resonant strata

• 2011-11-26

  Max6

  

  I guess MaxMSP doesn’t need much introduction around here. For ages computer musician, including me, are using this application for audio and data generation. With the just released version 6 Cycling74 doesn’t primarily focus on new objects (although there are a couple), but more on an enhanced audio engine, workflow improvements and a new addition to the former trinity of Max, MSP and Jitter called Gen~, which is basically a low level visual programming language residing within MaxMSP.

  Workflow

  The patching workflow enhancements are probably the first bits you’ll notice once you start Max6. Instead of the square look (pun not intended) of the rectangular patch cords, Max now features curved cords. This may look a little strange at the beginning, but felt a lot cleaner to me, when used it larger patches. It is now a lot easier to see feedback loops or generally just patch cords that connect to an object, which is located above the output. And if you don’t like it, you can easily go back to the old design.

  An amazing add-on is the auto-completition feature that suggests objects while typing. While this was already available in a more rudimentary state in Max5, auto-completion now has a lot of additional – and very helpful features – such as brief object descriptions, suggestions for attributes and arguments as well as short-links to each object’s documentation. This is especially an advantage, if you just started using Max or are looking for a more esoteric object. Mousing over the left edge of an object, now gives you the possibility to directly choose from arguments, attributes, associated object and files that can be added to an object. This makes patching a lot quicker and the whole experience a little more streamlined. 

  

  I absolutely like the new integrated combined CPU meter and mixer that resides at the bottom of each patcher. This is especially interesting, if you are like me, using several different patches at once in a live setting. This way you can adjust the levels between different sound sources really easily. Plus, if you don’t need the patch, you can disable it all together and save precious CPU cycles. Unfortunately I haven’t found a way to control this via MIDI or OSC. This would make the whole system even more flexible in a live setting. On a similar tangent is the new debugging feature that color-codes the objects according to the amount of CPU, they are using. This is quite handy, when optimizing patches. A read out, that gives you an idea how much CPU the object is actually using, would have been helpful though and is missed clearly. The non-existent read-out leaves me in the dark a little too much for my taste. But anyways, this is still a good start in the right direction – and hopefully this numeric information will be added with a future version. And to be honest these workflow feature alone are worth the update for me.

  

  Explorer

  The new explorer/inspector window that docks onto the right side of the patch is a little bit of a double-edged sword. Although it seems to be quite handy most of the times to have the explorer, inspector and max-window directly attached to the patcher window, on smaller displays and with larger patches, this little box might take up a little bit too much space of my screen. Nevertheless, if not needed, it can be easily hidden, so it’s not that much of a big deal. Plus, the “old” way of using a floating Max and inspector window is still possible. For beginners, who are new to max or people, who don’t remember object names that well, the new explorer window is really helpful – especially since the brief description of the highlighted object in the database gives you a hint, if you are going for the correct object. 

  

  64 Bit Engine

  One of the major improvements is probably the switch to a 64-bit audio engine. Especially the filters and oscillators sound a lot smoother. If, in the past,  Max/MSP was easily prone to have a certain sound, the new engine now allows for anti-aliased filters and oscillators. You might not notice it in every patch, but once you are for example using FM synthesis the difference becomes apparent quite quickly. Unfortunately only the underlying engine is running in 64 bit, the application itself is still 32 bit. But as long as you don’t plan to build large samplers this shouldn’t be much of a problem.

  Gen~ 

  The optional Gen~ add-on provides an extra graphical programming language within Max. This way patches will be compiled, as if they were hard-coded. The concept itself is not that new and shares similarities with the Reaktor Core technology (Not to be mixed up with he discontinued Native Instruments Kore software) that allowed low-level programming within Reaktor. Gen~ does the same allowing the user to write low-level patches within Max. These patches will then be compiled in real-time saving the user precious CPU cycles. And in fact it does work. Gen~ can reduce a great amount of processing power in most cases. At least it did in those I tried.

  Gen~ also features a rudimentary text based scripting/programming language that lets the user define operations, inlets or outlets directly without the need to create the particular objects. This object is in a way similar to the already available expr~ object, only that this new version is a lot more versatile and features nice little add-ons such as syntax highlighting. 

  

  There are still some limitations around Gen~. For instance it is not possible to use subpatchers within a gen~patch. With more complex operations this can eventually result in quite messy patches, but hopefully there will be an update that changes this limitation. Another restriction is, that when used inside a poly~ object, modifications need to be saved again to the poly patch, therefor disabling the live compiling of the gen~ object. But his is more of a poly~ limitation than one of the gen~ object. 

  Unfortunately the help function for objects that are only available in Gen~ is a little more limited than usual. For those objects, you only get a brief description of the functions, unlike other objects there’s no help patch to illustrate the functionality. This makes the first steps a little more tedious than necessary – especially for beginners. But Gen~ shares a lot of objects and functions with the regular MaxMSP suite, so you’d just need to look at those help files. On the other hand there are some really helpful little objects for Gen~, which make patching a little easier because they block, remove or work around problems such as NANs, denormalization or DC offset  (at least I seem to be prone to run into that kind of problems a lot, so I’m a happy camper here). Plus, there is already a large number of little gen~ patches ready to be used, which gives the user a good head start.

  I didn’t dive into the Jitter side of things, as I’m mostly familiar with Max and MSP, so I can’t comment on anything in this regard. Please note that Gen~ is not included in the regular MaxMSP package, but needs to be purchased separately.

  One thing that bothered me a little was larger CPU strain Max6 has in comparison to Max5. Most of the time Max6 takes up between 2-10 % more processing power, when using the same patch. I’m not quite sure, where this is coming from. If there is something different on my end or that my patches are not optimized for Max6 or that it just uses a little more CPU due to the new 64-engine. Strangely enough the differences between Max5 and Max6 running as Max for Live are not that big. There are a couple of patches, where Max consumes a little less; others are using the same amount. 

  Anyways, Max6 is a really enjoyable application and an important step forward. It seems that the application has now arrived, where it set out to, when version 5 was released. Patching feels a lot cleaner, depending, what you are doing, the sound improvement is quite noticeable in certain patches, while others will still sound the same. I’m still surprised that the amount of example patches is rather small. If you take a look at the Max for Live side of things, you’ll find a lot of helpful mini patches and ideas to get you started. The example patches are the same as the ones from Max5. Especially for people, who are just starting to learn MaxMSP, it can feel a little daunting. Luckily enough there is a large group of people and a community using MaxMSP, who share their knowledge, so even newcomers should see some results pretty quickly. Plus, the tutorials and the manual is still top notch. This is something a lot of other software- and hardware companies could learn from a lot. 

  So what’s the verdict on Max6? Max already has been pretty amazing software and Max6 adds a good number new and useful features. 

  Cycling74

• 2011-11-24

  Eyvind Kang – Visible Breath

  

  Eyvind Kang is no stranger within the grey area between experimental Jazz, Drone and Metal. One of his most prominent appearances is as a contributor to Sunn O)))’s “Monoliths&Dimensions” album. His solo work “Visible Breath”, released on Stephen O’Malley’s Ideologic Organ shows him as an avid modern composer and musician with a strong leaning towards minimal music.

  The first track “Visible Breath“ starts off with a little slower pace. Shimmering high pitch drones are layered delicately over each other, moving in and out of focus letting the piece ebb and swell, before it all rises in disharmonic crescendos and clusters. Their lamenting undertones of rising and falling pitches close the piece with a mournful howl.

  The second piece works more like like a bridge between the two longer pieces, although it runs around six minutes. The directions are alot straighter here with their movement from spacious accents towards a repetitive four note figure.

  The third track picks up the circular structure of his predecessor, but soon changes pace and timbre to make place for hazy, lucid swells that echo off into silent introspective moments. The final, scarppy dispute holds its discourse in muffled tension just to leave the listener floating in silence. This is a highly rewarding recording that is – under the surface – a lot calmer then it might appear at first – a paradox album, with dense tranquility, sparse instrumentation and precise orchestration of frequencies and events.

  Ideologic Organ

• →

  Pascal Savy – Liminal

  

  Pascal Savy’s “Liminal” has been already out for quite a while now. But as it goes, there was like a hundred of other things that needed to be done first, before I could take care of this. Nevertheless no reason to let this great release pass with any comment. “Falling inward” the first track of the album starts off with beating drones and small delicate bell tones. Although it dives deeper and deeper into more bass-y states, it still retains an ethereal touch with its floating tones and crackles. As the album progresses, Savy introduces more dark notions that remain in focus until the very end, where the curtain gets lifted a little to open up again to lighter times.

  There’s a great sense of longing that doesn’t really reach the surfaces in these four tracks. This indifference, this play with absence and focus  is one of the major strengths of “Liminal”. It’s great to hear, how Savy manages to evoke an emotional effect without relying too much on tonal sounds. Except for some synth bleeps here and there and melodic residue buried deeply within the sounds, there is mostly fuzzy static and thick, warm reverberant drones. The crackles in the background, which sometimes hint towards field-recordings and sometimes sound more like bad cable connections, add a distant nostalgic patina to the tracks that suites them pretty well. 

  The only thing that bothered me a little, was the short duration of the tracks, which all have a length somewhere around the five minute mark. I’d love to hear, with what Savy comes up with, if he’d expand on the duration of his tracks. To me they seem to demand for going longer and turning even more inward.

  Anyways, this is a great release and hopefully there are some physical copies left at the Feedbacklooop Label, as “Liminal” had quite a limited number of copies.

  Pascal Savy
  Feedbackloop Label

• 2011-11-23

  A Lesser Photographer: A Lesser Photographer - A Manifesto

  alesserphotographer:

  I’m pleased to present my first manifesto for minimal photography, A Lesser Photographer: 10 Principles for Rediscovering What Matters.

  

  Download the ebook here.

  Photographers are being bombarded by content that has only further removed them from their creativity (and money). They’re…

  Source: alesserphotographer

• 2011-11-22

  Jacaszek – Glimmer

  

  To be honest, when Jacaszek “Treny” album was released in 2008, it was one the year’s albums that left me speachless. The whole piece was so dark, yet uplifting – drowning me in pastoral drones and eerie sampling snippets from what seemed to originate mostly from chamber music recordings. Haunting vocal and choral echos flickered between deep cello tones, cembalo pickings and sadness dripping string sections. No wonder that the news of another Jacaszek album left me with quite a bit of anticipation.

  Glimmer has a different feel to it. It seems to be a lot lighter in tone. The heavy weighting sadness changed for a more floating melancholy. While Treny was more like a slow train running you over, Glimmer is more introspective, more circular. It is harder to get an emotional connection to the tracks. Not because they are not good, but because they are composed in a more distant way giving them more a feeling of being a soundtrack.

  The way the record is produced adds a lot to this specific notion. While Treny had this impression of samples just falling into the absolute right place by careful selection and a little bit of chance, Glimmer feels more composed. The way the individual parts react to each other evoke such assumption. At times it seems a little bit too perfect. I miss the cracks between the samples, the fissures beneath the surface, where the friction between the individual layers created new movements. The interstices that revealed themselves only with close and repeated listening.

  This is an excellent record that shines a lot brighter than most of the stuff that gets released these days, but it left me with the impression that it missed a couple of chances by trying a little too hard to be perfect and flawless.

  Ghostly International
  Jacaszek

• 2011-11-08

  [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

  Machen weiter | Nils Quak
  
  A study in modular wavetable synthesis and convolution.

  Source: SoundCloud / Nils Quak

• 2011-10-24

  Native Instruments Guitar Rig 5 

  

  Let me be honest right from the start. Guitars don’t play such a big part in my music. Nevertheless Guitar Rig always amazed me, since I tried out version 1. Sending synth through amps, drowning them in distortion and thickening them up with amps was always something that was quite rewarding with Guitar Rig. Plus the internal modulation system is really thought out and versatile, the effects and the amps sound fantastic. Version 5 is no exception in this regards. As Guitar Rig is available for a couple of years now, this review will give you an overview about the new effects and amps of Guitar Rig 5.

  

  The most prominent add-ons in Guitar Rig 5 are probably the two new amps and a new version of the control room module. The control room module acts similar to a regular re-amp application in a studio: The guitar signal can be send through various different cabinets – you can select between 29 different ones . Five different microphone simulations are available to recapture the sound. The great thing about it is, that you can re-amp your signal with eight different  configurations in parallel, which gives you quite an amount of control over the signal and may result in some really thick and juicy sounds. The workflow and controls feel a little flimsy, though: A missing global levelling option for all eight re-amping slots including level meters and dedicated gain controlers make adjustments a little tedious.

  

  

  The two new amps are modelled after two high gain amps giving you a lot of drive. Both feature two channels  offering a very wide sound palette and are suitable for a number of different scenarios. Their sound is sharp and cutting. If you want to, their sound can also be quite thick – but more in a rock not a shoegaze sense. The Van 51 amp sounds a little woodier and round, while the  Solo+ has a more cutting, aggressive side to it.

  

  When it comes to new effects, the new Resochord effect is probably the most exciting addition in terms of sounddesign. Being based on a resonator with two different modes (chord & string) it turns the incoming signals into shimmering, glacial drones and pads. Maybe the effect doesn’t handle hot distorted signals as well as I though it would, but when inserted after a distortion or a fuzz there’s still a little bleed of the original signal even when the mixing knob is turned completely wet. Maybe it’s just due to the design of the effect, but that behaviour is something I haven’t witnessed from other resonators – including the ones from Native Instruments. Even if it is not entended to work that way, it sounds lovely. With this effect, one limitation of the otherwise great Analog Sequencer Modulator effect becomes apparent. The sequencer only offers step resolutions as low as quarter notes. In combination with the resochord effect, slower tempos such as full note steps or even longer ones would have been great for slower Resochord modulations such as chord progressions. But maybe that’s something Native Instruments  addresses in a future update; fingers crossed.

  

  The newly added Little Reflektor convolution reverb leaves me cold, to be honest. There is just too few parameters to control. The effect only features eight different impulses from small to extra large, which can not be exchanged for other impulses at all The controls of the unit feel a little limited as well, because it only has a dry/wet parameter as well as a decay and a lowcut. Nevertheless, the reverb itself sounds great though. But from my perspective a lot of the fun with convolution reverbs gets lost, when there’s no possibility to add new impulse responses and play with them. 

  

  The new Vintage Verb on the other side is really amazing and a total winner. It seems to be also convolution based, because the different reverb modes for plate and spring verbs take a second to load. The sound is dense and shimmering. A possibility to adjust the decay or the length of the reverb would have been nice and is definitively missed.

  

  A huge advantage in terms of sounddesign and playing live is the new Container effect. It allows the user to built sub racks with Guitar Rig effects that can be controlled via macro controllers. This way Guitar Rig picks up a little bit of the system from the just discontinued Kore product line. I can imagine that this add-on helps to improve the integration with Maschine as well and its macro-controller system, but wasn’t able to try it out. The handling is straight forward and definitively a plus in terms of workflow and setting up new effect chains. This little tool offers a lot of new possibilities in regards to sounddesign and direct sound control while using Guitar Rig live. Especially, when you are using it in conjunction with some sort of a MIDI controller, this gives you a lot of control over the sound and effect chains. Although I’m not sure, how well this would work for a regular guitarist. But everyone, who has his hands free enough to turn some encoders, will probably make good use of this – a great addition. 

  It’s not that much of a suprise that Guitar Rig doesn’t re-invent itself, but it doesn’t need to do that, because the new effects and tools  show that the end of the development is not reached yet. Especially since quite a number of new products seem to be Guitar Rig based such as the new compressor suite or the Reflektor convolution reverb, it seems that there is be probably a good number of new tools and effects for this plattform already waiting to be released.  Let’s hope that Native Instruments keeps it more to the guitar side and doesn’t bloat this too much with tools that could have been easily be released as an idenpendent plugin or effect

  Anyways, Guitar Rig 5 is a versatile plugin that keeps up the great reputation it already has. As its former versions, it is available as a standalone application and as an AU, VST and RTAS plugins as well for OS X and for Windows.

  Native Instruments

• 2011-10-19

  Mark McGuire - Get Lost

  

  Mark McGuire has a strange talent. On a first and quick listen a lot of his stuff always sounds a little too easy and obvious to me. Just like a couple of sketches you’d throw together with some friends or alone on an evening session, but after a couple of spins, the tracks seem to open up and reveal layer after layer of these gorgeous textures. With “Get Lost” McGuire shows a new side to his work: vocals. Those multi-layer, harmonized vocals really took me by surprise. This is probably the closest to Brian Wilson he has ever gotten although I’m not sure that this was ever intended. Nevertheless those thick and yet shimmering vocal lines really elevate his work on a new level. Unfortunately he only uses them on a couple of tracks. But also the other pieces still manage to just float between the lines of wandering ambient music and more detailed streams of guitar lines, synth arpeggios and delays. Those track may not explore totally new territories, but are so well executed that it is a joy to loose yourself in them. There’s nothing really to add.

  Editions Mego
  Mark McGuire

• 2011-10-03

  He Can Jog – Norwood, Wisconsin

  

  As He Can Jog Erik Schoster seems to love the larger than life, wall of sound pop music gesture. The first track of his “Norwood, Wisconsin” album is a breath taking mixture of multi harmonic vocals, layered on top of each other, catchy melodies, thick textures, stuttery granular pads intertwined with more twists and turns than a latin american telenovela. All this sonic madness is stretched out to a more than 20 minutes long piece that manages to never looses its focus. This alone makes this album an absolute beautiful piece of work and I would have been already happy, if the album just consisted of this very track.

  The other two tracks pick up, where the first one ended. Grainy, jittery textures, beautiful harmonies and melodies populate the last 22 minutes. Those two tracks are a little noisier than the first one and drift a little into the ambient noise territory, but never loose their warm character. 

  “Norwood, Wisconsin” is a soft, warm cushion to sink into. A gleaming thought of beautifully wasted summer afternoons in the flickering shadows of trees moving slowly in the wind. 

  Nomadic Kids Republic
  He Can Jog

• 2011-10-02

  Hungreeman – The Detroit Memoirs

  

  This album struck me out of nowhere. It’s been a while, since I really enjoyed a proper techno album. Although I still have quite huge soft spot for Detroit techno, it is mostly the old releases I enjoy. Hungreeman’s “The Detroit Memoirs” starts off like a Robert Hood piece. Pulsating, stoically bleeping into space not very far away from Hood’s Minus track from the Internal Empire album. The end comes a little bit too suddenly – I can imagine the impact of the piece would be even growing larger, if this would run a lot longer and maybe develop a little counterpoint. Anyways, the sudden ending makes room for a pumping bass drum hammering into a lofty space of reverberated chords and swirls. Don’t mistake this for your run of the mill minimal techno tracks – this is pretty raw stuff that manages to avoid the clean aesthetic that annoys the hell out of me with its cliché trademark sounds.

  The following tracks lean more towards futuristic ambient and soundscapes of the early Plastikman releases. Eerie, dark textures float in a huge echoing space, while off-kilter rhythms stumble asymmetrically into your subconsciousness until they form strangely circulating beats. Metallic shades fragmented into microscopical flickers oscillate between the sounds turning everything into an opaque chrome surface. The next one consists of slowly trodding arpeggio sequences that sit nicely between less acidy R&S tracks and introspective polyrhythmical mid-nineties Hood/Mills Detroit pieces.

  Of course - one last Detroit reference shouldn’t be missing here: The last piece funks away with a cold electro beat that bounces relentlessly into a brittle space.

  “The Detroit Memoirs” restored a little bit of my faith into minimal techno music. Its rawness that doesn’t rely on distortion but more on fissure and cracks in between the sounds and structures is really refreshing. Although this “rawness” also has a downside. Unfortunately all files don’t have any ID3 tags – something I’d consider an essential standard regarding digital albums. Not even track numbers are existing (I was listening to it in alphabetically order). Another thing that was a slight bummer, was the inconsistent  sampling rate. While most of the tracks were in 44.1 kHz, a couple of them were in 88.2 kHz. This is definitively something a label should take care of, before the release and a slight annoyance after the initial download. As a plus though, the release is only available as WAV files. And a really huge plus: it’s free.

  Besides these technical issues “The Detroit Memoirs” is an amazing piece of techno music that deserves a lot of attention.

  Vinxt Records
  Hungreeman