Many of you will be familiar with the Access Virus compositions by Marc-Henri from previous RADIOKLOW posts. Marc-Henri bridges the gap between electronic music and other forms of art. His most recent work is a poem in tribute to Pierre Henry accompanied by the Access Virus. The tribute is hosted on La poésie au cœur des arts : le Blogart which translates to "Poetry at the core of arts". Click through and click on the Access Virus image to get to the piece.
via Marc-Henri:
"This site called 'Poetry at the core of arts' is the net the extension of a book of the same title, an anthology of poetry published by the french publisher : Editions Bruno Doucey. The book contains a poem I wrote about electronic music. The site was conceived to developp an exploration for some of the poets and artists of the book. I am one of them for, poetry , music and painting.
You will find the poem I wrote for the book, three pieces of music composed in january 2014, four poems by other authors of the anthology, three improvisations performed in early february 2014, a former composition called De Haute Vallée you have seen in the form a video in late 2012, an interview in french and some photographs taken at my flat when I was interviewed."
The following is Marc-Henri's poem translated into English:
"Orpheus veil"
Fly down into Orpheus ear,
Where roll clockworks
Of the forbidden stars
And voices shreds seeking vision.
Listen at the well of walls
Echoes of illuminated faces
In their bronze palaces.
Pavings, folds of roses,
The naked heels
Playing the freshness game
With embers
And the childhood kisses.
Travelling back to horizon,
In the limestone of nights,
Is now the prophecy of the spices,
With its tissue gifted with red
And the sobbings of an initiation.
Marc-Henri Arfeux - 2013
----------
Update: the following an English translation of the interview with Marc-Henri Arfeux on "Poetry at the core of arts". It is a fascinating read and reminds me of why I initially got into synths. My first synth was a brand new Oberheim Matrix-6 back in 1986. When I first started exploring the Matrix-6 I had no idea what the parameters did, so I just dived in. For me it was an exploration of sound for the sake of sound and a fascination in creating musical instruments never heard before. The focus was on that exploration rather than the attempt to mimic real world instruments. Much of this spirit is covered in the world of musique concrete and is captured in the interview below. Do not miss the part on the short wave radio. Truly fascinating and an inspiration for sonic exploration.
"This synthesizer is the world's first programmable music synthesizer. The first piece of electronic music to win the Pulitzer Prize was made on it.
basically a two voice synthesizer with tone generation and composing in the left hand side and processing on the right hand side, including manual binary for the, uh, ordering of the effects processes. Um, which for its time, uh, essentially like a uh, touring computer. Um, uh, was it You know, one and a half tons, seven feet tall, 14 feet wide, it's quite a behemoth, but now it's a very large paperweight.
Watch the full video:" [The above comes in at 22:41 - vintage Buchla, Serge & more follow. See this post for the red Buchla LSD module]
How Technology is Changing the Way We Make Music | A Conversation with Seth Cluett
"Guest: Seth Cluett, Director of Columbia University’s Computer Music Center | On LinkedIn: / seth-cluett-7631065 | Columbia University Computer Music Center Bio: https://cmc.music.columbia.edu/bios/s...
Host: Sean Martin, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast & Music Evolves Podcast | Website: https://www.seanmartin.com/
Show Notes
Music and technology have always shaped each other, and few places embody that relationship as deeply as the Computer Music Center (CMC) at Columbia University. In this episode of Music Evolves, Sean Martin sits down with Seth Cluett, Director of the Computer Music Center and Assistant Director of the Sound Art MFA program at Columbia, to explore the center’s rich history, its role in advancing music technology, and how it continues to shape the future of sound.
The Legacy and Mission of the Computer Music Center
The CMC is housed in the same 6,000-square-foot space as the original Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, which dates back to 1951 and is one of the world’s oldest university-based electronic music research facilities. This was the birthplace of early electronic music, where pioneers learned to use cutting-edge technology to create new sounds. Many of those musicians went on to establish their own studios around the world, from Egypt to Japan.
The center has played a role in major milestones in music history, including the work of Wendy Carlos, a former student known for Switched-On Bach, the score for Tron, and The Shining. The first piece of electronic music to win a Pulitzer Prize was also composed here. Today, under Cluett’s leadership, the focus remains on creativity-driven technological innovation—allowing composers and artists to explore technology freely and push the boundaries of what’s possible in sound and music.
One of the center’s guiding principles is accessibility. Cluett emphasizes the importance of lowering barriers to entry for students who may not have had prior access to music technology. The goal is to make sure that anyone, regardless of background, can walk into the studio and begin working with 80% of its capabilities within the first 20 minutes.
Exploring the Labs and Studios
The episode also includes a tour of the labs and studios, showcasing some of the center’s groundbreaking equipment. One highlight is the RCA Mark II Synthesizer, the world’s first programmable music synthesizer. Built in the late 1950s, this massive machine—seven feet tall and weighing over a ton—was instrumental in shaping the sound of early electronic music. The system worked by punching holes into paper to control sound generation, similar to a player piano. While no longer in use, the CMC has collaborated with iZotope to model some of its effects digitally.
SPIN is an AI music synthesizer that allows you to co-create compositions with a language model, MusicGen. It is a playful invitation to explore the nuances of algorithmic music, encouraging you to slow down and zoom in on its artifacts. It celebrates the marriage between human and machine creativity through music."
via Arvind Sanjeev
"SPIN is an AI music synthesizer that allows you to co-create compositions with a language model, MusicGen. It is a playful invitation to explore the nuances of algorithmic music, encouraging you to slow down and zoom in on its artifacts. It celebrates the marriage between human and machine creativity through music.
SPIN breaks down the process of co-composing music with an AI using a tangible interface. Enter the desired mood, genre, sounds and bpm to listen to the music come alive on an LP record. A DVS (Digital Vinyl System) allows you to slow down, zoom in, scratch and listen between the notes. Use it to create new compositions, as a simple sound synthesizer, as a playful scratch tool, or to play relaxing music in the background.
SPIN is an artifact from a future where music will be hyper-tailored to people’s tastes and preferences. It is an explorer of musical curiosities that can generate music unlike anything heard before, blending unheard-of combinations of sounds, rhythms and harmonies. This opens up exciting possibilities for pushing the boundaries of music and creating entirely new micro-genres. Who’s ready for some happy, death-metal, disco?
Under the hood, SPIN takes the input prompts in the form of button presses through an Arduino Mega. This is sent via serial to a Raspberry Pi which prompts the MusicGen API. An mp3 file is received as the output which is loaded onto a Digital Vinyl System (DVS). A transmuted Numark PT-01 and a timecoded control vinyl record serve as the turntable. The Xwax DVS package for Raspberry Pi reads the vinyl timecode through a Behringer audio driver, and the output is played via stereo speakers.
There are a lot of amazing generative music experiments, from Dadabots’s relentless death metal streaming AI on YouTube to Holly Herndon’s experiments around voice transplantations. But I realized we hit a tipping point when I stumbled upon the Riffusion music model; I was taken aback by its depth and realism, including its new update that adds lyrical voices to the output. Inspired by this, I wanted to build a platform to let me further explore and combine never-before-heard combinations of music and sounds. This laid the seed for building SPIN.
I wanted SPIN to encourage people to be playful; having a scratch interface served this purpose. A DVS (Digital Vinyl System) adds an extra dimension while listening to the generated compositions. It allows us to slow down these synthetic tunes and listen between the notes. So, I decided to combine a DVS system with the MusicGen API in the form of an old-school synthesizer."
via this auction "Computer Music Journal. Starting with Volume II, Number 2 (1978) and ending with Volume 8, Number 2 (1984). Also in the lot is a copy of Peter Manning's Electronic & Computer Music, 2nd Edition (1993). (There is No Reserve for this auction)
Here is what is included:
1. Electronic & Computer Music 2nd Edition, Peter Manning. The first edition was published in 1985 and was written as a history of electronic music. It is still a good read for anyone interested in where this music came from. The condition of the book is good. The front cover is slightly bent up on one corner and my sister (original owner) wrote her name on the inside cover... Other than that it is perfectly fine and readable and the picture inserts are all in great condition. It is a paperback and the chapter titles are:
* The Background to 1945 * Developments from 1945 to 1960 * Paris and Musique Concrèt * Cologne and Elektronische Musik * Milan and Elsewhere in Europe * America * New Horizons in Electronic Design * The Voltage-Controlled Synthesizer * The Electronic Repertory from 1960 * Works for Tape * Live Electronic Music * Rock and Pop Electronic Music * The Digital Revolution * The Birth of Computer Music * New Horizons in Digital Technology * The MIDI Synthesizer * From Microcomputer to Music Supercomputer * Conclusion
2. Early issues of the magazine Computer Music Journal. I bought these a few years back. For the most part they are very technically based and may be a hard read for some, although each issue does include record reviews and product reviews of hardware and software which are fun to read now. Besides some bumped corners and some wear marks all of the magazines are in good condition, with one exception, the cover of Volume 8, Number 1 is a little torn at the top and the corner is folded back, but everything on the inside is perfect! The issues included are:
Volume II, Number 2 Summer 1978: Abbott: Machine Tongues 2Moorer, Grey: Lexicon of Analyzed Tones 3 Moore: Mathematics of DSP 2 Roads: Automated Granular Synthesis
Volume II, Number 3 Fall 1978: Abbott: Machine Tongues 3 Roads: Interview with Gottfried Michael Koeni Fedorkow, Buxton, K.C.Smith: Computer-Controlled Sound Distribution System for Performance
Volume II, Number 4 Winter 1978: Buxton et al.: Use of Hierarchy and Instance in Computer Music Data Structure Buxton et al.:Introduction to the SSSP Synthesizer Laske: Consider Human Memory in Designing User Interfaces for Computer Music
Volume III, Number 1 Spring 1979: Roads: Machine Tongues 4 Allouis: Use of High-Speed Microprocessors for Digital Synthesis Berg: PILE-A Language for Sound Synthesis Rozenberg: Sound Processing Using Walsh Functions Roads: Grammars are Representations for Music
Volume 3, Number 3 Fall 1979: Cann: Analysis/Synthesis Tutorial 1 Myhill: Controlled Indeterminancy Piszczalski: Spectral Surfaces from Performed Music
Volume 4, Number 1 Spring 1980: Buxton et al.: Microprocessor-based Conducting System Sasaki, Smith: Data Reduction for Additive Synthesis Cann: Analysis/Synthesis Tutorial 3
Volume 4, Number 2 Summer 1980: Kornfeld: Machine Tongues 7 (LISP) Roads: AI and Music Alphonce: Music Analysis by Computer Smoliar: Computer Aid for Schenkerian Analysis Laske: Explicit Cognitive Theory of Musical Listening
Volume 4, Number 3 Fall 1980: Roads: Interview with Marvin Minsky Gruessay: Music Software Description and Abstractions Fry: Computer Improvisation
Volume 5, Number 1 Spring 1981: Moorer: Synthesizers I Have Known and Loved Abbott: 4CED Program Holtzmann: Generative Grammers for Music Composition
Volume 5, Number 3 Fall 1981: Minsky: Music, Mind, and Meaning Lansky, Steiglitz: Synthesis of Timbral Families by Warped Linear Prediction Buxton et al.: Scope in Interactive Score Editors
Volume 7, Number 2 Summer 1983: Roads: Musical Grammars and Computer Analysis Karplus, Strong: Plucked-String and Drum Timbres Jaffe, Smith: Extensions of Karplus-Strong Algorithm
Volume 8, Number 1 Spring 1984: Levitt: Machine Tongues 10 Chadabe: Interactive Composing Schindler: Dynamic Timbre Control for Real-Time Digital Synthesis
Volume 8, Number 2 Summer 1984: Barbeau, Corinthios: High-Quality Audio Conversion System Tutorial Vaggione: The Making of Octuor
For a full description of each issue go to http://204.151.38.11/cmj/ and click on "Index of Old Issues". There you can find each one and view the contents."
Hi everyone! As you know Barry Schrader will be giving his farewell concert at CalArts on September 26. The following is the beginning of my interview with him. I opted to post the questions and answers as they come in. New QAs will get a new post so you do not miss them and they will be added to this post so we have one central post for the full interview. This should make it easier for all of us to consume in our busy lives, and it will allow you to send in any questions that may come to mind during the interview process. If you have anything you'd like to ask Barry, feel free to send it in to matrixsynth@gmail.com. This is a rare opportunity for us to get insight on a significant bit of synthesizer history, specifically with early Buchla systems, and I'd like to thank Barry for this opportunity. Thank you Barry!
Sound Blocks is a groundbreaking music composition app for Mac and Windows. You simply place blocks of sound anywhere on the grid, connect them together and play!
It's a beautifully animated experience that really brings out the visual character of sounds — (kind of like synesthesia).
You can add 'Control Blocks' to your sequence that act as modifiers for speed, time, randomization and more. Using these tools, you can create intricate musical machines that loop in interesting ways.
It's a remarkably simple new workflow that removes the obstacles and steep learning curves commonly associated with conventional music production software — and by the nature of its distinct design, lets you do things that you might never think doing of with other music apps.
Who is it for? Can I use it if I'm not a musician?
Sound Blocks is for anyone who wants to dive into music production, whether you're a child, non-musician, gamer or a professional music producer — it has something for everyone. The workflow is super intuitive and playful, and you can learn to use it in about 10 seconds — no prior music experience needed.
What does it offer for skilled musicians and producers?
Sound Blocks will give you a completely new workflow to experiment and create the kind of music you might otherwise never make using a conventional DAW. The non-linear sequencing approach, alongside features like Control Blocks and asynchronous loops will open new creative avenues for some serious artistic exploration. The more funding our Kickstarter project raises, the more advanced features we'll be able to add, such as the ability to add your own samples, crazy effects pedals and much much more. We will be sharing a detailed development roadmap soon."
"Hollywood, however, had already been utilizing instruments such as the theremin in movie scores for many years, and the first widespread American public exposure to the possibilities of the electronic medium occurred with the 1956 release of MGM's feature film Forbidden Planet. In addition to its elaborate space sets and advanced visual effects, Forbidden Planet featured an exclusively electronic musical score composed by Bebe Barron (b. 1927) and her husband Louis (1920-1989)....
Once they decided on the characters' moods and situations, the couple completed a series of electrical circuits which functioned electronically in ways analogous to the human nervous system. Decisions about the circuitry were strongly influenced by their studies of the science of cybernetics which proposes that certain natural laws of behavior are applicable to both animals and more complex modern machinary. The composers employed their noise-producing circuits to emulate such needed characterizations as serenity, anger, and love....
Bebe and Louis' success signaled the beginning of the effective use of electroacoustic music by the modern movie industry."
via Peter Grenader of Plan b:
"We have lost a bright little little light and a dear friend. Bebe Barron has passed. She has captivated us with her charm, her modesty and her enchanting smile and her memory will remain in our hearts, our art and our spiritforever."
It is with great sadness that I report the death of Bebe Barron on April 20, 2008 at the age of 82, of natural causes. Bebe was the last of the pioneering composers of classical studio electronic music. She was a close friend, an enthusiastic colleague, and a most gracious lady.
Bebe Barron was born Charlotte Wind in Minneapolis, on June 16, 1925. She received an MA in political science from the University of Minnesota, where she studied composition with Roque Cordero, and she also spent a year studying composition and ethnomusicology at the University of Mexico. In 1947 she moved to New York and, while working as a researcher for Time-Life, studied composition with Wallingford Reigger and Henry Cowell. That same year, she met and married Louis Barron (1920 - 1989). Shortly thereafter, the Barrons began their experiments with the recording and manipulation of sound material by means of a tape recorder that they received as a wedding gift. They created a private studio in New York and, in 1955, composed the first electronic music score for a commercial film, Forbidden Planet. In 1962 the Barrons moved to Los Angeles; they divorced in 1970. In 1973, Bebe married Leonard Neubauer, a screen writer. Bebe became the first Secretary of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) in 1985, and also served on the Board of Directors. In 1997 Bebe was presented the SEAMUS Award for the Barrons life work in the field of electro-acoustic music. She is survived by her husband, Leonard, and her son, Adam.
Bebe’s last public appearance was on January 12, 2008, at an event held at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, celebrating the work of her good friend, Anais Nin. Bebe was too ill to speak in public at this point, but she agreed to be interviewed for a video piece that was shown at the event. This is her final interview, and you can see it on YouTube.
Bebe’s final composition, Mixed Emotions (2000) was composed in the CREATE studios of the University of California at Santa Barbara. I'll be putting this work up on the Downloads 2 page of my website, along with some photos of Bebe and myself taken in 2005 at her home on the Photos page within the next week.
I first met Bebe Barron in the middle 1970s; I don't remember exactly when, but I think it was around 1975. I had asked Bebe and her former husband and composing partner Louis to attend a showing of Forbidden Planet that I had arranged as part of a class at CalArts. They agreed to do it, and I quickly became good friends with Bebe and we remained close over the years.
In writing about Bebe Barron, it's impossible not to focus on the pioneering work that she and Louis did in electronic music. They began their experiments in 1948, shortly after they were married. This early work was done using a tape recorder, preceding the work of Luening and Ussachevsky and the switch from disks to tape by Pierre Schaeffer and the GRM. But, to my knowledge, the Barrons' early experiments did not result in any completed works, a state of affairs not uncommon with early pioneers in the field. In 1949 they set up one of the earliest private electro-acoustic music studios and began their experiments with electronically generated sounds. They built their own circuits which they viewed as cybernetic organisms, having been influenced by Norbert Weiner's work on cybernetics. The circuits, built with vacuum tubes, would exhibit characteristic qualities of pitch, timbre, and rhythm, and had a sort of life cycle from their beginnings until they burned out.
The Barrons recorded the sounds from the amplification of these circuits and this formed the basis of their working library. They also employed tape manipulation techniques as part of their compositional procedures. The sound qualities of these various amplified tube circuits and the tape manipulations that they underwent formed the musical language that the Barrons created in their studio. Unlike some of the work being done elsewhere, the Barrons' music reveals long phrases, often stated in tape-delayed rhythms, with the stark finesse of the tube circuit timbres. They created a style that was uniquely their own yet married to the technology they were using.
The Barrons earliest finished work, Heavenly Menagerie (1951) does not seem to have survived in a complete form. But their score for Ian Hugo's film Bells of Atlantis (1952), based on a poem by Anais Nin, who appears on screen, does exist on the film sound track. This may be the earliest extant work of the Barrons and presages what was to come with Forbidden Planet, the music for which was composed in 1955, the film being released the
next year.
The music for Forbidden Planet is truly a landmark in electro-acoustic music. This was the first commercial film to use only electronic music, and the score for the movie displays an attitude towards film scoring that was different from anything that had happened before. In Forbidden Planet, while there are themes for characters and events in the film, as was traditional in the scoring of that day, the themes are composed and perceived as gestalts, rather than as melodies in traditional movie music. Even more important is the fact that the scoring of Forbidden Planet breaks down the traditional line between music and sound effects since the Barrons' electronic material is used for both. This not only creates a new type of unity in the film sound world, but also allows for a continuum between these two areas that the Barrons exploit in various ways. At some points it's actually impossible to say whether or not what you're hearing is music, sound effect, or both. In doing this, they foreshadowed by decades the now common role of the sound designer in modern film and video.
The Barrons composed many other works for tape, film, and the theater in the 1950s. Their studio became the home for John Cage's Project of Music for Magnetic Tape, and they assisted in the creation of Cage's first chance piece Williams Mix (1951-52), as well as works by other members of the group such as Earle Brown and Morton Feldman. As a studio for the creation of their own and other composers' works, the Barrons' studio served as a functioning center for electro-acoustic music at a time when there was no institutional support of the medium in the United States. It's curious, then, that, for many years, the Barrons, their studio, and their works were largely overlooked by composers and historians in the field. Fortunately, that injustice has since been corrected, and, in 1997, it was my great honor to present to Bebe and, posthumously, to Louis, the SEAMUS Lifetime Achievement Award. Bebe was involved with SEAMUS from the very beginning of the organization. She was one of the ten original members who responded to my organizational call and met at CalArts in November of 1984 to form the group, and she was SEAMUS's first secretary. There may have been a little strong-arming on my part to get her to be involved so actively, but Bebe was always ready to support the cause of electro-acoustic music in whatever way she could.
Bebe created a firm legacy in her music. If the importance of one's work is to be judged in any regard by it's influence, acceptance, longevity, and innovative qualities, then the score for Forbidden Planet is an enormous success. It remains the most widely known electro-acoustic music work on this planet. For me, Bebe Barron will always be the First Lady of electronic music." Update: BTW, if you have Netflix, you can watch Forbidden Planet online in IE here.
Herb Deutsch passed away yesterday. He was born on Feb 9th, 1932, making him 90 at the time of his passing. If you come to this site you know who he is. You can find pages of posts featuring him here. He was constantly active in the synth community, from it's birth as the co-inventor of the Moog Synthesizer with Bob Moog, to this day. I thought I would share the recent GIANTS video featuring him above from February this year.
When the greats pass away, I like to capture images and bios at the time of their passing. To the left is Herb Deutsch's current Facebook profile image. Directly below that is the last update of his posted on December 7. Below that is an image from the Wikipia page for him with the text that immediately follows. Finally, below that are some images of him from the early days from Moog Music's Herb Deutsch Looks Back on the Early Days of Electronic Music tribute.
He and Morton Subotnick likely had the greatest influences on the design of synthesisers as we know them. Herb brought us the tonal influence via the keyboard as the direct interface for a synthsizer and Subotnick brought us atonal sound exploration akin to tape manipulation.
"Herbert A. Deutsch (February, 1932 - 9 December 2022[1]) was an American composer, inventor, and educator. Currently professor emeritus of electronic music and composition at Hofstra University, he is best known for co-inventing the Moog Synthesizer with Bob Moog in 1964.
Deutsch died on 9 December 2022.[2]
Herbert A. Deutsch (February, 1932 - 9 December 2022[1]) was an American composer, inventor, and educator. Currently professor emeritus of electronic music and composition at Hofstra University, he is best known for co-inventing the Moog Synthesizer with Bob Moog in 1964.
Early life and education
Deutsch was born in 1932 in Baldwin, Nassau County, New York. At the age of four, he first realized he had a musical gift. Through his childhood, he studied music and began composing at a young age. Deutsch attended the Manhattan School of Music, earning his B.A. and M.A. there.
Work with Moog
Deutsch had assembled a theremin based on Moog's design in 1962 and in November, 1963 he introduced himself to Moog at a music-education conference in Rochester, NY.[3] In 1964 Moog and Deutsch started investigating the possibilities of a new instrument to aid composers.[4] Deutsch has been credited with the keyboard interface of the Moog.[4] He composed the first piece ever for the Moog ("Jazz Images - A Worksong and Blues"[3]) and performed early Moog concerts at The Town Hall and The Museum of Modern Art in New York (1969's Jazz in the Garden [5]).[6] The prototype Moog synthesizer, developed by Bob Moog and Herbert Deutsch in 1964, is part of the collections of The Henry Ford museum.[7]
Career
Deutsch was a dedicated educator. In the early 1970s he taught at St. Agnes High School in Rockville Centre, New York. He has taught at Hofstra University for over 50 years and was twice the chair of the music department. Deutsch co-founded the Long Island Composers Alliance in 1972, and worked with music foundation NYSSMA. In 1994 he proposed its Electronic Music Composition Showcase.[8]
"On October 12, 1964, Bob Moog unveiled the first modular voltage-controlled synthesizer, an instrument that forever changed the course of modern music.
It began quietly, in 1964, when Bob Moog designed a new electronic instrument to composer Herb Deutsch's request. Herb wanted something to create complex and experimental sounds, tones not easily found from other instruments or with studio trickery. What Bob designed was not wholly new, it sprung from a powerful new combination of existing ideas. The concepts, when combined with some elegant design choices, made a very powerful and revolutionary new system. The new ideas found in the Moog synthesizer took several years to catch on, and it is likely even the first users had little idea what range the new instrument could truly offer."
"iMPC Pro Takes Portable Music Production To New Heights
Akai Professional’s flagship iPad app is now available for download.
Cumberland, RI, USA – July 8, 2014. Akai Professional (akaipro.com), innovator of audio sampling technology for music production and performance, announces the availability of the iMPC Pro app for iPad. Featuring 64 tracks of intuitive music production capability, iMPC Pro is the most powerful way to create music on the iPad.
Developed in concert with Retronyms, a leading iOS app developer, iMPC Pro fuses the acclaimed workflow of a hardware MPC (Music Production Center) with cutting edge tools for composing, editing and mixing music. Extending the beat-production prowess of the original iMPC app, the all-new iMPC Pro app includes over 30 in-demand features to empower the creative process from conceptualization to finishing touch.
Highlights:
● Compose, edit and mix professional-grade audio productions on your iPad
● 64 tracks of multi-track music creation, mixing and automation
● All-new multi-touch interface for the editing, slicing and auditioning of samples
● Inter-App Audio support provides flexible sampling, effects and audio routing
● Sample from your iTunes library, Inter-App Audio, the iPad mic and more
● Timeline View provides powerful gesture control of sequences and events
● Intuitive Precision Knobs and Faders deliver exacting command of mix controls
● Flux Mode for real-time or automated manipulation of tracks
● Classic MPC Swing, Note Repeat, 16 Levels and pad workflow
● Extensive sound library featuring 1,400+ samples from Richard Devine
● Works seamlessly with MPC Element pad controller via iPad Camera Connection kit
● 3D-performance mode for tweaking effects, Note Repeat and more
● Directly upload your tracks to SoundCloud, Twitter, your computer and more
● All-new effects suite including Turbo Duck side-chain compressor and Boom Room
reverb
“iMPC Pro pushes the boundaries of portable music production for the creative set,” notes Akai Professional Product Manager Dan Gill. “The reliability and processing speed of the iPad are a great foundation for crafting tracks on-the-go. When fused with the bleeding-edge workflow and innovative audio features of iMPC Pro, you uncage new ideas never before imagined.”

iMPC Pro is available for download on the App Store at a special, limited-time introductory price of $12.99 USD, with a regular price of $19.99 USD. For more information, visit: akaipro.com/mpc."
"***Special Deal Pricing***
For a limited time, iMPC Pro is $12.99 (normally $19.99) — the price of original iMPC off. Thanks to everyone for supporting and creating with iMPC!
iMPC Pro is a 64-track music production powerhouse for your iPad. With built-in sampling functionality, a massive sound library, effects, and over 30 performance-driven features, iMPC Pro brings the functionality of Akai Professional's coveted Music Production Center to your iPad. Developed in partnership with Retronyms, the developers of the original iMPC, iMPC Pro comes with high end tools for intuitive beat creation whenever inspiration strikes. It combines multiple sampling methods, producer-tested MPC features, a custom sample library from Richard Devine, and an intuitive gestural editor for the most powerful, creative and fun iPad music production experience yet.
*Creating sample-based music on your iPad with renowned MPC functionality
*Sample audio from the iPad microphone, your own tracks using resampling, other apps using Inter App Audio, or your music library
*64 tracks for flexible multi-track music production including gain fader, 3-band EQ, mute, solo, panning and FX sends on each track
*All-new chop-shop provides intuitive multi-touch editing, trimming, auditioning, splicing, splicing and processing samples
*All-new Timeline View opens a multi-touch gestural editor for sequencing, recording, and editing
*All-new Flux mode lets you warp and glitch your beats in real-time or with automation
*All-new Precision Knobs and Faders expand on command for precisely dialing in parameters
*Drag n' Drop your samples for simplified program/kit assembly
*All-new 3D-performance mode lets your perform with your iPad's accelerometer
*All-new Turbo Duck effect fattens up your tracks with sidechain compression
*Exclusive sound library featuring 1,400+ samples from sound designer Richard Devine with hundreds of Akai Pro exclusive samples
*Improved sampling workflow with re-sampling and sample library organization
*16 Levels mode with attack, velocity, length, and tuning settings for quickly creating variations of your sounds
*Note Variation slider lets you adjust attack, velocity, length, and tuning as you play
I posted the following to the Waldorf list in response to someone leaving a snide comment asking "where's the music" in regards to Cikira's synth shots. I see someone left one in the comments of the previous posts as well. This seems to be a reoccurring theme in response to people with larger collections of synths. I thought it would be fun to put up my reply along with a poll on what others do. Feel free to comment. In the end, for me, people do different things with their synths and I can respect that. What I can't respect are people that are inconsiderate of others and feel the need to tell others what they should be doing just to justify their own perspectives on things...
"The thought of people dictating what others should or shouldn't do is kind of sad. Not everyone enjoys the composing part of making music. My favorite thing to do? Grab a synth off a shelf and explore it. The music comes out of the exploration, not the other way around for me. And 99.9% of the time I do not record it because the music comes in spurts and the focus is definitely not in making a piece of music but listening to the sound and the effects of different parameters. Does "music" come out of it? Usually yes, but it's different. The sound drives it.
The following is a loaded question, but why would anyone who only wants to make music have that many synths? Note that I'm not saying that people who like to compose music shouldn't have that many synths. What I am saying is if you do have that many synths, you probably appreciate them in a slightly different way - not just as sound sources for making music, but rather for the love of synths and all the different characteristics of each.
This always reminds me of the difference between the art of synthesis and the art of keyboard playing. They are different. I'm reminded each month when I get my copy of Keyboard Magazine. I see synths, but it's about 90% music composition and keyboards, not synthesizers. Thank you Mitchell Sigman! His column on synthesis techniques is about the only bit I'm guaranteed to enjoy every month. That and the reto synth section as well as Peter Kirn's articles (Peter also runs CDM). The rest might as well be on pianos... The point of this is there is an appreciation of synthesis I think most of us enjoy that is very different than the focus you might have in composing a piece of music. I like to think Cikira shares this enthusiasm for synths with the rest of us. In my book, anyone that makes the comment of "show me the music" is either ignorant of what synthesis is about or is just trolling." That or just plain inconsiderate. So are you a synthesist/ sound explorer, musician, or both?
"Created in the early 1960s by Don Buchla, the Buchla synthesizer revolutionized electronic music through its innovative design and endlessly variable modular system, encouraging new methods of creation and performance. Few artists pursued the emotional and sonic possibilities as comprehensively as Suzanne Ciani, an early disciple of Buchla and an undeniable master of the machine who first got her start composing music for advertisements before redefining herself as a Grammy-nominated new age artist. In Ciani’s hands, what can often look like an impenetrable tangle of wires becomes an instrument of beauty, capable of producing truly far-out sounds.
In this impressive display of expert knowledge, filmed at the 2016 Red Bull Music Academy in Montréal, the synthesizer pioneer takes us inside the Buchla in all its complex glory.
The Red Bull Music Academy is a global music institution committed to fostering creativity in music. We celebrate music, its culture, and the transformative minds behind it. Begun in 1998, the Academy has taken the core principles that underlie its annual workshop for selected participants and applied this curatorial approach to events, lectures, and city-wide festivals throughout the year."
Playlist:
Exquis - The smartest way to create expressive music
Loïc, accordeonist and du-touch player, is testing Exquis
Knarf, synthfluencer at LesSondiers.com testing Exquis
"Making music is all about finding the right notes and assembling them in rhythm. But whatever the instrument, device or software, it still takes time and effort to master theory and technique.
At Intuitive Instruments, we have figured out a smarter way to play and compose today’s music, that makes it intuitive and logical for anyone.
Explore, have fun, surprise yourself, find inspiration. Above all, composing music is about emotion. Exquis provides an intuitive way to lead you to the right path, still allowing you to play out of it. No need to think: just choose a scale and follow its illuminated path.
Thanks to our patented layout, making chords is easy; Exquis puts notes that sound well together right next to one another. You’ll be amazed how harmony falls under your fingers.
Your notes, your chords, your music
Beginner, amateur or professional musicians, we all want to shorten the time between an idea and its execution. Exquis gives you the fastest access to the rules of harmony, so you can improvise with or without any theoretical background.
Then, thanks to Exquis’s unique and spontaneous creative workflow, just pick a sound, play, record your own loops and create a full song in minutes!
Expressivity at your fingertips
There is no need to play lots of notes when you can bring them to life. Exquis’s expressive keys are designed to be mastered in minutes while offering a huge potential for expert gestures. Inspired by the finesse of acoustic instruments, Exquis keys are both firm enough to play percussion and short notes with precision, and soft enough to modulate long notes with sensibility.
Sculpt your music with emotion; hit, press, and bend the keys independently thanks to the MIDI Polyphonic Expression protocol (MPE).
And in addition, use the 4 clickable potentiometers and the touch slider to increase the possibilities of sound and music control: effects, note/beat repeat,...
The Exquis multi-platform app is the perfect companion for the keyboard, as well as an autonomous MIDI-compatible DAW. Compose entire songs within seconds thanks to a unique workflow we have been perfecting for 15 years, which is approved today by thousands of musicians worldwide for its spontaneity and efficiency.
The app and the controller work in symbiosis to provide an easy and chronological music production logic. From left to right, pilot the essential actions with simple gestures, directly on the keyboard and/or in the app:
Settings : prepare your song (tempo, scale, default quantization…) Sounds : pick a sound plugin and preset to create a new “track” Record : record “clips” and preset the recording behavior (start condition, length, overdub) Tracks : just like a director in an orchestra, decide which clips to launch and stop in real time Scenes : save and launch states of your song (e.g: intro, verse, chorus…) Play/Stop : play/stop your song, and select another project"
We designed the Exquis’s workflow by taking into consideration two temporalities: you can both play live safely and take your time to create in your bubble. Most usual actions only require handling the keyboard, whereas advanced actions taking more time like programming (clip/scene duration, follow actions…) are to be made via the app.
The interface of the app is designed following the same logic, turning your device into a customizable heads-up display and an alternative interface to all your actions, especially if you play with another MIDI controller.
In order to allow musicians to create new rhythms and moods, the Exquis app natively includes exclusive functionalities never seen in a DAW before. For example, as we were inspired by the workshops of Jacob Collier, the app provides an easy way to play with tuplets: uncommon beat divisions such as 1/5 or 1/7, useful to create grooves with a drunk feel."
"Looking to create beautiful royalty-free "ambient" music and/or new melody ideas? Need an aid to relaxation & sleep? Get Wotja 2017! Users say: "Best generative music app", "best MIDI composition tool in my toolkit", "hands down the best generative software that I have ever used", "Love Wotja!".
Wotja 2017 is the paid for version of Wotja and has the same capabilities as Wotja (Unlocked). It has no In-App Store, no In-App Subscriptions and will be updated in tandem with the subscription version up until the end of 2017. If you want *further updates* after this time you would need to purchase the *next* paid for version.
Alternatively, get the FREE version of Wotja and purchase one of the In-App Subscription tiers. These are: Wotja (Unlocked) or, for extended Music Play Times, a range of specialist "Wotja XT" tiers.
GENERATIVE MUSIC:
Mixing, composing & designing YOUR OWN custom generative music can be creatively rewarding on so many levels. It's like enjoying freshly brewed coffee; there's nothing quite like it.
You don't need to be a musician to enjoy Wotja and anyone can learn to master its power - see our helpful video tutorials!
USE WOTJA TO:
• Create & record high quality, royalty-free totally custom generative music such as ambient, drone, relaxation, mindfulness, sleep, soundscape, experimental, EDM
• Create melodies using "Text-to-Music"; use text in ANY language and/or emoji
• Help break writer's block with new ideas for lyrics, songs, poems, haiku, stories, copy writing etc.
• Experiment with generative (MIDI) music composition & sound design
• Drive other MIDI synths via MIDI Out
• Just relax!
KEY FEATURES (SMALL SELECTION):
• Up to 48 independent content cells in 12 tracks for mixing/generative cell sequencing
• Hundreds of customisable "generative music" templates & associated sound designs
• "IME" Generative MIDI Music Engine with over 130 user-editable parameters including "Text-to-Music"
• "ISE" Sound Engine with powerful multi-unit modular synth, FX, General MIDI set + high quality SF2 files (use your own, too)
• "ITE" Cut-up Text Engine with support for word locking, syllables, word alternatives, 5 source fields, user editable word library & word bank
• ISE Network Editor for designing custom synth networks
• 1 hour Music Play Time (actually 8 hr 53 min for Wotja *2017*)
• Make + export/share mixdown recordings (48Khz Stereo WAV, MIDI)
• Create shareable play lists of mixes
• Adjust mix tempo, root, randomisation settings etc.
• Use add on content Paks that include WAV/Ogg loops & SF2
• Multi-channel MIDI out via CoreMIDI & Virtual MIDI
• Support for Inter-App Audio & Audiobus 2/3
• Support for iCloud & iCloud Drive
• Open Noatikl & Mixtikl files
• So much more… see our website!"
Be sure to see the notes from Barry on the synths used further below.
"Barry Schrader’s Monkey King CD has been released by Innova Recordings on Innova 703. The CD contains music inspired by the five elements of ancient Chinese tradition in Wu Xing – Cycle of Destruction, and by stories from the great Chinese classic Journey to the West.
Wu Xing - Cycle of Destruction deals with the Chinese concept of Wu Xing, the five elements in ancient Chinese tradition: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. These are important in Chinese astrology, medicine, and BaGua, a system of trigrams used in Fengshui and other areas of Chinese life and culture. The five elements are often arranged in one of two cycles: the cycle of birth, ending with earth, or, as in this work, the cycle of destruction: metal, wood, earth, water, fire. Wu Xing - Cycle of Destruction explores these elements in transcendent ways. The Metal and Wood sections are aural depictions of the elemental density of the mediums, while Earth considers the metaphysics of planetary rotation and revolution. Water reflects on the conceptual aspects of the world's oceans at various depths, voyaging from the darkest abyss to the light of distant shores. Finally, in Fire, there are the physical and spiritual effects of all-engulfing flames.
Monkey King is based on scenes from the classic Chinese book Journey to the West, written around 1550 by Wu Cheng-en. Considered one of the great classics of Chinese literature, the book chronicles the adventures of the Monkey King, Sun Wukong, one of the most fascinating fictional characters ever created. Barry Schrader has taken some of the most famous scenes from this book and created Monkey King, a new electronic music journey into the imagined past of Chinese legend. In the tradition of Schrader's Lost Atlantis, Monkey King explores an immense imaginary aural landscape.
"Monkey King is a colorful combination of Schrader's recognizably arousing orchestral maneuvers with an immediate melodic appeal, gentle harmonic textures, and electronic echoes of traditional Chinese instruments. While individual elements sound strangely familiar, the resulting entity is without direct reference, a style which is as timeless as it is futuristic and which revels an ancient mythology with the tools of today. Without a single doubt, this piece is the most accessible in Schrader's oeuvre."
Some of the scenes depicted in Schrader's Monkey King are the birth of Monkey, his underwater journey to visit the palace of the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea where Monkey takes possession of the Staff of the Milky Way, Monkey's attempt to jump over Buddha's palm, and Monkey's apotheosis in becoming the Buddha Victorious in Strife.
Barry Schrader has been acclaimed by the Los Angeles Times as "a composer born to the electronic medium," named "a seminal composer of electro-acoustic music" by Journal SEAMUS, and described by Gramophone as a composer of "approachable electronic music with a distinctive individual voice to reward the adventurous." "There's a great sweep to Schrader's work that puts it more in line with ambitious large-scale electronic works by the likes of Stockhausen (Hymnen), Eloy (Shanti) and Henry (take your pick), a line that can be traced backwards to Mahler, Bruckner and Beethoven." writes Dan Warburton of the Paris Transatlantic Magazine. Computer Music Journal states that Schrader’s "music withstands the test of time and stands uniquely in the American electronic music genre." Schrader's compositions for electronics, dance, film, video, mixed media, live/electro-acoustic music combinations, and real-time computer performance have been presented throughout the world. He has been a member of the Composition Faculty of the California Institute of the Arts School of Music since 1971, and has also taught at the University of California at Santa Barbara and the California State University at Los Angeles. His music is recorded on the Innova label. His web site is barryschrader.com."
I asked Barry what he used on the CD:
"As to what I used to compose 'Monkey King' and 'Wu Xing - Cycle of Destruction,' the only hardware I used (other than my Mac) was a Yamaha TX816. Here's a list of the software: Digital Performer, Unisyn, Peak, Rocket Science, and Cycling 74 Pluggo. The last two, of course, are bundles, and have multiple plugins, too many to name. DP also has a lot of plugins.
"As for synthesis techniques, I used additive synthesis, subtractive synthesis (including granular), amplitude modulation, frequency modulation, and transfer functions, which, of course, involve the use of wavetable synthesis. So everything, including all of the sound sources, is digital. I know most of the people who visit your site love analog. I composed with analog equipment for many years, and I still enjoy hearing music created on analog systems. But I'm so used to working with computers now, that I don't think I could go back to analog, and I also don't think I could get the degree of control I need to compose the way I want.
"I work mainly in event lists so that I can specify data. All of the timbres for 'Monkey King' and 'Wu Xing - Cycle of Destruction' were designed specifically for these works. This is a general practice of mine and relates to my compositional point of view. (There's some information on this on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Schrader.) As a result of these practices, I compose very slowly, and I average about 20 hours of work for 1 minute of music. There were times with 'Monkey King,' particularly Part 2, where the work was so strenuous that I had to quit composing for several weeks in order to maintain my equilibrium. The composition of that movement alone stretched out over 6 months.
"I think these may be the last works that I compose with the TX816. I've bought Native Instruments Complete 5 package and have been porting my timbral designs into FM8, which allows for more possibilities than the Yamaha 6-operator design. I'm also learning other programs in the NI package, mainly those that allow me to create electronic material directly. I remain rather uninterested in dealing with concrete (acoustic) sound files. Everything on the 'Monkey King' CD, by the way, as is true of almost all of my music, is electronic. The only computer concrete piece that I did was 'Beyond,' and that was done on the old WaveFrame workstation at UCSB. I'm also going to get additional software for my next big work, which I'll probably begin in January, as I have a sabbatical from CalArts next year. I have a need to keep pushing myself to create new things in new ways. It may be difficult to top some aspects of the music on the 'Monkey King' CD, which, I think is some of my best, but I'm not going to worry about it. For me, each new work is its own universe."
"SunVox is a small, simple, fast and powerful program for music creation, based on modular synths and tracker-like interface. (Detailed info about music trackers is here)
SunVox is Based on parts of the PsyTexx tracker, the PsyTexxSynth engine and the SunDog engine.
Examples of use:
* composing music on PDA;
* music for games;
* "chip tunes" (sunvox tunes can be very small; for example - 30 kBytes (unpacked) or 2 kBytes (when packed to ZIP)).
Main features:
* Modular interface.
* Highly optimized synth algorithmes.
* Flexible architecture: SunVox can working on variuos devices. For example: PDA with slow CPU - 16bit sound (fixed point arithmetic); or big PC with powerfull CPU: 32bit sound (floating point arithmetic).
* SunVox engine (without GUI) is open source and distributed under the terms of BSD license.
* Built-in synthesizers: Generator (saw,triangle,square,noise waveforms); Flanger; Echo; Distortion; Filter (Low-pass, High-pass, Band-pass, Notch); Kicker; Sampler (supported formats: WAV, XI); SpectraVoice (FFT-based synth for analog-like pads); Loop.
* Supported platforms: Windows, Linux, PalmOS, WindowsCE.
* Export to WAV.
What is different between the SunVox and another music editors?
* SunVox has simple and useful interface.
* SunVox is small and very flexible. It can be ported on any device.
* SunVox engine (player and modular synthesizers) is open source software.
* Each music pattern has its own graphic icon (instead of name)."
"Create your own Music Box music, and easily share your compositions with others.
Designed to aid composing your own music prior to punching the paper strips for Music Boxes, MBC allows you to compose, preview, play, save and share (via Twitter, Facebook, Email or iTunes file transfer) your creations.
For an example of a shared composition: http://www.jellybiscuits.com/mbc/mbp.php?lL5nDF79 - Add, move, delete notes - Disable Notes for temporary changes - Multiple undo - Ripple edits - Save and Load (access the save location via iTunes File Sharing) - Retina display support for the new iPad - Sounds sampled from physical Music Box for added reality :)
The physical Music Boxes with the paper punch strips and are great fun - what I found was missing was an easy way to preview either transpositions or original creations. This aims to fill that gap but it's also a fun music creation tool in it's own right.
Tips: - Notes are added/edited in either the lower or middle strip. Use two fingers to pan. - Start with the 'Add' button, the tap in the lower strip view to set a note. Touch and slide your finger to add a note and adjust where it ends up - the note is played as you create/change pitch so it's easy to get what you need. - Use the zoomed in view to see what you are doing if you are adding in the lower strip. In the middle strip a zoomed in view pops up to the side (you can turn this off in the options). - You can use the Add and Move modes together - it will then only add a note if it doesn't find one near where you tap. With 'Add' only it creates regardless, but with both modes active you can add and adjust easily. - Turn off 'Snap' mode to allow you to place notes between the vertical bars. - The select mode allows you to swipe across an area to select, select a range to copy, control where the notes are pasted to, as well as simply being able to tap to select/deselect.
"The electro-music festival, known as the "Woodstock of electronic music," is the world's premiere event for experimental electronic music. Now in it's eighth year, this year's gathering features three mind-bending days of innovative electronic music concerts, seminars, workshops, demonstrations, jam sessions, video art, a laptop battle, and a swap-meet. Action starts at 1pm on Friday, September 7 and runs until midnight on September 9. Musical activities will be running continuously throughout the three days of the festival.
electro-music 2012 takes place at the Greenkill Retreat Center in Huguenot, New York. On-site lodging and meals are available. Tickets range from $35 for a single day to $385 for a 3-day pass including meals and lodging.
More information, including a complete schedule of events can be found on the web site at: http://event.electro-music.com/ You may also contact us at event@electro-music.com
A wide variety of instruments and musical styles will be represented, ranging from theremin to analog modular synthesizers to home made devices, from classic space music and ambient to abstract electronica, glitch, electro-pop and beat-oriented music.
