Results for trackers

Version 2.0 of the mod tracker Renoise has been released for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.

Renoise 2.0 is a complete music production environment with support for FX and instrument plug-ins, automatic plug-in delay compensation, multi-core load balancing, MIDI i/o, audio recording, flexible audio output, parameter automation, and much more.

With over four months of exhaustive testing behind it, Renoise 2.0 incorporates a massive engine overhaul, hundreds of improvements, and rock solid stability.

New in Renoise 2.0

• Automatic Plug-in Delay Compensation, which allows you to sync external equipment as well.
• A new timing model that separates tempo and resolution.
• Increased event resolution of up to an insane 4096 PPQ.
• The ability to shift a track back and forth in time.
• A new dedicated column to delay an event with a resolution of 1/256th of a line.
• Support for Audio Units.
• Support for plug-ins with multiple outputs.
• Lots more…

Renoise 2.0 is now available for 39 EUR (a 20% discount, valid until January 25^th). This promo also includes a free exclusive sample kit of over 100 MB.

Visit the Renoise website for more information.

Chris Nash has released version 1.0 of reViSiT Pro, a tracking software for VST hosts.

The Professional Edition of reViSiT is a more powerful and flexible composition tool, which can literally add a new dimension to your music.

Compared to the free Standard Edition, the core innovations are:

• Surround Sound — reViSiT Pro is the first tracker with dedicated support for surround sound (Quad, 5.1), allowing surround panning (directly from the pattern), discrete fixed point sources (with support for Centre and LFE channels), panning in two dimensions and 360° panoramic panning. Together with new instrument envelopes and effect commands to support depth and theta (rotation) spatialisation, this feature literally adds another dimension to your music.
• Advanced Audio Routing with Flexible Busses — reViSiT Pro is not tied to a single audio output anymore. With an innovative audio routing mechanism; individual channels, samples or instruments can be sent to any of 16 audio busses – each of which can be mono, stereo, quad or 5.1. To deliver each bus back to the host, reViSiT Pro comes with the helper plug-in, reBUS – simply load it up on one of the host’s tracks or channels and pick a reViSiT bus to listen in on, and the audio is piped through automatically. The feature provides total flexibility in how you mix your tracks – making it an easy task to apply host effects or processing to a specific channel, sample or instrument in your reViSiT song. A new pattern effects (S0x) even allows you to switch a channel’s bus assignment as the song plays back.
• MIDI-Controlled Playback — reViSiT Pro replaces the basic tracker “order list” with the option to trigger patterns with MIDI notes, where different pitches trigger different patterns according to a user-defined mapping. This not only allows you to “play around” with your song live, using a MIDI instrument, but also means you can do all your arranging – be it tracked, sequenced and recorded music – in the host; by inserting notes in a MIDI track, this feature allows you to edit your tracker song in the same way you’d edit the MIDI track itself – move the MIDI note, and the associated tracker pattern will innevitably move with it; move a block of notes (e.g. in the Arrange Window) and the pattern sequence moves too.

For a limited period you can get reViSiT Pro for Windows for free with the reViSiT Experiment, scientific study of creativity and skill in computer music software, conducted by researchers at the Computer Laboratory (Rainbow Group) and Faculty of Music (Centre for Music & Science) at the University of Cambridge.

Visit nashNET for more information.

Some interesting things I found recently:

# Sound Wave – Melted records on wooden armature – Jean Shin's installation at Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York

Records were melted and sculpted to form a cascading wave, dotted with bursts of colorful labels. The resulting structure speaks to the inevitable waves of technology that render each successive generation of recordable media obsolete. The piece also aims to physically manifest the ephemerality of music as well as one man’s musical tastes, as represented by his personal record collection.

# GrooveStep – GrooveStep is a portable sample based step sequencer and that allows people to write music anywhere with the Nintendo DS. The first beta is out now!

# I Can Haas Stereo? Lolcat Reaktor Delay FX

Peter Dines writes:

Ladies, Gentlemen and Felines, I have created what is arguably the world’s first lolcat-powered Reaktor effect. I beg your forgiveness.

While working in Reaper I noticed it has a handy Haas effect plugin created in its native JS format. I thought I’d edit it to add some enhancements but decided I was too lazy to learn a new language right now, so I did it in Reaktor instead. It took minutes to throw together – the longest chore was finding, trimming and inserting the cheezburger cat graphic.

# FAKE presents: Pass the Dutch – Nice compilation featuring a track by rekkerd.org sample remix contest winner Jonas the Plugexpert.

# Best of Mother Earth: 1996 McDonalds Hamburger – I stopped eating at McDonalds a while ago. Not because I don't like the taste of their food, but because I don't like their business ethics much. This 12 years old burger makes me feel quite good about my decision.

# Mac anyone? New tracker on it’s way!

Seth Sandler writes:

For the last few weeks (with the help of my mentor Christian Moore) I’ve been working on porting over touchlib (the main tracker of the NUIGroup community) to openframeworks. A few reasons we chose to use openframeworks is because it’s (1) Cross-platform (it’ll work on windows/mac/linux), (2) It’s easy to add and develop on (minimal coding experience required).

If you didn’t catch that, this means we will have a new, full functional tracker that works on Mac! Many have been waiting for this! =)

Ethan Bordeaux of dspmusic.org has released version 3.0 of PSPSeq, a free homebrew application for composing music on the Sony PSP handheld game system.

PSPSeq contains both realtime synthesis and sample playback capability, along with multiple FX modules of widely varying types for modifying instruments in countless ways. PSPSeq also has a powerful and unique step sequencer for triggering samples and arranging loops into full songs.

New in PSPSeq v3.00

• fixed dc offset in humanize and delay cases.
• synthezier presets.
• load to step, loop, all loops, save current step, preview preset data, multiple preset files per synth comp.
• fixed wav save bug.
• add exponential decay on freq to all synths.
• 7Mbytes of memory for samples.
• global configurable sensitivity on apad.
• START always exits menu entirely.
• fm feedback for BFM and FM synths with configurable routing.
• shortcut to synth params from sequencer screen (triangle+L-trig+R-trig).
• per step pan, pan and vol moved to ENV as well as Stepedit Mode.
• faster load/save and more compressed SEQs.
• configurable stepping through sequencer with apad.
• randomize parameters with ranged setting, start/end points for random values.
• configurable colors.
• namable loops, display next loop jump point.
• better DADSR controls.
• edit a subset of steps in a loop (latched mode).
• jump by 8 through seq load list (triangle+D-pad up/down).
• enhance clear track to clear from an arbitrary step.
• enhance shift track to keep old hits for copy/paste functionality.

Visit the dspmusic.org for more information and a link to download PSPSeq.

Some interesting things I found on July 11th, 2008:

# wire to the ear » » Listen to some pure Roland SH3 audio files. – Oliver Chesler has some Roland SH3 samples up for download.

He has been following a thread over at the Vintage Synth Explorer forum discussing the Roland SH-3.

Oliver writes:

Forum members have been contributing audio samples to see if there is a real difference between the 3 and 3A so I decided to upload a set for of my SH3 for everyone to check out. Each same is pure Roland SH3, no compressor or any effects. Recorded directly into a Motu 828 using Ableton Live.

You can download 24bit Wav files in a .zip (Creative Commons license) or listen to the 320kpbs MP3s at wire to the ear.

# Big Updates for Handheld Homebrew Music: NitroTracker 0.4, PSPSeq 3, PSP Rhythm 8 – Peter Kirn rounds up the latest and greatest for your Nintendo DS and Sony PSP handhelds.

# Lego Record Player – And yes, it works!

# Junk Kalimba – Made from a wall plug casing and various other pieces that were discarded on the drive of a demolished house. Piezo and 1/4" jack added.

# Hockey Organ – Graeme Patterson's sweet hocky organ project. The keys of the Casio SK1 control the players.

# DIY IRF610 MOSFET Class A Headphone Amplifier Project

Giovanni Militano writes:

Not thrilled with how a computer soundcard drove my 32 ohm Grado SR80 headphones, I decided to build myself a desktop headphone amplifier for the office.

# R2-D2 2.0 – Ben Burtt, the man who gave WALL-E a voice – Interview with Academy Award-winning sound designer Ben Burtt, who has created some of the most iconic sounds in film history, including the light saber's hum and crackle, and Darth Vader's asthmatic murmur.

Some interesting things I found on May 30th, 2008:

# Mainstream Multi-Touch is Coming, And It’ll Rock for Music

Peter Kirn writes:

The video above, showing multi-touch integrated with the next version of Windows 7 (expected at the end of next year), demonstrates one thing to me: multi-touch is coming, and it’ll be mainstream. And that’s huge for creative performance.

# GetLoFi – Abelincoln live looper – The “abelincoln live sampler” utilizes 3 Yada Yada Yada voice recorder circuits and simple passive 3 channel mixer for the Output signals.

# LittleGPTracker Hits 1.0; Free, GP2x, Linux, Mac, Windows, Does Lots of Stuff – LittleGPTracker (a.k.a 'The piggy') is a music tracker optimised to run on portable game consoles. It is currently running on Game Park's GP2x but there's a version for windows & mac too.

# 8bitcollective.com Compilation CD “Hello World!” OUT NOW! – Free CD includes 16 creative commons licensed 8bit tracks.

# Kontakt Tutorial Video: Creative Abuse with Modulation, Scripting – Peter Dines’ tutorial on scripting and modulation in Kontakt 3.

# The C1 has landed! – Casper Electronics circuit bent C1 is available in three styles: CS1 Speak&Spell, CM1 Speak&Math, CR1 Speak&Read. You can get one for $250.