salamaundra » tekstuff

fair software : Reaper and Renoise

maux — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 13:42:16 +0000

it’s time to start my new year resolutions:

software to dig more :
Ableton Live is a great tool, and Max4Live is very sexy…spanky….but expensive…(and the marketing of it starts to be a bit annoying).

instead I am very intrigued by a couple of softwares that are very cheap…real bargains considered the quality…I can buy both of them
and still I am saving some dosh to go out on NYE (instead of buying the spanky max4live).

Renoise
a mod tracker…works like the old digital sequencers of 25 years ago…no timeline, no clips, NUMBERS.
great for obscure techno…but actually you can do anything with it… only 49 euros !
watch what you can do with Renoise and a Launchpad

Click here to view the embedded video.

Reaper
a “normal” DAW (like Cubase, Logic)…but slimmer and smarter than those bloated whales…I love the GUI and more than anything I love their anti marketing campaign..

you can read on the website:

Honest Business Model
We offer a good product at a fair price.
We don’t spend money and effort on marketing, complicated piracy protection, or other things that do not directly improve REAPER and the user experience.
We think the good will generated by playing fair and being responsive to users is more valuable to our business than short-term profits.

No Intrusive Copy Protection
We believe that technological enforcement of copy protection is not in the best interest of our customers.

a full license cost 225$….BUT…if you are just playing with it and not macking any money…or even if your income from music is less than 20.000$ a year
(and I def make less than 20 grand a year from music), you can get the discounted license for 60$ !
(and anyway if you are a pirate you don’t need to crack it…but only deal with your karma).

on the top of that it works really well, has many plug ins included, and does internet streaming with Ninjam…and aldo distribute the cpu over your network…guck yeah
…it was about time… I am sold…actually…I am buying it.

monolake : uncompressed silence

maux — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:46:01 +0000

Robert Henke is the man…I have been following his music from the beginning…
I am still in love with Cinemascope and Interstate…and his liveset is probably the ultimate electronic liveset…period.

he is one of the minds behind Ableton…and he does many workshops around the planet sharing his knowledge….and many other good things can be said about him…he is humble !

I met him at the Sonica festival 3 years ago where I had the honor to share the same stage (Deadbeat, Rhythm and Sound and Greg Hunter were there too)..that time he played in front of 30 ppl (maybe less)…while thousands where lobotomized on the main stage by some rubbish trance…but he delivered an amazing set…and he didn’t behave like a rockstar…even if many of the bloated rockstars (who were playing on the lobotomy (trance) stage) were actually using a software that he created…period again.

he just released Silence, a new album…(dunno where he finds the time to do music)…

I haven’t got it yet…and I am very curious.
I am very pleased to read that he also joined the movement to stop the Loudness War…and he didn’t use any compressors for this album…and no limiters during the mastering.
This is a link to a very interesting conversation about mastering between Robert and Rashad Becker, the guy who mastered it:
http://www.monolake.de/interviews/mastering.html
and it confirms what I wrote in the post “Mastering is killing music” more than 3 months ago…cheers.

maxforlive : beta testing

maux — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:14:55 +0000

started to test the beta of Max for Live…
few crashes…but…wow…this is just the beginning…and maybe the end.

this is an unofficial alternative site full of good infos : http://max4live.info/

(still…I like Plogue Bidule more than Max…and Pure Data is probably the real thing)

tonematrix

maux — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:59:47 +0000

we probably going to see pretty soon more of this web music software
soon no need of Ableton anymore

the tonematrix

mastering is killing music

maux — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 14:06:56 +0000

I (finally) start to be tired of this music that sound loud…and louder.
I mean…enough is enough!…let’s stop the loudness war.
the heavy use of multiband compression and brickwall limiters is killing the dynamic range…and the music.
many ppl in the music industry regard the mastering as even more important than the mixing and the recording itself.
especially record labels…they know that spending a relative small amount of money in a “good” mastering studio can transform a dodgy sounding album is a blasting hit….that will sound loud even out of the computer speakers and those crap headphones…well…true..a good mastering can really do that…
but an exagerated mastering can also kill the music…and the listener…
it’s the same for the images…all is glossy nowadays…and saturated…
I am honestly very unhappy with the mastering that mr Dave Black did for my album “viceversa” for example…too compressed…too much bass…
and I had enough of all this wobbly trend…from Tipper (his Wobble Factor is TOO LOUD!!) to blasted dubstep.
INFACT…MUSIC THAT SOUNDS TOO LOUD IS LIKE WRITING ONLY IN CAPITAL LETTERS…
or like somebody screaming all the time….
I have mastered many of the tracks of the cloudcycle project…I am not a pro masterer and I don’t have pro gear and I am not sitting in an acustic treated room…but I reckon that I can do a decent job with my software (since we can’t afford to pay for a mastering session)…not as loud but loud enough…
but now I realized that I pushed the level of some tunes too much…trying to be loud as the trend…
so after a lot of reading (and listening)…I decided to remaster them…at a lower level…with little compression and very little limiting…so they don’t look like bricks anymore…infact…greg was right.
this are few links about the loudness war:
loudness wars (wikipedia)
The Loudness War Analyzed (on musicmachinery)
loudness wars (on stereosubversion)
dynamic range foundation – an organization defending the dynamic range, they release also a free plug in to check the dynamic range.
turn me up – another organization defending the dynamic range
justice for audio

apc40 – it works

maux — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:43:22 +0000

in the meantime I had the chance to try for a week one of those APC40 (a friend just come back from japan with it)
well…what to say•…it is sexy…it works painless…plug and play…it feels solid…but the sliders are a bit “light”…
….but…hey…shame no midi editor…only ableton…
so….do I want one ? or instead one of those Livid’s Ohm 64 ?

death of the cds

maux — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:40:33 +0000

I never liked them…as support for music it sucks…
they told us the story they sound better and that they would last forever…the first lies of the digital age…
but….maybe there was a good reason….and a good way to recycle all that plastic….

Click here to view the embedded video.

APC40 / really ?

maux — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:37:46 +0000

there is an hilarious thread on the ableton forum about the akai APC40….the dream controller…

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=116396

(you need to login to see the amazing pictures)

let it wii

maux — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:05:42 +0000

last night i played in byron bay/nsw/au with heyoka…a small nice gig…
and i played out some of the tracks of cloudcycle for the first time
the masters sounded good…maybe nimbus is a bit aggressive (which is good)

it was also my first wireless set
i finally got a wii (just the controller) yesterday for 68 australian dollars
and using the magic osculator i hooked it to ableton…and had lots of fun with it
(tnx to kriss for raving about this)
i even gave it to some friends between the audience to play with…and they also had lots of fun
weeekeeed stuff
soon i will post a simple tutorial about using the wii and the iphone as remote controllers for ableton (or tracktor, or whatever midi).

Tank-fx !

maux — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:21:25 +0000

this is clever !

Tank-fx

“Tank-FX is a non-virtual effect device. The reverb is generated by
a huge [11m] tank made of ferroconcrete. We put some mics and
speakers in it and connected them to a unix box, so everybody can
use it now from the internet. To try it out, just upload some
audio material. It will be processed in real-time”

bigseq2

maux — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:12:01 +0000

the lastest weapon from audio damage
amazing multi modulation filter gate..I am really having lots of fun with it
a must buy
(…yes…buy….49$ !!!)

bigseq2 product page

jamming

maux — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 12:59:50 +0000

so…is it possible also for us mortals to have a jam on internet ?
10 years ago I tried resrocket network…it did work somehow…considered the speed of that time (of the net and the cpus)…but it was a “general midi” experience…not so cool…in the end the evil digidesign bought the all thing to sell it to the hollywood studios…and silence after that.

the other night me and greg tried all what we could find.
we had much frustration with plug ins like virtual glass and dmn (digital musicians net)…nice gui…video chat but….no sound and no sync.
(btw at that time me and greg were the only 2 users online on this planet..?.)
so…I managed to route ableton output into the skype input and viceversa using jack….but sound quality was crap…
finally kris come on skype…and decided to help us….we went on reaper…and ninjam…

kris setup the ninjam server on his machine in london…greg was in brighton….me at 11h fuse difference in the bush in australia….
and well…it did work !…amazingly also in sync (sometime)….ogg vorbis audio files….session save…oh yes…the outcome wasn’t any masterpiece….but…we were all very exited and happy…kris and greg ended up going to sleep at 7am…we will try again….

bottom line…ninjam is open source…reaper basic license is 50 USD…

“…unless you are 100 percent happy with your current MIDI + Audio sequencer, you’d be a fool not to give REAPER a try. ”

reaper
ninjam – novel intervallic network jamming architecture for music

some good tek blogs

maux — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:19:13 +0000

some good blogs:
create digital music
analog industries
kevin kelly