Kaivo on Mac M1: emulated and native Apple Silicon versions, compared

video upload by Madrona Labs

"The new 1.9.5 update brings Apple Silicon native processing to Aalto, Kaivo and Virta. This test pits Kaivo 1.9.5 against the previous emulated version to see how many more voices we can play.
https://madronalabs.com/products/aalto
https://madronalabs.com/products/kaivo
https://madronalabs.com/products/virta"

凉风 Breeze

video upload by Meng Qi

"This song was composed last year, one day just like today——autumn starts in late summer, with cold breezes gently blowing day and night. So I named it 凉风 (Breeze). Also, I got inspiration from an ancient Chinese poem called 夏日南亭怀辛大 (Longing For Xin The Elder In The Southern Pavilion On A Summer Day). Besides, the song uses a vocoder from Madrona Labs Virta to modify my voice, shaping it into a thick and thus emotional sound.

Lyrics by Annqi

山光池月微凉一场 如梦
初晓 / 清音响 / 庭院夜来霜
启幽窗 / 帘卷浮香半添妆
清影荡漾 / 水木澹澹

无据 / 不思量
清影印杯 / 杯复一杯
云气冉冉渐隐渐暗
踏着 / 阶前 / 点点星乱
乱无绪

闲风拂散 / 簪花落去 / 乘夕凉
夜来 / 几度寒 / 风飒飒
还尽一杯 / 杯复一杯
寄愁无绪

夜微凉 / 难思量"

Madrona Labs Sumu Preview & Aaltoverb Public Beta

You might remember the development of Sumu announced back in 2018. The preview is now available.

via Madrona Labs:

"In the same way that Kaivo brought two different and compatible kinds of synthesis together, combining granular synthesis with physical modeling, Sumu combines advanced additive synthesis with FM. Since it's been in the works for a long time, and is now nearing completion, I broke with my normal way of doing things and put out a detailed preview on the web site."

Sumu is an additive instrument that I've had in the works for a long time. Now that it's nearing completion and heading towards a public beta soon I'm going to break with the way I normally do things and put some detailed info out ahead of its release.

Sumu is another semi-modular instrument. It shares the general appearance of its patcher-in-the-center design with Aalto, Kaivo and Virta. As you can see, it's on the more complex end of the spectrum like Kaivo. Everything is visible at once and there are no tabs or menu pages to navigate, which suits the way I like to program a synthesizer tweaking a little something here, a little something there.

In the same way that Kaivo brought two different and compatible kinds of synthesis together, combining granular synthesis with physical modeling, Sumu combines advanced additive synthesis with FM synthesis.

What's most different about Sumu compared to my other synths is that the signals in the patcher are not just one channel of data, but 64—one for each partial in a sound! By keeping all these channels of data independent and still using the same patching interface, Sumu offers a very usable entry point into additive synthesis, and a range of musical possibilities that have only been approachable with high-end or academic tools or just coding everything yourself... until now.

Each of Sumu's oscillators is the simplest possible kind of FM:a single carrier+modulator pair. And the modulator can produce a variable amount of noise, which like the modulation ratio and depth can be controlled individually per oscillator. In a single voice there are 64 such pairs. Obviously a lot of sounds are possible with this setup—in fact, with the right parameters varying appropriately we can reproduce any musical sound very faithfully with this kind of oscillator bank..."

See Madrona Labs for additional details.

Aaltoverb public beta
Sumu's design combines a lot of animated displays, as well as a new popup menu system that I had wanted to add for a long time. The graphics / UI framework that I was previously using was a big help in getting Aalto and friends written but didn't have the speed to support the new designs, so I dove in and wrote one from scratch. This new UI kit runs entirely on the GPU using OpenGL and Apple's Metal framework. It's exciting to see it bringing the new designs to life. You can see a movie of some of the new menus here [instagram.com], that I now have running in Aaltoverb.

Another big improvement to the plugins going forward is that they will all run natively on Apple Silicon. I have one of the M1 Macbook Airs and it's a great machine for music, with impressive power for DSP, and no fan! I feel like we skipped forward a few years into the future with these machines.

This all brings us to the Aaltoverb beta. I've got these big enhancements—new graphics and Apple Silicon compatibility—to a beta state, but there's more work on Sumu to do before they could be tested there. So I'm rolling them out in a new version of Aaltoverb for Mac and Windows, released as a public beta. This way adventurous users can try the new features while I'm still finishing up Sumu.

Version 2 of Aaltoverb will be a free update."

Dissolve

video by nbor

"Working things out with some new material in Bitwig Studio, Newfangled Pendulate and Generate, Madrona Labs Kaivo, and ASM Hydrasynth.The mix is rough, but there's a start, middle and end, so here you go!

More Music: http://nbor.us​
Gear:
https://www.newfangledaudio.com​
http://bitwig.com​
https://madronalabs.com/products/kaivo​
https://www.ashunsoundmachines.com/hy...​
https://morph.sensel.com​"

Jamuary #28 - Together we rock (ft. VCVRack, Eurorack,Soundplane)

video by TheTechnobear

"Today was all about trying to bring everything together....

The idea is simple, using the power of the computer (my little mac mini m1) to use the wonderful vcvrack, yet have it behave like an instrument with full hands on control.

Ive used vcvrack a bit in the past, but never really tried to integrate it fully..
the basics of the patch are simple.
- a couple of voices using instruo and vult oscillators and filters
- pianoteq (vst host) using a vult filter
- aalto (vst host)
- a mixer with a couple of sends to 2 vahalla vst reverbs (vst host)
- audio recorder to record the output
- midi to cv, to connect to hardware

the the bit thats Ive not done before... using midi mapping to map a controller.

on the hardware side.
the aim here was about hands on control...

the pyramid is used as the main sequencer and clock

the hermod is really the brains.
its sending the cv to the eurorack, midi to vcvrack, and its also taking cv/gate from the USTA to sequence vcvrack voices.

usta is a nice hands-on sequencer, quite different from the pyramid, more like an analog sequencer.

electra one [additional posts], lovely controller with encoders and is touch screen too - its easy to customise, so here I created a quick patch that controls vcvrack, things like levels, fx, and filters. once setup, I use midi map in vcvrack to assign controls.

the soiundplane again comes into play as the main playing surface :)

its was quite a lot of setup, but really just because it was the first time... so I had to decide how it was best to connect things, what role they would play.

its the first time my little mac mini struggle a little bit.
in fairness, it was fine whilst I was playing...no audio glitches at all.

but of course, as soon as I turned on the camera issues started appearing :)
the issue is I also had to run OBS to record the webcam, and quicktime to do a screen capture of vcvrack... that seem to just take it a bit over the top.

... which was. a bit frustrating, as I was getting tired by this point, and just wanted to finish... but I got there.

I might give it another go tommorow, now its all setup - so I can focus more on the music side , rather than cables and midi ;)


hope you enjoy

tech note: I should say VCVRack, plugins , OBS are all Rosetta , so I think we can expect them to improve. also honestly, Id have not even tried this on my old mac - its also possible the issue was related to usb traffic, given I have audio interface, webcam, monitor, soundplane, hermod, electra one ... alll sending a lot of data over usb ;)"

Jamuary #17 - Reflections (ft. Soundplane,Ableton Live, Aalto, Kaivo)

TheTechnobear

"Today's Jam is 'all in the box'

I love using whatever I have available , hardware, software... doesn't matter to me :)

Here Im recording directly to Ableton Live in multiple 'live' takes.
again, just improvising with whatever I feel like at the time.

Each of the 3 takes is using the Madrona Labs Soundplane as the controller, playing patches Ive created specifically for this session.

The first two layers are both using Aalto with different patchees - which you may have noticed is my favourite soft synth.

The third (bell like) is using Kaivo, another Madrona Labs synth.

Interestingly... in the past I never really got on with Kaivo, I just couldn't see to create patches I like - but that seems to have changed.

I think my recent love of granular synthesis in eurorack has led me to to a new appreciation, that of course applies to software granular too. I guess all that knob twiddling has paid off :)"

Jamuary #12 - Dark Times (ft Soundplane & Eigenharp)

TheTechnobear

"Today's Jam features a passion of mine...two rare expressive instruments.
The Eigenharp Alpha by Eigen Labs (main shot) and the Madrona Labs Soundplane (inset as shown in other jams)

What I love about these instruments is you can use quite simple sounds and add the feeling with your touches, no need for automation when you can be the modulation :)

Why two expressive controllers?
simply because with expressive controllers everything is in 'how they feel'... they make you play differently - the Eigenharp is fast, precise... the Soundplane is more mellow, evolving.

The sound source in both cases is Aalto by Madrona Labs probably my favourite synth, which was built for expressive controllers like the Eigenharp and Soundplane, so is a 'natural fit'.
This paired up with my favourite reverbs from Vahalla DSP.


#Jamuary #Eigenharp #Soundplane


(1) It should be noted both the Eigenharp and Soundplane are controllers , in this case they are sending OSC, but can also send midi (mpe)"

Jamuary #7 - Winds of change

TheTechnobear

"For day 7 of Jamuary I decided extend the jamming to video as well as music :)
On the music front Im simply playing the soundplane in a free improv.
On the video side, I brought out the Critter and Guitari Eyesy, and 'jammed' along with what Id played.

I really love the eyesy, for creatiing these video effects quickly, where it can react to the music, and also allow some hands on control.

details....

Music side:
Improv on the soundplane playing Madrona Lab Aalto into Vahalla Shimmer and Vahalla SuperMassove.

Video side:
Audio into Eyesy, video capture with a very cheap device off ebay. Eyesy is generating visual from audio using various 'scenes', where I use a green background, and 'green screen' video
I did a couple of runs with EYESY, then brought them into Final Cut Pro.
I added the main video with a sepia fx, to help the graphics stand out.
then overlaid eyesy video, added keyer fx (green screen) - then chopped up bits of the eyesy images I wanted.

note: no additional fx were used in FCP, except crossfade transitions.

this sounds more complicated than it really is, its actually a very quick way to add additional video fx."

K-Board Pro 4 meets Madrona Labs Aalto

Keith McMillen Instruments

"K-Board Pro 4 meets the Madrona Labs Aalto synthesizer."

Using MPE in Aalto with the Sensel Morph [Tutorial]

Sensel

Madrona Labs Giving 100% to the Black Youth Project

via Madrona Labs

'Hello, friends.

It's tough times. We hope you and your families are in good health. We know you know what's going on, and you have probably heard a lot of takes on it from a lot of companies so we're going to keep this to the point.

Just over a week ago, Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, the latest in a long history of unjust Black deaths at the hands of law enforcement. Since then, the outcry has been ringing out in protests all across our country. The violent suppression of these protests by police has resulted in more injuries and deaths. We stand in solidarity with the protesters and with the Black community.


How can a music software company contribute positively and constructively in this moment? For us, the answer is: by sending funds to those doing front line work. We're writing to ask for your support.

The Black Youth Project is an organization that both provides emergency funds to Black community members in need, and invests long-term in the future of Black leadership. They have chapters in many U.S. cities including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, DC and Detroit. From their website: "Our work is generally centered on ending systems of anti-Blackness and emphasizing the urgency of protecting folks living on the margins of the margins, including women, girls, femmes, and the gamut of LGBTQ folk." To find out more, please visit https://www.byp100.org/about.

From now until the end of Friday, June 5 (Pacific Time) we'll be donating 100% of our sales to BYP100. As a family business, our pockets are not deep enough for an impressive direct donation right now, but this way we can leverage the software we've made to direct some funds where they are sorely needed. We hope you'll help.

We and some folks we know have been contributing individually to community bail funds around the country and that is another way to help right now. If you are interested in contributing to these efforts, here’s a link to donate to many community bail funds at one time: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bail_funds_george_floyd

There will be a time soon to get back to music, which is more important to us than ever as a force for change, as meaning and community and connection. But this week is not that time. If it were not for the inspiration of great Black music, Madrona Labs would not exist. We owe the Black community our help.

with all best wishes,
Randy Jones
Madrona Labs"

---

Note the image above is from Madrona Labs Kaivo page. I thought it was representative of the current state of society. We can make it out, but it is broken, and it cannot be whole until we make it whole again.

Madrona Labs Soundplane Model A SN 0025 w/ Original Carrying Case

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this auction

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Krell Percussion

Published on Mar 1, 2019 Alan Barnard

"A self-generating percussion patch in Madrona Labs’ Kaivo."

Madrona Labs Introduces Aaltoverb

via Madrona Labs

"Hi there, it’s been some while. I'm excited to be writing you again, with the big news that there's a new beastie in the Madrona Labs family. Meet Aaltoverb, our very first effect.

A number of times over the years, people have asked if Aalto’s reverb could be made into its own plugin. The thing is, our focus here at Madrona Labs is on instruments, not effects. And so it didn't really seem to make sense to add a reverb to our lineup. But more time passed, and I started to think, what features would a performance reverb have? This question led to Aaltoverb, a reverberator with a focus on dramatic sound sculpting and completely smooth tweakability.

Aaltoverb’s coolest trick is this: you can smoothly change the size of the virtual space that the sound is reverberating in. This results in in pitch shifting that is reminiscent of what tape delays do when the speed changes. But instead of a single speed, the shift applies to the whole acoustic space, vibrating “air” and all. So a giant room can turn smoothly into a small and natural sounding chamber, and then into a tiny and very unnatural resonator. With longer decay times, weird spring-like beasties can be found along the way.

The controls are minimal, and are meant to interact in musical and inspiring ways. You can read all about Aaltoverb on the website, and in the manual. It's short but tells about some tricks you might not figure out otherwise. And: cartoons!

Aaltoverb 1.0.0 is available now as a 64-bit VST3 for Windows, and as 64-bit VST and Audio Units for Mac OS X. A single license covers both Mac and Windows and is $35.

Get a bundle deal!
Another thing people have asked about over the years is bundle deals. You know, where you buy more than one plugin at a time and as a result you get a discount. This was hard to imagine doing until our web maestro Philip did a bunch of work to modernize the site, including adding a shopping cart feature. But now that's done—and so are bundles.

They work very simply and so we're calling it the Simple Bundle feature. Buy more than one plugin in a single transaction, and save 15% off the entire purchase. That's it. Even if one of the plugins is, say, $35.

You’ll notice that Stripe, not PayPal, is now the default method of payment. We didn't want to leave people out in the cold just because PayPal didn't work in their regions, and since you need a credit card to get PayPal in the first place, hopefully this is more universal. We're always trying to improve the purchase experience, so please let us know how Stripe works for you. If you need or prefer to pay by PayPal for some reason, please get in touch.

Get the T-shirt!
I really love excuses to make a new T-shirt, and Aaltoverb's release seemed like a great one. I thought this one should be a collaboration and happily, Leafcutter John was into the idea. You might know the music he has put out on labels like Planet Mu and Border Community. This year he's gone and made a machine for making artworks, a homemade pen plotter, and the drawings he's making with it have really been pinging my visual cortex in a pleasant way. And so we made a shirt:

The design reminds me of sound decaying, and also of fabric being folded, and the analog robot quality is just (chef's kiss). I am wearing one nearly all the time, and you can too.

What about Sumu?
A long story that must be told short here, because it's nearly the cocktail hour. Very short version: I'm excited about Sumu, and now that Aaltoverb is out I can get back to finishing it.

Slightly longer version: I have some new design ideas for Sumu that required a lot of infrastructure work to pull off. Some to do with graphics and animation, and more on the DSP side of things. Well I dove into that infrastructure work and when I looked up it was a year later, or something. So both as a first use of the new framework and a way to, you know, ship a product, I decided to focus on the Aaltoverb release first. It's a cool enough reverb on its own, but to me it represents a lot more that's been done under the hood. As fall rolls around and I dive back into Sumu and Soundplane work I'm going to share some more about what's going on in there. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy the sounds.

–Randy
Madrona Labs"

Madrona Labs Soundplane w/ Soft Case

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this auction

"The Soundplane Model A is a computer music controller with the sensitivity and feel of an acoustic instrument. It detects a wide range of touches on its walnut playing surface, from a light tickle to a very firm press. Unlike a MIDI keyboard, which typically sends out just one velocity value at the start of a note, the Soundplane communicates three dimensions of information, x, y and pressure, over the entire duration of every touch. As a synthesist, this lets you replace a triggered envelope with an intimate connection and breathe life into each note.

90 of these were ever made. They're practically never for sale. I am offering mine for the original retail price. These are hand-crafted and assembled in Seattle out of sustainably harvested walnut.

This particular Soundplane is in near-mint condition. There are some light small scuffs on the underside, and there is a single small blemish on the playing surface which does not affect playback (see photos). Comes with original carry bag.

More from Madrona Labs:

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AE Challenge #4 - Journey thru space

Published on Feb 1, 2019 TheTechnobear

Eigenharp Alpha and Madrona Labs Soundplane for the controllers.

"This weeks challenge was to create an ambient piece with the help of the AE Modular.

This was new to me, and honestly, the piece got more complex than I imagined...

I started with the FX / drone made on the AE modular, this was a mix of FM, noise, and feedback, and fed into the Multi FX - it was made so with changing various module parameters had pretty wild changes.

Next, I created a new AE patch, for what would become the arp, trying to create a kind of berlin school vibe.. this was relatively simple, using the NYLE filter, and then playing with Delay and MultiFX to get some flavour to it....
I layered this with a bit more of a pluck sound from the Virus TI.

Finally, I recorded some short-wave radio on a Koma Field Kit, and put this thru a spring reverb...

all the above I recorded on a Tascam 244 4-track, which I then recorded out in single tracks to Ableton.

I arranged this in Ableton in sections I wanted, then could improvise over this, with l two tracks both using Madrona Labs Aalto.

the first was played with the Madrona Labs Soundplane, as its great for fluid, expressive pads.

the other, was played on the Eigenharp Alpha which I prefer for more responsive, lead type sounds.

It's funny, whilst both are expressive controllers, they play so differently, even using an identical patch, the result will be completely different.

Things I learnt, to plan it better!.. with more layers, it got confusing to improvise over the top of, and become problematic to mix :) "

Dust to dust by Time_Controlled_Organism

A new release from supporting member, Time_Controlled_Organism made with VCV Rack hosting Madrona Labs Aalto.

New Sumu Synth Coming from Madrona Labs

via the Madrona Labs newsletter:

"Sumu coming.

With the plugin updates completed, I'm now working full-time on the next software instrument, Sumu. It's going to be the last plugin in the patcher-in-the-middle format that Madrona Labs introduced with Aalto way back in 2010. Granular synthesis, as implemented in Kaivo, lets you decompose a sound into vertical segments (grains) each capturing an instant of the whole sound. A sines plus noise decomposition, used in Sumu, is a complementary tool that does very much the opposite, tracking individual sine wave partials of a sound horizontally through time in what's called spectral analysis.

Working with spectral data in a patchable environment has long been limited to the users of more general-purpose tools like Kyma and Max/MSP. With Sumu I'm designing a fixed set of modules that work in harmony together to make spectral sculpting a breeze."

Also:

"Summer Sale!

Greetings from the Pacific Northwest USA where it's summertime, and where the birds are singing a pretty song. Oh wait, that's Mixmaster Morris on in the background. Yes, ambient music of a wide variety of vintages and moods has been keeping things cool for me lately in the Labs and I'd be very pleased to help bring more into existence. Maybe you'd like to make some, using excellent instrument plugins, purchased at a discount? You've come to the right place.

A summer sale is currently in effect, so from now through the end of this month (August, in case you're not keeping track) Aalto, Kaivo and Virta are all 30% off their usual prices. Use the code PARTICLES on the product pages to get your discount. Until August 31.

Software updates.

Updates to all three instruments were sent out last week, and these fix a few long-standing issues that took some serious quality time here to resolve. MIDI and MPE compatibility, alternate scale handling, and a grip of minor UI issues all went under the knife and I hope that the resulting releases will be the most usable and compatible yet. As always, your feedback is welcomed via the forums or directly to support at madronalabs.com.

Because the plugins share so much code under the hood, I decided that a unified version number system makes more sense and so Kaivo and Virta have taken a larger leap to match Aalto at v1.8.3.

Thanks to the very kind help of Kurt and Carla at Symbolic Sound, there is now an update to the Soundplane software that fixes a Kyma connectivity issue. In addition to improving matters for Kyma owners, the change in OSC connection setup will allow playing Aalto or the other instruments on a different computer via Bonjour / Zeroconf. If this idea excites you, please grab the new release from the Soundplane forum and feel free to get in touch with any questions.

In very related news, Kiyoung Lee and Ha-young Park are going to be performing a new piece for Soundplane and Kyma at KISS2018 in Santa Cruz.

Fashion, beep beep.

Did you know there are still Aalto T-shirts? It's a good look for Fall, in my biased opinion."

Kaivo Patch Test by BobSwanS

"I am making a set of patches for Madrona Labs Kaivo.

This is 2 patches i created today, they are played live at the same time with the one midi keyboard. I put a bit of reverb on both patches and sent them both into black box hg2"

Madrona Labs Soundplane

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this auction

"2nd Batch Soundplane from Madrona Labs, Serialno. in the 30s."

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