Madrona Labs Newsletter: Software plans, Soundplane ordering

"Hello from the Labs! I'm writing with a quick update on the upcoming run of Soundplanes and my other near-term plans.

Software plans

First of all, thank you for the great response to the 1.0 release of Kaivo. This project was a very demanding one technically, and I’m happy that people are hearing the same things in Kaivo’s granulator and models that make them so exciting to me. Thanks to everyone for your support and for all the notes of feedback and encouragement.

Kaivo’s models will always require a lot of CPU power to run. To some extent that is just part of the price to pay for using true FDTD (finite-difference time-domain) models. As with Aalto though, Kaivo will see many improvements from version to version, including optimizations to lessen the CPU load. I just posted a short article to the web site about getting the most out of Kaivo now, and what to expect from future releases. A 1.1 release of Kaivo is coming within a week, with a few much-requested usability changes. The major optimizations will take more testing and are farther down the road: please see the article for more info.

In addition to the Kaivo 1.1 update, I'm giving Aalto and the Soundplane client some love for a release by the first week in May. This will fix some usability issues that were found while my focus was 100% on getting Kaivo out. Thanks for your patience.

Soundplane ordering

We are gearing up for another run of Soundplanes. Having done inventory in the shop [*] and contacting our suppliers, we are almost ready to go. So I'm now announcing that we will be taking orders on Thursday, May 1. The next run of instruments will be $1,895 as before. Prepayment is required to reserve an instrument. Production will begin when enough instruments are sold to fund the production run, and is scheduled to take 8-10 weeks. So, assuming the run sells out in two to three weeks, we expect to begin shipping finished instruments by early August. Please see http://madronalabs.com/hardware for more details.

This run of Soundplanes will be substantially like the previous one, with a few minor mechanical changes for stability and playability. I am moving to cherry wood rather than alder for this run. Over the previous runs I had to reject a number of cases that had improper dimensions, and I have traced these issues to wood moisture changes. The short story is, it's just hard to get alder in the quality required for making these instruments. Cherry on the other hand also comes from managed forests in the USA, mills like a dream, should be more stable, and I think it will look great with the walnut playing surface.

Soundplanes have been really getting out and about in the world lately! From the code bending demos of Chris Novello, to the studio work of Amon Tobin and MGMT, to the spectacle of Nine Inch Nails’ live show, more artists are using Soundplanes to take their work somehere new. And as we continue to add capabilities to the Soundplane software, I think it's going to be an exciting year.

[*] Protip: if she'll spend a day of her time with you counting specks of silicon with names like GRM188F11C104ZA01D, she's a keeper. Thanks to the lovely and patient Ms. Chaya Jones!"