Intermorphic has released version 2.0.1.0 of Mixtikl, a generative music mixer for mobile, web & tweets.
Changes made have primarily been concerned with improving usability, and making it much easier to get started with a new mix.
Changes in Mixtikl v2.0.1.0
New Random and New Empty have been added to all the included Tiklpaks; selecting New Random will create new mix populated from all the available content.
You can add your own New Random files, where generative and audio loop content is identified in the underlying New Random.mixtikl mix file by: Gen content vol=88, Audio loops vol=87. If tempo is set to 0 then tempo will be randomised, too.
Get Paks (was first item in mixes) now moved to More Mixtikl menu, again to simplify making new mixes.
Tapping top _right_ in Mixer screen does not now load the main menu (which was confusing), and the tooltip text is now yellow to show it relates to the highlighted cell.
New “Clear EVERYTHING” added to Actions menu, so you can clear everything in a mix back to default settings.
In the Apps menu the Partikl entry has been renamed to “File Player” (which better reflects what it does, and where advanced access to Partikl settings for a file can be accessed).
Intermorphic has released Mixtikl 2, a generative music mixer for mobile, web & tweets.
With its magical mix of sound sources, FX and music engines, Mixtikl 2 has firmly ushered in the “tweet mix revolution”. You may not believe your ears, but the 140 characters of a tweet really are easily enough for Mixtikl to play infinite music mixes of a quality that will astound and entertain you. We call the tweets mix “tikls” ["tickles"]. It plays tunes & sound fx tikls, too!
How is it done you ask? The boffins at Intermorphic built upon the vector audio techniques they pioneered back in 2000 where they found a way to deliver a sound in 300 bytes. Now they’ve found a way to play entire 12 track mixes in a tweet, loaded with FX and mix settings too!
It is a snap to create your own mix tikls, from chillout ambient to ear bashing beats, which you can tweet, email and embed in webpages.
Our generative music heritage means Mixtikl 2 presently excels at ambient mixes, but we also want to make sure it does what you want – let us know!
Mixtikl 2 for Mac OS X and Windows desktop (launch price of $19.99 USD) comprises a stand-alone version, a VST and AU plug-in for music sequencers, and a plug-in for web browsers. The Mixtikl browser plug-in allows tikls or more advanced and customised mixes to be played in a web page. Mixtikl 2 for Windows mobile (launch price of $4.99 USD) is available at launch for both Windows mobile Pocket PC and Smartphone.
Mixtikl 2 for iPhone / iPod touch is to be submitted to Apple iTunes within days.
Marc Nostromo developed the Arduino Piano Squealer Synth for the Arduino Pocket Piano, an arduino shield produced by Critters and Guitari.
The engine implements a small monosynth with a few waveforms, a HP/BP/LP continuous resonant filter, decay and a few little own tricks that generate a LOT of aliases, making a great dirty digital synth. Since the Pocket Piano has only 3 potentiometers available for control (the 4th one being hardwired to the volume), I use a “page” system to implement series of 3 parameters to fiddle with. To switch “page”, use the rightmost note of the A.P (NOT the one under the led, the one left to to it). To help you know which page you are at, you can use the led: it will flash a number of time equivalent to the current page you are at.
The source code of the Arduino Piano Squealer synth is available under GPL License V3.
Flux is giving away some Syrah licenses to three lucky Twitter users:
To celebrate 200+ followers of FluxPlugins since mid May 2009, we are introducing a little Syrah give-away quiz. Fill the form and answer both questions correctly, and you are participating in the give away of one of all in total three Syrah licenses.
Answers need to be in before the end of the day on Monday 9th October.
My new design uses a small mp3 player that I disassembled and placed inside a cassette tape adapter for an ipod. This allows for mp3's to be played back through a tapedeck. This has all of the ease and technology of an mp3 player with the retro coolness of a mix tape.
I've got something very special for Waveformless readers today. As you may remember, a couple weeks ago, I featured an interview with electro-industrial music pioneers Portion Control where I hinted that we might have something special coming from the band. So here it is… a 16MB sample pack of loops and one-shots from the band themselves.
A lovely free album available to download in high quality mp3 and lossless FLAC formats. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License
The Portal EP was supposed to come out on another label in 2008, but the label went bankrupt and closed up shop. In email conversations with Lackluster, I offered to master the EP and do a net release on Cornwarning. So, 4 years after its original intended release, it is finally here.
Covering a variety of tempos and styles, from the beatless epic "Eons" to the mutant techno of "Lubiszewski Beats", "Portal" covers a lot of musical territory. What unifies the work is Lackluster's musicality. For me each track here is deep in emotion, despite their lack of lyric or explicit program.
The idea here is to build a wearable virtual guitar that is to be controlled with two hands much like playing Air Guitar. It has been created and prototyped during a two weeks project at ChalmersUniversity (Sweden) for a Physical Computing class.
The aim is to get the feeling of playing a real guitar. The AIRduino Guitar is made of one glove and one stick. The glove is used to set the tone and the stick to trigger the sound.
Mint.com, the online financial management tool, has put its numbers together with market researchers NPD Group to analyze music spending. The results: when it comes to consuming recorded music, digital music continues to rise. At the same time, so does Apple’s grip on the music consumption market, a combination that includes proprietary control of a music store, a music player, and the leading mobile device.
For many men, their house is their castle. For one Canterbury man, his play room is a submarine complete with working periscope.
Wayne Eyre has turned part of his Spencerville property into a wrecked submarine featuring "plutonium-leaking" torpedoes, at a cost of $100,000.
In the rusting interior of the submarine, which appears to have beached on a deserted island, Eyre has all the creature comforts reclining chairs, a three-metre big-screen TV and a top-notch surround-sound system.
Novation’s Launchpad, its affordable (<$200) "grid" controller, may have a big Ableton logo on it. But underneath, it's just a MIDI controller. Bi-colored LEDs, containing a red and green element for red, green, and amber output (amber = red+green), can be triggered using simple MIDI note and control messages. That means, whether you're looking forward to Max for Live or you're sequencing in a tracker or writing Processing sketches, you can use the Launchpad just like any other MIDI controller.
Qeve is a promising-looking, open-source visual performance tool built in visual patching environment Pure Data (Pd). It was built primarily on Ubuntu Linux but should also run with some adjustment on Mac. (Pd itself runs on Windows, but some of the visual dependencies are not available on that platform. I’d still recommend Linux.)
The samples are split into seven self-explanatory categories: Bass, Beats, FX, Guitar, Kits, Synth and Vox. All the samples are supplied as 24-bit WAV files so can be imported directly into your DAW of choice. Because they're royalty-free, you're welcome to use them in your music in any way you like – all we ask is that you don't re-distribute them.
AudioCubes designer Bert Schiettecatte will be hosting a series of one day workshops at his private workspace, for a select number of artists, starting November 10th 2009.
Workshop description: Starting with some theory, you will discover the history of AudioCubes, tangible interfaces, and their applications. The practical part of the workshop will let you master the technical aspects of using AudioCubes in sound, music and visual creation, and let you work on your own project using AudioCubes.
Topics covered:
history of audiocubes
overview of tangible interfaces
why were audiocubes created / fundamental ideas
how audiocubes work
the audiocubes hardware
audiocubes software for live performance, sound design and music production
how to use audiocubes to control MIDI software and hardware
Google plans to launch a music service, Wired.com has confirmed with sources familiar with the situation. Next to nothing is known about the service at this point, rumored to be called “Google Music,” “Google Audio,” or “One Box,” although we have confirmed that it will be announced next Wednesday, and that it will link out to two music services: Lala and iLike.
Tom Shear @ Waveformless shares his thoughts in his Chipsounds review
What excites me most about Chipsounds is the possibilities for the future. I’d love to see a couple options that weren’t present in the original machine introduced here. A filter section would definitely expand the possibilities (a handful of chips have filters available as their chip-specific settings), a more useful and flexible Portamento function would be great, and, as mentioned before, a wider array of effects would be a nice addition. That said, imposing the limitations of the original chips is not a bad thing in my opinion. It encourages the same kind of creative thinking and workarounds the original programmers used to use back in the day to get sounds you wouldn’t expect to be possible with such limited means. Plogue has approached this softsynth with a palpable sense of reverence and their affection for these outdated sound makers shines through in abundance. An exceptionally fun and unique instrument! [8/10]
The 2009 Roland Keyz ’n Beats Summit will be taking place in Hollywood, CA at the famous Musicians Institute on Saturday, October 24, 2009.
Space is limited, so pre-register now! Plus, you’ll be entered into a drawing to win a new JUNO-Di Synthesizer or SP-404SX Linear Wave Sampler. (Note: You must be present to win your prize.)
This demonstration uses my crude DIY flux capacitor for the Livewire AFG, basically 5 switches and 10 jacks corresponding to the flux cap pins. Two pin pairs are attenuated by two VCA's controlled by the makenoise/wiard wogglebug, crosspatched with the malekko/wiard noisering, which drives the melodic noodling, via a A-189-1 used as a bitcrusher, to perform cheap quantizing.
The sine output is sent to an input of a makenoise QMMG, driven by the A-143-1 envelope. About halfways through, a feedback path from the animated pulses, animated by A-143-1 LFOs, into the A-106-6 xpander filter (wogglebug controlled) goes into one of the pins on the flux cap expander, resulting in strange noises and unpredictable overtones.
This is a simple sequencer machine which uses Capacitative Sensing Code for input to the Arduino. It is is a combination drumpad and sequencer. It has just two modes, record, and playback, and needs very few components; an Arduino (of course), and just 3 resistors and a piezo speaker. If you're feeling decadent, you can add an LED (with a resistor) for more "ooomph".
For those starting out in electronics as a hobby there are some tools that are required for the job. To begin with, a soldering iron, some screw drivers, perhaps tweezers and of course a multi-meter are probably what you would consider essential.
After a while though, you are going to be looking for more. Amongst the other goodies out there to help you on your way are oscilloscopes. In the past, advice on forums has always tended more towards purchasing a second hand scope. These tend to be had for around £100 on places like E-bay and most certainly will be a few years old if available at this sort of price. Well that is changing and I was excited yesterday to get my hands on a “Scope” that may just re-write the forum advice. Meet the Nano DSO from Seed Studio…
Eric posts some samples of his mini space rockers analog percussion synthesizer.
Here are over 80 different electro drum / noise samples from the mini space rockers circuit… but you should really build it because its analog and it sounds a little different every time. and its cheap, so no excuses. I am offering these samples under a Creative Commons Attribution license. That means you are free to use them for whatever, but please credit me where appropriate.
Chiron Bramberger turns his synth for the Commodore PET open source.
Petsynth features a two-octave keyboard layout, selectable note length, many selectable octaves, selectable pulse-width, vibrato, distortion, and noise or “drum mode” depending on how you use it.
All this without adding or hacking the Commodore PET in any way. Plus, it’s compiling from C, so it’s FAST – with very low latency.
The drum sounds are also crazy weird. You can also set the vibrato so high it sounds more like a laser gun or alien telephone.
Kseniya Simonova is an Ukrainian artist who won Ukraine's Got Talent 2009. She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and "sand painting" skills to interpret Germany's invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII.
Testing m4l interfacing capabilities with arduino through max's [serial] object. A simple 4-sensor controller for an FM synth. Analog and digital information is mapped onto midi control messages that can be routed inside live for events or modulation.
Cinesamples has announced HollyWoodWinds, a comprehensive sampling of the orchestral woodwind ensemble.
This library’s collection of scales, runs, phrases, chords, textures, trills, FX and full ensemble patches, will get you thinking again about using woodwinds in your next cue.
HOLLYWOODWINDS: Bringing the woodwinds back into orchestral film scoring.
HollyWoodWinds features
Groundbreaking Cinesamples “Intelligent Time Engine” – Auto Tempo Awareness / Syncing.
Smart Tempo Matrix Sample Selection.
Extensive RR/Legato Programming.
Keyboard Style Patches:
Tutti Ensemble
Octaves Ensemble
Major/Minor Triads Ensemble
Unison Tremolos
Chordal Tremolos
Tritone/FX Tremolos
Scales and Rips:
Major Scales
Minor Scales
Diminished Scales
Whole Tone Scale
Chromatic Scales
Tonal Rips
Atonal Rips/FX Rips
Orchestrated Textures and FX:
Random Note Staccato Patterns
Pitch Bending FX
Cluster Chords/Flutter Chords
Repeating Octaves Duplets
Repeating Octaves Triplets
Marching Textures
Repeating Major/Minor Chords All Inversions
Chordal Trills (Aka John Williams)
Lydian Thirds
Light Hearted Motifs
Oom Pahs – Major Minor
Inspiring Textures 1
Inspiring Textures 2
Inspiring Textures 3
Mic Placements: Stage Mics, Close Mics (Both Independently Mixable).
HollyWoodWinds for Kontakt will be available for purchase on October 1, 2009, priced at $299 USD.
You can win a free copy of HollyWoodWinds by following Cinesamples on Twitter. A winner will be drawn randomly on September 30.
Tweet A Sound is a desktop application that uses Twitter as a platform for sharing sonic tweets. Pushing the idea of “social sound design”, Tweet A Sound allows you to design a sound and share it in a community of like-minded folks. It is an opportunity for fun interaction with sound.
The sound engine is based on FM Synthesis and has a waveshaper, a delay, feedback and a flanger. You can get a ton of interesting sounds out of these.
Tweet A Sound was built in Max/MSP and is available for download for Mac. A Windows version should be out soon.
Kacie Kinzer built some cute robots, set them loose in NYC, and documented the willingness of people to help the bots find their way.
Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.
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