NAMM: More pics from day 1 on fdiskc/bleepology

Click here, followed by NAMM Shows, Winter, and go from there.

via bleepology

Pictured here:
Waldorf Booth
Radikal Technologies Spectralis 2
Felix the Cat and a guy that look remarkably like Felix the Cat

NAMM: Big City Music NAMM Shots

More images and coverage on the Big City Music blog.

Note the current images are from the Big City Music booth.

Pictured: Bob Williams of Analogue Systems

NAMM: Amateur Chemist NAMM Shots

You can find more images on Amateur Chemist.

Pictured: KORG M50 in Yellow, White and Red.

Manufacturers - Update

Just a heads up that I added quite a few manufacturers to the list. Check them out.

NAMM: MOTU BPM

MOTU BPM from stretta on Vimeo.

NAMM: Ableton Live 8

"New in Ableton Live 8

Version 8 enhances the Ableton vision of creative, real-time digital music with a wealth of new techniques, effects and most-wanted workflow improvements.

Groove patterns can add life and swing to straight sequences. Live 8's new groove engine lets you apply groove patterns in real time, extract grooves from audio or MIDI sources, quantize audio and MIDI in real time. It also comes with a new groove library.

Live 8 introduces a new, more direct way of working with warping and some important Warp Mode enhancements. You can now warp audio events by adjusting the events themselves on the timeline. Beats Mode has been updated, and there's a completely new Complex Warp Mode. Plus you can slice audio files to MIDI tracks based on transients.

A much-requested feature, the Ableton Looper effect gives you classic sound-on-sound looping without the limitations of a hardware device. Looper is set up for remote operation, so you can record, overdub, undo and more without touching the computer.

Live 8 includes five powerful new effects: Vocoder, Multiband Dynamics, Overdrive, Limiter and Frequency Shifter. These effects cover all the well-known aspects of these devices, but really shine due to some innovative features and enhancements from the Ableton labs.

Version 8 makes Live easier with a number of most-wanted enhancements and some deceptively simple detail work including real-time crossfades in the Arrangement View, enhanced MIDI editing, group tracks, a screen magnifier and more."

New in Ableton Live 8

Version 8 enhances the Ableton vision of creative, real-time digital music with a wealth of new techniques, effects and most-wanted workflow improvements.
imageNew groove engine
Groove patterns can add life and swing to straight sequences. Live 8's new groove engine lets you apply groove patterns in real time, extract grooves from audio or MIDI sources, quantize audio and MIDI in real time. It also comes with a new groove library.
imageNew warping engine
Live 8 introduces a new, more direct way of working with warping and some important Warp Mode enhancements. You can now warp audio events by adjusting the events themselves on the timeline. Beats Mode has been updated, and there's a completely new Complex Warp Mode. Plus you can slice audio files to MIDI tracks based on transients.
imageLooper
A much-requested feature, the Ableton Looper effect gives you classic sound-on-sound looping without the limitations of a hardware device. Looper is set up for remote operation, so you can record, overdub, undo and more without touching the computer.
imageNew effects
Live 8 includes five powerful new effects: Vocoder, Multiband Dynamics, Overdrive, Limiter and Frequency Shifter. These effects cover all the well-known aspects of these devices, but really shine due to some innovative features and enhancements from the Ableton labs.
imageWorkflow enhancements
Version 8 makes Live easier with a number of most-wanted enhancements and some deceptively simple detail work including real-time crossfades in the Arrangement View, enhanced MIDI editing, group tracks, a screen magnifier and more.


New in Ableton Suite 8
Ableton Suite 8 is a package which gives you a rich world of sound, perfectly complementing the tools and features in Live 8. Suite 8 provides all the instruments a musician could hope for, including a wide range of synths, a powerful sampler, electric and acoustic drums, mallets, numerous sampled instruments: 10 instruments in all. Here's what's new in Suite 8.

Ableton Suite 8's library completely surpasses everything that Ableton has ever offered before. With the creative professional in mind, Ableton has put together a well-balanced and comprehensive tool set and, above all, a wide-ranging set of beautiful sounds.

Collision is a unique instrument for authentic mallet sounds and creative percussion. Co-developed with AAS, it uses physical modeling technology to reproduce real-world instruments such as xylophones, marimbas and glockenspiels, but also provides enough depth to create truly dramatic new instruments and sounds.

Latin Percussion is a collection of acoustic percussion instruments such as congas, bongos, timbales, claves, shakers, tambourines and bells from the worlds of Brazilian, Afro-Cuban and African music. It also comes with clips and grooves, so you don't only get the drums, you also get the drummer.

Operator, Ableton's renowned do-it-all synthesizer, has been given a major overhaul. We opened up the hood, took a long hard look inside and did some serious hot-rod stuff. New filter types, more modulation routing options and additive wavetable synthesis with drawable partials make Operator more powerful and flexible than ever."

vids and more: http://www.ableton.com/pages/live_8/announcement/home

Zn'shñ : Mudam 2009 (Live)

YouTube via znshn
"Zn'shñ (Elvire Bastendorff & Franck Smith) live at Mudam Luxembourg, Musée d'art moderne Grand-Duc Jean. Recorded January 14th 2009.

IF POSSIBLE USE HEADPHONES OR CONNECT YOUR COMPUTER TO A QUITE DECENT SOUND-SYSTEM.

Invented and defined by Franck Smith, the term Zn'shñ signifies: the gleam of dark colours. Deliberately antithetic and intentionally enigmatic, Zn'shñ is enthused by Butoh iconography, Japanese Gagaku aesthetic and Tibetan rituals codification. Operating as a dual electronic unit, Zn'shñ deepens a series of very specific works around phonocrafting and noise manufacturing.

http://www.myspace.com/znshn
znshn AT hotmail DOT com"
Tags from the video:
"Franck Smith Elvire Bastendorff alternative digital techniques electronics Odiolorgnette Zn'shñ Mudam Luxembourg Musée d'art moderne Grand-Duc Jean Yamaha TENORI-ON Benfox Dual Tone Generator Kaossilator Korg Kaoss Pad KP3 Space Echo Jomox M-Resonator Moog Low Pass Filter Bass Murf MI Audio Pollyanna Moogerfooger Phonocrafting noise manufacturing"

sequencer module S4 owyheesound

YouTube via nathanielscott
"This is my first original design. The circuit design is very simple and I give the numbers to the four ships I used to build it towards the end of the video. This system was designed to be compatible with moog systems though I still have to cut down the panel to be the correct dimensions to fit into a moog style cabinet.

Since this video I have added a couple of enhancements like portamento (aka glissando or glide) and others. This has been a fun project and I am looking forward to desiging and builing other useful modules."

【DEMO】Percussa Audio Cubes

YouTube via musictrackjp

NAMM: Akai MPC5000 OS 2.0

"Meet the new OS. Not the same as the old OS.

The MPC5000 is the most talked-about MPC in the music industry today. It’s the latest evolution of the unquestioned standard in sample-based music production. The MPC5000 builds on the MPC foundation, combining powerful sequencing, sampling and processing with the feel of the exclusive MPC pads and Q-Link assignable controls. It adds never-before-seen MPC advancements such as a virtual-analog synthesizer, a streaming hard disc recorder, incomparably high-resolution sequencing, and over 100 other new capabilities.

MPC5000 OS 2.0 is a free, new operating system upgrade that includes more than 25 additional improvements, many of which are developed to accommodate the specific requests of the people who use the MPC5000 every day. MPC5000 OS 2.0 will be available Spring 2009 as a download at akaipro.com/MPC5000.

Home on the range.
The most requested, exciting, and powerful new feature we’ve added to OS 2.0 is the ability to create and load Keygroup Programs. And with it, in MPC fashion, comes a massive array of cool Keygroup helper tools.

Now with the MPC5000, just like with our legendary S-series samplers and legacy MPCs, you can create chromatic key-mapped sample programs that take a sample and spread it across a range of notes of your choosing, automatically adjusting the pitch of the sample chromatically. You can then play these notes with the pads or an external MIDI keyboard or controller.

What does this really mean for you and your production? For starters, no more time-consuming program creation or relying on an external keyboard for your sounds. SHIFT+PAD will select a Keygroup, you can set range via MIDI if on range parameter, plus you can select a Keygroup via MIDI to select the next Keygroup with the note played. Another new feature is the ability to assign the root note of a sample assigned to each individual layer on a single pad. You can also pan each layer individually in Keygroup and drum programs. Imagine the sonic possibilities!

More good news for all old school producers - you can now import S1000, S3000, S5000/S6000, Z4/Z8, and MPC4000 format sample libraries, including Keygroups, from Akai Pro and third parties. Now you can migrate fully to the MPC5000 platform.

Hustle and flow.

Music production is all about creativity, workflow, the tools at your disposal and making it all come together as seamlessly as possible. So designing a music production device is rooted in finding the best possible collaboration of its elements. OS 2.0 makes production with the MPC5000 friendlier with such time-saving improvements as the new MultiEdit function which enables you to edit and apply parameters such as tuning, filters, pitch, pan—every parameter of the filter screen—to a group of pads, all at once. This streamlines the production process by empowering you to perform group editing.

Get around.

We just upped GRID EDIT’s abilities. You can now see and edit controller automation and event data in the new Controller Grid Edit Window. We also gave the sample editor some love as well.

We’ve added a ZOOM function to each individual slice in Chopshop mode for even finer editing of your samples and beats. This takes the guesswork out of cutting a beat and ensures you get what you want every time.

We’ve added a slew of navigation shortcuts you’ll appreciate. For instance, you can now assign the sample you are working on in TRIM mode to a pad by holding SHIFT and striking the pad of choice.

We’ve improved the Effects, Synth and Mixer pages by adding a new Take Over Mode to the knobs and sliders. This is a great help when going between many different pages where you are using the Q-Links to change parameter values. Parameter values will not jump to the position of the knob or fader until the original values zero crossing is passed. This allows for seamless mix and edit moves in realtime.

It pays to play.

Improving upon the all ready impressive mixing capabilities of the MPC5000, you can now toggle between the hard disk Audio Track Mixer and the Sequencer Track Mixer with one button without having to interrupt playback of the song. This speeds up track creation in a big way.

You can now quantize Track and Pad Mutes in real time to the internal clock or that of an external device. This means that if you use an MPC5000 to trigger clips and tracks live, your mute punches will be perfectly in time.

Marrying performance and production, the MPC5000 now supports full automation of the mixer and effects.

If you have an MPC5000, you know it comes loaded right out of the box. Now that even more capability is coming to should check out the new OS for your MPC5000. Or upgrade to the flagship MPC and get all of these new features along with it.

MPC5000 OS 2.0 will be a free download in Spring 2009 from the Documents and Downloads tab on the MPC5000 page."

http://www.akaipro.com/spotmpcos2