, Amp
MIDI In/Out with 5-Pin DIN connectors
USB MIDI In/Out
1/4” Audio Output and 1/4” Headphone Output
Gate Source Selection: Audio Input, Hold, Keyboard
Arpeggiator:
4 Modes of Arpeggiation
4 Octave Range Control
6 Time Divisions
Swing Control

Fretless Fader 2010 Update from JohnBeez

$679 Minitaur: A Moog Analog Monosynth for the Rest of Us, Soon

by Peter Kirn

Look past the plug-ins and controllers and hosts that work with controllers and iPads sitting in docks and such. If you like dedicated, analog monosynth hardware, life is actually pretty darned good.

Okay, so for those of you without deep pockets, you may not know some of the back story here. Moog’s limited-edition Taurus 3 was a brilliant update of the classic Taurus bass pedal, complete with luscious foot pedals. And with a street dipping down near US$1699, it’s honestly not a bad deal. The problem is, not everyone has that cash, or the ability to lug around a big, heavy pedal.

So, let’s change that equation. Leaked on the Web and then formally announced today, the Minitaur is just a little Taurus. And it’s kind of nothing but awesome. It’s got the footprint of a small-ish book, weighs less than 3 pounds, and will cost US$679 when it ships in the spring.

With Just One Contact Mic, Any Surface Magically Becomes a Gestural Instrument

by Peter Kirn

Look around the room you’re in. Drum your fingers against some of the objects around you. Now imagine that you could turn those touches into any imaginable sound – and all you’d need to play them is a single contact mic. And we’re not talking just simplistic sounds – think expressive, responsive transformation of the world around you, all with just that one mic, thanks to clever gestural recognition.

Bruno Zamborlin has made that idea a reality, with hold-onto-your-chair results. It’s not available yet for public consumption, but it’s coming.

Shuffling, Slicing, and Glitching Audio, and Other Modular Max for Live Devices

by Peter Kirn

Modular Series - Shuffler 2.0.0 from Isotonik Studios on Vimeo.

For fans of slicing, dicing, glitching, reversing, and shuffling incoming audio streams, this Max for Live Device is for you. Shuffler 2.0 is the latest in a series of “modular” Max for Live devices from developer Isotonik Studios. Mappable to MIDI, the suite of Devices focuses on simpler tasks in ways that can be combined. There are interactive Follow Actions, for instance — a feature I’ve long argued should be native to Ableton Live — plus tools for more easily mapping MIDI to envelopes. There’s a convenient Looper.

From last week, there’s a module called Smart, capable of mapping some eight macros to one knob.

Modular Series - Smart 2.0.8 from Isotonik Studios on Vimeo.

http://isotonikstudios.com/modular/

Check out the Follow actions in the video below.

Isotonik Modular Series - F0llow 1.0.4 from Isotonik Studios on Vimeo.

Pro Tools 10, Pro Tools HDX: What You Need to Know

At the AES show in New York, Avid as expected updated their flagship Pro Tools DAW to version 10, and unveiled a next-generation version of their higher-end HD line. Since it’s Friday, and perhaps not the best day for processing loads of information about new DAWs, let’s see if we can’t boil down the major points.

Pro Tools 10

Clip Gain helps you to set gain levels before you get to the mixer.
More flexible use of files: mix formats, and in a departure for Pro Tools, record and master natively in 32-bit floating points
Better performance on slow disk drives
Low-latency recording and direct monitoring at last added to third-party interfaces
New Avid Channel Strip plugs (based on the former Euphonix)
SoundCloud export (a bit surprised to see Avid beat some of its rivals to this… though, of course, you probably already know how to uplaod)

There’s also EUCON controller support, projects that now have a 24-hour timeline, and enhanced responsiveness.

This is really a Pro Tools upgrade for Pro Tools users – no splashy features, necessarily, so much as stuff their loyal user base is likely to appreciate. But I know Pro Tools users have a pretty long wish list, so PT die-hards, let us know what you think of the update, especially as you begin using it.

Pro Tools HDX

HDX is basically HD super-sized – and that makes sense, as it keeps pace with advances in technology (and particularly the vastly-expanded native processing capabilities we’ve seen over the past decade).

You get five times the DSP power per card versus the previous HD Accel, more tracks, and the new floating-point architecture.

It’s big news that Pro Tools has finally gone to a 32-bit floating-point architecture … well, anyway, if you’re into numbers. I’ll be curious to know if people can tell the difference. Sounds like we need a very controlled double-blind test, and comparing Pro Tools to Pro Tools would be perfect for the job.

Obligatory promo video. Hyperbole/marketing glasses at the ready!