Keeping to the theme of Tony’s video with his Windows Mobile device, here (via a reminder on comments from its creator) is Pocket Griff. There’s no gimmick here: this is all about taking your software studio / sequencer and putting it in your pocket so if inspiration strikes you on the go, you can actually make something. And because of the ready availability of powerful PDAs that run Windows Mobile – including some impressive refurb / used models and devices that aren’t also trying to be a phone – it’s not hard to find a gadget that can run this.

As seen in September on Palm Sounds, though worth repeating here.

Griff Promo Movie from Daniel Webb on Vimeo.

Promos are good, but actually learning how to use the tool is often the best way to judge it musically. It’s well worth going through the whole walkthrough, as that should give you an idea of whether or not this way of working is your style:

FMOD is a wildly popular sound engine for games, used widely in games for PCs, consoles, and portables alike. FMOD is known for being on the bleeding edge as far as capabilities, but even given that, it’s a pleasant surprise that the engine has now made its way to the iPhone and iPod touch.

It’s got some impressive capabilities going for it, too:

• Mic input
• 3D audio
• DSP effects
• Compressed samples, MOD, and MIDI

And, in good news for indie studios, it’ll cost just US$500 per title to license.

Of course, you can add this to Pure Data (Pd), which found its way to the mobile platform via the (partially open-source) RjDj project. RjDj is a music platform, not a game platform, but Pd has some powerful audio processing capabilities of its own, and I’d count them both in the category of interactive music. The RjDj gang will be having their next “sprint” – a developer intensive to build interactive scenes for the platform – in Berlin, with New York to follow in January. (I’ll be at the New York event, naturally.)

December is the time for the next RjDj sprint: The Reality Jockeys would like to invite you to the Scene composing session on 12-14 December 2008 in Berlin at this nice location:

Who’s sampling what? When is sampling stealing? Who’s stolen sampled samples, and was the sampling stolen stealing? Is anyone actually playing live? Does anyone know what the law is? Does anyone care?

Yes, it’s been a lively November so far for massive, complicated legal battles, PR battles, who-said-who-sampled-what battles, and general sampling messiness. Here’s a quick round-up for those of you who haven’t been able to keep up (understandably).

And we’re going to play a game. I’m going to start talking, and you can see at what point your head starts to spin and you need to go lie down.

Ready?

Here’s the executive summary:

• Justice steal samples and talk about it, because you can’t recognize them.
• US courts said long ago “nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,” to the dismay of even the RIAA.
• German courts, disagreeing with the US and with other German courts, say it don’t mean a thing if you can’t hum along.
• FL Studio turns “Faxing Berlin” Deadmau5 demo content into “Berlin” mostly-the-same demo content and a bunch of people start screaming obscenities at each other and most of us lose interest.
• Justice can’t keep their USB cables from falling out, may have to pirate samples of themselves.
• The Killers (or MTV, more to the point) plagiarize an entire stage.
• My head hurts already.

It’s easy enough to dismiss mobile music devices as toys, and I’d add, there’s really nothing wrong with toys. But the test – a personal one – is whether or not you can develop your musical ideas with them. Some of the deepest, most consistently satisfying tools for mobile devices are the ones that shrink down real production capabilities to a handheld size. Look closely at these apps, and you’ll see software that could easily have passed for “advanced” sequencers on computers fifteen years ago. (Indeed, I think arguably we’ve lost some usability with the complexity we’ve added since.)

While the iPhone phenomenon continues to grow, don’t write off Windows Mobile for music. Tony Stone sends a video showing off the piano roll-style sequencer in an app called AudioBox. It goes beautifully with the stylus – precision input that isn’t possible with your finger on the iPhone.

AudioBox Micro Composer is available at various online software stores. Here’s where Tony says he picked it up:

AudioBox Micro Composer @ ClickApps

AudioBox Product Page @ 4pockets [developer]

AudioBox has come up many times on Palm Sounds; see the interview with the developer

US$44.95, but for that you get the sequencer, an analog synth, a string pad synth, a samples, a drum machine, 16 channels of mixing, effects, editing capabilities, and “device automation” (not sure what that last one means). Part of the reason this is all possible is that developing for Windows Mobile is very much like developing for Windows – and unlike Google’s Android, you can write the apps in C/C++. If you’re not a developer, what that means it that you’re basically getting desktop-like apps.

Tony is worth checking out, too. He’s a Christian hip-hop artist, beatmaker and producer, and youth minister, and he’s promised some very interesting DIY projects coming soon. See his blog and MySpace page. We actually have a whole lot of readers making music in communities of faith, demonstrating that there’s a lot more diversity of musicians working with technology. It’s not at all limited to the view people have of the club or DJ scenes.

Side note: Microsoft should never have gotten rid of the Pocket PC moniker.

Much as we love computers, who hasn’t dreamed of a dedicated hardware box for gigging that plays your plug-ins seamlessly? The Muse Receptor does this already, and it’s a very effective solution – everyone I know who’s got one loves it. But it is a full rackmount space, and prices start around US$2000 (though it does look like you can snag a refurb for less). That could be well worth it, but I’m sure for some potential customers, weighing the bulk and cost against a computer makes it tougher to bite.

That makes the V-Machine pretty impressive on paper: it’s more compact, like “throw it in a backpack” compact, and promises to list for only US$599. That’s so impressive, in fact, the “this is too good to be true” effect starts to set in – at least until we see one in person. But at least on paper, here’s what it promises:

• VST/VSTi playback
• External MIDI controller support for all parameters
• Three USB connections, which you can use for sample storage, installation of plug-ins, dongles (ewww), or connecting controllers
• MIDI-in jack (no MIDI out jack, which says to me you’d want to slave this to something else for tempo sync, not the other way around)
• Control configuration via Windows and Mac
• Load software via USB when connected to your computer
• Aluminum case (so far, we only have the mock-up above, not actual product photography)

Looking closer at the specs, there are a couple of catches:

• 1GHz CPU / 512M RAM / 1G flash disk (meaning this could be the catch; i.e., it’s likely to be a bit underpowered for some plugs)
• 1 audio input, 1 headphone out, both minijacks (minijacks, really?)
• 2 unbalanced TS audio outs (hmmm, no balanced? no XLR?)

Without the audio I/O and more powerful computer specs, I don’t think it’s likely to rival the Muse Receptor. But given the small size and low price, it could be ideal for someone who wants something simple and portable – it’s just a different market.

At US$599. Available at the end of this month. And it all comes from SM Pro Audio, who are something of a known quantity in the business.

Stay tuned. SM, I’d like one here, please, even if just for a few days.

V-Machine Press Release

V-Machine Product Page

Ableton forum members are abuzz on this latest hack for Ableton Live: a specialized plug-in now enables a “bus group” that routes audio to a MIDI track for effects. Now, of course, group folders are a feature present in some competing DAWs, but it’s still nice to see it working in Ableton Live. (And if this is something you’ve wanted to do, I think you’ll probably spot it immediately – whereas, likewise, if it’s not your response is likely to be, “huh”?)

There’s already a free Windows plug-in download. It looks like someone will have to do a Mac plug-in for this to work on the Mac. Thoughts?

gbsr writes:

Basically, it’s a way to get an infinite (or at least until your CPU gives up) [number of] submix track folders, with the ability to show/hide the folders. Take a VST instrument that only has a MIDI input and an audio throughput and rack it up. Send the audio to the midi. Voila.

You can read the whole thread on the Ableton forum:

solved: submix group folders. :)

Let us know if you try this out or have other tips. (And if you do this already in another host, by all means, enjoy your bragging rights.)

I wondered if anyone else had used calculators as music controllers. The answer? But of course. Here’s a classic Russian calculator model controlling arrangements in Ableton Live. It appears in this example as though this is working as a USB (QWERTY) keyboard substitute, rather than as a MIDI controller, but you get more of the same potential from all those wonderful buttons.

This find comes to us from Toyo Bunko of Noise.io – themselves lovers of mobile technology, having built a sophisticated soft synth for the iPhone. Toyo writes:

The page (in Russian) : http://diver.net.ua/page-id-124.html

And the video (instant download link) is here: http://diver.net.ua/page-id-124-a-dl.html

([Credited as] created by Zinus of "Diver Group").

The calculator model is Elektronika MK-52, it’s quite famous. More info on this calculator can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MK-52

He managed to connect the calculator via a USB interface which he took out from an old USB keyboard. So it basically acts like a keyboard controller.

If you’re out there, we’d love to hear more (or from anyone who can translate the Russian here). I expect I’m not the first to point to this, but the calculator music – by popular demand – continues!

It’s hard to write the first line of this, because in this case any reference to Kraftwerk’s “Pocket Calculator” is wildly redundant. This is a calculator. He is the operator. This is a real, working HP48 graphing calculator playing MIDI events. You can go, like, graph stuff with it afterwards, do some Calculus. And we can thank a few people responding in a mobile music poll on this site for making it happen.

Andrew Turley, who has previously built a microfiche MIDI machine (thus making his way through arcane academic equipment as MIDI controllers), describes the project:

This is a demo of a project I built so that I could use my HP 48 to play a MIDI keyboard. The calculator is running a program that sends data to a Parallax Stamp Basic microcontroller over the built-in serial port whenever I press a button. The microcontroller is running software that converts the message from the calculator into a MIDI noteon or noteoff message that is then sent to the keyboard. This is a response to a createdigitalmusic.com poll in which a (small) number of users said they wanted the site to cover more calculator music.

Brilliant work, Andrew. And I have to say, now that you’ve done it, it’s a pretty practical little object to us as a controller.

Other calculator work, anyone?

It’s nearly the holiday season, and as CDM has just completed its fourth birthday, I want to give all of us a present. The idea: a holiday guide that’s a bit different.

• The first CDM treeware. We’ll have PDF and print-on demand versions. And part of the reason we’re doing this:
• Something you can share. CDM certainly has its share of (sometimes frighteningly) advanced readers. But we believe in what we’re doing enough to share it with people with less experience. So we’ll include content you can share with nieces, cousins, strangers on the street. And, of course, it’ll be Creative Commons-licensed.
• Gifts of knowledge as well as objects. You’ve seen the countless lists of “stuff to buy” in other holiday guides. But we believe in DIY tech, and that knowledge can be priceless. So we’ll include information from the best of CDM in 2008 and special guides for the occasion.
• Designed by you. This time, we want to know what you would want to receive, what you would give to newcomers, and what you would want to read. So we need your help - fill out the survey below and this will really be a grassroots effort by the CDM community.

It’s a really tough economy out there. But that’s all the more reason to invest in things that really matter, to look for value, and to look for things that can be shared freely with one another. So, in my mind, I could think of no better time to do this. Give the survey a go.

If you complete the survey, you’ll be entered in a drawing to receive another gift: a free copy of the new, cross-platform T-RackS 3 mastering and mixing suite donated by IK Multimedia. (We’ll have one other opportunity to put your name in the hat later this week, too.)

Fill out the survey below or head straight to:
http://cdm.holiday08.sgizmo.com

And watch for the guide by the beginning of December.

Advertisers: We need your support to help bring this guide to CDM readers free of charge. If you’ve got a message you’d like to get out and want to support our community, do get in touch. (We have some creative possibilities to offer, too.) Use the contact form or email ads (at) createdigitalmusic (dot) com.